What are we looking for?
Caltrop Press serves both previously-published and unpublished authors.
We’re looking forward to reading books that keep us interested enough to work on them for a few months. That’s the only way they sell.
Will the next one be yours?
We will help you get your book ready to sell, and to advise you on selling it thereafter.
Submittal guidelines
We can work with detailed outlines (chapter headings plus paragraph-length synopsis for each chapter) or full manuscripts.
(If you only have an idea, but we like it enough, we may work with you to figure out what yo do want to write about. But we will likely charge a retainer for that).
We can only produce a maximum of ten original titles a year, so we’re only going to take yours on if we believe in it.
Series are strongly encouraged, and once the first book or two in the series have some traction we’ll reduce our revenue share on subsequent books.
Submissions are accepted electronically only. Please check the submission guidelines when preparing your material.
Sample Contract
You’ll find a sample contract at this link. The one we finally execute with you may differ based on your prior experience, your initial submittal or other factors.
Why these terms?
Yes, our terms are different from some you may run into.
A conventional publisher only provides a hefty advance to a very, very few authors; you have to earn it back through book sales; and the large online and brick-and-mortar stores they sell to will often return 80-95 percent of the books they “order”. One writer in a million, literally, will make enough to earn a living this way. You might as well play the lottery. The rest don’t get enough to cover their first book signing, if they get picked up at all.
What do we do instead?
We don’t pay you an early advance. You don’t pay a bunch of money up front to get your book into the market. We put skin in the game by getting paid only when books are sold. Our work to help you get a book ready to publish is entirely a labor of love, betting on the outcome, because we do in fact love the idea of your book. Or we just love working with you!
We are realistic about market success for authors. You should be too. Books that appeal to a very narrow niche, or authors without a large existing following, very seldom recapture the investment to put them into the market. We’re gambling on you and your book – because we love them enough to want to see them out there. Both we and you get paid out of the profits when your books sell… if they sell. Our approach allows you to bring your book to market for minimal outlay while providing us with a means of recapturing the cost of our significant upfront efforts. Once the book has some momentum, then the revenue moves increasingly in your direction. In the end, unless you truly do have a blockbuster in your head, you’ll make more with us (or any other “indie” publisher) than you might do with a “conventional” publishing house. Once you do have that blockbuster, you’ll probably want to go the conventional route, and we’ll wish you happy trails. We’re happy to say “we knew them when they were just getting started, and we gave them the break (or the push) they needed”.
Your Responsibilities
The contract isn’t huge. There’s no room in the indie press for battalions of lawyers. We’ve provided an explanation of why we have set things up the way they are. We couldn’t include every eventuality; if we’re going to work together, we have to work together to make a success out of your masterpiece.
There are certain situations and conditions that arise for even the newest author. They’re not inherent in the contract; they’re inherent in you being an author. The main one is that it’s up to you to complete the work. It’s not always easy! (See the Do-It-Yourself page for some pointers.) Our base service doesn’t include mentoring you through the actual writing process; if you need that we can talk about it. What we will do is stick with you and provide whatever advice and guidance you might need to move forward (sometimes it’ll be more than just advice, as in “you need to get this done or we’re going to have to put our priorities elsewhere”).