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John Hunt Publishing / O Books / Perfect Edge

john hunt

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Fair enough, call us a vanity publisher if you like, we're not going to make progress on that one.

But I've got to take issue with the "misleading" comment.

We don't say to authors "95% of our titles are not subsidized." We say, in several places, as often as seems reasonable without going over the top, pointing potential authors to the info, and it's on the internet, eg -

As explained above, on average in any 10 contracts we offer one level at 1, five at level 2, three at level 3, and one at level 4. A higher proportion of levels 3 and 4 are turned down, so the number of titles we publish with a subsidy is less than that. In 2012 it was one title out of four. That proportion is likely to rise as we publish more, and ebook sales (where there's a 50% royalty) becomes more significant.

Author subsidies and selling books to authors amounts to about 5% of our income, 95%+ is from selling books to retail (physical stores and online). 15% of our total revenues go back to authors in royalty. Vanity publishers get all their income from the author, whether in direct subsidy or selling books to them.


My comment on the proportion of titles across the list, historically, and current, the 95% that is not subsidized, was just to counter the many comments like

A vanity publisher is one which earns money by selling things to the authors it publishers.

that suggest we get all our income from author subsidies. Which is not the case. It was about 3% last year. Less than Penguin (on a much smaller scale of course).

The comment about the 95% was for this forum/conversation/thread, because misleading assumptions were being made here, along the lines of all our income coming from author subsidies. Which is not the case.

And maybe we should scrap them, and publish fewer titles. And then, presumably, we'ld be "clean". I'm not sure of the answer here. That's why I'm finding this interesting, sorry for the hassle/posts etc.

john
 

haunted

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Being in the Mind, Body, Spirit genre, I submitted to this publisher-I was offered a level 2 contract-which meant I would not subsidize anything on my book.

I ordered a random ghosthunting book to see the quality, and it was good. The editing was also good. Recently I bought one of their palmistry books at my local Books-a-Million store--so they also can get their books in the bricks and mortar stores. I also liked the palmistry book, it was well done, well edited and a great book.

In the meantime, a Mind, Body, Spirit, publisher here in the states expressed interest in my book and offered an advance. So I went with them.

I just wanted to tell my own experience with John hunt Publishing, and to say the two books I own are well done, and in bookstores in the USA.

I was not asked to pay for anything, only the amount of books sold before I gained royalties was the sticking point for me, plus no advance. I just wanted to put this out there for any authors who might be ok with those terms. it didn't work for me, but maybe it would for someone else, that's a personal thing i'm sure....
 

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I was not asked to pay for anything, only the amount of books sold before I gained royalties was the sticking point for me, plus no advance. I just wanted to put this out there for any authors who might be ok with those terms. it didn't work for me, but maybe it would for someone else, that's a personal thing i'm sure....

It would be a sticking-point for me too, Haunted. If a publisher is making money on a book, the author should be too.
 

john hunt

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I agree (that if the publisher makes money so should the author). I don't know who this particular author was, grateful for the support. Delighted she got an advance for her book from another publisher.

but in general, on the first 1000 copies, we don't make money. We print about 3 times more on most first-time authors than we actually sell -copies to distributors, to reviewers, and most of all to the trade, which come back and have to be pulped (costs more to sort them, chuck the non-perfect/handled/scuffed and get them back onto the right warehouse shelves than to reprint).

We like publishing new authors, in some subject areas we're getting to be a first choice, in some markets. At the same time, we're aware that some of them need some funding, and if we're being generous it's not us being generous, it's taking the money from better selling authors. It's a limited pot.

maybe we publish too many. We'll take the comments on board.

All of these questions and comments are pretty routine here and have been for years.

thanks. I see this particular thread has been going on for about 4 years (one reason why we're self-evidently not a start-up). We change pretty drastically every year, in terms of how we work, what we can offer, and so on. And will probably carry on changing. I'm sorry about the perception of us as a vanity publisher, unlikely I'm going to be able to change that, just wanted to counter the assumption that we make all our income from charging authors.

all the best with all your books, in case I'm not on here again.
john
 

LindaJeanne

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I'm sorry about the perception of us as a vanity publisher, unlikely I'm going to be able to change that, just wanted to counter the assumption that we make all our income from charging authors.

You could change it by not charging ANY authors a subsidy, and by paying royalties on every book sold. But your business model is your call.

