[Pub svcs] Inkshares

downtherabbithole said:

Just to clarify, she didn't charge me to edit, she had suggested a few third parties for me to hire at her recommendation and they cost $3000. She didn't force me by any means.

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Your past-agent did? Have you researched these editors to make sure they're reputable? Because there is a type of scam out there where an agent/editor will take someone in, tell them they need to hire an editor and suggest one to them. This editor might be the agent/editor themselves (under a different name), or working with this person for compensation.

You don't need to edit a MS before it goes to the publishing house. It does help, but by no means does there have to be professional editing down when the publisher should be doing that. If it's unreadable, then why would the agent represent it? If it needs a bit of work, why wouldn't the agent ask for R&R or do some themselves--they should be qualified to do some editing.

I don't know who your past-agent was, but I highly suggest you either find the thread about them and write up your account or start one. That sounds plain fishy to me.

I'd be suspicious as hell about an agent who wants me to pay for an editor.

No, I swear! My fault tends to lean towards being too blunt, not being passive . It's all good .

downtherabbithole said:

No way. This agent is very reputable and everyone has glowing praises of her here and she has produced some NYT bestsellers. She is in no way fishy. She didn't take me on and then tell me to hire an editor fresh off the bat and I think you guys are taking it the wrong way and all have your "radar" on high alert as you don't know the full story. I was with her for a couple of years shopping a different MS before she ASKED me if I WANTED to hire an editor. She said she would make no guarantee that the book would be publishable if I hired the editor and made it clear it would be my choice as my agent felt out of her depth with the genre. The editor definitely had credentials (worked at a major publishing house) and because she didn't perform all of her duties, she never charged me in the end for the work she did do.

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Dear, that's right, we don't know the whole story; you have to understand that we don't know who you're talking about because you haven't named them, you're saying little of your experiences, and we're suspicious because we care. It's not like we're overly sensitive, we're this way because we want to help people--that's the whole purpose of the Bewares, Recommendations & Background Check.

Please don't be defensive, instead be clear and understanding that we don't know what you know.

DownTheRabbitHole -

I just had a few thoughts after reading the thread. Feel free to take them or leave them.

The $3,000 editing bill seems high to me -- unless your MS is over 100K. If you ever do want to get an outside editor, my .02 is to shop around. Especially with all the layoffs in NY publishing, I know there's a lot of editors freelancing and you may get a better price for the same experience.

And just let me clarify -- the $3K isn't high because the edits aren't worth it. Hell no. A good editor is worth their weight in gold. $3K is high because it's half the OP's yearly writing salary.

Which, by the way, making $6,000+ a year self pubbing is *awesome*. Congratulations! Don't get discouraged because you're not making EL James money or Amanda Hocking money -- for one, you're not writing in their genre and two James had a platform of readers and Amanda had several books out before they went nova. Since you (and most of us) don't have that (yet), you really can't compare your successes with theirs.

The thing with your agent is bugging me. I think I'm confused. It sounds like you submitted the MS to your agent and she said, "I can't sell this as is. If you want, go to Editor XX and see if she can help you for $3K and then I'll look at it again." You went to Editor XX paid the $3k, but it was reimbursed to you when the editor couldn't complete the edits.

Did your agent give you specifics as to why she couldn't sell it or what needed to be changed?

If she can't sell it, I still think you can do better than Inkshares -- but good luck to you if that's what you decided on.

Have you thought about putting your first chapter or the prologue on Wattpad to see if you can 1. generate a buzz or 2. get some reader feedback?

Have you considered submitting the MS to other publishers on your own?

Because I don't want to get too off base in the Bewares, Recommendation & Background check on Inkshares, here's what strikes up a warning flag:

Looking at Inkshares, it seems to me they're set up to crowdsource non traditional niche books that wouldn't find a home in NY publishing. Maybe your book fits that description. The ones that got funded were mostly non-fiction books. There weren't any YA books, but there was one children's book.

However, I saw one YA fantasy on there looking for funding that said in the description that said it was already self-published on Amazon almost two years ago but he was crowdfunding to get a hard cover edition and to reach more readers. I went to Amazon and read the first chapter and thought that it wasn't very good. My opinion, though. And it didn't look like he had any backers, so I'm questioning if the crowdsource can be successful enough without a platform.

