Our imprint, Mendon House Press, is now official
Just as we were beginning to assign new titles to this imprint, WiDo Publishing began getting name recognition. So we took Mendon House Press off the title pages and put WiDo Publishing back on. We still plan on using the new imprint down the road, but right now we don't want to mess with the burgeoning name recognition of WiDo Publishing. Granted, it's an odd name, but maybe that's why people are remembering it?
E-Publishing: Where do we stand?
Up to this point, our titles have been printed offset with 1000 minimum first run. We are looking at possible e-publishing for several new releases. The reasons would be:
* to explore the market of e-books
* the ease of certain authors being better able to market their titles in this manner
* the decision that some genres will sell better electronically than they would in hard copies
* titles geared specifically to a demographic that is actively purchasing e-books
We are also considering simultaneous e-publishing along with the offset printing. In this case, the author would get the normal royalty rate for the printed books; and 50% royalty on the net profit of the e-books.
Being a small press with small first runs puts us in an excellent position to make the leap to e-publishing, as we do not have warehouses full of books to sell. Many publishers in this situation are rightfully concerned that e-publishing a title will compete with the print run sales of that title. This puts a book in competition with itself for sales.
Also, since we do not have agented authors (not paying advances makes us of little interest to agents), and we have very simple, straightforward contracts, we do not have to revamp and enter into endless negotiations for e-publishing rights. Our contracts assign electronic rights to the publisher, along with print and audio rights. However, since there's very little cost associated with e-publishing a title, as opposed to print publishing, we follow the 50% split similar to selling of foreign rights or mass market paperback rights.