Wishing the best to all your authors, and hoping that their success is yours as well.
 

john hunt

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thanks Linda.

Yes, we could. We'ld publish fewer titles. Maybe we should do that. I think there's a gap in the market between "commercial" trade publishing books, relaying primarily on sales to bookstores, on the one hand, and self-publishing on the other (or vanity publishing with companies that don't give a damn about quality or do anything other than spam emails to market it).

Maybe I'm wrong. Sounds like it, from this thread. Though i think that division between traditional publishing and self-publishing is going to disappear over the next few years. When you can get 70% royalties from amazon, how much is the usual publisher input of quality standards worth, in terms of editorial and marketing, particularly when you can buy it in? - I doubt it's going to bridge the gap between 10% and 70%, long term.

But we c an agree to disagree on that....it's been helpful getting the feedback. am putting it up on our internal forum for consideration - my own involvement nowadays is fairly peripheral, I mostly do reader reports, reading every proposal that comes in (after the first cull or two).

We try and work by a consensus of opinion around the business, most of whom are authors themselves, who have migrated into it from first publishing with us and then taking on more work like editing or PR, and we try and strike a balance between the work involved in a book and it's sales, so everyone gets something, whilst keeping the "publisher cost" to the minimum.

So it's not really my call, as such, I'm not running it, we respond to what the authors inside and outside the business want, try to get a balance, and it changes regularly, figure it needs to, as the market changes, and in the meantime we try and keep improving what we can offer in the way of decent editorial and marketing.

It's been nice to see a couple of positive comments from authors who have actually been in touch with us, submitted a proposal or been published. Those who write us off without knowing anything about us, who haven't worked with us, the most hostile ones, I guess no comment is the best I can do. Wish you all the best.

john
 

christwriter

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Just read through this whole thread and, uh...

So it's not really my call, as such, I'm not running it, we respond to what the authors inside and outside the business want, try to get a balance, and it changes regularly, figure it needs to, as the market changes, and in the meantime we try and keep improving what we can offer in the way of decent editorial and marketing.

Is it your business or not? Do you have the legal right to tell the people doing the day to day stuff "Stop doing that and start doing this" or don't you? Are you a spokesperson/figurehead (because it's your name on the company) or do you actually own the company and receive its profits?

If you are only a spokesperson, I'm sorry you have to deal with this.

If you are the owner, sir, then you damn well can change the way things are run if you think there's an issue. Your integrity is not at the mercy of your company.

Authors want a publisher to do a good job on their book, but they don't know what that means because this business is wheels within wheels of confusion. If you talk faster than Harold Hill, you can convince an author of anything you want. If you own the business, you have a responsibility to your customers AND to anyone selling goods through your business to be as honest as it is possible to be.

If you are not a vanity press, authors are not your customers. Authors are people selling goods through you. And while you have every right to set terms on what goods get sold through you and at what quality, you do NOT get to say "This is how everybody does it" when it's not how it's done. The model you're using, sir, is the equivalent of letting Kraft and Velveeta sell their macaroni for free, but making that organic newcomer pay you to sell their macaroni so that you don't suffer a loss for taking up your shelf space.

As for the subsidy thing...correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's this simple:

With non subsidy publishing, you start with a dollar. You publish a book (Book A). It costs a dollar. You make three dollars selling copies of that book. If you have a 30% royalty on gross, you give the author a dollar and you keep two. You now have two dollars. You publish another book. It costs a dollar. You make ninety cents selling copies of book B. You have a 30% royalty on gross, so you give author B thirty cents. You have a dollar sixty and are out thirty cents for publishing book B. You still have more money than you started with, the profits from book A did indeed go to publishing book B and (This is the key point here) both authors got paid.

What you are proposing with subsidy publishing however, is this: Everything goes the same with book A, because they got the same contract as in the first senario. However, you find book B and you know you're going to lose part of your profit from book A, so you tell author B to give you fifty cents to cover part of the publishing costs, and that you'll pay them after your expenses are covered and (x) is accomplished. You now have 2.50. You publish book B. It costs a dollar. You have a dollar fifty. You make ninety cents. Now you have 2.40.

Now one of two things happen:

EITHER you've covered your expenses and (X) is accomplished, and you pay author B the thirty cents you owe them, in which case you have 2.10 and author B is "only" 20 cents in the hole

OR

You decide that since you're not back at 2.50 your expenses are not covered and/or (X) has not been accomplished, in which case you do not pay author B their thirty cents and you now have 2.40 to play with instead of just 2.00

If you offered Author A a subsidy contract with the same terms as author B, then you've got 2.90, author A only has .50 and author B is still .50 in the hole.

