BLOGS

It’s been a while since I found one of these guys who promise to take your manuscript and publish it in eBook form.

X Publishing is requesting proposals for books to be published on iPad, Kindle, and Nook. eBook technology is changing the publishing world. iPad, Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Sony Reader created profitable mass markets for eBooks. We at X Publishing are here to help you take advantage of that.

We invite you to submit a query letter or manuscript for consideration.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I retain the rights to my book?
Yes. You retain all print rights, which means that when your eBook gets discovered by a big publishing company, you’ll receive 100% of those royalties.

How much will you edit my manuscript?
Not too much. If your manuscript needs major edits, it probably will be rejected. We will edit for clarity and concision. You will have the opportunity to approve or reject all edits.

Do I have to pay anything?
No. If your manuscript is selected, you will pay nothing to have your book published.

How much do you sell your eBooks for?
We prefer to sell eBooks at low prices with the goal of stimulating more sales volume, profits, and royalties. We default to charging $2.99 per eBook, but are open to your preferences on pricing, especially if you have already built a target audience with which you are familiar.

How much will I earn in royalties?
The fortunate few chosen to write for traditional publishers receive around $2 in royalties for each $20 hardcover book sold, according to the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency, an agent that represents writers. Your royalties will be 230% higher than that. You’ll receive $1 for each $2.99 eBook sold.

I’m not sure if my manuscript is good enough. Should I submit?
If you’re on the fence, we suggest submitting. X Publishing can often say yes to manuscripts that traditional publishers will reject because our costs are lower.

I took out the name because I don’t want to give these guys any more press than this. Let’s break this down piece by piece. Notice at the very beginning how they are only publishing your manuscript as an eBook? That should be a warning flag right there. ePublishing is something that is super easy that anyone can do. I even wrote a book about it that retails for $2.99. Now that’s not just a plug (well, it is a plug, but I’ll come back to it in a moment).

You might be saying at this point, ‘hey, so what it’s only electronic where they publish, they’re not charging me anything’. This is very true if you mean there’s no upfront cost. But what they are charging you on the back end. Their price-point is $2.99. Now on Amazon (just about everyone follows closely what Amazon pays) the publisher will earn $2.05 per unit sold. They are pocketing 51% of that and paying you a buck. Now you may be thinking, hey, that’s actually a pretty good deal, if my book were published by a traditional publisher, I’d be making way less than that (which is true and is pointed out by these guys). But what a real publisher is giving you outweighs anything these guys have said they’d do for you.

Notice nothing is said about the creation of a cover, extensive editing services, advertising of your book, book tours, etc. All these things are what the big boys do to promote your book so it can sell. So what you are giving up in royalty percentage, you are more than gaining in units sold (ideally). But these guys are getting you on the cheap. They make no mention of promoting you, which means you are left to promote yourself. They make no mention of creating a cover for you, which means you either are going to create your own cover, pay them to create your cover, or pay someone else to create your cover. Now, there are some places you can have a cover made without spending a lot of dough (again, you can read about that in my $2.99 book) or you can wait until you’ve signed the bottom line with these guys to see which option you are left with.

Next! You do retain the rights to your work. Of course you do. You just are signing away your right to publish it yourself for a term of service. Something between 3 to 5 years. And by them saying they’ll be your publisher until an actual publisher comes along to buy the rights, that big publisher is buying the rights from them, not you. You’ve already handed over the rights to publish (you can never surrender ownership of your story–it’s a semantics trick).

The reason they don’t want to edit your manuscript is because they are looking for people to hand over their work so they can publish right now. They herd you in the right direction to get  cover created and they can have your book on e-shelves in a few days time with little to no financial investment on their part.

Again, self-publishing an eBook is very simple and super-easy. I take you through the whole process in my book, and instead of paying them $1.05 per book, you can buy mine for a one-time charge of $2.99. But you can always buy anyone’s book on self-publishing in the digital age and come out way cheaper than anything these guys can do for you.