Shakespeare’s Sister, Inc. is looking for non-fiction books to publish through the print-on-demand service lulu.com.
Check below the fold for details.
It’s possible for anyone to publish through lulu.com. In fact, it is free, as long as you don’t want an ISBN and global distribution. An ISBN will cost some $40, and global distribution (which gets the book on amazon.com, etc.) adds about $120 to that.
What you have to do is provide a formatted manuscript.
And that’s where Shakespeare’s Sister comes in.
First: there are plenty of people who will help you publish through lulu.com–for a price. In other words, you pay them up front and they do the formatting work. There are others who claim to help you market your book. Some of them may even be able to do so.
What we are doing at Shakespeare’s Sister is somewhat different. We will act as publisher (doing all the formatting of the book, including creating cover art), taking on the cost of the ISBN and global distribution and will even pay you a royalty on books sold–not all of the royalty paid by lulu.com (we need to recoup our investment, after all, and make a little money for the formatting work we will do), but a royalty a little higher than most traditional publishers pay: 10% of the retail price.
What we will not do is extensive marketing. Unfortunately, we have neither the staff nor the skill for that. We will do what we can, but much of the work will need to be done by the author.
Don’t expect to make much money through publishing this way. It’s a means of getting your book out under a publisher’s name, taking it one step from what is often called “vanity” publishing. We won’t make much either. Our reason for doing this is that we want to be part of the momentum for change within publishing. If we can present books of high enough quality often enough, we can be a force in making the publishing world take print-on-demand seriously. Maybe we can help break the logjam created by the publishing industry’s infatuation with the blockbuster.
Though we can use traditional copyright, we prefer to use Creative Commons’ much more open copyright for our books.
So far, we have published three books (two by this diarist). We want to publish more.
If you have a non-fiction book you would like to see published, send a short (300 word) abstract of the book and a brief bio (we need to know about our authors) to us at shakespearessisterinc@gmail.com. If the abstract interests us, we will ask for a sample chapter.
We can’t promise we will publish your book, but we will give it a look if it seems like something that would interest us as readers.
And good luck to all of you. There are great writers here on BooMan and on dKos, where we also presented this call. We would like to see more of them produce books.
Shakespeare’s Sister, Inc. started out as a gift store, cafe, and gallery in Brooklyn, NY named in response to Virginia Woolf’s essay “A Room of One’s Own” where Woolf rebuts the argument that women aren’t as creative as men–or there would be a female DaVinci, a female Shakespeare. She creates a fictional sister for Shakespeare as talented as he, then demonstrates quite clearly that her creativity could never have had output. Our focus is on our belief that everyone is creative (even those whose creativity we sneer at), and that all creativity needs to be promoted.
Though we no longer have a cafe, we still have our gallery and store (where we sell as much handcrafted material as possible) and, though the number of readings has fallen off in recent years (we need to get them going again), we have hosted hundreds of poetry and fiction readings in the 12 years we have been around.
Now we are expanding into publishing, another area where creativity is too often squashed.
Just caught this article, you might look here:
Soldiers’ books show Iraq’s front line
By Richard Allen Greene
BBC News website
The war in Iraq may be far from over, but it has already produced a small crop of books by soldiers who fought in it.
Thanks. Great connection, and I’ll bet there are plenty of soldier/writers who haven’t yet appeared in print who would like to. I hope some of them find Shakespeare’s Sister.
Exactly!!
Would a traumatic brain injury survivor’s story be something you might be interested in? (Also another possibility that is currently on the back burner…)
Certainly. We don’t care if the book can hit a large audience or not. We don’t need to, for the investment is not very great.
Therefore, the topic itself doesn’t have to be one that will make millions flock to the work. What we’re looking for is compassion and understanding in the perspective, skill in the telling, and a real point to make.
And if you did, could authors remain anonymous (with the understanding that they would get no money, obviously)
Advice for the New Poor is up for grabs as long as the author is listed as DuctapeFatwa. It may even be partially spell-checked.
The trouble with fiction is simply that there is just too much of it out there. We don’t want to be deluged! There’s nothing wrong with anonymity, however: sometimes it just isn’t appropriate to use a real name.
Is Advice to the New Poor book length? I just glanced at it, but am intrigued. If you are serious about it, email us.
of the “a”s do I remove to email you?
I bet it would be book length if you printed it in big letters for low vision people.
And if there were any royalties you could send them to American Muslim Task Force for Disaster Relief
Read it anyway, even if you don’t want it. I could still savor the experience of having it rejected by a real live publishing company 🙂
Email us at shakespearessisterinc@gmail.com. Book length is subjective, of course, but we are looking for manuscripts of at least 50,000 words. And, yes, any royalties could go wherever you wish.
at that address. Whether you want it or not, I hope you will enjoy reading it, and the rest of the blog. 🙂
compassion and understanding in the perspective, skill in the telling, and a real point to make.
