Here at WG2E, we love to hear it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. What better way to get information than by going directly to the source? Today, we have guest Libby Sternberg, founder of Istoria Books, a brand new digital publishing house. Istoria Books also has a blog. We asked her to enlighten us on opportunities in ePublishing and what led her to founding this new company.
Feel free to engage and add to the discussion by commenting and asking questions! We want to have great dialogue here.
Now, heeeerrrreeee’s Libby!
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Thanks for having me as a guest at Writer’s Guide to E-publishing! I think the best way to start my discussion is to steal from Dickens: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
For many authors, that’s how the book business feels right now, with expanding possibilities through e-publishing, but uncertainty elsewhere, especially in print.
E-publishing offers both opportunities and challenges for everyone in the book world–for writers, readers and publishers. Here’s how I’d summarize the situation quickly:
- Writers can go directly to reading consumers with e-publishing, putting their books up for sale on amazon and the like, bypassing publishers entirely. The challenge — how can writers ensure their books are well-edited and correctly formatted? How can writers actually reach the readers who will enjoy their stories?
- Readers now have access to quality books that might have been turned down by print publishers because of genre and marketing limitations. The challenge — how can readers identify which authors offer quality material?
- Publishers have a new market available to them as more people buy e-reading devices. The challenge — how can print publishers keep prices reasonable when they have all the overhead associated with printing and distribution?
Istoria Books, a new ePublisher launched late last year by my husband, daughter and me, hopes to meet these challenges successfully by building a reputation for good stories at prices readers want to pay.
We started this press because we know that there are many readers who will be searching for a “brand” they can trust when looking at e-books by authors they’re not familiar with. We want to be the “go to” publisher for those readers, the ones who want to try new authors, who are willing to experiment, but who aren’t willing to buy just anything.
In keeping with that goal, we’re determined to offer books at what we consider attractive e-appropriate prices — that is, not too costly. As successful e-author Joe Konrath emphasizes, appropriate pricing is one of the keys to success in e-publishing, where readers balk at paying print prices.
For authors, we want to be a house where they can spread their wings, where they can place stories that might not fit neatly into what seems to be ever-narrowing limitations of traditional print publishing. That means we’ll take a look at a romance, for example, told from the hero’s point of view, or even one with a slightly less upbeat HEA. We’ll consider women’s fiction that has but the faintest whiff of romance in it and inspirational where the protagonist has been an unrepentant sinner.
We want to respect readers’ intelligence by assuming they’re attracted to certain stories not because they’re filled with vampires, knights templar or Tudor ladies but because they spin good yarns.
We believe that’s the market trend to chase–good stories, well-told–rather than books with copycat characters and plot points.
Our goal is to publish novels that keep readers clicking page turns, propelled through the story by compelling plots, absorbing characterizations and/or transcendent writing. When we read manuscripts, we’ll ask ourselves two primary questions:
- do I want to keep reading this story
- do I want to keep hearing this author tell it to me?
We also want to stick with authors we believe in even if it takes awhile for them to find their audience.
We’re still in what we call the “soft launch” phase where we’ve rolled out a handful of novels written by me, a multi-published author and one-time Edgar nominee. But we recently opened for submissions and are reading manuscripts now (see our website and blog for guidelines — and sign up for our mailing list to receive a free ebook).
By publishing good stories, well-told, Istoria hopes to build a brand name with readers, who are currently confronted with a wide array of offerings from new independent authors as well as established publishers.
Istoria Books handles the editing, formatting, cover art design and marketing for writers — all at our expense. We don’t offer advances but do offer very fair royalty share arrangements.
Anyone following the publishing industry over the past few years knows it’s in a transformative stage due both to the poor economy and the expansion of the digital reading world, among other things. Sales are slow–authors report it’s become increasingly difficult to sell their manuscripts unless they have a high concept debut or a solid high-sales record behind them already. It’s the perfect time for authors to look into e-Publishing, especially if they have stories that are difficult to sell to the big houses.
I hope you’ll check us out — www.IstoriaBooks.com and www.IstoriaBooks.blogspot.com– and consider reading one of our books or submitting a manuscript! For more information, email us at Istoriabks@gmail.com
Libby, thanks for being here today. It’s interesting to hear about what has led you to the epublishing world.
At this point, do you have any books in the pipeline or any you’re close to taking? And what do you see as the benefit of going with Istoria books verses trying to go it alone?
Misa,
Thanks for having me as a guest!
Books in the pipeline — we’re working on signing a romance author whose rights have reverted to her on her backlist. Until the deal is inked, I can’t say much more than that, but I’m very excited about this possibility. I’m also reading a manuscript right now from an author I had the pleasure of working with at a print house when I did freelance editing for them.
Regarding e-appropriate pricing — I was probably being a bit too coy there, I admit! But we would love to be able to keep our prices below six dollars a book. That is, below the cost of a mmp. Unlike print publishers, we won’t have the overhead of printing and distribution.