Now, if we tacked about four zeros onto the end of these numbers, in the first senario you'd have 1,600.00, Author A would have 1,000 and author B would only have 300.00.

In the subsidy senario B is out either 200 or 500 bucks and you've got twenty-four hundred dollars to play with.

The problem with your model, which in my very humble opinion is best represented by senario 3, is that you DO make your profit back by selling books. Even if they're not selling very well you ARE getting income from sales that you would not have had the author not agreed to publish their book through you. AND you are making money off the authors who are paying your subsidy fee. Even if you want to keep the subsidy model, because OBVIOUSLY you can make a great deal of money off of it, you ought to be paying authors a royalty on every sale.

If your goal is to sell books then authors should get a percentage on the sales no matter how far you are in the hole. They do not have to give you their book. They are offering you goods to sell and you have taken them up on that offer. They deserve to get paid for their efforts. They are not responsible for your successes or failures in running your own business. And ESPECIALLY if you are charging a subsidy, you should not be docking their royalties when they have already paid you large amounts of money.

If your goal is to make money off the authors themselves, don't pretend otherwise. You should not be charging them for floor space, demand they be grateful, and then turn around and demand a percentage of their profits too.

Sorry if that seems especially vitriolic. The business model as expressed in this thread strikes me as extravagantly exploitative of authors who do not know any better, and I do not believe that anybody has the right to take advantage of someone else's ignorance. That might not be your intent, but IMHO, that's what you are doing by employing any sort of subsidy business model and then docking author's royalties until the non-subsidized costs are covered.
 

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I think there's a gap in the market between "commercial" trade publishing books, relaying primarily on sales to bookstores, on the one hand, and self-publishing on the other (or vanity publishing with companies that don't give a damn about quality or do anything other than spam emails to market it).
That gap is filled by small presses, who publish quality books that are too niche-market to be commercially viable for large trade presses. Small presses know how to reach their audience and therefore don't necessarily have to rely on expensive distribution and bookstore placement, so they can make a profit on a book that only sells a thousand copies. Some do small print runs, others are POD. But all respectable small presses use standard contracts and pay standard royalties, even if they can't pay advances.
 

JulieB

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That gap is filled by small presses, who publish quality books that are too niche-market to be commercially viable for large trade presses. Small presses know how to reach their audience and therefore don't necessarily have to rely on expensive distribution and bookstore placement, so they can make a profit on a book that only sells a thousand copies. Some do small print runs, others are POD. But all respectable small presses use standard contracts and pay standard royalties, even if they can't pay advances.

^^
| |

This. There are many small presses that operate just like that. No advance? Yep. Small print runs? Yep. Royalties? Yep. Authors paying for editing and production? Nope.
 

Terie

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In point of fact, not paying royalties on the first X-number of books sold is another form of charging the author money to publish.

It's this simple: authors are vendors of raw materials, in this case, stories. Publishers are manufacturers of goods, in this case, books.

Without stories, books could not be produced.

Vendors must get paid for the raw materials they sell, and they must be paid by the producer of the final to-market goods. That is how successful businesses operate.

John Hunt Publishing failing to pay authors for the first 1,000 copies of books sold is EXACTLY like, say, Ford failing to pay their vendors (tires, body paint, plastic, steel, etc) for the first X-number cars of each model sold, where X-number is higher than the likely total number sold.

Mr Hunt, that is NOT how businesses operate. Ford can't tell its vendors that it can't pay them for the raw materials because it's going to pay its own employees and production costs first.

NEITHER SHOULD YOU.

You pay for the paper, don't you? You pay for the printing, don't you? You pay your business overhead, don't you?

HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY JUSTIFY NOT PAYING FOR THE MAIN RAW MATERIAL WITHOUT WHICH YOU WOULDN'T BE IN BUSINESS AT ALL?

By not paying royalties beginning with the very first book sold, you are instead taking the payment due to the producer of your raw material and keeping it for yourself. That is, in essence, forcing your primary vendors to become investors in your business. If a book's royalty is, hypothetically, $1 per copy, those authors are investing $1,000. That means they have to sell 2,000 books just to break even; they don't move into the profit column until after 2,000 books have been sold.