First person ok?
We’re concerned, with compassion and appreciation, quality prose, and a clearly-stated point.
First person, third person, even second person: who cares, as long as the book is a good one.
Oh: and as long as any experiences the “I” of the narrative are his or her own. We don’t need any of this Frey stuff!
Believe me, it is all my own. The paper trail begins in 1991!
But I want to write it from a more human perspective.
What the hell does “Global Distribution” mean?
Unless it means that your book will be distributed to brick-and-mortar bookstores, I’d skip this offer. Amazon sales for most books are scanty in comparison to stores. (As an example, in the same period of time that I sold 11 copies online of one of my books –1,000 copies were bought thru bookstores.)
I’ve published eight books thru traditional publishers, and also advised those who are looking to get published (find an agent, get a book proposal together), and on-demand publishing is, in my opinion, one of the worst ways to publish your book — being both expensive and ineffective, as compared even to other forms of self-publishing.
Go to the library, check out a couple books on how to write a book proposal, and one on literary agents, and take a shot at trying to sell your book to a traditional publisher, first. If you have a viable project, an agent will find a publisher who will pay you an advance to finish writing your non-fiction book. (Novels need to be completed, usually, before a publisher will consider them.)
Only if that route fails should you consider self-publishing, and then, again, on-demand should probably be the last resort.
Check out one of Dan Poynter’s books, he’s the guru of
self-publishing: http://www.parapublishing.com. I personally know two self-published authors who, with Poynter’s help, have successfully marketed their books, including distribution to the major chain bookstores, as well.
What it means, simply put, is that the book will be listed on amazon.com, in Books In Print, and other places where people can go to find books (including Google Books).
Certainly, it does not mean that a book will show up at Barnes & Noble.
Please read what we present a little more carefully: This is not an expensive means of publishing, as much of print-on-demand is, but an attempt to move print-on-demand to a new level by combining it with a much more traditional small-press apparatus (because the books are under our imprint, we have selected them–we are not taking any manuscript offered to us, just as we are not charging authors a fee).
Your advice is fine, but it does not help move the publishing industry into new possibilities. Nor does it help many writers. The chances of a book reaching print through traditional methods are quite small. What we are trying to do is to help open things up.
If individuals who self-publish are able to get their books to distributors who stock the large chain bookstores, then I don’t understand why you can’t, too.
Perhaps you need to read one of Dan Poynter’s books on the subject (snark, of course.)
Perhaps your version of on-demand publishing isn’t expensive, just ineffective.
Which still doesn’t seem much of a recommendation.
Again, I’d advise trying traditional publishing first, on any book project.
And next self-publishing, with the help of an expert.
Ah, but one has to pay for an expert!
You really don’t get what we are trying to do, do you?
This is not an attempt to compete in the traditional publishing field. This is an attempt to make publishing something other than simply sales and money oriented. Your expert is going to charge–and in most cases, that charge will be much greater than what anyone will ever make on their book. Also, someone could easily publish through us and use your expert. Why not? We just care about the quality of the book.
Ineffective? This whole area is in its infancy. No one knows yet what will be ineffective and what will not be.
Stick with what you know, if that’s what you want. Stick with the old.
We want to try the new.
I think that Dan Poynter’s book on how to find a distributor for your self-published book is somewhere around $14.
But I don’t really understand how what you’re offering is much of an improvement from on-demand publishing, except saving the author a couple hundred bucks — and at the same time, depriving them of 40% of the royalties they would have received from on-demand. (Perhaps you’re offering an art director for the cover?)
But you’re not assisting with either marketing, or more important, book store distribution, the two avenues that actually amount to books sold.
But brings them round again to the drawbacks of on-demand publishing.
You continue to be purposefully obtuse! And I am not sure why, or why you keep promoting this one person–perhaps you have a personal interest?
Shakespeare’s Sister is beginning a small press operation… in many ways, one like any other small press. I’ve made that clear over and over: we are not assisting people to self-publish. Because we are using the same print-on-demand process that has become popular for self-publishing, perhaps you confuse us with the services like your friend’s, where people take money from people who want to publish a book.
When you say you don’t understand what we have to offer, you are also rejecting all small presses. A small press does not have the resources to promote its books. It does what it can, yes, but that is almost always nothing. The books is made easily available, and that is generally the extent of it. That’s true, too, of many other publishers, who do little more than produce a catalog listing the books (something we will be doing, but online). My own publisher for my academic work, Greenwood/Praeger, relies on sales to libraries so pays little attention to bookstore distribution. Your conception of the publishing industry seems rather narrow, seeing it only as a venue for sales.
And, yes, we have an experienced art director, one who created covers for Harper for a decade. And we have editorial experience, and composing experience–all of the things a publisher offers. For we are a publisher. We are simply going a different production route.
