TCK Publishing

[euclid]

Anything known about TCK Publishing?

TCKPublishing.com

Thanks

JJ

 

[JulieB]

They seem more concerned with pitching to prospective authors than selling books.

 

[mrsmig]

Link.

What a peculiar site. It's geared almost exclusively to writers rather than readers, a big red flag. The home page is article after article about productivity and writing tips, with annoying pop-ups urging you to "download our free report on 10 ways to sell more books" (you have to give them your email addy).

TCK calls itself a "full-service independent publisher" and appears to publish just about everything, but there's an odd requirement if you're submitting fiction:

• You must have at least three (3) full-length novels (40,000+ words minimum, depending on genre) either written or planned to publish with us to maximize your chances of earning a full-time income from your royalties.
• At least three (3) of your books must be in the same genre or series so that you can build a loyal audience and brand in that one genre (you can publish other books in different genres with us later if you wish).
• Each book must be well-written, unique and professionally edited. We do not do structural editing for fiction books. We can give you references and a list of recommended editors if you need them.

And then there's this, from their FAQ:

We distribute eBooks through Amazon exclusively in the KDP Select program in most instances, because we have tested it and it’s been proven to produce higher royalties and profits than distributing to other eBook retailers such as iBooks, Nook, Kobo and Google Play. Amazon dominates the eBook market in the US and UK (the two biggest markets for eBooks in English) with at least 75% market share (learn more about Amazon’s eBook market share data here).When we sell eBooks on Amazon, they pay us 70% royalties when priced between $2.99 and $9.99. For books priced lower than $2.99 or higher than $9.99, Amazon only pays 35% royalties. Regardless of how much they pay us, we split the net royalties with you 50/50.
For Print Books: 50% of Net Royalties*
For print books, you’ll get paid 50% of the net royalties we receive as usual. Because the cost of printing varies dramatically depending on trim size, page length, color printing options, and other factors, there’s no way to provide you with an estimated royalty amount you will receive until we know more about your specific book.

It sounds to me like they're creaming their production expenses off the top of the author's royalties, at least for the print books.

The whole thing feels like a big sales pitch, but to writers, not readers. They state over and over that their goal is to make you enough money that you can become a "full-time author." They also have a $1,000 guarantee that you'll get on the Amazon bestseller list.

Their site is making all my warning bells go off. I'd think long and hard before submitting to them.

 

[euclid]

Thanks. I sort of had the same feeling. They offered a free email list swap service, where they connect authors in the same genre and cross promote new releases via email lists: I email my list about someone else's new book, and other authors do the same for me, sort of thing. It's not a bad idea.

 

[veinglory]

It's not a bad idea if the books have a similar readership and you genuinely endorse them as great reads. Otherwise it's a terrible idea.

 

[mrsmig]

It's not a bad idea if the books have a similar readership and you genuinely endorse them as great reads. Otherwise it's a terrible idea.

Agreed. I dislike intensely the idea of a publisher trying to use their authors as a free marketing service. And if I sign up for someone's email list, I'm going to be really annoyed if they share that list with some other entity without disclosing their intention to do so at the outset.

 

[tcorsonk]

Hi there,

I'm the founder of TCK Publishing and just wanted to respond to some of the comments here to clarify.

Link.
It sounds to me like they're creaming their production expenses off the top of the author's royalties, at least for the print books.

We don't "cream" production expenses for print books. Our royalty structure is incredibly simple: we pay authors 50% of every dollar we collect from book sales, royalties, licensing fees, or other sources for each book. We don't have surcharges or hidden fees, and we don't take any margin from printing books.

In fact, we don't even charge an "author price" for books when our authors order them; instead, you can order books at the exact cost charged by the printer, and when the author sells those books directly, they keep 100% of the profits.

 

[tcorsonk]

Agreed. I dislike intensely the idea of a publisher trying to use their authors as a free marketing service. And if I sign up for someone's email list, I'm going to be really annoyed if they share that list with some other entity without disclosing their intention to do so at the outset.

To clarify, we don't promote our services or any of our books to any of our clients' email lists. Our Author Email List Swap Service is a 100% free service for all authors, whether they decide to publish with us or not. Our clients are not required to use this service.

We NEVER share, sell, or rent email lists. Not only is that illegal, but it's also unethical and foolish.

An "email list swap" or "author newsletter swap" is where two authors with similar audiences choose to promote each other's work in order to benefit their audiences and each other. Our free Author Email List Swap Service simply helps authors with similar audiences connect instead of paying the ridiculous fees charged by similar services which have very few members (and therefore provide very few introductions to authors in your subgenre or niche).

