Your Publisher

 

You decide…  Do you want a publisher, self-publisher, or vanity press publisher?

A rose by any other name…

Isn't a publisher, first and foremost, a printer… whether or not they offer any bells and whistles or whether or not they offer to sell your book or give you royalties?


Honestly, the answers to these are very simple, even if some folks want to nit pick.  Let us put it in terms they can clearly understand.


It all boils down to when, how and how much your publisher is paid. 

1.       Some publishers offer to do all the work for you, printing, merchandising, promoting, selling, in exchange for giving you a hand full of dollars up front so they can deduct the actual costs from future sales that may or may not develop, while signing over a lot of your rights, in which case you owe them more than you ever dreamed.

2.      Some publishers offer to do some of the work for you, printing, merchandising, promoting, selling, in exchange for giving you a few dollars up front so they can deduct the actual costs from future sales that may or may not develop, while signing over some of your rights, and like the first, you owe them more than you ever dreamed.

3.      Some publishers offer to do all the work for you, printing, merchandising, promoting, selling,  in exchange you giving them a couple of dollars up front so they can deduct the actual costs from projected sales that may or may not develop, while negotiating your rights, in which case you may or may not owe them any more money than what you have already invested.

4.       Some publishers, like us, offer to only do the printing for you, while you do all the rest of the work; marketing, merchandising, promoting, selling.  In exchange, you give us a few of dollars up front and you walk away with 100% of your rights.  You have total control over the project, actual costs from projected sales that may or may not develop, in which case you assume complete responsibility and because you owe  us nothing, all future profits that you generate may be more money than what you have already invested or ever dreamed.

If you submit your manuscript to any publisher, you will receive either an acceptance letter, or a rejection letter.  Some will offer you a royalty contract and a promise of a check as a royalty advance upon signing the contract and you are dealing with either publisher number 1 or 2 and you are, in truth, a published author.  

If you submit your manuscript to any publisher, you will receive either an acceptance letter, or a rejection letter.  Some will ask you to sign a printing contract and provide you with the bill upon signing the contract and you are dealing with either publisher number 3 or 4 and are again, in truth, a published author.  As we shared with you on our other page… many successful authors started this way.

Some people believe that only publishers' number 1 and 2 are real publishers.

The money arrangements may vary but the result remains the same.  You pay the price for the production of your book one way or the other and only with publisher number 3; the only sales are the ones you make yourself.

Some folks think that helping writers become authors is criminal if the publisher does not act like a fairy godmother waving a wand and promising the world.  If the publisher is honest and advises their writers up front that no promise of sales is being made, that all promotion, marketing and sales not to mention negotiating book clubs and movies is up to the writer.   

The fact is that self-publishing involves self-promotion.  The similarity to multi level marketing is no big surprise!  Most writers are happy enough to pay to see their works in print and if facts be known, like multi-level marketing, very few people recover the money that they invest; much less make any additional money, unless they actually pursue the end results and promote like crazy.  In short, any sales that are going to be made are going to be made by the author.

With us you know each step of the way what we will and will not do… no need to read between the lines.  When you want to try to publish it somewhere else, or you find that you want to start all over with your marketing efforts you can because your book is registered in your name, not ours and the ISBN number is yours too, if you buy one.  It is owned by you and is not registered in our name.  You have all the rights to your book.

We will do not “assign” or “sell” ISBN numbers or bar codes.  You must get those yourself.  You must copy write your own works.  Many companies, like ours, are just small mom and pop shops that had to get bank financing or used their own money to buy the computers, printers, binder machines, and such, including the huge advertising budgets in order to compete in such a tough market place.  We do not claim to have thousands of customers or have published any famous people because we will only tell you the truth. 

You must obtained your ISBN number (well, ten is the minimum) ONLY if you want to sell your book in the traditional manner.  Buying your own ISBN is the single most important thing that you will do as an Independent Publisher "IF" you want to sell on Amazon.com or even brick and mortar stores like Borders. 
 
Now to finally put this to rest: The ISBN number is what identifies you as a "published author". The moment  you have obtained your ISBN numbers from RR Bowker, you are no longer just a “writer” you are a publisher, a self-publisher, an independent publisher, (as we said: a rose by any name…) . There is absolutely no difference between you and Random House unless you take into account that those big publishing houses just publish more works than you. You get to assign one of those numbers to your first book.  Then, because you own the ISBN number, it remains the same for the life of the book.  We will not stop you if you want to change printers because you retain 100% of your rights!  You get to negotiate with all distributors, wholesalers, or retailers.  You can alter, add or change whatever, when eve you want.  Your book remains yours.  Years from now, if someone orders a copy of your book, you, as the ISBN owner and 'publisher', will get the order.  If you do not own the number, the person who does, will get the order.  Most vanity/subsidy presses will not be in business two years from now, so that order for your book will not be fulfilled. 

We know that there are folks out there that want to promise you the world, and wish that we little guys would disappear.  There is no reason to accept a contract  that could end up breaking your heart ,  mortgage your home or go into debt with credit cards, just to have your dream of being published come true. 

We just want to be your printer!  We only print books that are 8.5" x 11" with plastic comb binding or 5.5" x 8.5" with saddle stitching.  That is all we do.  By allowing us to be your printer… and buying your own ISBN numbers… you will be creating your own Independent publishing company and publishing your first book has never been easier or more economical.  We would just be your printers.  You will not need to buy all of the equipment but you will and reap all of the continual or future rewards from the sale and noteriety of your book.  Allow us to do your printing and if you are willing to do your part, like multi-level marketing, and put in a lot of personal effort, you can become successful.  

We print orders from 1 book to 100 books.  We try to stay competitive by keeping the total number of dollars needed for such a small quantity very low.  Consider whether you think your circle of friends may be more than that and you just might want to print 100 or 200 copies.  With our service, you are not locked into an ironclad contract of exclusivity.  We can help you start with a few copies, and do a larger run later, or you may decide to move on to another company that can offer to print 500 or 1000  books later on.  Or, stay with us and just keep ordering 1-100 books at a time so you do not end up with several hundred books from the other guys that are just sitting in the garage getting dusty!  Either way, our average cost for printing is within everyone's reach… under $650 for 100 copies. That makes it only $6.50 per copy and if you sell the book for $12 you will make an easy profit!

The smallest amount of money you will need to spent on sales and marketing can range from the cost a few phone calls to friends and perhaps a little postage.  When all is said and done you will be the proud owner of a real, honest to goodness book.  Whether you have us print 1 or 100 books, you will not sign away any of your rights and you will own your printing file so you can do as you please.  You will be a published author…  Your dream will come true… and we would be pleased to be your printer of choice!

 

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