Greetings.
Thank you to Para for linking me to the thread. And Hi Maryn! Miss you. Good to see Purgies here. I’m a long time poster on AW, but I’ve created this profile to appropriately address the concerns of writers toward the company. Let me take these one at a time.
“Net” is classified for us as:
net income or net sales proceeds--the money received for the book (list price less any discounts or commissions charged by retailers, wholesalers, and/or distributors). It is a common practice for small presses, and more information can be seen on Writers Beware site here:
http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2011/05/contract-red-flag-net-profit-royalties.html
We do not publish erotica or erotic romance, the former is often seen as a different genre from romance where the latter is a subgenre of romance. While we enjoy these forms of fiction in our reading, we do not publish them. Some romance books are on the steamier side so we take heat levels from sweet/closed door to descriptive. And I do agree, sometimes the genre lines crossover, and it can be difficult to tell when a book falls over the proverbial erotic cliff. But, if an author is marketing as an “Erotica Author” or “Erotic Romance Author,” primarily where the sex is the main focus of the book, or in romance the sexual nature of the relationship is the main focus; then, we’re probably not the right publisher for you. If the guidelines seem confusing on our site, I’m happy to change them to make it clear. What do you think would be a better wording?
The anthology / box sets are a different contract with different guidelines from our standard contract. It came about as my involvement as an author in a prior set that experienced some problems with the publisher we used for that set. Quite simply, I was asked by several author groups if City Owl Press would be willing to support anthology / box sets they put out. This part of the business is the same model as Excessica and features the following…
10% of net income for formatting, distribution, and management of royalties, taxes, and payment.
Why do we do this as opposed to a standard contract? Here’s why…
STANDARD CONTRACT SAMPLE
Let us say the box set makes $1500 in net income. Under our standard contract, City Owl Press would receive 60% and pay for all expenses including cover design, formatting, editing, ad campaign, distribution, etc. as with any other book.
So, 60% of $1500 leaves the authors with $600 to split in royalties divided by the number of authors. If ten authors make up the set, it leaves $60 per author.
ANTHOLOGY CONTRACT SAMPLE
Now under the anthology contract let’s take the same $1500. This time City Owl Press only takes 10% for the services described above.
So, 10% of $1500 leaves the authors with $1350 to split. If they wanted the most expensive ad campaign which is $305 for 2016 (this is AT COST plus a small admin fee which for this package is $4), they’d split the cost among the total number of authors. $1350 - $305 = $1045 to split. Again if ten authors make up the set, it leaves $104.50 per author.
Our Anthology /Box set model is common in the world of romance authors in particular, and it is typically used by authors who already have a group together ready to publish. It is sometimes called a “hybrid publishing model” or “partnership publishing model”. It is not vanity publishing and the authors do not pay us a fee to publish. Now, we could offer a standard contract for an anthology, which is our main traditional publishing model, but it is not something these author groups want or need. They need a company to handle the accounting side, distribution, taxes, and formatting (although some groups don’t even need this). We offer the marketing packages to make it easier for them as well.
In no way are we attempting to dupe authors out of their money or present ourselves as a vanity publisher. Our company was created by authors for authors. We are also savvy business men and women with many years of experience. City Owl Press, however, is a new company so I do understand the concerns and welcome the opportunity to discuss them. We are very transparent in all of our activities and I’m happy to answer questions. I will also add to our FAQs on our website.