The price for an ebook is $12.00 for a 200 page novel. A 350 page mystery ebook is $21.00. That's going to be a hard sell in this market for a new author.

Anyway, hope this helps.

downtherabbithole said:

Thank you for all of your information!

One thing I am curious about, though, when you talk about editors not asking for upfront fees. My agent hired an editor that I paid about $3000 for just help with the story and not copyediting (though the money was refunded as she ended up quitting due to a family emergency). And before you guys freak out, YES, this agent is someone that is accredited, has sold very big books and is on Absolute Write in this forum (with their own topic) as someone that is both a good agent and someone you want as your agent. I was never forced to hire this person, though, it was just a suggestion, which I went ahead and did.

Also, I have spoken to a couple of editors about copyediting one of my current novels that's already out on the market, and I'm getting quoted at about $1000 just for copyediting. One of these editors is also with CreateSpace. So I'm confused about editors that don't charge upfront? Do they exist? And if so, can I be hooked up with one? lol

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Whoops, sorry that was confusing — I didn't mean you should try to find a freelance editor who doesn't charge up front. Good ones charge, and rightly so — though both agents and beta readers have given me excellent developmental editing for free.

My point is that, if you are going to pay any kind of up-front fee (even through a crowd-funding model), I think you should be able to choose the editor, or go on a trial run with him/her before committing. At least, I'd want to.

By contrast, in trade publishing, you do not choose the editor, he/she chooses to buy your book — but you also do not pay up front. With any luck, you get paid up front. The publisher is making the investment, not you or your funders.

I don't know enough to evaluate the Inkshares model overall, but that part stands out to me — they will exert editorial control over the text without making their own investment in it. If it were me, I'd rather self-publish — since you are selling books, which is huge — or go the trade route again.

The Self-Pub forum has more info on this, and I'm no expert, but I doubt you need an expensive publicist to sell more books. In my experience, publicists bug journalists with emails. Journalists delete them, because there are so many self-published books vying for space in the market. You're already carving out a space of your own, which is awesome. Better to reach your fanbase directly via mailing lists and YA blog coverage.

Looking at the funded books, I don't think what's going on is traditional crowdfunding (if there is such a thing). At least, it doesn't look like a bunch of readers check out a book proposal, say "Hey, cool!" and preorder a copy in the hopes of helping it get published so they can read it.

Each of the fully-funded books has a listing for how many people backed it, and how much money was raised. The lowest average donation was $41.85 (232 people gave a total of $9710), and the highest was over $300 (71 people, $22,060). Each of the others came in between $50-100 per average donation.

So, something else is going on here. It's a lot of money being raised by relatively few people--that first book I mentioned is the only one that had over 200 backers. The others had between 40-177. Family? Friends? Millionaire philanthropists? Not sure, but as a business model it makes me wary.

Marlys said:

Looking at the funded books, I don't think what's going on is traditional crowdfunding (if there is such a thing). At least, it doesn't look like a bunch of readers check out a book proposal, say "Hey, cool!" and preorder a copy in the hopes of helping it get published so they can read it.

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The Inkshares projects I looked at all include a "pre-order in bulk" option for ordering 25 or more paperback copies for $10/copy. (At least, 25 seems to be the minimum -- that's not spelled out anywhere, but 25 is the smallest number that worked for me. The default, if you click on a "pre-order in bulk" link, is 50 copies for $500).

I don't think that's common in other crowdfunded projects, and in fact Kickstarter explicitly forbids offering rewards that include more than 10 of the same item.

I'm Jeremy, the CEO of Inkshares, and I thought I'd chime in and offer a few points of clarification.

We believe that authors want to write and be read, and not deal with the business end of publishing. Self-publishing is a great option, but we feel there's a reason why we don't see big name authors defecting en-mass to self-publish. They simply find value in the services provided to them by their publishing houses.

We took a look at the way most publishers treat authors and were shocked. Most authors have a hell of a time getting a book deal. There are myriad examples of great manuscripts getting published only because of perseverance (Harry Potter was rejected 8 times, Big Fish was rejected 15 times). Indeed, a handful of people at traditional publishing houses decide what readers get to read. Authors have to get through them in order to get published. We don't believe this is right.