The fact that you think it's perfectly all right to produce goods using raw materials that you don't pay for is....pathetic.
 
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john hunt

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Are you a spokesperson

Sure, I can answer it, just prefer to spend time on editorial.

I’m sorry I couldn’t follow the logic of your figures. If I can refer you to any one of the imprints, click on Author Inquiry, and there’s a User Guide (it was written for the benefit of our authors, we refer them to relevant bits of it many times through the process, it's not a general introduction to publishing, but we thought it would be more "open" to have it on the internet"). There’s a section under “What are your contract terms” called “How much profit will you make out of me”.

HOW MUCH PROFIT ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE OUT OF ME?

On most new titles, not much, if any.

Printed books
Authors are naturally inclined to think "look how much money the publisher is making, if the book costs $1 to print why can they not sell it - to me at least- for $2". Or; "its selling for $10, I am only making $0.50, even after print cost and retail discount, they must be making $3.50 profit".

Here is a typical scenario on the standard contract we have been using since we started, on a 10% royalty, which explains why we have amended them with different options in 2011.

A note first about the print cost; larger publishers are often on a mark-up of 20 from print cost to retail, even though the design/cover etc. costs are amortized over much larger quantities. 10 is usually regarded as a safe minimum. They can do that because they are only publishing titles they are fairly sure of selling large quantities. We are on around 6 or 7, and give better author discounts than the vast majority of traditional publishers, whose average is 30% compared to our 50%+ (as opposed to self/vanity publishers who might give 80%+ but have no distribution or marketing costs because they do not attempt to sell any copies).

Let us say the book is going to sell 1000 copies (many don’t), and because we pay relatively low levels on readers, editing, design, proofing etc (people make it up in the form or high-volume, regular work) the direct costs in all this (no actual printing) are $1500. And then the book still has to be stored, presented, despatched, invoiced, etc, for which we are invoiced in turn, so we have 15% for distribution, 10% for sales, which gives;
$10.00; less $5.00 discount, $0.50 royalty, $1.50 design/edit/prod (spread over 1000 copies), $1.30 print, $0.75 distribution cost, $0.50 sales cost, =$0.45 gross profit

OK, $0.45, it doesn’t sound bad for the publisher, it’s about what the author is getting. But that’s the surface figures. Then, you’ve got returns, that averages 40% in the industry. (There was one period last year when our returns from B & N were 90%). So for every 10 books that go out, four get returned and pulped. They get pulped because it costs to much to sort out the returns, chuck the scuffed ones, repack them into the warehouse etc., and then maybe they don’t sell anyway, it’s cheaper to reprint when needed (more on returns in the Royalties section). So the unit sales and royalties are reduced on 40% of the books, but you still have the origination and print and distribution/sales cost etc on 100% of them.

So now it looks like (on a sale of 10 books)
Retail $10x10 = $100
(discount)Less $5x10 = $50
Returns credit $5x4 =$20 (the books that have been returned)
Royalty $0.50x6 = $3 (on the books that have been sold)
Design/edit$1.50x10 =$15
Print $1.30x10 =$13
Distribution $0.75x10 =$7.5
Cost of taking back and pulping (the returned books)
$0.25x4 =$1
Sales $0.5x10 =$5
= -$14.50 gross profit

Then, we’re always left with more stock than we actually sell. About one third across the list (but on new titles it's usually more like twice the number sold). Because we try to keep all titles in stock all the time, rather than dropping them. Which has to be written off (and at some point, some of it pulped, because we get charged extra each year for the number of units in the warehouse above a certain level, not included in the above).

Which knocks it down in this case by 3 copies;
-$14.50 gross profit
Less $1.30x3
= -$18.40
So we end up losing $18.40 on a sale of 10 books, nearly $2 per book. That’s if it sells 1000 copies overall. And that’s gross, before all other costs like overheads, not net.

There are lots of swings and roundabouts here of course. No returns from Amazon, but then their discount is 60% rather than 50%. We’re not paying a sales team any more, but the cost of the people we use specifically on sales is about the same amount. We’re being more careful about putting books into shops, so are bringing the return rate down, but then we’re not counting review copies etc in here. Some books we have a higher mark-up on, some less (depending on whether we’re using the A or B price list).

