Publishing Has Changed Enter Digital
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2455 Ballenger Creek Pike Adamstown Maryland 21710 [email protected] Underground Railroad Free Press 301.874.0235 The largest circulation Underground Railroad news publication —Free Press Books — Publishing Has Changed While recent years have seen several excellent books on the Underground Railroad, too many remain unpublished as traditional publishers become ever narrower in what they publish, strug- gling to survive in an industry reeling from technological change. Some traditional publishers have kept pace with the rapidly changing production and delivery of books, but many have lagged. Most conspicuous was the disappearance of the forty-year-old international Borders bookstore chain in 2011. The publishing upheaval has meant that Underground Railroad writers have ever fewer opportunities to get their works into print through traditional publishing houses. Publisher-subsidized books are ones on which traditional publishers gamble that a book's sales will be large enough to yield a profit to the publisher and therefore permit it to front all publishing costs. Because of this financial imperative, subsidy publishers must be very careful in choosing the books that they elect to publish, which means that books of specialized or narrow interest that will attract only limited audiences are very unlikely to be taken on by subsidy publishers. Enter Digital Publishing While subsidy publishers have narrowed their offerings, online digital publishing has mushroomed since the advent of the Internet and easily digitized book composition, and today publishes hundreds of thousands of titles on topics which otherwise would not see the light of day. Digital publishing has also opened the doors of self-publishing to literally anyone wanting to put something into print. Some well-known authors who self-published their works are Stephen Crane, e. e. cummings, Deepak Chopra, Benjamin Franklin, Zane Grey, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Paine, Edgar Allan Poe, Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, George Bernard Shaw, Upton Sinclair, Gertrude Stein, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. A few well- known, self-published best-selling books are Irma Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking, What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Bolles, Poems by Oscar Wilde, Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Hansen, and In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman. In 2011, John Locke’s Vegas Moon became the first self-published e-book to sell a million copies. Quick inexpensive digital publishing has grown hand in hand with an entirely revolutionized de- livery of books, with the Internet replacing bookstores as the top book marketing channel. Ama- zon.com has become the world’s largest bookseller and its e-books now surpass its print sales. Inexpensive digital book production and fulfillment services such as Lightning Source and Cre- ateSpace have made self-publishing affordable, respectable, lucrative and fast for authors. While traditional publishers take months to get an author’s finished book into print, digital publish- ing usually accomplishes it in 48 hours or less. While traditional publishers and bricks-and-mortar bookstores sit on bulky inventory in expensive stores and warehouses, digital publishers side-step this entirely with print-on-demand publishing and direct-to-buyer fulfillment, reducing costs and making books much more affordable. And the best digital publishers routinely employ excellent customer service for their authors, too often an alien concept to traditional publishers. The payoff from new publishing technology accrues not just to digital publishers but especially to their authors. With their legacy costs burdening them, traditional publishers typically pay author royalties of 8 to 10 percent while royalties can easily reach 25 percent or more for digitally pub- lished hardcover and paperback books and 70 percent for e-books. News independently reported on today’s Underground Railroad The Free Press Prizes, the Underground Railroad community’s top honors Datebook, the Underground Railroad community’s central calendar Lynx, the central registry of Underground Railroad organizations Free Press surveys of the Underground Railroad community FREE PRESS BOOKS Add to this revolution that no publisher - traditional or digital - is dedicated to Underground Rail- road books. Underground Railroad Free Press Books fills this void by specializing in books on the Underground Railroad and related topics with digital publishing, fast fulfillment, a full range of author services, and close attention to its authors. Realizing that the Underground Railroad story needs to be told as widely as possible and that most publishers are not willing to back books on specialized topics appealing to relatively small audiences, we established Free Press Books as a ready outlet for books on the Underground Railroad and related topics. How Free Press Books Works Free Press Books offers a graduated array of author services each step of the way from concept development through marketing a book once it is published. Our authors may purchase any or all of our services as their needs and budgets require. Concept Development We advise on the front-end considerations of topic choice, possible topical tie-ins, the author’s writing process, research suggestions, book structure and length, front and back materials, pro- spective marketability of the topic, marketing channels, pricing, promotion and other general advice which the author might request in rounding out a book concept. Editing We work closely with our Word Spectrum affiliate in providing the full range of editing. Our expe- rience is that editing needs can vary significantly from book to book. Editing may include story line development, continuity, style, structure, English usage, what to include or not in a book’s front and back materials, and how each of these considerations may affect marketing. Free Press Books also offers indexing, a complex aspect of book preparation which many authors do not want to tackle themselves. Proofreading Word Spectrum performs expert proofreading for correct English usage including grammar, syn- tax, spelling, punctuation, word choice, subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement, and awkward “eye catchers.” Publishing: Two Options for the Author When an author’s book is complete and ready to be published, we offer our authors two options to get the book into print and out to market. Authors already comfortable with online digital publication processes or wanting to learn them may elect to work directly with their choice of digital fulfillment sites. In this case, authors may elect to show Free Press Books as their publisher if the book meets our standards. Free Press Books may also advise on self-publication if the author desires. Authors unfamiliar with or uncomfortable working directly in digital publishing or just not wanting to do so may have Free Press Books perform the publishing. For hardcover books, we use Light- ning Source, the pioneer digital publisher of print-on-demand hardcover books. For paperback books, we use CreateSpace which we have found to be the most efficient and responsive online digital publisher. For e-books, we use Amazon Kindle Publishing and/or Barnes & Noble Nook Publishing, the two global leaders in e-book publishing. Fulfillment and Author Royalties Free Press books are printed on demand at the time of an on-line or bookstore order. The order is transmitted electronically at the instant of the order, is printed in the number of copies ordered in a matter of hours, and is then shipped or mailed. Books usually arrive to purchasers in a matter FREE PRESS BOOKS of days after their orders. The print-on-demand system helps to reduce the cost of books to au- thors, Free Press Books and purchasers by eliminating expensive inventory and other costs. Light- ning Source, CreateSpace, Amazon Kindle Publishing and Barnes & Noble Nook Publishing all of- fer direct print-on-demand fulfillment of orders to all book purchasers and book sellers. Free Press Books authors receive royalty payments from sales of their books directly from these fulfillment outlets. Marketing Free Press Books offers graduated marketing services ranging from quick spot advice on market- ing questions to full marketing plans. Our book marketing is performed by an experienced pro- fessional staff member with extensive marketing experience who practices marketing and has taught marketing at the graduate level. Our marketing plans generally cover the book as mar- keting concept, analysis to identify and analyze a book’s prospective markets, pricing and pro- motion. At the author's discretion, all Free Press books receive a notice of publication to Free Press’s 16,000+ readers, prominent advertising in Underground Railroad Free Press for one year, a long- term illustrated display ad on the Free Press website, and links there to the book at Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com, all at no charge to the author. Free Press Books Author Services Our editing and proofreading prices are set according to industry standard prices. Service Price Concept development Quoted at fixed fee or hourly rate after consultation with the author Editing Basic: 1,250-2,500 words/hour $35/hour Heavy: up to1,249 words/hour $45/hour Developmental editing $70/hour Book layout $70/hour Indexing $100/hour Proofreading $35/hour Pre-publication Account set-up No charge Hardcover book jacket $700 Paperback cover $500 International Standard Book Number (ISBN), hardcover $125 ISBNs for paperbacks