At ReadiPress, we do things differently. We know that ebooks will account for 90% of sales, and we don’t feel the print book is worth waiting around for – especially because it will eat up a lot of time and money. Instead, we launch hard and fast, get a lot of reviews, make sure the book is selling, and then finish the print book after the book has proven itself.
Why the World Needs Us
It’s never been easier to publish a book; which is why – just as huge publishing firms are collapsing, smaller and nimble publishers are popping up everywhere. They know that the way to riches isn’t by publishing just one or two books, but a whole bunch of them. So if they’ve figured out how to get a decent cover design and format the book, they’d love to help you publish yours and keep a some of the proceeds.
As a book designer, for a long time I warned authors against working with small presses, because they don’t have the marketing clout to make the book a success, and even worse, they probably don’t have the book design expertise to make a beautiful product that sells.
They’ll make money by either taking a cut of your sales, or by charging up front fees for author services (but then they’ll outsource the work to keep more profit). While it may seem easier to just let someone else handle everything, going with a publishing package or small press is probably a bad investment.
However, after watching dozens of clients struggle with promoting and marketing their books, and hundreds of authors churn out ugly ones, I’ve come to understand the value in partnership. Some authors can’t afford high quality book design, and those who can afford it have no idea what to do with their book once it’s published.
How we’re Different
The sad truth is, most books were never made to bestsellers, because they were written in genres with small readerships. Which means a lot of books will never earn back the investment it costs to produce them. But if you’ve written a great book in a popular genre, I’d like to help it succeed – and I’ll give you a better offer than you’ll find anywhere else in the universe.
The point of ReadiPress is for me to help you turn your book into a product as quickly as possible, to test it out in the market and see if it swims. We’ll split earnings 50-50 at first. If we sell 10,000 copies (assuming $1 profit on each copy sold), I’ll make back my normal rates, and you’ll get $5000 – a decent start. But because we’re partnering, I’ll keep marketing the book, and we’ll keep selling. Hopefully we’ll hit 100,000 copies, which will make us both very happy.
However, while I need to mitigate my own risk in the beginning, I don’t want to keep taking such a large chunk of your earnings (if you sell a million copies, there’s no good reason to give me 500K just for helping you get started).
So after the first 25,000 copies, my cut will go down to 40%.
- After 50,000 copies, it goes 30% – and as a bonus, I’ll make you an author website.
- After 100,000 copies, 20% – and I’ll book a one-week resort vacation for you
- And after 500,000 books, only 10% – to celebrate, I’ll fly you and a friend anywhere in the world.
Other Considerations
- I’m looking for mainstream, popular genre books
- Short books, erotica or series are fine
- We’ll start with the ebook (editing, formatting, design, marketing)
- If we sell more than 10,000 copies, we’ll make a print version available
- Having your own platform or other books that have sold well is a bonus
- We can use one of my publishing imprints, or you can use one of your own, or I can design you something new
- If we don’t sell 10,000 copies in the first 3 months, you can have all your rights back
- Even if we do sell 10,000 copies, you can still have your rights back
I’m very flexible and I’m not going to screw you over with some complex contract. This is a way for you to get high quality design and some marketing/platform building help, without spending a dime. But if your book is selling really well and you don’t need my help anymore, just let me know – I’ll give you all the files so you can publish yourself, and help make that transition as easy as possible.
Since most self-published books never sell more than a few hundred copies, I’m only going to accept books that I think I can turn into major bestsellers; which means I’ll turn down a lot of good books that just don’t have a big enough readership to really catch on.
My personal favorite genres include dystopian/post-apocalyptic, (supernatural) romance, (supernatural) thriller, religion and philosophy, business and how-to, self-help and spirituality, mystery and suspense, science fiction and space opera, fantasy, teen and young adult. I’ll also consider health, diet and fitness books.
I’m a strong believer in shorter content – so if you have a long book I will suggest breaking it into a series, which will require a bit of rewriting, but will make it easier to build your platform and boost your earnings.
This will be a True Partnership
Which means I won’t charge you anything, ever. I’ll be giving up my own time and money taking a risk on your book ONLY if I believe it can sell over 10,000 copies. I’m going to be very picky. I’m also not going to read through each submission fully; I’ll skim it and spot-check. If the writing and story seem amazing, I’ll take a closer look. I’ll probably only take on one project like this a month.
What you Get
- High quality book design
- Full time, long term marketing to make your book a bestseller
- Guaranteed #1 bestseller in category during launch
- Guaranteed 10 book reviews up in first month
- Targeted advertising. No spammy book marketing
If you send me your manuscript, I’ll give you a decision within one week; and if we move forward, the book will be ready and up for sale in under one month.
If we don’t crush it, you can have all the rights back in 3 months if you want them (with any other publisher, you’d spend three months just getting the book designed). If you’d like to keep going for awhile to see if things turn around, I’ll keep promoting – and you can still cancel your contract anytime (it will take about a month to finalize everything and transfer files back to you).
Publish quickly.
Let me worry about book design, publishing and selling the book.
So you can spend your time writing another.