But then there’s a whole raft of other costs, eg; bad debts (when Borders went into Chapter 11 in Spring 2011 for instance they owed publishers $240 million, and they’ll be lucky to get one fifth of that back), bank charges, marketing costs, and that’s all before you get to overheads – salaries, rent, accounts, post, and so on. Circulating information is a major cost. In theory, internet and digital and so on seem free; in practice, it does not matter how many or few the title sells, every major retailer and distributor wants the information presented to them in their own different formats if they are going to show it as available. There are ways of systematizing the information rather than have people typing in every tiny detail dozens of times over, but that costs money too.

Then there’s the cash and return on investment problem – the money on all this is paid up front, and it takes 90/120 days to get paid, if the payments do actually come.
Then there’s the bigger question of investing more generally in the business. We spend a six-figure sum each year on computer/database/website systems, particuilarly on improving the marketing.

What finances the business of course, is the relatively few titles that sell year in, year out, have long covered their origination costs, and have lower returns.
One option, if we were to be capitalist about it, is just to keep those strong authors, drop the rest, and not publish anything new that we weren’t pretty sure was going to sell a few thousand copies. No correspondence about anything else, just a standard negative email back. And then maybe we’ld even get into paying advances. Agents would like us better.

Or, we stick with our guns, and say we’re going to create a different model (it’s work in progress at the moment). One which gives us more freedom to publish if we like the book. we don't quite the same costs on ebooks, which is why we start at 50%.
On a lighter note; http://i.imgur.com/gdvaL.jpg

If you have any further queries on the contract please put them up on the forum.

Let me know if you think there’s something wrong with the figures.

They do not have to give you their book

I agree.

Small presses know how to reach their audience and therefore don’t necessarily have to rely on expensive distribution and bookstore placement.

I agree. We try and do both.

forcing your primary vendors to become investors in your business

I don't think we're forcing anyone. From the user manual-

IF I DO NOT WANT TO FILL THIS IN, CAN YOU RECOMMEND OTHER PUBLISHERS?

If this business does not sound as if its for you, or if we turn the proposal down, we can’t help by recommending other publishers.

You have a wide choice; there are several hundred significant publishers in the English language world, 70,000 registered with the main databases, and the number who might publish the occasional book runs to a quarter of a million. The simplest way is to trawl the internet for other possibilities. The best sources are Literary Marketplace in North America, www.literarymarketplace.com, and The Writers and Artists Yearbook in the UK, buy online at www.acblack.com. And try the information sheet Getting Published from the Book Trust, www.booktrust.org.uk. There are dozens of other directories, books and online sources. www.bookmarket.com provides a useful summary of “how to get published”-type websites. There’s a useful list of agents on www.writers-free-reference.com/agents/index.html. But the chances of them reading even the first page are something like 1 in 100. See for instance http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2129738,00.html.
 

Terie

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"forcing your primary vendors to become investors in your business"

I don't think we're forcing anyone. From the user manual-

IF I DO NOT WANT TO FILL THIS IN, CAN YOU RECOMMEND OTHER PUBLISHERS?

If this business does not sound as if its for you, or if we turn the proposal down, we can’t help by recommending other publishers.


Yes, Mr Hunt, you ARE forcing your primary vendors to be investors.

What you're not doing is forcing anyone to become one of your primary vendors.

That doesn't change the fact that once someone signs a contract with you (one that stipulates they don't earn royalties until X-number of books have been sold), you are not paying them, the vendor, but are using their rightful share of the proceeds to pay your business expenses instead. Someone who contributes financing to your business without a guarantee of recompense is an investor.

Also? That quote from your user manual is in no way related to the point I made and that you're trying to refute. You aren't as good at spin as you think you are, which this thread abundantly proves.
 
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kaitie

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Mr. Hunt, you also need to consider the fact that you have the power in the relationship. It's not an equal partnership. I mentioned this before, but it warrants mentioning again. Many authors don't know enough about how the business is run, particularly first-time authors. They learn when they become a part of it. Even authors who try to do their research can get pulled into a situation that is incredibly bad for them just because they don't know better, and a nice person who supposedly is an expert telling them, "This is all perfectly normal," can cause them to believe it.

Secondly, there is a serious desperation element with many authors. Being an author means a ton of rejection. Every little positive you get is a little light in the darkness. When an author has gotten dozens or hundreds of rejections and someone comes along and says, "I want to publish your book," it gets a lot harder to say no. These are often books people have spent a year or more working on, and oftentimes careers they've tried to get started for even longer. I'll put this in perspective: I'm fairly successful at this stage as I actually have an agent, however I went through over 400 rejection letters before I did, and it took me several years of working up to that point.