Further, publishers loose money on most of the books they publish. So they have to take a disproportionate amount revenue to cover those losses. Because of this, authors who get deals get 10-15% royalties (often less than $1 per copy sold). We don't believe this is right either.

So, we started Inkshares to empower readers to decide what they want to read. Readers end up "voting" for interesting books with their money. This money, in turn, finances the production of said books. And because financing comes from the crowd, we have no losses to cover. This is why we're able to offer 70% royalties to authors.

We make no profit on monies crowdfunded. All are applied toward the production of the book (editing, design, offset printing for the first 1000 copies and marketing). We only make money when we sell books. This aligns our incentives with the author.

Ingram (our distributor) invested in us. And through them we have the same access a company like O’Reilly has to “trade accounts” (Amazon, B&N, indie book stores, etc.). Every book we publish also has an ebook counterpart, which get distributed through 100’s of websites (with Amazon being the most important of these).

And if the first print run sells well, we finance subsequent print runs with our own money. In this sense, we behave more like a traditional publisher. But we do so with reduced risk as we’ve already seen the book perform in market at this point.

We are still a young company, and the model as described above isn’t working perfectly yet. Right now, crowdfunding isn’t covering all of our costs. Indeed, we’re spending some of our own money on the publication of our first books while we work out the kinks in our cost model.

And, perhaps most importantly, we have yet to create an environment in which authors are funded based solely on the merit of their book idea. Authors are having to work hard on their crowdfunding campaign to attract backers. We (Inkshares) have seen bookstores contribute to projects during crowdfunding (which is what that bulk purchase option was built for).

We’re working like made to build an ecosystem for readers. But right now, only 10% of our backers have backed more than 1 project (with that number growing each day).

Now, as to the issue of Daniel Wallace, no, we did not pay him to endorse Inkshares or use our website. He crowdfunded just like everybody else. He knows someone who knows Thad (my co-founder), so there was a loose personal connection.

inkjeremy said:

I'm Jeremy, the CEO of Inkshares, and I thought I'd chime in and offer a few points of clarification.

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Welcome to AW, Jeremy. This is a good place for writers to be but I recognise it can be difficult for some of the publishers we examine: thank you for remaining polite and respectful. It's much appreciated.

We believe that authors want to write and be read, and not deal with the business end of publishing. Self-publishing is a great option, but we feel there's a reason why we don't see big name authors defecting en-mass to self-publish. They simply find value in the services provided to them by their publishing houses.

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All writers who want to be published have to deal with the business end of publishing.

Big-name authors find value in the services provided to them by their agents and publishers, of course: do you provide those same services? If writers are having to raise the money to publish their books through you, then I'd suggest you don't. And I'm not sure about your distribution, which is very important to a book's success, but I'll come to that later.

We took a look at the way most publishers treat authors and were shocked. Most authors have a hell of a time getting a book deal. There are myriad examples of great manuscripts getting published only because of perseverance (Harry Potter was rejected 8 times, Big Fish was rejected 15 times). Indeed, a handful of people at traditional publishing houses decide what readers get to read. Authors have to get through them in order to get published. We don't believe this is right.

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Publishing is a business, and its customers are readers, not writers. Publishers can't publish all the books they are sent, because they have to make money--and most books, sadly, wouldn't earn their keep.

It's not shocking that publishers reject so many books; it would be poor business practice if they didn't.

Further, publishers loose money on most of the books they publish.

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No, they don't.

About 70% of books fail to earn out, but this doesn't mean the publishers lose money from that 70%. In my experience, at good publishers at least 70% of books make a good profit, even if they don't earn out their advances.

So they have to take a disproportionate amount revenue to cover those losses. Because of this, authors who get deals get 10-15% royalties (often less than $1 per copy sold). We don't believe this is right either.

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Your argument is invalid because publishers don't make the losses you describe. And publishers don't "take a disproportionate amount revenue": they run to very low profit margins, and invest a lot of money in publishing books well--which is clear if you look at their accounts. The royalties paid to authors are not usually outrageously low: they're often more than the publisher makes in profit per sale.

