I would like to welcome Sarah Juckes the communications manager of CompletelyNovel.com. She is here to answer some questions and introduce their model for independent publishing. Delve into the questions and feel free to go by their site and kick their tires and see if they may be right for you.
1) Can you explain CompletelyNovel in 50 words?
CompletelyNovel is a friendly publishing platform, specializing in helping authors create, publish and sell beautiful print books. We’re a little different to most publishing platforms. For one – we offer 100% royalty rates. We also have a friendly team on hand when needed, expert advice on tap and some of the best print quality around.
(That was 54 words – sorry!)
2) 100% royalties – how does that work?
Rather than taking a commission from book sales, we offer authors the option to ‘subscribe’ to publishing for one flat fee per month, or per year.
So, let’s say an author subscribes to our publishing Plus Plan. She pays £7.99/$11.99 per month to publish two different titles – perhaps her novel and its sequel. For this, she gets the use of our online tools to create her book, the opportunity to print copies at cost price, two ISBNs and distribution worldwide via high-quality print-on-demand.
As we don’t take any commission from her book sales, 100% of the book royalties are passed back to her on the first working day of every month. And that’s it! No upfront fees or hidden costs needed.
3) How is this different to publishers such as Createspace and Lulu?
Most other publishing platforms operate by taking a commission from your book sales, or by charging an upfront fee. As we cover our costs with a monthly subscription, an author can earn 100% book royalties. These means she will only ever pay £7.99/$11.99 per month to publish, whether she sells ten books, or ten thousand.
Currently, CreateSpace take a 40% commission of the retail price of every book sale, and Lulu takes 20% of the royalties. The math can get a bit confusing, so we’ve covered it in full detail using Pride and Prejudice as an example, here.
4) What kind of authors suit CompletelyNovel’s publishing subscriptions?
Our subscription model particularly suits authors who sell more than six copies of their book a month, so we have a lot of passionate writers on CompletelyNovel who are working to do just that.
Authors don’t need to have any previous experience with publishing. We have lots of free advice for newbies on our website, so they can learn as they go.
Books doing particularly well with us at the moment range from travel memoirs, to women’s fiction – literary masterpieces to business books. Ultimately, we find that a book’s success is down to the determination of the author who drives them.
5) What kind of authors DON’T suit CompletelyNovel?
CompletelyNovel isn’t for everyone. Authors who are looking for a ‘hands on’ publishing experience are better off going to a publishing services provider – the cost of which can be anything upwards of £700/$1000. We also don’t currently offer eBook distribution, although 99% of our authors publish an eBook independently to go alongside their print book, which we encourage.
One of the great things about subscribing to publishing on a monthly basis is that authors are free to leave whenever they want. They maintain all copyright to their work and their book will simply become unavailable if they choose to leave.
6) What’s the cost of a standard print book on CompletelyNovel?
Authors can actually calculate the print cost of their book here.
So – for an average 250 page paperback novel, it’s about £3.25/$5.04.
7) Where are you based?
We are in sunny Brighton, just south of London (by the sea) in the UK. We’re a small and friendly team, and most of us are actually writers ourselves.
Although we’re based in the UK, thanks to the wonders of the internet, we have authors publishing with us from all over the world.
8) Where can writers find more information?
Authors can find out more about what we do, here.
If you want more information on how subscribing to publishing works, we’ve popped it into a handy infographic, which you can find, here.
And yes – you can even drop me a line via a contact form, here.
Leave a Reply