Libby
I just realized that I didn’t answer the second part of your question, Misa, and instead answered someone else’s question about pricing!
You asked why an author would want to go with us rather than going it alone…
I salute authors who do go it alone, and there are certainly enough success stories out there to inspire authors to trod that path.
But for authors who want to focus solely or primarily on writing and not on formatting, editing, securing cover art and marketing, etc. they will probably want to consider an e-pubilsher such as Istoria Books to do all those things for them.
Libby
Welcome to The WG2E, Libby and Co!
Thanks bunches for being our guest!
Can you give us the scoop on what then Istoria (luv the name, btw) considers to be “attractive e-appropriate prices — that is, not too costly”…what will be your Ebook price points?
Also, what are your “very fair royalty share arrangements”?
I do think it’s a great business move that you’re not charging your authors for production costs – i.e covers, editing, formatting. Well done there!
And also, what types of marketing will you do to help your writers find their audiences?
Again, thanks sooo much for being here, and I look forward to following your success.
Hi, D.D.
I addressed the e-appropriate pricing in my reply to Misa when I meant to respond to you! Anyway, as you can see, we want to keep our prices below print prices, so that means six dollars or less. We can envision exceptions — particularly long books, perhaps, where the effort involved in production would match the reader’s expectation in pricing — but hope to stick to our low prices as best we can.
As to “very fair royalty share arrangements,” that will vary, depending on whether the author has been in print, etc. In other words, it depends on how much risk and work we take on. Previously published works, for example, will not require extensive copy editing — if they require any at all.
Although we’ll have a starting point in our contracts, it will be negotiable. Sorry I can’t be more specific, but each book and each author brings something different to the table, and we want to respond to each one individually.
As to marketing plans, we would handle blog tour arrangements and other media placement where appropriate and possible. We also are building a mailing list of digital book readers. I have a a public relations background, so I will do everything I can to get our authors the attention they deserve.
Okay, so I checked out the site. (Thanks DeeDee!)
Annnd….
as an unpub’d author, I don’t know the advantages between splitting the royalties or having an advance. I’m guessing here that since your company does all the formatting, cover art, blog tours, etc, that that presents a time savings as well as a dollar savings for the author.
But, how much say would an author have in the cover art, for example? I have friends who have pub’d online with other companies who did this, and their covers totally misinterpret the level of romance/eroticism in the book.
Also, will you be going out to any conferences this year promoting your online company?
Thanks in advance for your answers.
And please allow me to say, it’s refreshing and exciting to read that your company is open to those of us who write something that doesn’t fit on the standard shelf. I’m doing a steampunk gaslight romance, centered around a Christmas theme, and steampunk alone is … way out there. But there’s a strong following among sci-fi and YA readers.
Thank you very much.
Hi Pamela!
About advances and royalties…I’m published in print, and I, like some other authors I know, have seen advances and no (or very few) royalties due to the byzantine accounting in print publishing that waits on “returns” and the like. Some of my royalty statements look to be written in a foreign language!
In ePublishing, however, sales are immediate and accounting is much easier. Authors will see royalties, in other words, in ePublishing that they might not have seen in print. Part of our contract calls for regular reports on sales throughout the year, instead of a yearlong wait, which can sometimes be the norm in print publishing.
It would be lovely to be able to offer advances, but we’re lean and small, so it’s not in our plan at the present time.
As to author input on cover art, we’re using an approach that some publishers I’ve worked with have used — that is, to put together a one-sheet guide for the cover artist with a summary of the book, descriptions of the characters and the setting, and examples of covers to emulate.
I hate coming across books where the cover art doesn’t match what happens in the book, so we’ll be particularly attuned to appropriate covers.
Authors will have some input in covers, but ultimately Istoria will have the final say, since we’ll bear the upfront cost of commissioning the artwork.
Hope this answers your questions!
Libby
P.S. Very nice site.
So we all loved him too.
And I loved Paul Revere and the Raiders also. The ponytail!
And Peter Tork’s grandmother lived down the street from me when I was very wittle.
Thanks, Pamela, for checking out our Istoria blog!
Libby
I will definitely be watching the progress of this epublisher. It seems like it could be a very good option in the near future. Thanks, DD et al for bringing us this marvelous information. I look forward to each day’s posts.
Libby,
Do you envision ever offering print editions also?
Or solely to offer only electronic versions?
I’m published in non-fiction and it was a thrill to hold the bound monographs in my hands. Certainly, I want my six novel manuscripts to reach readers also, but I surely hope it can be in both formats.
Jeff
Jeff,
We are contemplating how to work print into our business plan eventually, but for now we’re only focusing on e-publishing.
I agree that it is nice to hold one’s own book, as a separate object, in one’s hands. But ultimately, writers write because they want readers to read and appreciate the writing, not the form in which it appears.
Libby