So, we started Inkshares to empower readers to decide what they want to read. Readers end up "voting" for interesting books with their money. This money, in turn, finances the production of said books. And because financing comes from the crowd, we have no losses to cover. This is why we're able to offer 70% royalties to authors.

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Is that 70% on net, though? Because if so it's misleading for you to say that this is better than the royalties of "10-15% royalties" which you mentioned earlier, which are almost certainly based on cover price. Apples and oranges.

We make no profit on monies crowdfunded. All are applied toward the production of the book (editing, design, offset printing for the first 1000 copies and marketing). We only make money when we sell books. This aligns our incentives with the author.

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You're using the crowdfunding to pay for the costs of publication. OK. So you're taking no financial risk on any of the books you sell. Then you and the author split the net income, 70:30 in the author's favour. Do I have that right?

Why would an author not just self publish and keep all of the net income?

How many copies do your books usually sell?

Ingram (our distributor) invested in us. And through them we have the same access a company like O’Reilly has to “trade accounts” (Amazon, B&N, indie book stores, etc.).

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Here's a list of all the publishers which have a full-service distribution agreement with Ingram. Inkshares isn't on it. Is this an admin error on Ingram's part, or do you not have a full-service distribution agreement with them?

Without such an agreement, your books are not going to get into bookshops unless someone else--usually the author--gets them there. You're definitely not going to get nationwide on-shelf availability: and that full-service distribution account, leading to bookshop presence, is a big part of the reason why writers need publishers.

Every book we publish also has an ebook counterpart, which get distributed through 100’s of websites (with Amazon being the most important of these).

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Again, this is something writers can easily achieve for themselves.

And if the first print run sells well, we finance subsequent print runs with our own money. In this sense, we behave more like a traditional publisher. But we do so with reduced risk as we’ve already seen the book perform in market at this point.

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How many of the books you've published have gone on to a second print-run?

We are still a young company, and the model as described above isn’t working perfectly yet. Right now, crowdfunding isn’t covering all of our costs. Indeed, we’re spending some of our own money on the publication of our first books while we work out the kinks in our cost model.

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I hope you work it out soon.

And, perhaps most importantly, we have yet to create an environment in which authors are funded based solely on the merit of their book idea.

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There's already a really good business model "in which authors are funded based solely on the merit of their book": it's called trade publishing.

And suggesting that books should be funded solely on their merit is at odds with out your argument above that it's not "right" that "Authors have to get through [editors and agents] in order to get published". When publishers reject books they do so because they judge those books on their merit, and find them lacking. How is it not right when trade publishers do this, but it's something you aspire to?

inkjeremy said:

Further, publishers loose money on most of the books they publish.

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*cringe*

Oh, dude, nooooo. This is just not true at all! Where did you get this information from, if I may ask?

Do any of the people involved in Inkshares have experience on the business end of publishing? I would assume that if you were founding a publishing company, somebody involved would have experience with publishing, but if you think publishers lose money on most of their books, I'm a little worried you may not.

Hi, Jeremy,

Thanks for your post. I know that we seem pretty tough on new publishers and publishing services here, but that's because the small press/self-publishing world is truly a minefield for authors right now, and it's essential for authors to do due diligence, especially for new ventures (that pesky business end of things).

I wonder if you'd consider addressing my concerns about Inkshares' publishing terms (I've pasted them in below) and correcting me if I've misinterpreted.

I have concerns about Inkshares' Publishing Terms. If I'm reading them right, you're eligible for royalty payments only for sales over 1,000 copies.

Also, while a 70/30 split of "net revenues" sounds good (with 70% to the author), "net revenues" is defined as net income (list price less discounts) less production costs and shipping. So that 70% is a much smaller piece of the pie than it seems--and Inkshares is essentially getting paid back twice, once for the expense of creating the book (via the crowdfunding), and a second time for the cost of producing it for order. This is minimal-risk publishing--and the less risk a publisher takes, the less incentive it has to vigorously market and promote its books.

It's not clear to me whether Inkshares' contract is life-of-copyright--Inkshares' use of the word "irrevocable" implies to me that it is--and if so, what the reversion provisions are (it's super-important that a life-of copyright grant be balanced by precise reversion language).