Why do you have a problem with that?
The royalties we pay are higher than one gets from most publishers (generally 7% on the first thousand or two and 9% thereafter).
Why do you have a problem with that?
Perhaps your second-to-last paragraph is the clue: your concern, as I have already guessed, is simply sales. Ours is not. We don’t see book production in terms of money, as you do, but in terms of art and communication. It seems like you have reduced what should be a passion and a concern for intrinsic quality to dollars.
You say you have published eight books: on what? Do you write because you have something to say? Or do you write to make money? We want authors who have something to say, who need to say it. We’re not going to publish books of jokes, for example, or “dish” biographies.
Instead, we want to publish Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, the one who collars the wedding guest and, with passion in his eyes and voice, says, “There was a ship!”
We are not interested in people who turn to writing as a career path, but want to find those who have to write.
Certainly, they can get to the distributors (Ingrams, et al)–but that doesn’t get the books into bookstores.
It seems you are still confusing us with traditional publishers whose sole concentration is sales. What we are interested in is seeing books get into print that might otherwise be missed. We are doing this in a way that provides as wide a distribution possiblity as possible at as small a cost as possible. We are not proposing to be book promoters or distributors. That is quite clear in the diary!
To return the snark, you clearly haven’t looked into what lulu.com offers, so don’t really know much about what is happening through the newer developments in print-on-demand! You might want to get up-to-date before criticizing.
Really, though, I don’t mean to be snarky–but it does seem as though you haven’t carefully considered what we are offering.
No, that’s exactly what distributors do: get books into bookstores.
They may not be able to sell the book to the customer once it’s on the shelves, but that is the sole purpose of a distributor, to distribute the book to bookstores. That’s how they stay in business — how else?
No, I guess I don’t understand what you’re trying to do, or how it offers much of an advantage to an author over on-demand publishing, of which I’ve heard much – but not much that’s good — from authors who’ve gone that route.
No, you don’t understand what we are trying to do.
Checking everything out, including the traditional route. Info never hurts. Also, John Grisham self-published “A Time To Kill”. And don’t think I won’t have the legal aid attorney look at anything before I sign it!
Shit, I live on SSD/I. From my point of view: WTF do I have to lose?
But thanks for the info and your concern!!!
Very good! There’s no reason to deny any route. All can work.
Not just John Grisham, but Walt Whitman self-published.
What we’re doing, however, is not self-publishing.
It’s a combination of a utilization of print-on-demand technology (to keep costs down) and a traditional small-press style operation.
What we want to do is publish as many books of quality as we can at a low enough cost that will enable us to stay in business. We also want people to know that the books published by Shakespeare’s Sister have gone through an editing and formatting process with us.
From everything that you have said, I take it that print on demand is means exactly what it says, a number of copies of a book are printed as needed to be sold. Now, here are a few questions:
(Fair ?’s, IMO.)
The reason that this on-demand company won’t get your books into bookstores is because there is no money left to pay a distributor after they’ve taken a very, very greedy chunk of the profits.
Much more than a traditional publisher.
I remember the plight of an author who went the on-demand route, and then persevered and found a distributor — but the high cost of each book produced by on-demand, meant that for every copy in the bookstore the author was actually losing money.
If you go with a traditional publisher, they give the royalties of l0% of retail (that’s what I get), and pay the distributor — the publishers cut is much less than on demand, and they’ll get your book into the bookstores.
If you self-publish, you’ll have to make an initial outlay for publishing the books, but it will be miniscule per copy as compared with on-demand, you’ll not only have the 40% to give the distributor to get your book into stores, but still keep about 40% (or more( of the profits yourself.
And what these people are offering you, for simply finding an art director to design the book and applying for the ISBN number, is a book that can never be sold in a bookstore, and no other marketing help, either.
As someone who has published eight books, helped others to publish their books (thru both traditional and self-publishing) I can only say again, this offer is not a particularly good one.
Thanks! Was wondering why the last ?’s I asked went unanswered……That was bugging me for awhile, then I thought, if a ? (or ?’s) won’t be answered, something’s up, but I wasn’t sure what….Thanks again!
Sorry for not answering last night, but one does have other responsibilities–especially on a Saturday night.
The “eight book” person doesn’t seem to be willing to listen, to try to understand what it is we are attempting. She thinks only in terms of money, not in expression.
Like her, the publishing industry is focused on numbers, on getting as many books sold as possible. By keeping our costs to an absolute minimum, we are attempting to move away from that focus.
We would not be able to handle a blockbuster, no more than any small press could. If a book took off, we would work with the author to set up a deal with a larger publisher–and bow out. All rights for the book, after all, would remain with the author, and not with us (the copyright will never be in our name), making a new edition with a larger publisher completely at the author’s discretion.