 

[mrsmig]

Hi there,

I'm the founder of TCK Publishing and just wanted to respond to some of the comments here to clarify.



We don't "cream" production expenses for print books. Our royalty structure is incredibly simple: we pay authors 50% of every dollar we collect from book sales, royalties, licensing fees, or other sources for each book. We don't have surcharges or hidden fees, and we don't take any margin from printing books.

In fact, we don't even charge an "author price" for books when our authors order them; instead, you can order books at the exact cost charged by the printer, and when the author sells those books directly, they keep 100% of the profits.

Hi tcorsonk, and welcome to AW. Thank you for coming by to clarify some of TCK's practices.

Since you state TCK doesn't take a margin or utilize fees and surcharges, can you explain why you use the term "net royalties" in reference to your print books? "Net" normally means the author's portion of the royalties are calculated not on gross income or cover price, but on the balance left after certain publisher expenses are deducted. Because the term is often not defined in publisher's contracts, it's an automatic red flag when we see it. If you're truly giving the author a clean 50% of gross or cover, then the term "net" should be eliminated from your description.

I'm delighted to know you don't sell, share or rent your email lists.

 

[tcorsonk]

Hi tcorsonk, and welcome to AW. Thank you for coming by to clarify some of TCK's practices.

Since you state TCK doesn't take a margin or utilize fees and surcharges, can you explain why you use the term "net royalties" in reference to your print books? "Net" normally means the author's portion of the royalties are calculated not on gross income or cover price, but on the balance left after certain publisher expenses are deducted. Because the term is often not defined in publisher's contracts, it's an automatic red flag when we see it. If you're truly giving the author a clean 50% of gross or cover, then the term "net" should be eliminated from your description.

I'm delighted to know you don't sell, share or rent your email lists.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

We pay 50% net royalties on print books. The net is calculated based on the revenue we actually receive from each sale, minus our printing and fulfillment costs. When we sell books produced via print-on-demand, which reduces overhead and issues with returns, it's simple: we send the author 50% of the money we receive for each sale.

If we paid 50% royalties on the cover price (that is, 50% royalties calculated with the list or gross method), we wouldn't be able to sell books in bookstores at all since they require at least a 50% discount. No publisher could sustainably pay 50% royalties on the cover price for print books because it would be impossible to earn a profit.

If you think of it another way, most traditional publishers only pay 8% of the list/cover price. So on a $14.99 book, the author would receive only $1.20. In contrast, by paying 50% of net receipts, the author would receive anything from $1.07 to $2.57 for a 250-page 6"x9" book depending on where the book was sold and what discount the distributor required. For books priced $19.99 and up, the 50% net royalties for the author increase exponentially in comparison (up to $4.07 compared to $1.60 for a typical 8% list/cover royalty).

We don't do "sheet deals" or other accounting shenanigans to fudge the numbers and reduce our authors' royalties. We don't subtract anything for marketing, overhead, staffing, or other expenses. The only thing deducted is the actual cost to print and ship the book.

I hope that helps clarify!

 

[Unimportant]

If you think of it another way, most traditional publishers only pay 8% of the list/cover price. So on a $14.99 book, the author would receive only $1.20. In contrast, by paying 50% of net receipts, the author would receive anything from $1.07 to $2.57 for a 250-page 6"x9" book depending on where the book was sold and what discount the distributor required. For books priced $19.99 and up, the 50% net royalties for the author increase exponentially in comparison (up to $4.07 compared to $1.60 for a typical 8% list/cover royalty).

We don't do "sheet deals" or other accounting shenanigans ....

Yes. This is why we tend to suggest that authors be wary of royalties on net rather than gross. On gross, the author knows exactly how much they will earn for each book sold, regardless of circumstances. On net, the author cannot project earnings per sale, cannot check on whether sales and earnings have been calculated correctly, and cannot protect themselves against the publisher using 'shenanigans'.

 

[mrsmig]

Unimportant is absolutely right, and that's why I said "creaming off production expenses" in my earlier post - because that's exactly what this is. TCK is deducting expenses from gross profit, and therefore TCK's declaration that it pays 50% royalties on print is misleading, especially for inexperienced/unrepresented authors. Both company and authors would be better off with a lower percentage based on cover price, to avoid confusion and the errors that will no doubt result from figuring a royalty split based on fluctuating expenses.

 

[Unimportant]

Also, just an observation -- the website is really, truly awful.

