If I published a book of my mazes, would you buy it? Know anyone who would? Think there’s a market for it? I’ve recently been talking to another dude online that drew mazes in the past that are mazes similar to mine (in addition to some other very cool stuff), and who’s going for it through Amazon. The rationale is even if he only sells one or two a month, it’s still income he didn’t have. There’s always Kickstarter or Lulu, too.
I know there are some other maze creators out there… and there are maze books. Is it a big genre? Are people willing to pay for that kind of stuff any more?
I’d love it if someone could make an app where you can complete one of my mazes with your finger or a stylus on an Android, iPhone, tablet PC, or E-reader. I don’t know to what end… but it would be fun. Any interested developers out there?
I’d have to scan, sort, arrange, and of course draw some more… maybe even figure out the solutions… but I think I could get it all put together.
What do you think?
![Peculiarly Perplexing Path [Maze]](https://aixelsyd13.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/peculiarly-perplexing-path-maze.png "Peculiarly Perplexing Path [Maze]")
Peculiarly Perplexing Path
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World (and Lunar) Domination 
I think you need to differentiate. Not just pages of mazes. Try to theme or link to some idea and I dont mean add one picture at the center of the maze. I mean, shape the mazes and keep a consistent look and feel throughoutt the book.
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Thanks Chris, that does make sense. I have a few ideas. I don’t draw all that well any more, so shaping the mazes in different categories may be more my thing.
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Hello Aix, are you still making mazes ?
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I am! How about you?
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Go for it! I’m working to get a book of my letters and number mazes published for kids.
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That’s cool! I think I might. I mean why not make a couple of bucks from it if I can, right?
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I have been wrestling with a similar question. I am thinking about self publishing a maze book. It is ready to print, complete with 80 pages of black & white text, solutions and a full color cover.
The problem is, so far I can’t get the numbers to work out. Printing of 200 books in the US ranges from $4 to $7 each. I think on-line book sellers like Amazon charge around 50% of the book sales price. So if I get the books printed at $4, sell them at $8 with Amazon’s share being $4, there is no profit left. Plus there are other expenses such as shipping, ISBN number and bar code as well as taxes.
I haven’t given up yet. If I can get the printing price down to $2.50 per book, I think this is doable. So far, I have one maze book published by Dover. I worked on that book on and off for nearly 30 years.
If this is something you want to do, I would at least look into it, and see if you can work out all the details. From what I have seen, you have a talent for maze making.
When drawing the mazes for my first book, I often though that if nothing ever came of this project, I would not have lost anything because I enjoyed what I was doing.
The best of luck for success as you continue to consider this endeavor.
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Wow, thanks for the insightful reply! I may have to look into different publishing options. It would be great if I could put it together w/o fronting any money. Ha ha.
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An option you might be interested in is just submitting to a publisher. Dover is the premiere maze publisher, and they take unsolicited submissions. I sent them a file with my book on it, and two weeks later they called me up to say they wanted to publish my it.
The way they usually work is that you send them two or three samples and describe your idea for the book. It is always good to have some centralizing theme that ties all the mazes together. You don’t have to have all the pages done in order to be considered.
Taking this route, you don’t need to invest any of your own money to get your book in print. You negotiate a one time cost for them to buy the rights to the mazes included in the book. There are no royalties for this type of book when using a publisher. The publisher takes on the task of marketing, distributing and so on. They also are responsible for designing the cover, naming the book, and they might ask you to make some changes as well. Once they buy the book, they it is theirs to do with as they see fit. This was the hard part for me. I had to give up my vision for the project in order to get it printed.
Once they sign a contract for the book it can take as much as a year and a half before it goes to print, but some of that time is left for you to complete the rest of the mazes (since you might only have 3 or 4 done when the contract is signed).
So you can see that there are advantages and disadvantages to using a publishing house. I hope this was helpful to you.
I don’t know what the chances are of a submission getting accepted. but you can see that there is really not a lot you have to do to see if they are interested.
You might want to go to the Dover web site to get detailed information of how to make a submission. It has been a while now since I went through the process.
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Very cool, I’ll have to explore this route. I might look at self-publishing too with one of the sites that does it like lulu, or maybe even a kick-starter?
There are some interesting options in this Cnet article too: http://reviews.cnet.com/self-publishing/ The print-on-demand stuff seems kind of cool.
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Do you have a link to your first book? I’d like to check it out!
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If you go to:
you can see the cover collage which will give you a rough estimation of what some of the mazes look like. Most of the mazes are fairly simple and are paired with an activity page. Occasionally Amazon and Dover will display some of the inside pages, but right now there are really not enough pages to make it worth going to.
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Thanks for the link! Looks like you have a lot of different styles, where I have one. Heh. I’ll have to think of a theme.
Did you include the solutions in your book?
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I did include solutions with the mazes. At first it was a real pain. I wanted to create mazes, not spend endless hours rendering solutions. But now it is just part of the process, and I try to complete the solution before I move on to generating the next maze.
Many of my mazes are done on the computer now, so if I do it right, most solutions are not too difficult to do. Most of my mazes fit within a square, so my I put the solutions in the back of the book, four to a page.
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I think having one style is a good thing. Similar styles and a unifying themes are things that publishers look for. It is difficult to form a marketing strategy with no consistency or focus.
This was the challenge of my first book. These mazes were created over a 30 year period using different methods, styles and the subject matter was all over the place. It ended up being the activity pages that brought the book together.
I don’t think the theme itself has to be real elaborate. Actually the theme can reflect your style (for example, squiggly mazes).
Sorry for taking up so much real estate on your comments section.
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Thank you, I treasure the advice from someone who has actually had a maze book published!
I guess I’ll have to come up with fun names for my mazes & what-not… perhaps that can be a (the?) unifying theme. I do have one style that I don’t see myself straying from.
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Some neat self-publishing options:
6 Ways to Publish Your Own Book
A jigsaw puzzle with a maze on it would be cool:
http://www.cafepress.com/+puzzles
Or playing cards:
http://www.zazzle.com/create
Calendars?
http://www.zazzle.com/custom/office
Posters or wall decals?
http://www.zazzle.com/custom/art
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I draw mazes also and the ones I draw are different than any I have seen if you wsould like to see email me at matthewbuchanan@live.com and maybe we can do a book together
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Thanks Mtthwe! I’d love to check out your stuff. I’m still not entirely sure what to do with my mazes… Ha ha.
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