This page explains why we set our arrangement up the way we did. Yes, it’s different. Why not? You could find dozens of people who can do this for you: our offering has to be a bit different to give you a reason to choose Caltrop Press.
If you’ve looked around already and you just want to get started, here’s a link to the “Submittal” page.
If you’re an experienced author with a massive platform, we’d be flattered to help and we can certainly talk terms. That’s not the situation that our standard terms address. We’re assuming you are a new author, or one with a very narrow niche, who really wants to get a book out and isn’t confident that going it alone (see our D-I-Y page) is a good plan for you. You also don’t want to invest a lot of money to get a book into the marketplace (there are lots of programs that will help you [legitimately, I would add] for a few thousand dollars up front, but they aren’t going to guarantee you sales. Nor are we, but then again we’re not charging you an upfront fee; in fact, it’s our money that will get the book edited, prepare a cover, and get into print and published. Until that happens it costs you nothing.
The reading fee (submittal fee, if you like) is nominal. It’s also non-refundable. It’s mainly intended to keep out people who are completely non-serious, and it does take time to read and critique a manuscript, which we can’t very well un-read. Even if it’s not for us at this time, you won’t get just a deafening silence or a curt “rejected” notice; since we took your money, we’ll provide you with useful feedback. If we take your manuscript on, you’ll get it all back.
Our program is structured to help you get the book written to a level that we will allow to represent our work, to publish it to some of the major distribution points, and to help you with marketing activities.
We are serious about the work representing the image we’d like to maintain. We’re not going to write the book for you (unless we work a deal on the editing effort), and if you’ve got an author’s voice we’re not going to change that. But we will be quite insistent on certain points.
Other than the reading fee, you are incurring no costs up front. In theory, if we don’t have to buy certain pictures you might want or other similar expenses, you could get the book published for nothing down. We’re carrying all the risk until the book has sold hundreds of copies. So we want it to sell just as much as you do.
We do not pay an advance. Advances were originally designed to sustain an author between the time of an agreement to write and/or publish a book and the time the publisher finally got around to issuing the first royalty check (which, even today, can be as long as three years in the world of traditional New York publishing! )
- It would be nice if we got, as the major houses do, a hugely established author. That would make things easy. That’s not a good plan for us to count on. It would also be nice if one of our authors really hits it big; we sure hope so, and we’ll do what we can to make it so, but again, we’re not building our business model around that possibility.
- First, we’re incurring most of the costs of production up front with, let’s be honest, a strong likelihood that the book will never break even. I’m sorry to have to tell you that, but it is true and you might as well know it up front. We’re taking that risk with you on the theory that if we like the book then at least a few hundred other people will too. So we do pay ourselves back out of the royalty, while still paying you almost double in royalties what a conventional publisher would do.
- Once the book gains traction, we’re not going to continue to collect the outlandish share that a regular publisher would do. We’ll back down our share so you get the fruits of your brainchild … and so you’ll work with us on your next book too.
- In addition, you’re not going to be waiting to get paid. You will receive your first accounting statement (and hopefully royalties) about 70 days after the publication of your book. You will get paid based on actual receipts to us from the distributors. You will receive another statement/payment each month that you are under contract with us.
The terms will vary based on what you are bringing to the table but you will almost always get at least 50% straight net on all rights. This means that we pay you exactly half of what the distributor (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ingram, Baker and Taylor) pays us, net of any expenses that fall to you such as purchasing rights to special pictures you want to use, extra copies of the book for you, etc. We assume all costs of the initial production. We may elect to assume the costs of some of the promotion and marketing, since we also get a cut of the royalties, and without sales there are no royalties. There are no tricks or hidden fees.
We license books for a maximum of five years from date of publication. If at the end of that time your book is not selling a minimum, pre-determined number of copies per year, rights will revert to you with no hassle, no hard feelings. Our objective is to get you signing up for more books by that time.
We’re proud of the effort we make to keep our contracts simple and easy to understand. A sample contract is included here .
You may use, but you do not need, an agent to submit to us. There is no complicated negotiating or bargaining to be done. Not much else is practically negotiable, since we are incurring all the initial costs and once it goes to print the distributors set their own terms; there’s no point arguing with them since that’s how the book is going to get out to the public. If you do have an agent, you are welcome to submit to Caltrop Press through her/him, understanding that their fee will be coming out of your share.
Are we ready? Let’s take a look at that great outline or manuscript! Here’s a link to the “Submittal” page.