We will be your book publisher if you
want your published book to be a professionally produced book,
no
different from any book you've ever held in your hands since your first
childhood visit to a bookstore.
"Print-On-Demand"--POD--a brand new way to produce and publish books, requires very little upfront investment on the part of the publisher. That's what makes it different! It is why you now have the power to crash those heretofore impenetrable gates and get your book into the marketplace where anyone in the United States and around the world can purchase your book. A local bookstore may not have your book on its shelves, but it will happily--and profitably--order it for delivery in 48 hours to anyone who asks them for it--once your book is published by YBK Publishers, Inc. So, too, will anyone who orders books online. Your book will be listed on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, and other online bookstores where potential buyers will easily find and purchase your book. The very same way any book is bought, yours will be bought.
How is this different? In no way that you, the author, or you, the bookbuyer, will notice. The difference stems from a new business and manufacturing model. A model empowered by newly available printing and binding equipment that enables printing even one book at a time--economically--producing income for the author, bookseller, wholesaler, and publisher. This new model, more efficient, and aimed at the author's greater involvement in the promotion and marketing effort, even enables a higher royalty than is generally available to new authors published in the traditional manner.
We're all familiar with the 10% of list royalty--it's traditional. (Sometimes, if you're a high-selling author, it's 12 1/2%). YBK's royalty is 15%--of list price. Other online publishers talk about 30%, but that's 30% of what the publisher derives from the sale of your book after deducting bookseller discount, distribution cost and lots of other stuff, usually adding up to more than 50% (their online sample contracts never fully say)! Our rate is crystal clear: If your book's list price is $15.00, you'll get a 15% of list royalty or $2.25 for every copy sold.
Okay, really, how is this different? Here's how. Traditional publishers have to print thousands of books, pay for them in advance, put them into a warehouse, and, only then say to the buying public, "It's ready, buy it." Sometimes the public does, and sometimes it doesn't. And, often, the publisher throws thousands of expensive books away or sells them in the remainder market (where the author gets about nothing in royalty). The traditional publisher thus becomes even more wary and more restrictive about what it will publish, choosing what it considers to be only sure sellers.
And, it isn't only new, unproven authors who are poorly served by this system. There are amazing numbers of successfully published titles that are now out of print only because they don't sell enough copies per year to make it worthwhile for a traditional publisher to keep stock of them in a warehouse. POD doesn't need inventory to deliver from. We'll all be disappointed if your book doesn't sell even one copy in the year following its publication, but, even then, we won't declare your book out of print!
So Print-On-Demand is quite what its name implies: When someone orders your book at a bookstore or from an online vendor, only then is it printed and bound--no costly inventory to maintain waiting for sales to occur. But, where's the wrinkle? Why don't the traditional publishers do this? Some are, in very limited ways, testing the waters. Many may eventually fully change their ways--but that will take years. Large organizations can only change their methods slowly, though ultimately they do change.
If you happen to be a now-out-of-print author does it matter to you when the traditional publisher will change? Your book is not in the marketplace now--and it can be.
If you're an about-to-be-author, will you wait until they've sorted out these new methods and will you continue to trot your manuscript from agent to publisher to friend-in-the-know, for as long as that may take? First authors can be published right now--and still retain many options for the future.
So: It's the same physical book the traditional publisher would produce, the same order channel, the same wholesale channel, the same discount given to the bookseller (making that bookstore just as willing to order your book as any other it happens not to have on its shelves), the same listings online--everything the very, very same. Your book can be ordered anywhere, by anyone, any time. In fact, we will be the first to purchase your book through your local bookstore--one that you choose in your village, town or city. That will let you know when your book is published so that you can then announce to the world that anyone may do the very same, buy your book!
That's pretty exciting, so let's get to the "how-is-it-done" part.
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This site was last updated on February 18, 2003.
