Thanks for posting your concerns about my publishing business, Anaphora. I benefit from reading how potential writers perceive the services I offer. I do my best to be brutally honest whenever a writer asks me any questions regarding these services. You are all warmly invited to email me with any questions you might have, and I’ll respond within a few hours with detailed explanations. You can find my free “Book Production Guide” on the Anaphora website, and on various other platforms, where I explain my publishing process. I’ve also written a book called, “The History of British and American Author-Publishers,” which strives to explain the benefits of a writer starting their own publishing company to publish themselves and others, as well as how canonical authors have benefited from subsidizing some of their most radical and anti-formulaic publications. I can email a copy of the letter book to anybody for free who emails me with interest. I created these books to answer these types of questions.
Have things changed? I cash purchased a tiny house in Quanah, Texas three months ago. Profits have been pretty steady both from sales through various distribution channels and from authors purchasing copies of their books for resale. I have stopped teaching to focus on my publishing and writing with this purchase, and that’s a huge step for me. It’s great to fully rely on my creativity to make a living. The profits I’ve made from a decade of publishing 240+ titles have sponsored dozens of books I’ve written and released through Anaphora on important topics like sexual harassment, democracy, corruption, and human rights. I am now able to spend more time writing, and less time stressing about where my next paycheck is coming from. Anaphora’s from website includes blurbs from several authors who have been very happy with the services I provided, and there are dozens more of these that did not fit on that page that I can email to anybody upon request. It is possible that in a year, if profits are steady and I can cover my necessities from profits alone, I will stop asking writers to purchase the 50 discounted copies. But this platform has allowed for something very unique for any writer: a room of my own to write and publish without interruptions. The lack of this basic need drove Virginia Woolf and other talented authors to suicide. Why would anybody object to any creative person making a living from subsidy publishing? I’m providing a service (cover and interior design, press releases, setup, etc., etc.) and in exchange authors are contributing a bit of money. Yes, authors like me who have to find a way to make a living cannot be happy with paying a cent for publication. But, authors who have the money to invest in their self-promotion through a publication need to find publishers that can deliver the most for their investment. Based on my research, there are no other publishers out there willing to provide a YouTube book trailer, press release distribution and all the other services I offer for the $562.50/$750 authors pay (and they get 50 softcovers and a free hardcover to resell: if they sell it at a library reading or at a private launch party, the 25% discount becomes a profit). Dickens, Woolf, Scott and most of the best writers in the history of the world benefited from a lot less services, and some paid nearly as much or more without converting the amount into today’s money (and without getting any of the included digital etc. services).
To answer your questions: I leave most of the decisions about how a book is published up to the writer, so that they get what they are looking for. If a writer needs a higher discount, I set it to 53% with Ingram for the softcover, which results in a 40% trade discount being left to bookstores like Barnes & Noble. All of my hardcovers are set automatically to the 53-55% discount. On the other hand, some authors do not want to take on the burden of the cost of returns, and their books are unlikely to generate interest from physical bookstores. For them, a 40% discount that leaves 20% to distributors, like Amazon, allows for maximum profits per book. Amazon can take 40% instead of 20%, but quantity of books sold won’t change with this percentage. Most other online retailers, libraries and various other channels are happy with 20%. Recently an author asked about this because BN and some other physical bookstores always use this as an excuse for not picking up a small press title – I explained what I’m saying in this paragraph, and he decided against it. I’ve had an author increase the discount to 55% and lower the price of the book so that we’d only be splitting pennies if a book sold ($16 for a 480-page book or the like). As I predicted, BN still did not accept the title, but the author stubbornly insisted on keeping the book at this price-point. I’m happy to oblige writers with their requests. The 50 discounted copies purchase covers my expenses for a title, and after this the author can gamble with their book as they will. I’ve tested these types of rules with my own books to understand it from the author’s perspective. Once I queried my local BN about participating in a reading/ signing, and was surprised when they invited me to a “Local Authors” event. They purchased 20+ copies of the book from around 16 different authors and placed them in pairs on shabby tables around the store. The author signing books next to me kept hitting me and yelling at passersby to keep their attention away from my book. Because he was so aggressive and threatening nobody dared to ask me what my book was about in the two hours I spent there being beat up. BN’s purchase of the 20+ copies cost me $300 or so for printing and shipping. It would have cost more, but I set the books to be destroyed rather than shipped to me when they were returned. BN came out with no profits, and I had a massive loss. They said they’d display the book at several different stores, but obviously they did not, and not a single book sold. They do these events in the hope that local authors will bring their own buyers hoping that sales will mean other BN stores will also pick up the book. All this goes to say that there’s a reason physical bookstore sales are declining: it’s not a pleasant experience shopping or selling in them. Small, independent presses are given hardly any space in the big stores even with help from the best distributors in the industry. This space can be extremely expensive if you multiply the $300 loss by 2,000 stores… Thus, selling through online channels like Amazon and Ingram, and working to make customers aware of these locations is a better strategy for all publishers and authors. I can’t imagine how I could’ve stayed in business for 9 years if I didn’t understand “how distribution works”…
Anaphora does offer ebooks. I automatically create EBSCO and ProQuest ebooks – these are more respectable in academic circles: the majority of authors I publish are in academia. If an author asks, I can also make a Kindle, Smashwords or another ebook version, but I think these detract from printed book sales, and do not recommend them.
Yes, I create hardcover and softcover books together so that I can send a single release notifying 11,000 reviewers, academics, librarians etc. of the book’s availability and that they can buy a soft or hard cover edition (or ebook). Librarians want one, others want the other, and they’re happy, and don’t email me to complain. I heard criticism from librarians about their need for hardcovers, and that’s why I added these. If a writer doesn’t want them to come out together, he or she can ask me and I’d be happy to oblige them.
There have been industry reviews. Here are some of them:
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-68114-299-9
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-68114-302-6
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw...titles-from-self-publishers-october-2017.html
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/howard-w-robertson/love-cretaceous/
Authors have also been reviewed in their regional newspapers and major magazines, and have done interviews with NPR, Fox and other channels about their Anaphora titles. Reviews are listed on the individual authors’ pages, and I advertise these on my social media when they come out (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter).
You can see all of the books Anaphora has released on almost any online bookseller (internationally), and if you order it, it can even be shipped to your local bookstore.
I’m doing everything possible to promote Anaphora’s titles. If fewer authors were dissuaded from publishing with Anaphora by posts like this, and I released more titles, I would have a larger budget for marketing these books. If you have ideas on how I can do more, I would be delighted to hear your ideas. I always invite authors to propose ideas I’ve never tried before in addition to my standard services. I learn by experimenting, so there is no extra charge for even the most out-of-the-box proposals.
I’d be delighted to address any other questions you guys might have. I’m not editing this response deliberately because it’s the unfiltered truth.