Although the grant of rights is non-exclusive (theoretically meaning that you could publish with someone else or publish yourself), the benefit of this is seriously diminished--if not entirely eliminated--by a sweeping non-competition clause and by the fact that Inkshares claims the right to serve as your agent for the sale of just about all subsidiary rights, including foreign language, film, serial, merchandising, and more.

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I have an additional question. Above, you say that the crowdfunding pays for printing of an initial 1,000 copies. But what if pre-orders and orders don't justify that number? Do you print the 1,000 anyway, and later on remainder any that don't sell? Or do you adjust the print run to match the orders--and if so, what happens to the crowdfunding-raised money that's left over from the smaller print run?

Thank you!

- Victoria

@Old Hack, we're in the "integration" phase with Ingram and will have full-fledged distribution services through them at the end of October (I just setup two of our books through CoreSource) We worked with Mark Ouimet and Gonzalo Ferrero to setup the deal.

And to be clear, we haven't published a book yet. We launched in January and have seen the crowdfunding end of our business work well. The Cat's Pajamas (Daniel Wallace's book) is on a boat somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and will be in bookstores in November.

Regarding the economic viability of traditional publishing, we did a survey of BookScan data from 2013 and found the average net proceeds per book was just over $17K. Our BookScan data includes publishers like Hachette, Chronicle, Random House, MacMillan, etc. Given the costs involved with publishing (offset runs, design, editing and marketing) and the point you made that publishers “…invest a lot of money in publishing books well", this number is break-even at best.

Financial risk is mitigated with the first print run, which comprises books owed to backers during crowdfunding as well as pre-orders placed prior to publication. We have a funding algorithm that tells authors how much needs to be raised in order to produce the book and get the first print run to market. Some authors also choose to put an advance on top of the number our algorithm spits out, and said advance is paid to the author once the funding goal is reached.

@RedWombat yes, Nion McEvoy (CEO of Chronicle books) invested in us and advises us from time to time. More importantly, Larry Levitsky (one of my co-founders) ran Microsoft Press in the 80's and was later an executive at McGraw Hill. So we have folks who come from publishing on board. And Ingram (our distributor) also invested in us, and we work very closely with them on distribution (I just got back from a sales meeting with Ingram in Berkely).

@victoriastrauss 70% of net receipts for a book that retails for $18 works out to around $5.60. That's what you'd make per copy sold through "trade accounts". And it works out much better when that copy is sold on Inkshares.com (closer to $10). Given that we make no money off pre-sales that come in during crowdfunding, we are highly incentivized to sell your book. There’s a ton of operational overhead involved with the production of each book (opportunity cost, publicity, sales cycles), and if we endeavored only to sell a modest amount of copies per title, we’d become very inefficient.

Regarding terms, our aim is to allow authors to walk away with their book and find another publisher somewhere else if they think they can get a better deal. Our contract is life-of-copyright, which suits most authors. But if this got in the way of the author's procurement of another deal, we'd likely waive that right.

Regarding the 1,000 copies, we know that volume is justified because our algorithm (that which determines how much needs to be raised) factors it in. And those 1,000 copies are done via offset, which lowers overall costs.

But again, I must emphasize that we’re a new company with a yet-to-be-proven model. Our early crop of authors tend to fit the “early adopter” profile and are interested in connecting with their readers. I encourage you to read Samuel Barrantes’ post on Medium about his experience with us, https://medium.com/@slbfiction/how-humanity-and-not-a-literary-agent-changed-my-life-fc746da8d599. There he writes:

“Inkshares is a start-up, and we all know most start-ups fail. But I didn’t join Inkshares because I was afraid of succeeding. It’s true, I could’ve gone with a more traditional approach to publishing, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t try it previously. After college, because I thought “writer” was something to be versus to do, it took fourteen MFA rejections, a three-year solo-dance of literary masochism culminating in a shitty first novel, countless short stories that I more or less hate, and two years of editing Slim and The Beast to find not only an alternative to the traditional publishing model, but also a better way to connect with all of you.”

inkjeremy said:

Regarding the economic viability of traditional publishing, we did a survey of BookScan data from 2013 and found the average net proceeds per book was just over $17K.

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Am I reading this right--you analyzed data for one year only?

