**Catalog of Titles Published and To Be Published**
[Free Manuscript Reading Leading to Cost-free Publishing]
[Manuscript
Selection] [How Manuscript Is Handled]
[Marketing and Sales]
[Comparison of Traditional Publishing to Print-on-Demand
Publishing]
[PMA University presentation, June
2005]
[Preorder
A Book] [Contact Us]
**An Open Letter to the Potential YBK
Author**
In answer to all your questions...
**Advice to Writers from an editor friend of ours**
YBK books are professionally produced books, no
different from any book you've ever held in your hands since your first childhood
visit to a bookstore.
"Print-On-Demand"--POD--is a remarkable new way to produce and publish books, requiring very little upfront investment on the part of the publisher. That's what makes it and us 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 it. 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. Your book will be listed on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, and hundreds of 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. Using recently developed printing and binding equipment that enables printing just 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.
You can earn 50% royalty. Our authors are entitled, by contract, to purchase books to use in their own selling, at 50% of the list price (minimum order is ten, plus cost of shipping).
Our contract is non exclusive—you may take your book to any publisher you wish and even publish with them while your contract is in place with us. The contract is cancelable with thirty days notice without need to give any reasons. To request a copy of our contract please use the form at the bottom of the page to ask for one.
The Traditional Publishers Dilemma
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, bound and shipped within 48 hours of order--no costly inventory to maintain waiting for sales to occur. But, where's the wrinkle? Why don't the traditional publishers do this? Traditional publishers need to sell lots of books, we don't.
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.
To continue to learn about YBK and print-on-demand, click here
To contact us, please click here
This site was last updated on March 12, 2008.