Publishing
We offer two
publishing products
Cooperative publishing and Traditional
publishing.
We will break down the two options below.
Let's
start with the similarities:
In
both Traditional and Cooperative
Publishing, the author participates in the planning of
the book, the cover design, and book size, and would be
actively involved in the sales of their books. We offer
assistance at every level during this process including
cover design, book size and formatting, editing and
critique. Some of these services are free of charge.
For others, you may be charged a small fee, but you
will always be advised of those fees in advance. No
other publishing company works with authors at this
level with as much detail for free, or offers the small
cost structure we work within. (At any time, authors
may feel free to contact our already published authors
for discussion about our processes.) We will work with
the author from start to finish, from manuscript setup
through delivery of the books, and we will discuss every
step with you.
In
both programs we offer extensive assistance after
printing. We will guide you through the listing process
and start you on the road to promoting your book. We
obtain the all important ISBN and Library of Congress
Catalog numbers, submit book data to Books In Print and
- optionally - we will set up a page for you on TJMF
with purchase buttons and also upload all your
information to Baker and Taylor, our distributor and
second largest book distributor in the country. We also
have an association with Amazon.com for marketing
books. In the Cooperative program there is a
$50.00 listing fee required for the TJMF, Baker and
Taylor and Amazon.com listings.
We are
looking for excellent authors who understand the need to
take an active role in the production and promotion of
their books. While this program is openly available, we
do not accept every author who applies. Our goal is to
work with a few quality people, not to simply produce
more and more books.
Now
the program differences:
Cooperative
publishing is the most flexible product in so far as the
author has more control over his/her book and receives
the profits from sales. Of the more than 15 books we’ve
published, 90% have been through this program. That
said, we only recently began our Traditional
publishing program so that percentage will changer
perhaps but in the end Cooperative publishing
seems to be the program of choice.
In
Cooperative publishing, the author shares in the
cost of publishing. He or she will know up front what
those costs are but in the end, the beauty of this
program is that the authors will have their own
inventory. Quotes are always provided in advance but
each and every book is different; therefore we have to
know exactly what size book, cover specifications,
number of pages, type of paper stock and color options
before we can offer a reasonably close estimate. The
more proofs and editing we have to do once the printing
process starts, the more a book will cost, but we have
always managed to ‘come in’ very close to the
estimates. Again, our previously published authors will
be more than happy to answer any questions you have
about this process
.
Basically
we can produce a book for between 2 1/2 cents to 4 1/2
cents per page - delivered to your door, depending on
the specs we discussed above and the quantity of books
you can afford to inventory. So if you have the average
130 page poetry book, 9 x 6 with color cover and black
and white text on normal stock, 100 books delivered
would cost you approximately $475.00 or 4.75 per book.
Traditional
publishing is basically the same with these
differences. Manuscript approval for this program is
tougher. TJMF pays all costs to publish (except editing
work). The author sells through TJMF and receives 20%
royalties on all sales. Marketing is still a joint
venture, but the author is required to make as many
appearances as possible. In other words, TJMF is more
involved in the author’s sales efforts. TJMF creates
the web page for the author and listings as described
above including Baker and Taylor and Amazon.com so we
handle the fulfillment end of the selling. This program
is less flexible for the author but requires no up front
costs from TJMF. It is a tougher program for approval
because TJMF has a higher stake in the inventory.
What's
in it for you?
We
believe that we are getting better and better every day
at a job that we love and we truly do have the best
interest of the author in mind in everything we do. We
plan a slow - quality growth and we think that benefits
the author. We're not in this for quick profits and
many of us have had experiences with those types of
publishers so we know how important that is.
If
you're
interested in publishing and you've read this entire
article then we're probably for you. You can write to
any of our published authors for a private discussion
about TJMF and what we do or you can email us directly
with your questions and we hope you do. We’ll be glad to
give you advice whether you become a TJMF author or not.
Staff
TJMF
Publishing
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