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What books have you published so far? I'm an old guy and not exceptionally computer literate and wasn't able to figure out how to find the answer.
To be clear, whether an author pays for the project costs themselves as they self publish, or a conventional publisher appears to pay for all of the project costs, or residual payments are held until project costs are covered in a collective model. The truth is that the story project pays for all project costs. Conventional publishers are not in the business of developing and promoting books for charity. To think otherwise is misguided.
However, aside from the fact that there are different financial models to develop story projects, what we are really excited about at Montag Press is that we've created a collective structure that elevates authors, editors, transmedia developers and designers to participate together on amazing projects, and to share both the work and the eventual rewards.
Hopefully, as an author, you'll consider joining us at Montag Press when you look into all the options that are available to you.
a conventional publisher appears to pay for all of the project costs,
You still didn't reply who your distributor is. If you don't want to inform us, well, that's fine, but this is the kind of transparency potential authors will look for. Most companies are perfectly transparent about who their distributor is.ps. yes we have distribution, yes we have a printer, yes we have all the basics covered.
pps. having worked in the publishing world, I can tell you unequivocally, that commercial publishers DO NOT pay for all production costs, including marketing and promotions. Authors do, either through lower residuals, or held residuals. Money doesn't 'flow to the author' money flows to all the people that worked on the project. Money flows to the MD, PM, the editors, the designers, the secretaries, the janitors, the landlords, etc. Everyone makes a living off the project work. I've done the numbers, I've done the contracts, I know the details. To think otherwise is completely naive. The big difference is that the publishers have to carry the negatives, whereas the author doesn't have any liabilities to the negative. So the worst that can happen to an author is that they get zero. Whereas the worst negative exposure for a publisher can be unlimited, depending on how much they originally spent.
Why is this information not up on your website? All I can see on your website are these people's degrees, and their fiction interests. Their actual credentials, the ones you mentioned here, aren't up on your website. I'm sure that would interest potential authors more than their fiction interests though.Allie P., our Stageworks lead, has worked as a professional dramaturge on dozens of theatrical productions, both academic and professional, where she worked closely with directors and playwrights to shepherd plays onto stage.
Jessica T., our YA lead, is a former and reformed literary and publishing lawyer who left law to work as an associate at a literary agency, before herself becoming a represented YA author. Currently unpublished, she has high hopes for her own work. However it was her excellent understanding of the YA story mechanics that led us to recruit her to Montag as the YA Lead.
Mari S., our Horror lead, is a literature instructor and lecturer with extensive academic experience in the Horror genre. Here editing skills are flawless.
Mara H. has ghost edited several fan fiction anthology and moderates several prominent fan fiction sites as an administrator. While less traditional in her publishing experience, her prominence in the fan fiction community, and her commitment to works of SciFi romance make her an excellent choice for a partner on any SciFi romance project.
Sam C. is a professional layout artist, creative lead and designer, having worked professionally on hundreds of textbook projects. His work at Montag is his first work on fiction layout and design, however his skills as a designer are unsurpassed.
pps. having worked in the publishing world, I can tell you unequivocally, that commercial publishers DO NOT pay for all production costs, including marketing and promotions.
& who we wish to be in 10 years
http://www.nightshadebooks.com
.. To put it in context, here's the professional experience description of our favorite publishers Night Shade Books. In that context, we are satisfied with our experience.
Having worked in the publishing world since probably before you were born, I can tell you unequivocally that commercial publishers DO pay for all the production costs, including marketing and promotions, out of their slice of the pie.
Also have no idea what you mean by "residuals". If you mean "royalties", large trade publishers don't pay marketing, promotions, or production costs out of royalties, nor do they withhold royalties, or whatever the heck you were talking about.
Good to know my book's in the 5%, then. Actually, I think most if not all "traditionally" published books here are - and probably most of the self-published ones as well.Did you know that 95% of all traditionally published books sell less than 500 copies?
Good to know my book's in the 5%, then. Actually, I think most if not all "traditionally" published books here are - and probably most of the self-published ones as well.
Given that the author of the quote is the founder of "Prismatic Publishing", which sells packages costing up to $6495, I can see why he would want to scare writers away from one of the alternatives.
I self-published my first book before I looked for a publisher, so I could show it to my friends and family. Want to know how much it cost me?Finally, for all of those that suggested that you would rather self publish. Remember there are significant up front costs to self publishing, all of which you would have to recoup before making any money on the books that you edited alone, designed alone, lay out by yourself and promoted by yourself.
See the break even points for the popular self publishers here:
http://writersweekly.com/the_latest_..._04272011.html
http://sactowriters.com/make-money-part-1/
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Did you know that 95% of all traditionally published books sell less than 500 copies? Remember the premise of this article is to earn a living as an author via traditional publishing. Can you really live off of the royalties on the sale of 500 books? Of course not. Not only that but if you only sell 500 copies of your book you will receive no royalties at all.
That’s because royalties are only paid AFTER the publisher recoups their production costs. Those costs include: the advance, editing, interior and exterior layout, etc."
Given that the author of the quote is the founder of "Prismatic Publishing", which sells packages costing up to $6495, I can see why he would want to scare writers away from one of the alternatives.
Good point. However, we need to be carefully to not let the Argumentum ad Hominem take away from his points, regardless of his implied incentive to bring them up.
I'm still confused why you can't say who distributes your books. That isn't exactly proprietary.
Like Priceless1 said, and like I myself asked you a couple of times: who is your distributor? You said it before that you have a distributor, and that's great for you, but who is it? Why do you dodge this question every time?As to our business relationships, those are part of our proprietary business advantages, and we are disinclined at this stage to share them. I hope you can understand.
