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People often ask "How do you manage to produce CDs to sell at that price?"
The answer is simple: It is because of the way that the project works.

What we would prefer was that all the old books for the project were loaned to us. That way those doing the lending gain something and everyone gets access to them. However we also buy books. and they are often given away (to organizations who lend us books) when The Project has finished with them.
We believe in value for money, so the CD books are sold at a very reasonable price. Folks like that. Funds from the proceeds of CD sales buy more books for the project, or pay for books loaned by County Record Offices, museums, local studies libraries, museums, etc. to be renovated.

That's the basics, now for the detail.

Flow Chart
See - it is simplicity itself - it is self-funding.
And the more books that the project produces on CD, the more it grows.

The above chart is modeled on the one created when the Archive CD Books Project began in March 2000. The principles are still precisely the same. What has happened since then is that there has been lots more activity, it has grown and it has gone international. And the reason the Archive CD Books Project has grown – it’s thanks to you - our supporters.
In the beginning Rod Neep used to do everything himself. He had to employ some 15 plus people to keep up with your demand for his high quality and reasonably priced product and a lot of this demand was coming from overseas. Clearly there was a need for the Archive CD Books project to go international – but how to do this while living in Britain.
Rod solved this problem with another of his insightful and totally radical ideas! Instead of taking the classic course of further expanding his operations to include overseas offices which would then be run by even more employees he decided to invite anybody living in one of the countries he was getting orders from, and who was interested, to enter into a partnership with him. Each of the international branches was to be an independent company with Rod as a director so his knowledge and experience could be bought directly to the new company.In order to be eligible to open an international branch of the Archive CD Books project the new partners had to agree to uphold the principles which Rod holds central to the success of the project:
Quality, value for money and a policy of “giving back” to the community by ensuring that valuable historic records are preserved.
For instance he insisted that each new partner purchase one of the superb Bookeye scanners, the computers to run them and, of course, the high-throughput, robotic, CD makers. But, above all he insisted the prices of the CDs remained virtually the same no matter which branch they’re bought from. This tied into another important part of the partnership conditions. All partner branches were to share their stocks of scanned books so all branches would have essentially the same inventory.
In a stroke Rod had vastly expanded the scope of the Archive CD Books project to gather interesting and valuable books from around the world while at the same time maintained his high standards. And all this without losing his ability to run a small, efficient operation and maintain a “hands on” part in the business of finding exciting new products to bring to you, the customers, with an ever improving standard of reproduction and usability. Better than that, he’s recruited a whole crowd of self motivated, self managing, helpers who he can rely on to help him run the project with a minimum of supervision. Brilliant!

And through all this the mission statement is the same today that it has always been since the foundation of Archive CD Books in March 2000:

The Archive CD Books Project exists to make reproductions of old books, documents and maps available on CD to genealogists and historians, and to co-operate with libraries, museums and record offices in providing money to renovate old books in their collection, and to donate books to their collections, where they will be preserved for future generations.

..... and we are succeeding - internationally!

The Archive CD Books Project relies very heavily on "word of mouth" recommendations. We cannot justify huge expenses on formal advertising. (If we did that, the prices of the CDs would certainly have to be increased). We are very grateful to those supporters who add "I use Archive CD Books to help with my research - http://www.archivecdbooks.ca" to their message tag lines on the genealogy mailing lists. Even more so, it is very gratifying to see people helping each other on the genealogy discussion lists on the internet by using their copies of the CDs to help others find ancestors, and help to fill in the background information by looking for information about towns and villages contained in the CD books. That is what our hobby is all about. People helping each other. (Please note that not all producers of CDs are happy with the use of their products in this way, and consider it to be an infringement of their copyright - we do not.)
Without this "word of mouth" activity taking place on the genealogy mailing lists our CDs do not sell in sufficient quantities to justify the cost of buying the books, producing them on CD, and renovating them for the record offices and libraries, etc. The only alternatives would be to either not produce them on CD or to increase the prices considerably, and that would defeat the object of the Archive CD Books Project. On the other hand, in the areas where we get the most support, we feel much more confident in producing more of these old and rare books on CD.

Books loaned by Organizations -County Record Offices, Local Studies Libraries, Museums or Family History Societies

Organizations such as these have a vast collection of books that are suitable for the project.
The best ones of course, are those that contain lots of peoples' names. They will always be the most popular, although really good county history books and old topography and guide books can provide a vast amount of background information for family historians too.
One of the problems that these organizations have, is the lack of funds to renovate and rebind old books. Many in their collections are in pitiful state. But it is a very costly exercise - anything from £50 to £200 ($120 to $450 Cdn.) in the UK. It is a skilled task to renovate an old book to original condition with calf leather and gold lettering, embossing, etc.
The answer is staggeringly simple - The Archives CD Books Project pays for the renovation of the books. We have done it already in many, many cases, and we shall do it again and again.
But we want something in return - we would like to borrow books. We appreciate that many such organizations often have a rule - no books leave the premises - but in these circumstances rules can be bent a little, as there is so much to gain. And we find that as the project becomes better known, then Principal Archivists and Curators are more willing to co-operate. We do it once and it works, and that opens up the doors to more co-operation. It's all down to trust.
The book is usually needed on loan for a week or so. Just enough time to scan it – carefully!
A copy (or few) of the finished CD can also be donated to the organization. That saves future wear and tear on the books as the members, or even the public at large, can now view the books on CD. No more wear and tear on the original!
We also give old books to these organizations. Books that we have purchased for the project from dealers need a good home. We are happy to simply donate them after they have been scanned and the CDs produced. They are of no further use to the project, so why not?
(We have a policy of only giving away books to places that will preserve them rather than having them subjected to wear and tear).
But again, we would like something in return. The loan of more books, and again, we are prepared to pay for them to be renovated.