 

[Richard White]

If the publisher is deducting printing costs before paying their authors, that means the authors are indirectly paying for their own printing, especially for print-on-demand - aka, this is simply a vanity press, charging their authors on the back end.

The publisher should be taking the printing costs out of "their" share.

If I'm getting paid 8% of cover price, that means I'm getting paid 8% of cover price for a printed book regardless of whether the publisher's expenses fluctuate. With a net that includes the publisher's expenses up front, there's no guarantee I'll see any money becuase there can always be "unexpected" expenses from a publisher. Now, it's understood that the reason I'm only getting 8% is because the publisher has already calculated the profit & loss statement on my book, figured in how much it costs to do a print run, how much the art will cost, how much overhead there is, how much to reserve against returns, etc. That's understood up-front and the publisher has the money up-front instead of trying to recoup the costs of the book one print-out at a time. Obviously if my book does well, its profits fund the next book in line and so on. But by then, the publisher is playing with house money - not the author's.

I'm not saying any one publisher might pull these shenanigans, but if the hen house door is open, foxes do appear.

This is why small publishers also avoid print runs for the most part - it's too expensive, especially if they're accepting returns. Most e-publishers I've worked with had a payment plan of 40-50% on ebooks. That was 40-50% of cover price on all books sold through the publisher's store and 40-50% of monies received from Amazon/B&N/etc. (this could flucutate as the merchants could (and did) sell books at discounts, esp. with pre-orders). The publisher then paid their costs out of their own share (art/editors/promotion/marketing). That's as close to "net" as I ever want to get.

 

[C Alberts]

...we wouldn't be able to sell books in bookstores at all since they require at least a 50% discount. ...

That's not true. There are only a small handful of publishers that offer 50% discount along with returnability. Bookstores generally get between 42% to 47% discount off the list price along with free shipping and full returnability from publishers and distributors (some publishers will offer slightly better discount if the stores buy non-returnable but for most independent bookstores that's not feasible). From wholesalers like Ingram, the bookstore discount is rarely better than 42% or maybe 43% at best and stores lose money on returns. It concerns me that you either don't know this or are deliberately misstating it in the context of explaining your royalty structure to potential authors. (EDITED TO ADD: The big chains like B&N and Amazon can surely negotiate better deals, but I'm talking about small chains and independent shops)

Like others have said, a simpler royalty structure based on the book's list price is much more transparent and fair when it comes to print books. That way everyone knows exactly what they are getting paid per book regardless of the publisher's negotiations with the wholesale and distribution network.

 

[tcorsonk]

If I'm getting paid 8% of cover price, that means I'm getting paid 8% of cover price for a printed book regardless of whether the publisher's expenses fluctuate. With a net that includes the publisher's expenses up front, there's no guarantee I'll see any money becuase there can always be "unexpected" expenses from a publisher.

I understand that an 8% cover price royalty is easier to calculate and more straightforward in theory. In theory, it sounds great. In practice, it just doesn't add more value to our authors.

For example, our client Kevin Horsley currently earns $4.44 per sale of the paperback version of Unlimited Memory (retail price is $19.99). That's equivalent to a 21-22% cover royalty. Under an 8% cover price royalty scheme, he would only be earning $1.60 per sale. Had Kevin signed on with an 8% cover price royalty, he would have earned $24,672 less royalties so far on US print sales than he has with our 50% net royalties.

Why are you saying that paying Kevin $24,672 less money would be better for him? It's clearly not better for Kevin.

Changing our royalty structure to 8% on cover price would make our authors receive significantly less royalties on print sales. Although a cover royalty may make sense to you in theory, in practice it would be a huge detriment to our authors.

That said, if an author wanted to sign on with an 8% cover royalty on print sales for the sake of clarity and peace of mind, we would consider it. Just realize that they would be earning significantly less royalties per sale in reality.

Incentives

I understand that there is a "principal–agent problem" whereby a "net royalty" structure can lead to poor incentives. I also know that some publishers that paid "net royalties" have made bad decisions which harmed their authors. Publishers that pay gross/cover royalties have also made bad decisions that harmed authors in the past.

Since we are currently a private company and I'm the sole owner, I get to make the decisions on royalty structure, and I choose to continue making decisions that are in the best interests of our clients. I'm not planning to sell the company or raise money from outside investors. My motivation is to add as much value as possible to our authors, not simply to maximize profits.

This doesn't make the incentives disappear. They still exist.