Don't you see how saying yes to an author who has seen nothing but no puts you in the power position? Don't you see how it makes it incredibly difficult for the author to turn down the contract? That's why we tell people not to even submit to a questionable publisher--we all know how hard it will be to say no.

And then you make it even worse because there is a chance that an author might get a normal contract. They have hope that they can be normally, commercially published. If that author then gets a subsidy contract in the mail, it will be very hard for them to say no. I'm sure some authors do, but there are plenty who don't. Because they finally think someone likes their works, someone sees value in it, and someone thinks they can make it in this tough world of publishing.

And all of that, in my opinion, makes it all the worse to actually put them in a position where they can't make it.
 

JulieB

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Vendors must get paid for the raw materials they sell, and they must be paid by the producer of the final to-market goods. That is how successful businesses operate.

Quoting this for truth. As a freelancer, I run into this all the time. Someone will approach me with a business proposition along the lines of: "Hey, we can make money off of this. All you have to do is supply the creative talent and I'll start paying you as soon as the money starts rolling in." In effect, I'm subsidizing their business until they pay me - if that payday ever comes.

And it's just as if I put out money to help that business, because my time is worth something.
 

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That quote from your user manual is in no way related to the point I made and that you're trying to refute. You aren't as good at spin as you think you are, which this thread abundantly proves.

I don't think I'm good at spin. And the quote is relevant surely, in that we're saying "if you don't like the way we work please keep trying elsewhere, here's a list of alternatives".

We actually put that into the text of the notification we send an author if an inquiry has passed the first hurdle and we'ld like to progress to a more detailed proposal stage. We ask them to read the "What are your contract terms" in the user manual, providing a link, and not to bother doing a proposal if they don't like what they see - it's just a waste of everyone's time otherwise.

I'm probably stupid, but the distinction between vendors and investors is lost on me. I just can't see where the "forcing" comes into it.

There are things we can do to avoid asking for subsidies, or/and to pay royalties from the first copy sold (I agree on this point, it's been up for discussion for a while internally, we're going to change it) ;

1. cut royalties across the board, particularly on ebooks (from 50% to the usual 15-25% traditional publishing average).

2. concentrate on niche markets, don't even try to sell to B&N and Books-a-million etc.

3. spend less on editorial and/or marketing or social networking etc.

but none of these are likely to be popular, so the option is to simply not publish manuscripts we think we're probably going to lose money on. However much we like them. Or, if we do, limit them to "one risky new title for every ten backlist" or whatever.

Which maybe we should do. It's something we're thinking about, seriously. And looking at alternatives, like "ebooks free, price them at $0.20 or for nothing if you like, use the contacts database etc as much as you like, but we'll have to charge something for print in some cases if sales haven't reached a certain level", and so on.

Don't you see how saying yes to an author who has seen nothing but no puts you in the power position? Don't you see how it makes it incredibly difficult for the author to turn down the contract? That's why we tell people not to even submit to a questionable publisher--we all know how hard it will be to say no.

Good point, appreciate that. Saw this just after replying to the previous one.

I guess we could just not offer them. No problem with that, in principle, it would mean a loss of income for a few dozen authors/creatives who currently do reporting/editing/design/PR and so on. It would cut down on the communities involved in the FB pages, the numbers adding contacts and info to the database. I think it would be a retrograde step. but it's up for discussion.

We could put in a final “disclaimer”, for the subsidy contracts, along the lines of - “before accepting this contract, please consider that there may be another publisher out there who will give you a straight non-subsidy contract. We can’t advise you on who to approach, but you may want to check the market more thoroughly.”

Would be happy to do that, if you want to suggest the wording you want. But what we can’t do, is give the option of the author coming back in 6 months/6 years if they haven’t found anyone else. We’ve paid for the reader reports, and can’t do another round of them – for one thing it gets too confusing for the readers – “haven’t I read this before?” etc. Which is why it's a "take it or leave it" kind of approach for us; we generally get back to authors within days on proposals, having got several reports, and then we want to move on, don't want loose threads hanging around for months/years. They collect time/cost. Same all the way through the business.