Books Loaned by Individuals

There are a lot of people out there who have private collections, or the odd book that they have picked up from a dealer's bookshop. What do they gain from loaning books to the project? Nothing other than a tremendous amount of satisfaction that they are helping other genealogists and historians. Fortunately, there are lots of people out there who want to share in this way just to help others. It's a treat to be associated with such people!
Books are needed on loan for a week or so, sometimes a little longer if there are a lot of books in the pipeline waiting to be scanned. It is the scanning that is the slow part of all this. To date we have been loaned lots of really good books by individuals. Some books have even been sent to the UK, for scanning, from the other side of the world.
Sometimes people do not part with the books, but instead do the scanning themselves, and then send the scanned images. We simply take it up from there and do the CD programming and production. The only "down side" of this, is that the person doing the scanning really needs to have a CD writer so that they can send the image files on one disk. They are simply too large to send over the internet, and it would take approximately 200 floppy disks for a 500 page book. The only practical way is to send the image files on CD. Now while it’s your book to do with as you will we do urge you to consider what damage you may do to the book that’s in your care. Our planetary scanners don’t require the book to be squashed down onto the glass platen of a conventional desk-top scanner, and the thought of taking the book apart to use a drum scanner – well please, just don’t do it
Books that come to the Archives CD Books Project from individuals are especially valuable to the project. They costs nothing! But the funds from the sale of the CDs can be used to purchase other books, or to help pay for renovation of books loaned by museums and county record offices, etc. That all helps the project to grow and the new products help your research. It’s a wonderful idea – everybody wins!
If you have a book which could be loaned to the project then please contact us - we will keep a "virtual queue" of offered books and we will request them when we can fit them into the scanning schedule. That means that you will not be without your valuable book for a long period.

Books Purchased by the Archive CD Books Project

Some of these old books are very expensive. There are still a few to be picked up in garage sales, flea markets and country auctions for a few dollars. We keep our eyes and ears open but we don’t get anywhere near enough “good” books this way. People are better educated about old books now, they know their value, and so they end up with specialist antiquarian booksellers. Having said that, we do occasionally come across a windfall such as a set of eight books (The Records of the Borough of Nottingham) that were rescued from being dumped in a rubbish skip. And two others (The Osset Burgess Rolls - now on CD) lent to the project by someone who picked them up in a British car boot sale for £1.00 each! But that is rare.
Old books cost a lot of money. The "cheapest" ones from a recognized “rare book” source cost about $45.00 Cdn. each at present. A more normal price is in the range of $150 to $500 Cdn. Some books, or sets of volumes, can cost $1,000.00 or more!
Generally speaking, if there are sufficient funds in the coffers, we can purchase these books from book dealers. We have no problem with that, as long as we consider that it is likely that enough CDs can be sold to cover the costs. In the worst case scenario, if CDs do not sell, then the books can always be re-sold afterwards. But its hard to sell enough CDs to cover the cost of a $300.00 book plus all other the costs we have to meet just to stay in business. We fully expect win on some and lose on others. “All” we have to do is keep the average on the “win” side!
If the sale of CDs is successful, then the book is considered "paid for", and becomes surplus to our requirements. We don't need to keep them (we have the CD!). So - rather than selling them, we would prefer to find them a good home - a County Record Office, a museum, or a local studies library in the district where they belong. In exchange, however, we ask for the organization’s co-operation in loaning books to the Archive CD Books Project.
So, by buying one book, and then giving it away, we gain more books for the project. Everyone gains!
You too can help – pass on the word! We intend to try and contact all the relevant libraries, organizations and societies across Canada but it’s a daunting task and it’s going to take us a long time. If your mentioning The Project to your friends or colleagues in family history, library and study groups they may feel moved to contact us and that is a far more efficient way for us to build the lines of communication that are going to make The Project a success here in Canada.
Very occasionally, something really very special happens. It has happened a few times now to Rod in the UK. He found a book for sale, but couldn't afford to buy it at that moment. If he didn't buy it, then it would be sold to someone else, and the opportunity would be lost. People offered to pay for the books! They didn't want them personally - they just want all of us to be able to have them on CD to aid in our family history research. In these cases, the people concerned simply said "Donate the book to a good home after it has been scanned".
Just how on earth do we all find words to thank people such as those?
But it is this sort of thing that the Archive CD Books Project is all about. – And it feels very good indeed.