I scanned through the thread to see if there were any questions I could clear up, but the main thing I saw was the question of royalties. Carina Press will pay royalties on cover price. No net, no fees, just cover price. We avoided net and set the royalties at 30% direct from the website and 15% from 3rd party distributors, and the plan is to distribute through those you could probably list. And yes, 3rd party online distributors take a very, very large slice of the book sales in terms of percentage. It's another thing the publishing industry is really struggling with right now. Everyone wants the largest piece of the pie! It will be interesting to see in the future how it shakes down and if those large distributor percentages stick.
A few other concerns I think were mentioned:
Yep, the website is currently geared towards authors, because there's no way to gear it to readers with no content to offer or share! Our "announcement" of opening was for the publishing industry and authors, so we could start building our list. The site and marketing will change as we get closer to the summer launch. Of course we want readers to take interest in what we're doing, but in these early days, we're going to be focusing on answering questions from authors, since it's hard to build a publishing house without them. You're the key element.
The Carina team is comprised of some existing Harlequin staff, on the marketing/website/digital side of things, but the editing and copy editing will be done by freelance editors and copy editors I hire, so the editorial staff will be separate (and will not be paid on royalty, as many publishers who follow this business model do, but on a flat fee). We'll have a variety of editors interested in all genres. Which leads me to...
Your thoughts on the wide content/genres being acquired: Since I was at Samhain from the beginning, I'm in a unique position to understand how difficult it was to do a general fiction acquisition at the time Samhain opened. But I think it's important to remember that 1) that was several years ago and at the time Samhain went romance only, there was no Kindle, Fictionwise was one of the few online retailers in the game, and erotic romance was practically the only digital product that sold well. Since that time, the digital market and digital industry have exploded and I think the time is ripe for a publisher to step in with fresh, digital-only content that's more than romance. As more readers move to digital reading, they will seek out the content that appeals to them, and there are many, many readers for whom romance doesn't hold appeal, but science fiction, fantasy, mystery, thrillers, etc. do. Does that mean I think it will go gangbusters out of the door? No, but it means I think that the right publisher, willing to take the time and build the audience and the talented authors, can capitalize on a rapidly expanding digital marketplace. And yes, clearly I believe Carina is that press!
Please let me know if I missed something, and I'll try to answer.