Hi

I've been submitting my novel to agents and in the post yesterday I received a letter from Create in Soho offering to publish my novel as an ebook on a 50% profit share basis, and they say that I would retain copyright.

Has anyone else had this letter? I didn't send a writing sample or approach letter to them, only to a selection of agents. What would you advise? Has anyone heard of them?

I know very little about ebooks but they seem popular and I wonder if this is an option for me?

Thank you

Vanessa,

I suggest you read this:

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=4096

Worth reading all Dean's posts on the subject actually, and his posts about agents. Here, he's talking mostly about agents offering to publish their existing clients' backlists. But the principles apply to new authors, too. Publishing is going through huge changes at the moment, brought about by the rapid increase in e-book sales. This has publishers very worried but has agents terrified. Hence, they are trying to get in on the act before writers realise they don't actually need agents (or even publishers), but can do it themselves.

Very nice of Create to let you keep the copyright! But 50% of the profits? For doing what exactly? Anything they do, you can do yourself. Yes, you may need to pay an artist if you want a decent cover, and an editor if you want the book to be well put together. But after those costs, you'll make a lot more than 50%.

There are some new e-publishers working much more as collectives, i.e. you keep all the rights to your books, and most of the profits, just using the publisher if and where needed for services you can't do yourself. Better to check out these, I'd say.

Terry



<Added>

Just to emphasise, Dean's series on Think Like a Publisher will tell you a lot about self-publishing.

I think what's rather smelly here is that this publisher clearly got your details from an agent. Which suggests have some kind of stake in the company, which I'd say is bordering on a conflict of interest.

Yes, I think it's very bad that this company has managed to get hold of your details, and the fact that you submitted a novel - so the agent has passed on your info without your permission, and without even responding to you themselves first!

As Terry says, you can get 100% of the profit very easily without too much difficulty or technical knowledge.

And 50% of the profit... who decides what the profit is? Do you have the right to control how much they spend of the revenue from the books? Because that's as large a determinant of how much the profit will be, as much as what the books sell for

As everyone says, if you do it yourself, you get 100% of the profit, if there is any.

The traditional way for authors to be paid for their books is a "Percentage of cover price" - the royalty, which is usuall 5-12%, depending on the contract/format etc.

More recently, with "cover price" no longer being the money that the reader pays, much of the time, the model has been shifting towards "Percentage of net receipts" - i.e. a set percentage of what the publisher gets from the buyer. That should be a much higher percentage - 25% should be the absolute minimum, and 50%-80% fairer.

If in doubt, get any contract for publishing or for help with self-publising checked out by the Society of Authors.

Emma

Sounds like a vanity publisher to me - there are a lot of small ebook publishers setting up now, just as a few years ago everyone was jumping on the PoD publishing wagon. The problem with the vast majority of them is they don't help you edit the mss, so it's little better than self-publishing. Some charge the writer for editing and proofreading services, and cover art.

A legitimate publisher pays the author, not the other way round.

- NaomiM



<Added>

If you are computer lliterate you can put out your own ebook via Amazon's Createspace &/or Smashwords.
Most self-published ebooks are priced in the 99p-£2.50 range, out of which the writer gets around 35%