You also have to realize that a royalty on cover price produces its own adverse incentives. That kind of royalty structure incentivizes publishing shorter and less expensive books (because the publisher keeps more profits that way while the author earnings don't change at all) and high price points (because margins expand faster for the publisher as prices increase relative to the small increase in author earnings).

There is no royalty structure I've seen where the principal-agent problem doesn't exist.

Changing our royalty structure to 8% cover price would mean we would earn more profits, and our authors would earn significantly less royalties. Is that really what authors want?

If someone can propose a better solution, I'm all for it, but reducing our royalty payments to clients is not an option I'm willing to consider right now.

 

[mrsmig]

Well, since you're clearly married to this royalty plan, there's no point in discussing it further.

I do hope, however, that your contracts clearly state that you will be deducting print and shipping costs from your authors' royalties, and I further hope that, since these deductions will be based on fluctuating costs, your contracts also put a numerical a cap on those expenses - language like "print costs not to exceed x amount per month/quarter/year/whatever.

This is just so your authors (whom I'm betting are largely unagented) know what they're getting into. That's only fair.

 

[eqb]

Changing our royalty structure to 8% cover price would mean we would earn more profits, and our authors would earn significantly less royalties. Is that really what authors want?

If someone can propose a better solution, I'm all for it, but reducing our royalty payments to clients is not an option I'm willing to consider right now.

Why not 20% on the cover price? It's not as though cover price = one particular percentage.

 

[Richard White]

There also is a huge difference between getting 8% of cover when the publisher is selling tens of thousands of copies nation/world-wide and 8% of the 75-100 copies many small presses average per title.

That's why authors should hold out to get the best % of royalties they can get.

I think 40-50% of cover for an ebook makes perfect sense. I think 30-40% of print-on-demand makes sense (not like the publisher is stockpiling tons of books in a warehouse or worried about returns since most digitally printed books are offered as non-returnable. 8-12% makes sense for a standard mass-market offset printed paperback because the publisher is printing thousands of copies with the associated risks of returns/storage fees/etc.

I also think sliding scales (more sales = better royalty rates) also make sense as long as they are "likely to be achieved" to take a line from NFL contracts. Pie-in-the-sky goals do neither side any good.

But, as stated, each publisher needs to establish what they think are fair rates and authors need to understand what these royalty rates are and determine for themselves what they think their writing is worth.

 

[Unimportant]

For example, our client Kevin Horsley currently earns $4.44 per sale of the paperback version of Unlimited Memory (retail price is $19.99). That's equivalent to a 21-22% cover royalty. Under an 8% cover price royalty scheme, he would only be earning $1.60 per sale. Had Kevin signed on with an 8% cover price royalty, he would have earned $24,672 less royalties so far on US print sales than he has with our 50% net royalties.

I hope Mr Horsley is okay with you sharing his earnings and copies-sold information on a public website. Most authors would consider that private information.

 

[mrsmig]

That thought crossed my mind as well.

 

[tcorsonk]

There also is a huge difference between getting 8% of cover when the publisher is selling tens of thousands of copies nation/world-wide and 8% of the 75-100 copies many small presses average per title.

That's why authors should hold out to get the best % of royalties they can get.

I think 40-50% of cover for an ebook makes perfect sense. I think 30-40% of print-on-demand makes sense (not like the publisher is stockpiling tons of books in a warehouse or worried about returns since most digitally printed books are offered as non-returnable. 8-12% makes sense for a standard mass-market offset printed paperback because the publisher is printing thousands of copies with the associated risks of returns/storage fees/etc.

I also think sliding scales (more sales = better royalty rates) also make sense as long as they are "likely to be achieved" to take a line from NFL contracts. Pie-in-the-sky goals do neither side any good.

But, as stated, each publisher needs to establish what they think are fair rates and authors need to understand what these royalty rates are and determine for themselves what they think their writing is worth.

Thanks, Richard! I really like the idea of doing 50% royalties on print-on-demand with a smaller cover royalty on bookstore sales with a sliding scale. We'll add that to our standard publishing contract.

 

[tcorsonk]

I hope Mr Horsley is okay with you sharing his earnings and copies-sold information on a public website. Most authors would consider that private information.

Yes, we talk often

We even posted a case study with more info on his sales if you're interested

 

[Elandryn]

TCK Publishing?

A writer friend sent me a link to TCK Publishing - has anyone heard anything bad about them?

Still looking for a home for my SciFi series

 

[zmethos]

There is a thread on them here: <snipped> I'm sure a moderator will merge.