If so, most books are in print, and earning income, for much longer than that. Also, for trade publishing, the amount of money a book makes per year tends to depend heavily on where it's at in its publishing cycle--for a typical book (and obviously there are exceptions), the bulk of its income is made in the first year of publication, with a gradual-to-precipitous decline after that. So analyzing a book's income in Year 3 of its publishing cycle may not tell you anything about what it might have earned in Year 1 or Year 2.

Regarding terms, our aim is to allow authors to walk away with their book and find another publisher somewhere else if they think they can get a better deal. Our contract is life-of-copyright, which suits most authors. But if this got in the way of the author's procurement of another deal, we'd likely waive that right.

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It's good that you're willing to consider letting authors go. But that's at your discretion, and authors can't count on it--plus, it's probably a moot point since I doubt that another publisher would be willing to make an offer if it wasn't sure the rights were free (since most publishers ask for exclusivity). Also, as I read your non-competition language, authors are barred from publishing or self-publishing any new edition while your edition is still in print. And the contract is life-of-copyright. So really, authors can't just walk away.

I don't have a problem with life-of-copyright contracts in principle (though I think that for smaller presses, a time-limited contract is preferable). However, a life-of-copyright grant MUST be balanced by a detailed, specific reversion clause that ties "out of print" and rights reversion to sales minimums. Would you be willing to share your reversion language with us?

- Victoria

inkjeremy said:

Regarding the economic viability of traditional publishing, we did a survey of BookScan data from 2013 and found the average net proceeds per book was just over $17K. Our BookScan data includes publishers like Hachette, Chronicle, Random House, MacMillan, etc. Given the costs involved with publishing (offset runs, design, editing and marketing) and the point you made that publishers “…invest a lot of money in publishing books well", this number is break-even at best.

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Ah. Now, did you check those sales numbers against actual royalty statements? Bookscan notoriously underreports. (If you are big enough to sell at WalMart or Costco, if you are a graphic novelist with other distributions, etc, if, like me, you do sales through book clubs, etc, etc.)

Actual hard data about how far under their reporting is hard to come by, and certainly varies by individual circumstance, but even Bookscan says they're only 3/4ths of sales (and many people who aren't Bookscan say they're getting sales double those numbers, and sometimes higher--I stopped even bothering with tracking when it became obvious that my royalty statements were much higher than Bookscan thought they were gonna be.)

I hope your analysis allowed for this, but I gotta say, the "publishers lose money" statement is still a pretty big red flag at the moment. Say that publishing profit margins are thin and you're getting closer.

Very glad that you've got actual people with publishing experience on-board--that's definitely in your favor.

I thought net proceeds were proceeds after costs were taken out. Am I reading that wrong? My business/economic-speak is weak at best.

inkjeremy said:

@Old Hack, we're in the "integration" phase with Ingram and will have full-fledged distribution services through them at the end of October (I just setup two of our books through CoreSource) We worked with Mark Ouimet and Gonzalo Ferrero to setup the deal.

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As I understand it, CoreSource only deals in digital distribution. It doesn't give you distribution for your printed editions.

Having skimmed through this PDF issued by Ingram, it looks like the distribution services they offer in the US do not include sales services: it's not much more than a wholesale account. I might have got this wrong, of course, but I'm still concerned that you don't have full distribution--by which I mean a distributor which will not only handle orders for your books when they come in, but will also go out and actively look for sales on your behalf. Such distribution is essential for a book's success.

If Ingram is handling your print distribution, you're going to need a sales team onboard too. Who is going to look after your sales for you?

And to be clear, we haven't published a book yet. We launched in January and have seen the crowdfunding end of our business work well. The Cat's Pajamas (Daniel Wallace's book) is on a boat somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and will be in bookstores in November.

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If you've not yet published anything, it's very unlikely that any good full-service distributors will work with you, I'm afraid. Most require publishers to have a solid history of good books and strong sales before they'll sign you up.

Regarding the economic viability of traditional publishing, we did a survey of BookScan data from 2013 and found the average net proceeds per book was just over $17K. Our BookScan data includes publishers like Hachette, Chronicle, Random House, MacMillan, etc. Given the costs involved with publishing (offset runs, design, editing and marketing) and the point you made that publishers “…invest a lot of money in publishing books well", this number is break-even at best.

