[MARKET] Casperian Books
A small, unabashedly amateur operation. Various genres, including gay/lesbian - they're scheduled to publish Chris Owen and BDSM m/m author Manna. Their outstanding feature is their royalties: they offer two-thirds of net receipts for royalties . . . on paperbacks. They use the POD printer Lightning Source. They use templates for their design. One- to five-year exclusive rights, negotiable. They have their contract online. They've thought ahead to the possibility they might shut down, and they explain what happens if they do. They offer only limited marketing. They "only accept manuscripts that are already very polished and edited." Basically, this looks to me like a good option for folks who want to self-publish but need their hand held. The fact that they take one-third of net royalties seems to me reasonable, given what they offer. A lot of small presses offer the same limitations; those other presses just aren't as candid about what they don't do. The only drawback I can see is the exclusive rights clause, but that could be handled through negotiations. About the Press. Submission guidelines. Q&A.

A percentage on net doesn't mean, well, much of anything. I had a look but it is hard to say what publisher costs are counted as within net, TPB prices seem about right though so they aren't doing it by inflating the price. I think you would need to be very aware of what you were getting through them that wouldn't be available through Lulu. It would take some research.

Point taken about the net royalties, but Lulu and this press aren't comparable, because it's really not possible to sell a book through the online booksellers via Lulu, unless you inflate the cover price a lot - which is possible with art books but not really possible with a romance novel. The better comparison would be working directly with Lightning Source, which takes a fair bit of know-how. In either case, you're on your own with covers and layout and proofreading, unless you hire someone. The covers of this press strike me as passable, which is probably a lot better than the average author could produce on their own.