Over the years, museums, historical societies and cultural sites have published town histories, event books, documents, journals, meeting records and cookbooks.
While
these printed books and documents serve to preserve history and to offer
insight into past lives and events, they also represent an opportunity to create
needed revenue for these institutions.
Now,
however, many of these publications are either out-of-print or exist in very low
quantities. And, if these books are not in print, they are not available for
sale.
Today’s
printing technology allows for these “old” and treasured books to be reprinted
quickly and easily while permitting the printing of books for the very first
time.
Digital
printing provides the ability to scan pages of previously
printed works and put them into digital image formats. A case in point was the reprinting
of a book that was out-of-print for over fifteen years and has now resulted in
sales of $1500 a year for one historical society.
Real-life
nostalgia articles on "how it was back then" can be reformatted
as books. Fragile and
fading original documents can be preserved and protected, and their reprints utilized
for museum and store displays or sold on-site at the gift shop or at special
events. Books and documents can be printed as needed, in small quantities,
ordered online with excess inventories stored and fulfilled by an outside
vendor.
Museums,
historical societies and cultural sites can take the first step to
uncovering overlooked and potentially valuable documents by conducting a
thorough inventory of their books and documents to identify those that will be
in demand and capable of generating additional revenue.
Summer
and the tourist season are upon us. Now is the time to start preparing to generate
revenue from books and documents that can easily and quickly be reprinted.
NetPublications Historical Publication Services
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