I'm probably opening myself up for further attack here, but it's not huge amounts of money we're talking about. £500 loss of royalties on a level 2 contract for the first 1000 copies, a subsidy of £10 per 1000 words on a level 3 - and we're going to change this and pay royalties from the word go, it's why it's been helpful to be on here. but considering what you can pay elsewhere, all the way through the process, and the genuine costs involved in doing it all properly, it's not much. And we do properly publish the books. So the question might be - would you sooner pay that (if we thought it was a good book but we'ld struggle to make it work commercially) and have the book out in 6 months and have something to show and promote and work on, and we'ld be promoting it too, or spend the years you mention and the 400 rejection letters instead in trying to get it accepted.

And all of that, in my opinion, makes it all the worse to actually put them in a position where they can't make it.

I didn't follow that bit - recent posts on the thread have variously been around whether we don't do enough with bookstores, or whether we do too much and should be more niche to avoid being so expensive. I admit we're not strong on fiction, we've barely started there, and if any author can get a deal with the big six etc, then delighted for them. But we get books into the trade, we have some strong social networking going on, I honestly don't think that publishing with us is a liability. And we do sell a few books.

(And we don't send contracts in the mail, seems a medieval way of doing things).
 

john hunt

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Quoting this for truth. As a freelancer, I run into this all the time. Someone will approach me with a business proposition along the lines of: "Hey, we can make money off of this. All you have to do is supply the creative talent and I'll start paying you as soon as the money starts rolling in." In effect, I'm subsidizing their business until they pay me - if that payday ever comes.

Couldn't agree more. 90%+ of the work in our business is done by freelancers. Almost all of them authors. In reporting, editing, design and PR. We have a very small central overhead.

and they're paid, but quoting this for truth; a regular complaint, is that "this author is more trouble than he/she is worth, I'm not getting paid enough for dealing with her/him. I'm subsidizing this, I'm not expecting much, but my time has to be worth something."
 

Theo81

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With regards to that Guardian article you linked which supposedly "proves" publishers don't read subs because Pride And Prejudice was rejected by all?

It's gubbins.

Plagiarism gets deleted.
 

LindaJeanne

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but the distinction between vendors and investors is lost on me.
...seriously?

How long have you been in business?


However much we like them. Or, if we do, limit them to "one risky new title for every ten backlist" or whatever.

Which maybe we should do. It's something we're thinking about, seriously.
You keep saying this. But it's always followed by a string of excuses for your current business practice, which makes it seem less sincere.


I guess we could just not offer them. No problem with that, in principle, it would mean a loss of income for a few dozen authors/creatives who currently do reporting/editing/design/PR and so on. It would cut down on the communities involved in the FB pages, the numbers adding contacts and info to the database. I think it would be a retrograde step.
I can't believe that you're using the need to pay the editors & production workers, etc, as an excuse to charge the author (while still insisting you're not a vanity press). I think you need to re-read Terie's post, since you seemed to miss the point -- a point which I felt was made quite clearly and well.

But what we can’t do, is give the option of the author coming back in 6 months/6 years if they haven’t found anyone else.
No one has suggested that you need to do this. A publisher has no obligation to re-instate an offer after an author initially turns it down.


but considering what you can pay elsewhere, all the way through the process, and the genuine costs involved in doing it all properly, it's not much.
So you feel that you, as a vanity publisher, are a better deal than some other vanity publishers. This may well be true; you certainly seem to have better distribution than most vanities.

I admit we're not strong on fiction, we've barely started there, and if any author can get a deal with the big six etc, then delighted for them. But we get books into the trade, we have some strong social networking going on, I honestly don't think that publishing with us is a liability. And we do sell a few books.
And yet you're willing to charge fiction authors to work with you?
.
 

john hunt

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the guardian article

thanks for that, it was the wrong link, not sure how that happened, somewhere in the transition between different systems, have deleted that sentence.

How long have you been in business?

10 years as far as trade paperback publishing goes. personally, as far as work goes, about 40. It's the definition of the terms and the reasoning behind it i didn't follow.

it's always followed by a string of excuses for your current business practice,

Well, you're asking me to excuse it, so I try to.

I can't believe that you're using the need to pay the editors & production workers, etc, as an excuse to charge the author (while still insisting you're not a vanity press). I think you need to re-read Terie's post, since you seemed to miss the point -- a point which I felt was made quite clearly and well.

the 12.13pm one? I thought I'ld answered that.

if we reckon, on the basis of a number of reader reports, and looking up comparitive titles, and previous sales if any by the author's previous books, that the proposed book might sell in the low hundreds, then we might ask for a subsidy. if the author doesn't want to accept it, and keep looking for another publisher, that's fine, we give info as to where they might look.

