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 Starting a Publishing Company

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Travis Lake Publishing

Travis Lake Publishing


Number of posts : 6
Registration date : 2011-07-27

Starting a Publishing Company Empty
PostSubject: Starting a Publishing Company   Starting a Publishing Company EmptyWed Jul 27, 2011 5:51 pm

deleted

Thanks for the feedback all.


Last edited by Travis Lake Publishing on Thu Jul 28, 2011 8:33 pm; edited 1 time in total
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lyntx
Three Star Member
Three Star Member



Number of posts : 141
Registration date : 2010-10-27

Starting a Publishing Company Empty
PostSubject: Re: Starting a Publishing Company   Starting a Publishing Company EmptyThu Jul 28, 2011 10:54 am

I asked my husband to read this, I thought maybe a new publisher would work with me better, but he said no, I'm not the only one that needs a good editor. Aren't publishers supposed to be great with grammer and spelling?
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LC
Five Star Member
Five Star Member
LC


Number of posts : 5044
Registration date : 2009-03-28

Starting a Publishing Company Empty
PostSubject: Re: Starting a Publishing Company   Starting a Publishing Company EmptyThu Jul 28, 2011 4:10 pm

TravisPublishing: No one would ever sign up for 5% of net for an ebook. You are very optimistic with your other numbers. How do you anticipate selling 2,000 copies, much less 100,000? What is your marketing plan?

Quote :
We use a tiered
royalty structure paying a 65% net royalty on proceeds after the first
$1000 and a 5% royalty on the first $1000.

I'm not following - why does your chart show 65% after 100,000, then?

What kind of editing is done? What experience does your editor have with editing books?

I'm also not following this:

Quote :
Net royalty is
defined as the amount we receive in connection to the book (basically,
we won't play games with you but we recognize that other parties may
fail to completely pay us).

This is net receipts, not net profits, correct? As for parties not paying you, is getting payment from Amazon, Smashwords, etc., an issue? I have no idea.
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Travis Lake Publishing

Travis Lake Publishing


Number of posts : 6
Registration date : 2011-07-27

Starting a Publishing Company Empty
PostSubject: Re: Starting a Publishing Company   Starting a Publishing Company EmptyThu Jul 28, 2011 8:37 pm

lyntx wrote:
I asked my husband to read this, I thought maybe a new publisher would work with me better, but he said no, I'm not the only one that needs a good editor. Aren't publishers supposed to be great with grammer and spelling?

Actually I'm the lawyer and graphics person. I'm going to go ahead and delete the main post though and go back and rework the contract.
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Travis Lake Publishing

Travis Lake Publishing


Number of posts : 6
Registration date : 2011-07-27

Starting a Publishing Company Empty
PostSubject: Re: Starting a Publishing Company   Starting a Publishing Company EmptyThu Jul 28, 2011 11:19 pm

LC wrote:
TravisPublishing: No one would ever sign up for 5% of net for an ebook. You are very optimistic with your other numbers. How do you anticipate selling 2,000 copies, much less 100,000? What is your marketing plan?

By every single possible means that I can think of. That's the honest answer. Take a look at David Cole's The Complete Book Marketing Guide. Almost the entire book is how to sell into distribution. That's why authors can hear that their publisher is working their butts off to market their book and see almost no help on the ground. The traditional publishing method is pretty much to put books into distribution and spray and pray. We are in uncharted territory with e-books.

We will, of course, do standard marketing: send out copies to reviewers, sweet talk authors into swapping books and placing review on public review sites, do up Amazon listmania's and anything else that anybody has thought of. If you don't have a website and e-mail mailing list yet I'll help you set one up (if you're an Author reading this and don't have a website and e-mail mailing list get one ASAP!). We'll also provide ISBN's and assistance to any authors that want to do POD copies of their books for book signings. I hesitate to emphasize the last as I think it's a money looser for anyone doing it.

Truthfully, patience plays a large role in our business plan. In traditional publishing books either churn quickly or get returned to distributors. This limits the growth curve of an authors sales. As an e-book publisher we can give authors a bit more time to attract a following.
Quote :

Quote :
We use a tiered
royalty structure paying a 65% net royalty on proceeds after the first
$1000 and a 5% royalty on the first $1000.

I'm not following - why does your chart show 65% after 100,000, then?

I'm going to take this out and just go with a 50% royalty. It's a modified version of how things are done in academic publishing. In academic publishing the author only gets paid after the publisher makes a certain amount. To answer your question though say I pay you $50 on the first $1000. Then I pay you $650 on the next thousand. You've made $700 total. $700 is 35% of $2000. You would have made the same amount of money had I paid you a 35% flat royalty. There's no point in doing something that is going to put off authors while trying to give them a better deal.

Quote :

What kind of editing is done?

A minimum of two passes. One edit for story elements and one edit for grammar.

Quote :
What experience does your editor have with editing books?
More than the offshored workers that are, probably, doing your editing now.

Quote :

I'm also not following this:

Quote :
Net royalty is
defined as the amount we receive in connection to the book (basically,
we won't play games with you but we recognize that other parties may
fail to completely pay us).

This is net receipts, not net profits, correct? As for parties not paying you, is getting payment from Amazon, Smashwords, etc., an issue? I have no idea.