We have no interest at all in become a book producer (which is what most publishers seem to be becoming). We want to be an avenue for people who have something to say and who can say it well to get their words out there.
Like said, I am going to be checking everything out. We’ll be in touch.
Good luck to you!
Writing a good book is a tremendous task, frustrating and often seeming to lack reward–but well worth the effort in the long run.
Thanks. You will be hearing from me again.
You continue to think that we are a self-publishing operation. We are not. There is no initial outlay for the author.
And print-on-demand books do end up in bookstores, and not at a loss… though that is another question.
Are you, for some reason, particularly offended by small presses?
We are not making an offer, but are asking for book proposals. We will pay what you claim you are getting (10% of retail, as I have said).
Because we are keeping costs to a minimum, we can publish books that may not have a great sales potential–and that is our point.
You, who keep repeating your “eight books” (what type of books, by the way) only seem to care about numbers.
We care about quality, and about getting around the “sales” logjam.
People don’t write books to have them sitting on their shelves, a knickknack to be admired.
They write because they have something to say, and want the widest audience possible to read it.
Which is what book sales are: money or no money, if you can get your books into bookstores, it means a wide readership.
It isn’t feasible to get on-demand books into bookstores, you don’t even try.
And it’s unlikely a major publisher will pick up on an on-demand book, because it’s extremely difficult to get any great number of readers through Amazon alone.
The reason that there’s no upfront cost for on-demand books is because the wholeprice of each book is onerous for the author. What you’re offering is a smaller still profit for the author, basically supplying the art direction and ISBN number lulu.com doesn’t offer.
Which is fine if the author has an otherwise unpublishable and unsaleable book, a true vanity project, but if they’ve written a book that might attract a wider audience, on-demand is the last option they should explore.
And of course I meant above “wholesale price is onerous to the author.”
Again, before you turn a book over to on-demand, I’d recommend that you first attempt to get it published by a traditional publisher (easier than you might think: go to your library and take out a couple books on how to write a book proposal, and find a literary agent.)
Only if you project has been rejected by a number of agents and publishers, consider self-publishing (check out books by Dan Poynter) — if you have several thousand dollars to invest, you’ll still have the ability to get your books to a wide audience thru bookstores.
Only if you’ve exhausted both of the above options (or exhausted the first, and can’t afford the second) should you consider on-demand publishing.
What do you write? My last book is on home viewing of film from the 1920s to the present, with a concentration on the DVD and its impact in that area and beyond. I did not write it to make money…. but hundreds of university libraries now offer it on their shelves. I wrote the book because I am fascinated by the topic. The book I am in the middle of writing now, that will come out next year, deals with the historical forces that led to the success of the blogs. It will probably end up on hundreds of library shelves, too. What about your books?
As I have said elsewhere in this discussion, not everyone writes to make money. If they find success through what we are doing at Shakespeare’s Sister, more power to them, but maximizing sales is not our goal. If a book we are associated with does reach a large market, we will have to let it go to a larger publisher. I have no problem with that–I ain’t in it for the money.
I suspect you have little real experience with the book business, for your comments about finding a publisher are naive–and you are pointing people in directions that really have little future.
Your advice might be fine–for a book of humorous vignettes or a tell-all bio of Tom Cruise, or for books for teens and younger–but it is beside the point for serious works of either fiction or non-fiction.
Your attitude that commercial success is all that matters certainly is quite American, but it is an attitude that I don’t share, and that I want to move our culture away from.
Your attitude insures that you still don’t get what we are trying to do at Shakespeare’s Sister.
<snark> Do you know anything about the history of publishing? Have you ever even heard of Leonard Woolf and the Hogarth Press? Do you have a clue as to how works of real and lasting quality come into being?</snark>
Have you ever set a page by hand with lead letterpress type? Have you ever prepared a plate of an offset press? Have you ever edited a book? Have you ever formatted a book? I have done all of these things, and much more, printing my first book (an anthology of poetry) way back in 1970.
What we are doing at Shakespeare’s Sister is to take our knowledge and use to to boost writers into publication in a real small-press fashion but one where we can afford to take more chances, developing books that might not otherwise see print.
Why does that offend you?
Perhaps you object to anything that doesn’t focus on sales and profit.
So, instead of objecting to what we are trying to do, go and do your own thing–and let us do ours.
Because the book is printed as it is ordered, the process works well with seasonal sales.
In terms of seasonal marketing, that would really be the responsibility of the author–unless, of course, we grow to the point where we can afford a marketing department. But, as I have said, our purpose right now is to keep costs down so that we can publish more.
Were sales to go through the roof, a deal would probably be made with a larger publisher to take over responsibility.
Will email you when I get back, OK?
This is a great idea. Thanks for posting this here.
Might be worth keeping in mind…