We're committed to paying as high royalties as we can, so if we're subsidizing new authors, the money is basically coming from other existing authors who otherwise we could be spending more on, whether in marketing or better royalties. There is no magic pot of gold.

So you feel that you, as a vanity publisher, are a better deal than some other vanity publishers. This may well be true; you certainly seem to have better distribution than most vanities.

Covered this before I think, author subsidies came to around 3% of revenues last year. On one out of 4 titles published we had a subsidy element. the time this is taking - yes, maybe we should just get out of it.
 

christwriter

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Are you a spokesperson

Sure, I can answer it, just prefer to spend time on editorial.

I’m sorry I couldn’t follow the logic of your figures. If I can refer you to any one of the imprints, click on Author Inquiry, and there’s a User Guide (it was written for the benefit of our authors, we refer them to relevant bits of it many times through the process, it's not a general introduction to publishing, but we thought it would be more "open" to have it on the internet"). There’s a section under “What are your contract terms” called “How much profit will you make out of me”.

The math is real simple, sir. If you sell a dollar's worth of books, the author should get a percentage and you should keep the rest. Because the author has provided the basic material for the book.

You do not deserve to keep the whole dollar.

If you cannot afford to give the author a percentage of the whole dollar, you cannot afford to be in business.

Or let me put it this way. Can you tell your paper vendors that you'll pay them for the paper only after you've sold the first hundred reams? Can you tell your electricity company that you'll pay the bill only after you've sold your first print run? No. You can't. The author is EXACTLY like your paper vendor and your electric company. By not paying them an advance, you are ALREADY taking their goods on credit in the expectation that you can sell them. Demanding that they also give you the full profit from the first X number of books is insane. You can't do that with your electric company or your paper supplier, so why the do you think you should do that to your authors?

The electric company should be paid for every volt used.

The paper company should be paid for every ream used.

The author should be paid for every book sold.

And if you can't afford to pay the author, the electric company, the paper company and your own employees, you cannot afford to remain in business. Period.

Paying authors is not a favor to the authors. It's a basic price of doing business as a non-vanity publisher.
 

LindaJeanne

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the 12.13pm one? I thought I'ld answered that.
You did not answer it. You danced around it, but never addressed it directly.

The electric company should be paid for every volt used.

The paper company should be paid for every ream used.

The author should be paid for every book sold.

And if you can't afford to pay the author, the electric company, the paper company and your own employees, you cannot afford to remain in business. Period.

Paying authors is not a favor to the authors. It's a basic price of doing business as a non-vanity publisher.

QFT
 

john hunt

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Or let me put it this way. Can you tell your paper vendors that you'll pay them for the paper only after you've sold the first hundred reams? Can you tell your electricity company that you'll pay the bill only after you've sold your first print run? No. You can't. The author is EXACTLY like your paper vendor and your electric company.

Ok, on this and the 12.13 post.

I understand, I just don't think they're reasonable comparisons. We can be "exactly" like the electricity or paper company, if that's what you want. We'll pay a royalty on every copy sold (I think we're going to do that anyway,on the basis of these comments) but then maybe we don't send out review copies at our cost ($15 a time). We won't pump books into shops that we're likely to get back in returns. Should the author pay for those that aren't sold? (It's often going to cost vastly more than the royalty per copy sold).

You're talking about books as if they were cans of baked beans, units. We think of them differently, throughout the business. We read submissions. Sure, we look at sales potential, previous sales, comparative sales, comment on the manuscript, reckon on what we can do, make an offer on what we think could work, and if the author doesn't want it - that's fine.

We can drop all the subsidy titles and stay in business, no problem at all. We'ld probably do better, financially. We were trying to create a route to market for authors who don't have the track record to initially get published, and get to the trade.

If that's all a big mistake, OK,. maybe we should drop it.
 

veinglory

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So your argument is that you don't pay the author because you want to do other things with the money. That's not really compelling. It means basically that you don't pay people you can get away with not paying, whether they deserve it or not.

Because as the person that makes the product, they really should be at the front of the line. Just like the farmer that grows the beans. The beans have to be advertised etc too. That money is not taken out of the farmers pocket.
 
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