Jupiter Gardens Press / Pink Petal Books

I think they're somehow related to Pink Petal (romance epub) but can't recall for sure or how.


ETA:
Yup, they are:
http://pinkpetalbooks.com/index.php?main_page=about_us

Jupiter Gardens originally started as a place for her to sell incense, jewelry, Young Living™ essential oils, and other items of interest to spiritual and metaphysical individuals. A few months later, she realized a need for an electronic spiritual publisher with a focus on the pagan community and who could market effectively to such groups. She started Jupiter Gardens Press, a division of Jupiter Gardens, LLC, shortly thereafter. And a few months later, she incorporated into a LLC. Because Mary also writes romance novels, she saw a need that Jupiter Gardens, LLC could fulfill by adding a romance imprint to Jupiter Gardens Press. Pink Petal Books officially launched October 2008.

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Started as a place to sell incense, by a woman who also wrote romance.

Brainstorm gave the link for Jupiter Gardens Press... the link for Pink Petal Books is http://www.pinkpetalbooks.com/

Completely reputable, royalty-paying publisher. Jupiter Gardens is the parent company, and Pink Petal is the romance imprint. PPB publishes all genres of romance, with the usual no-nos. Submission guidelines are on their site. Jupiter Gardens publishes primarily metaphysical and New Age nonfiction, and on the fiction side they do science fiction and fantasy/paranormal/urban fantasy.

The company is run by an author who took the time to learn the business of publishing, and she's grown it steadily and slowly. There are now editors working for her, and she regularly signs on new authors. They're very definitely in the business of selling books to readers, and the owner and her editors work closely with authors on quality control, promotion, etc.

I'm published under both imprints; I have a novella, novel, and two free reads with Pink Petal, and Jupiter Gardens is the home of my YA novels. My first release with them came out in September 2009. I receive monthly royalties, which have never been late, and the owner has been very open to negotiating contract terms. We've also worked together on finding new ways to promote my YA stuff, including building a website for my Reality Shift series. (Site isn't up yet; we're still working on it.)

Pink Petal is primarily an e-publisher, though there are two tiers for print for books over... I think it's 50,000. Authors have a choice of limited distribution print after a certain amount of sales which escapes me at the moment, or full distribution print (through Ingram) after 100 e-copies are sold. Jupiter Gardens books go to e-version and print pretty much simultaneously, with a gap of a week or two between the two versions but no minimum sales required for print.

The company has been in business for over two years now, and I would definitely recommend them.

Hi!
Thanks so much for asking about Pink Petal Books/Jupiter Gardens Press. Our focus now is primarily on publishing, though yes, we did start out more as a "new age store", until opportunities presented themselves to move into publishing. We opened our doors to subs in Jan 2008, and our first books were published in October 2008.

We are listed with RWA as a non-subsidy, non-vanity publisher, and we're listed with SCWBI as a small press.

We publish approximately 2-4 romance novels a month under our "Pink Petal Books" banner with all books coming out in electronic format first. Books over 50K, or novellas that can be bundled into a single volume over 50K who meet modest sales goals (100 copies) go to print. We don't really do the two tier print option anymore. All the print books I've done in 2010, for example, have gone straight to full distribution. However, there is always the option for print on a case by case basis if an author needs perfect bound copies for a contest, for example.

We publish metaphysical fiction/non fiction as Jupiter Gardens Press. We tend to do a book or two every quarter there. We also publish YA as Jupiter Gardens Press, with again, about the same number of releases.

We pay 40% royalties on the sales price for sales directly from our website. We pay 40% of what we get from third party vendors. I aggressively pursue third party vendor opportunities; we currently distribute through about eight, and I have a few more lined up. Royalties are done monthly.

Hopefully that answers the basic questions. If you have any more, please don't hesitate to ask. I pride myself on being accessible.

Thanks!

Hi JG. Since you offered to answer questions:

How large is your average print run?

How many books did your best bestseller sell? What genre was it?

What are the average sales in the first month, 6 months and year for JG and for PP?

jennontheisland said:

Hi JG. Since you offered to answer questions:

How large is your average print run?

How many books did your best bestseller sell? What genre was it?

What are the average sales in the first month, 6 months and year for JG and for PP?

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We use print on demand, so we really don't do "average print runs".

As with most publishers sales numbers vary depending on the genre, the author's promotional ability, and a myriad of other factors.

I can tell you that our top sellers have sold over 1500 copies and are a mix of menage and M/M titles, all erotic, with a mix of contemporary and paranormal. We've had authors qualify for PAN membership in RWA, and I've had really niche-y titles (my sweet m/f pagan inspirational romances, for example) not do so well. *grins* So it really depends.

Same with first month/six month sales. Generally novel length erotic work qualifies for print within that six month timeframe (if not sooner), sweeter work takes a bit longer.

Does that help? Every author and every book is different, so really when talking sales numbers it's a matter of talking generalities. Honestly, in what I see looking at the EREC list, as well as my own published work with other publishers, what I'm seeing tends to not be out of the ordinary. And, of course, with the shift in buying habits toward third party retailers (Amazon, ARE, etc.) those "first month" numbers may not be representative of a book's total sales volume in its initial release period. We delay sending new releases to third party vendors for about a month, for example. And I know other publishers make that a longer delay.

If you have specific questions, please don't hesitate to PM/email me and I'll do my best to answer them.

I understand that book sales vary by genre and by length; that's why I asked for average sales.

But thanks for the rest.

I've just been offered a contract by Pink Petal books for my M/F romantic suspense. I'm shaking, LOL! How come the excitement never wears off even if it's not your first book?

Congrats! Good luck!

Thank you

Congrats, Eriador! And yeah, it is always exciting

Notice on the website announcing their closure:

Effective August 31, 2016, Jupiter Gardens Press is closing due to the health of its owner as well as the current publishing climate. If you are a customer and have questions about your orders and/or libraries, please use the contact us form at the top of this page.


We wish to take this opportunity to thank our authors and customers over the nearly nine years we have been in business. We have been honored to work with you and wish you all the very best.


We encourage you to check out our authors’ books in other venues and hope you continue to read our fabulous authors!

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