Some answers
Victoria -- Thanks for the note.
[Frankly, I don't think your business model is viable--not, at least, if you're interested in sales and exposure for your authors. Small publishers are always coming up with what they believe are new paradigms for publishing, which they hope will allow them to replace or bypass the established channels of bookselling and marketing; but they tend to come up cold against a reality that even the big publishers have to struggle with: for sales, books need to be in stores.]
There is certainly truth in your observation.
[I do have some questions for you:
- Do you have plans to work with a distributor (as opposed to a wholesaler like Ingram or Baker and Taylor), or to field your own sales force?]
The Mine Falls business model, admittedly unproven, isn't attempting to compete with traditional book marketing and distribution channels. By introducing Underwriters into the mix (more on them below), we believe we can create a self-sustaining financial model with as few as 10,000 copies of a book sold. In such a model there are limited opportunities for traditional layers of distribution.
[- If not, how to you plan to achieve your goal of targeting bookstores?]
We were certainly naive when we first approached independent bookstores as a channel. We discovered the hard way that the majority of the stores we contacted via various trade organizations in fact relied on large distributors to select their inventory and the effort to seed stores with review copies, even though over 50 stores requested the copies, was very expensive and unrewarding. Face to face contact seemed to make a difference, but we aren't in a position to personally visit stores all over the country.
In the end, massive Amazon has presented a better opportunity for inexpensive distribution than what we hoped would be a ground-swell of self-directed independent store owners.
[- Do you take steps to get your books reviewed in professional venues such as Publishers Weekly?]
We have provided about 200 review copies of The Wheelwright's Son since its pub date in February. Our experience is that the reviewing channels are as noisy as the agent community. We did a phone followup on about 50 stores who requested review copies of Wheelwright and discovered that the majority of the stores which requested such copies didn't even know that we had sent the book. Local bookstores where we hand delivered the book were far more cooperative, several owners having actually read it and recommended it to their customers.
[- I'm curious about the Underwriters. Who are they (or who do you want them to be)? How do you approach them? Have you found any?]
Great questions. Our notion of an underwriter is a person of means who takes pleasure in supporting creative endeavors (such as local theater groups, ...). We present them with an opportunity to become part of a creative effort, meet an author, be acknowledged in a book -- all for the cost of a nice evening out. We have created Royalty Units which entitle an Underwriter to a fraction of future royalties from the sale of a book (typically a 1% interest in sales is offered at $500).
It's a chance for underwriters to become part of the adventure while giving voice to a new author who has been unable to attract attention from the larger scale publishing machine. The role of the publishing committee is to select better quality projects to offer to the underwriters as candidates. Underwriters are free to support or not support individual works based on their own personal tastes and instincts.
We have held Meet The Author evenings where a handful of aspiring writers present their projects to a group of a dozen or so potential underwriters. A great deal depends on the passion of the writer, the chemistry between writer and underwriter, the subject, and finally, the quality of the manuscript (which the underwriters may read).
Although we have had good interest in the concept, in the few months we've been doing this we haven't achieved critical mass yet. The fact that U.S. readers are consuming 5 times as many books today as they did 10 years ago (Rob and Terry Adams, Entrepreneur magazine) and yet the number of new authors published each year is 50% lower than 10 years ago (M.J. Rose) seems to create a sympathetic response in book-loving underwriters who want to lend a hand.
[- How do you screen the editors who use your site to make sure they're qualified?]
Since we are a very tiny operation right now, our editors are all people known to one of us. For example, we have an editor with a Harvard background who has been a voracious reader for some fifty years and enjoys finding clumsy constructions and excessive exposition for the writers she partners with (and she would object to me using partner as a verb!). We are looking for people with energy, taste, and a sense of grammar who enjoy working with our writers and don't need immediate cash compensation for their time. Of course writers are free to decline a particular editor's invitation.
-- Michael Alan
