The publishing business is in disarray around the world and it doesn’t look like it will shake out to authors’ favor anytime soon. But, people are still writing books that are fabulous. They pitch and pitch and pitch to all sorts of publishers and agents yet the only reply is some version of “Sorry, not for us” and the years go by.
[Click here for the ebook “I’ve written a Book. Now what do I do?”]
If this sounds familiar, what can you do? Since traditional publishing routes are not being offered to you, there are three more options. Briefly, they are:
Self-publishing: This is not a bad way to go if this is a passion project (i.e., family history, personal memoir, etc.) that will not have a nation- or worldwide market. These books do not have to meet retail-ready standards. If your goal is merely to supply family with information, self-publishing is the way to go.
Hybrid-publishing: Blue Room Books is one hybrid publisher offering traditional deals (signing bonuses, advances against royalties, and no bonuses and no advances, just royalties when sales accrue) for books we feel will monetize quickly, and other deals (where the author may reimburse the publisher for some costs upfront and share a larger percentage of royalties when sales accrue). Each deal varies with each author and their goals.
Are the two above making your motor run? No? What then?
If you are the go-getter type with plans for your book(s), but for whatever reason you can’t do a really tight editing, layout and design of interior and cover, setting up of a branded ISBN under a publisher name of your choosing, correct formatting of print production files for upload to distribution (IngramSpark) or print-on-demand and Ebook online retailer (KDP, an Amazon company), then the next question you must ask is this:
Who can do all that properly?
That would be Blue Room Books. You see, we set up our boutique publishing company because we truly want to see high-quality books be made available to the public. But being a small press with time limits to market deserving books, we realized we could help others by offering our know-how and then handing the baby back to authors. Then they could then hit the ground running with their own PR, author interviews, author appearances, and other marketing efforts that they would be doing no matter who published them.
We will not put our imprints on your book. This service will be a 100% work-for-hire agreement wherein all royalties from retailers and distributors will flow directly to your bank account.
What are the costs?
As you can see in the graphic below, there are a minimum of 14 steps (each of which involves a lot of time and attention) to get your book into the retail environment in a high-quality form.
After reading over the order form, you will note a few important things about these business decisions.
One: The services are grouped into three categories. Vendor Accounts Setup, Book Prep, and Book Details/Upload. None can be skipped or glossed over if you want to be in control of the vision for your books.
Two: Editing is the biggest investment you will make, but is the most important to your reader. But this is a decision you have to make and must live with. Preparing the book for a high-quality “finish” will make your story shine because people do judge books by their covers.
Three: Technology is a great thing and has often made our lives easy. But what do you do when technology changes and you do not know how to prepare your book to those new specs and/or cannot upload it? That’s why you hire somebody to liaison with technology for you. What is your time worth? Get in touch. Email us at blueroombooks@outlook.com.