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Heh. I've worked for all those companies (and a few more besides). *preens*

It's still not true that most books fail to make a profit for their publishers.

It's dangerous using raw data from BookScan to make financial projections, because of what that data contains.

Did you account for the fact that many items which carry ISBNs are not, in fact, books from trade publishers?

Many are textbooks or academic books put out by publishers which have a very different business model to trade publishers: they price them up very differently (my son is off to University for the first time soon, and I am seeing this at first hand: good grief, textbooks are pricey) and have a much lower sales expectation. If you didn't screen these out, your figures will be very skewed.

Oddly, diaries are often given ISBNs. As are some periodicals, calendars, and the like. Lots of these are published, and they're designed to have relatively short print-runs which will definitely have skewed your figures: for example, a diary can be put together relatively cheaply, then published as twenty different books just by putting a different cover on each one. If you then publish that same diary in hardback, paperback, spiral binding and a special paperback with cover flaps you have four different versions of each of your twenty editions--meaning you now have eighty ISBNs involved. There's only one production cost for all eighty editions; but if you assume each edition is an entirely separate book, and make financial predictions based on it, you're stuffed.

Even if you did screen out all the non-book-trade things which have different ISBNs, there are still problems in using this data to make predictions.

Did you account for the fact that each edition of a book will have a separate ISBN, and therefore appear to be a separate book entirely on BookScan? It's not uncommon for a single book to have three or more ISBNs assigned to it because of hardback, trade paperback, and mass market paperback editions, then there are the various digital formats to include too. This would mean that the average net proceeds per title becomes $51,000, which is a much nicer proposition. Many books have five or more ISBNs, which would make the net proceeds per title even higher. Then there are foreign and subsidiary rights sales to take into account, which improves things even further.

I don't know how you used the data to reach your conclusions: this is all just supposition. But I can tell you with great certainty that it is not true that most books fail to turn a profit for their publishers. The majority of books which are published by reputable, experienced publishers make money. Even books which are remaindered usually make money. Please, if you have based any of your business plan on this assumption, rework your business plan. I would hate to see you--and the authors you sign up--fail because of it. I've seen it happen so many times before and it never ends well.

@RedWombat yes, Nion McEvoy (CEO of Chronicle books) invested in us and advises us from time to time. More importantly, Larry Levitsky (one of my co-founders) ran Microsoft Press in the 80's and was later an executive at McGraw Hill. So we have folks who come from publishing on board. And Ingram (our distributor) also invested in us, and we work very closely with them on distribution (I just got back from a sales meeting with Ingram in Berkely).

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I'm glad you have people with expertise advising you. That should make a difference.

Regarding the 1,000 copies, we know that volume is justified because our algorithm (that which determines how much needs to be raised) factors it in. And those 1,000 copies are done via offset, which lowers overall costs.

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Your algorithm might have determined that you need to print 1,000 copies to raise enough money to make this a profitable enterprise: but how do you propose to sell those 1,000 copies?

Inkshares

Can't find much on them. Interesting or a rip off?

https://www.inkshares.com/how_it_works

Turn a 20 word idea into a novel through crowd sourcing.

A published work:

http://www.garywhitta.com/#/abomination/

Anybody have any experience with Inkshares? Geek & Sundy?

So I came across a writing contest via watching a YouTube video from Nerdist on Star Wars' Lightsaber vs Captain America's Vibranium Shield.

This lead me to the Geek & Sundy's Hard Science Fiction Contest through Inkshares.

http://geekandsundry.com/become-the-next-big-discovery-in-our-inkshares-hard-science-contest/

Here's the Inkshares link:

https://www.inkshares.com/

Okay, so I guess as I understand it, the contest goes like this:

1. Set up a sci-fi book project on Inkshares. The manuscript does not have to be completed in order to enter the contest.
2. Somehow generate a bunch of pre-sales/pre-orders (funding) for the uncompleted book.
3. Make a certain goal of pre-sales/pre-orders.
4. Through the contest, Inkshares will publish the top 3 book projects even if the pre-order (i.e. funding) goal isn't met.
5. Geek & Sundy will choose one of those three for their collection.
6. The author will have the distinction of Geek & Sundy's seal on their book. Whatever that means.