Why? You seem the only one doing this. Why would anyone need personal protection when they're reviewing author submissions? So far, all editors, agents, etc. I've ever talked to, mailed submissions to or worked with have all had their full name in their email, signatures and on their website. Why do you think this wouldn't work for your editors?Based upon my professional experience, and industry best management practices, it's good practice for editors to have a level of personal protection when they are reviewing author submissions. For this reason, we have decided to provide only a limited amount of personal information for general public.
Oh, really?
This is the Bewares Thread. While we don't try to attack anyone here, and I hope you don't feel attacked, we do give out criticism here. This is basically the entire point of the Bewares Thread. The purpose of this board is to help out authors, who are looking to submit their work to a publisher. They can come see this forum, search the thread for said publisher and see if they'd be a good match. This forum is here to give criticism when needed, all in the spirit of protecting and helping out authors.Now if I can be so bold to be honest herein, I am surprised by the level of criticism and discontentment that is apparent among the membership of this forum. Whether misrepresenting Montag's business model and creating a Straw Man fallacy, or by criticizing Montag's role model Night Shade Books by attacking the trees and missing the forest. By appealing to authority "Having worked in the publishing world since probably before you were born" and arguing the semantics of royalties versus residuals, it certainly seems like if it's not one thing, it's another.
Good point. However, we need to be carefully to not let the Argumentum ad Hominem take away from his points, regardless of his implied incentive to bring them up.
You at Montag may be lucky, but I can't say the same for any writers in this situation.And if we at Montag are lucky we'll find ourselves working together someday
montagpress:
However, we need to be carefully to not let the Argumentum ad Hominem take away from his points, regardless of his implied incentive to bring them up.
montagpress:
Now if I can be so bold to be honest herein, I am surprised by the level of criticism and discontentment that is apparent among the membership of this forum.
montagpress:
I promise to manage the very best transmedia publishing collective that I can, where I will try to recruit the very best editors here in Northern Califronia, and I will try to solicit the very best in new fiction voices. And you can work on your best stories. And if we at Montag are lucky we'll find ourselves working together someday, and if we are not, hopefully you'll find yourselves with story partners, creative leads, transmedia developers and project managers that exceed your wildest expectations.
montagpress:
I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes by Faber.
“Those who don’t build must burn. It’s as old as history and juvenile delinquents.”
If by traditional you mean "print", then yes, I'd believe it. That would include the tens of thousands of titles published by Publiscamerica and iUniverse, specialised academic texts, etc.Did you know that 95% of all traditionally published books sell less than 500 copies?
The reason we use the term residual is that every collective member gets a percentage.
Did you know that 95% of all traditionally published books sell less than 500 copies?
That’s because royalties are only paid AFTER the publisher recoups their production costs. Those costs include: the advance, editing, interior and exterior layout, etc.
The reason we use the term residual is that every collective member gets a percentage. Royalties are author specific. See more information here:
http://johnaugust.com/2007/why-writers-get-residuals
As to our business model, Entangled uses a similar model:
http://www.heatherhowland.com/2011/03/meet-liz-pelletier-founder-of-entangled-publishing/
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So how is Entangled different from those models?
We’re focused on selling as many copies of every book we contract as we can. In that sense, we’re like a traditional publisher. We put a lot of time and energy into every cover, content editing, and copy editing. We need every book to be as attractive on the outside and compelling on the inside as we can possibly manage. In addition, we assign a publicist to every book, who works with the Marketing Director to get their project into the right reviewers’ hands prior to release date, procuring advertising spots, ensuring book club inclusion, and handling the administrative duties of an author’s promotional campaign.
How can we afford such a large staff without creating an overhead to rival a traditional publisher? By melding the traditional publishing business plan with the successful percentage-of-sales e-publishing agency model across the entire company. Everyone from the copy editor to the Marketing Director has a financial stake in every book. We only make money if our author makes money.
Since we aren’t strangling ourselves with huge overhead costs, there is no need to force a high cover price until we reach a break-even point. Our pricing can be agile in a quickly changing market, allowing us to position each title for maximum sales. And, unlike a typical e-publisher, while we certainly hope to one day reap the benefits of a backlist, our model doesn’t require an author to wait until she is bleary-eyed from writing all night long, and promoting herself during lunch breaks and every evening while still working her day job until she has enough titles each bringing in a small income. In addition, to remain attractive to those authors still considering self-publishing, we pay the highest royalties in the industry with a nice escalation clause: the more books sold the higher the royalty for the author. It’s a win-win for everyone!"
About the claim that publishers pay for promotion themselves -
http://sactowriters.com/make-money-part-1/
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Did you know that 95% of all traditionally published books sell less than 500 copies? Remember the premise of this article is to earn a living as an author via traditional publishing. Can you really live off of the royalties on the sale of 500 books? Of course not. Not only that but if you only sell 500 copies of your book you will receive no royalties at all.
That’s because royalties are only paid AFTER the publisher recoups their production costs. Those costs include: the advance, editing, interior and exterior layout, etc."
Finally, for all of those that suggested that you would rather self publish. Remember there are significant up front costs to self publishing, all of which you would have to recoup before making any money on the books that you edited alone, designed alone, lay out by yourself and promoted by yourself.
See the break even points for the popular self publishers here:
http://writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/006686_04272011.html
Wait, who are these "collective" members? Are they the staff and owners? Or are authors also members of the collective?
This is a fake statistic, which has been widely disseminated across the Web.Did you know that 95% of all traditionally published books sell less than 500 copies?