What happens if one of smashwords small affiliates sees a sudden burst of sales then closes up shop and runs off with the money? Likewise, what happens if Kobo goes bankrupt? I can say with near 100% certainty that, eventually, some e-book retailer somewhere will fail to pay. I hope to get a reputation for treating authors fairly. Corporate business partners are assumed to be a bunch of crooks.
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dkchristi
Five Star Member
Five Star Member
dkchristi


Number of posts : 8594
Registration date : 2008-12-29
Location : Florida

Starting a Publishing Company Empty
PostSubject: Re: Starting a Publishing Company   Starting a Publishing Company EmptyFri Jul 29, 2011 7:14 am

What a great exchange of proposals and ideas. That makes this forum powerful.
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http://www.dkchristi.webs.com
Shelagh
Admin
Admin
Shelagh


Number of posts : 12662
Registration date : 2008-01-11
Location : UK

Starting a Publishing Company Empty
PostSubject: Re: Starting a Publishing Company   Starting a Publishing Company EmptyFri Jul 29, 2011 8:09 am

... with a little bit of persuasion.
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http://shelaghwatkins.co.uk
dkchristi
Five Star Member
Five Star Member
dkchristi


Number of posts : 8594
Registration date : 2008-12-29
Location : Florida

Starting a Publishing Company Empty
PostSubject: Re: Starting a Publishing Company   Starting a Publishing Company EmptyFri Jul 29, 2011 8:35 am

How often does a potential publisher provide an opportunity for input - and listen? I credit the publisher and those who expressed concerns in detail for a candid exchange. It was quite informative all around.
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http://www.dkchristi.webs.com
LC
Five Star Member
Five Star Member
LC


Number of posts : 5044
Registration date : 2009-03-28

Starting a Publishing Company Empty
PostSubject: Re: Starting a Publishing Company   Starting a Publishing Company EmptyFri Jul 29, 2011 10:14 am

TravisPublishing, thx for answering. Your experience in publishing is different than mine -e.g., my editing isn't sent off-shore, and my pubs don't "spray and pray," -but I don't know how everything works in the publishing world. I'm still not clear if you pay on net profits or net receipts, what the relevance of academic publishing is (and how your model is different from it) or how you handle paper printing, but it's not for me to understand it or not. You might want to take this contract to AbsoluteWrite or Writers.net, since ebook contracts are often analyzed there, and you could get some useful input.
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Travis Lake Publishing

Travis Lake Publishing


Number of posts : 6
Registration date : 2011-07-27

Starting a Publishing Company Empty
PostSubject: Re: Starting a Publishing Company   Starting a Publishing Company EmptySat Aug 27, 2011 9:49 pm

Sigh, since this thread is now showing on a google search for our name I better address some of this.
1. We do not offshore our editing. Our business model is, in essence, a return to 1970. We want to build a relationship between the author and editor over a number of books. Outsourcing our editing is incompatible with our business plan.
2. We have no offshore employees or contractors. I will not talk about employees and owners in anything but the vaguest terms on a public forum. If we offer you a contract you are free to ask questions then.
3. That said, here is the about the author out of my book:
Quote :
Stephen D. Delear holds a double major in History and Anthropology from Texas State University, a Juris Doctor from Tulane School of Law and a Master’s of Arts in Public History from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches. In the past, the author has worked as both a civil rights litigator and a real estate attorney.
4. Net Profits and Net Receipts are both terms of art. I am glad that you have sufficient knowledge of the business side of the industry to understand the difference. I am not going into discussion of terminology here. The bottom line terms of our contract are that when money reaches our accounts for your book, we will send you half (paid quarterly).
5. Our official view on print books is that we loose money any time we touch them. All print rights are yours so long as the buyer is not also getting a digital file.
6. Anyone who tells you that they know the secret to marketing a book to consumers is lying. Marketing involves the constant search for what will work today.
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LC
Five Star Member
Five Star Member
LC


Number of posts : 5044
Registration date : 2009-03-28

Starting a Publishing Company Empty
PostSubject: Re: Starting a Publishing Company   Starting a Publishing Company EmptySun Sep 04, 2011 9:38 am

Just saw your post now.

1. A Google search on your company's name returns nothing except this thread.

2. You answered questions nobody asked, and evaded/obfuscated questions that were asked.

3. Your "about the author" demonstrates no publishing experience, and is on a self-printed book.

4. Your naivete, evasion and obfuscation would be fricasseed at Absolute Write.

PS -I find it poor practice that you answer questions on a board you're soliciting customers on only because you discovered, a month later, that the thread appears on Google. And you sigh while doing it.
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LC
Five Star Member
Five Star Member
LC


Number of posts : 5044
Registration date : 2009-03-28

Starting a Publishing Company Empty
PostSubject: Re: Starting a Publishing Company   Starting a Publishing Company EmptySun Sep 04, 2011 11:21 am

Copied in case of deletion.

Quote :
Sigh, since this thread is now showing on a google search for our name I better address some of this.
1.
We do not offshore our editing. Our business model is, in essence, a
return to 1970. We want to build a relationship between the author and
editor over a number of books. Outsourcing our editing is incompatible
with our business plan.
2. We have no offshore employees or
contractors. I will not talk about employees and owners in anything but
the vaguest terms on a public forum. If we offer you a contract you
are free to ask questions then.
3. That said, here is the about the author out of my book:
Quote:
Stephen
D. Delear holds a double major in History and Anthropology from Texas
State University, a Juris Doctor from Tulane School of Law and a
Master’s of Arts in Public History from Stephen F. Austin State
University in Nacogdoches. In the past, the author has worked as both a
civil rights litigator and a real estate attorney.
4.
Net Profits and Net Receipts are both terms of art. I am glad that
you have sufficient knowledge of the business side of the industry to
understand the difference. I am not going into discussion of terminology
here. The bottom line terms of our contract are that when money
reaches our accounts for your book, we will send you half (paid
quarterly).
5. Our official view on print books is that we loose
money any time we touch them. All print rights are yours so long as the
buyer is not also getting a digital file.
6. Anyone who tells you
that they know the secret to marketing a book to consumers is lying.
Marketing involves the constant search for what will work today.

_________________
Stephen D. Delear
Publisher-Partner
Travis Lake Publishing LLC
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