Now as far as Inkshares is concerned, publishing a book through them involves much the same as above with a few exceptions from the Geek & Sundy Hard Sci-Fi Contest.

1. Set up any genre book project. Again, the manuscript does not have to be finished.
2. Generate pre-orders/funding.
3. Make one of two goals: 250 pre-orders and the author can get 50% royalties when Inkshares publishes hard copy of book (70% for eBooks). But Inkshares does only light-editing, and light distribution, but it's more like self-publishing a print-on-demand book.
4. Make the 750 pre-orders and the author gets the full traditional publisher treatment with editors, book cover designs, printing, and full distribution, etcetera. But the royalties are the same: 50% print, 70% ebook.
5. Books take about 9 - 12 months to publish.

So, does anyone have any experience with Inkshares?

Are they a good publisher to go with or just another scam to sell authors a boatload of dreams of getting published?

When I see something like this, I immediately think SCAM. But I could be wrong.

What do all of you think?

Thread here: <snipped>

It doesn't have anything on this contest but I'm not impressed.

edit: I wouldn't say "scam", but something doesn't have to be a scam to be a bad idea.

This looks like the Inkshares all up thread?

Just wanted to share a couple of experiences. I know a few authors who have successfully and happily published through Inkshares after they secured 750 pre-orders. Mostly it is authors who have a following or did a ton of work to generate their own following. Inkshares does not have enough readers on the site to market solely to their readers, you'll need to bring your own audience. After you secure sufficient pre-orders, they do professional-level book editing, covers and marketing. I've bought a couple of the books and they're the same quality as books in stores. Inkshares also worked out a deal to sell movie options for your book, which is often where authors make good money. All good stuff without requiring an agent.

HOWEVER...they now require 10 years exclusive and irrevocable rights to your book. I also know authors who got burned after the new CEO took over.

1. They used to give you credits if you did things like follow other people, buy books, etc. The credits ended up being a financial problem for them, so they stopped doing them. No problem there, except that at least 3 different authors I know personally reported that their books "accidentally" got refunded after the 750 pre-orders were reached. Inkshares then re-charged everyone except the credits and told the authors they would have to somehow make up the difference in pre-orders. This is pretty sleazy. Even if the company made a mistake, they should honor the original agreement. http://jdennehy.com/my-experience-with-inkshares-a-cautionary-tale/ and https://jondbooks.com/2017/03/24/book-production-new-update/

2. An anthology won the Nerdist video game contest. The authors asked Inkshares if an anthology was acceptable prior to submitting and Inkshares said yes. After they won the contest, the book languished for 6 months and the CEO was replaced. Despite being told everything would be fine, Inkshares suddenly decided the book did not count because the stories were not enough about video games. Not only did they change their mind after making them wait, the contest rules stated the opposite of what the company was doing: “We allow writers to self-define genres when creating their project. The intent of our platform is to democratize the process by which books get traditionally published. We trust our community to back the video game books they want published.” https://mythmakersworlds.com/2017/01/18/why-i-wont-do-future-business-with-inkshares/

3. They changed the publishing terms to be 10 years exclusive rights. This just blows my mind, 10 years?! They can sell this right without your permission so for 10 full years you can't publish it yourself if it goes out of print/etc. Quoted: "You grant Inkshares the exclusive, irrevocable, and transferable right to print, publish, and sell your work worldwide, in both electronic and print format. After a period of ten years from the date of initial publication, Inkshares' exclusive right to print, publish and sell your book work worldwide shall become a non-exlusive right." https://www.inkshares.com/publishing_terms

I think people should know about this stuff, so they can make an informed decision.

If anyone is wondering about distribution for this publisher based on the posts above from a couple of years ago, I just looked them up in Ingram's database and they do have full-service distribution through IPS (Ingram Publisher Services), not just the regular Ingram wholesale system. I don't know how long that has been true, but it is now.

I'm not making a judgment about their overall system of publishing or the recent update from recipeformurder, btw, I was just curious about the distribution discussion earlier in the thread. A lot of new publishers refer to 'distribution' by Ingram when they really mean 'wholesale', but in this case I think inkjeremy was using the word accurately.