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Publishing companies exist on a spectrum with traditional on one side, self-publishing on the other, and PYP falls in that middle area. PYP is a hybrid publishing company which means that we guide you through the process of editing, marketing, and selling your book. We will work with you in a collaborative fashion handling logistics while making sure that your book is exactly how you would want it.
Here are some helpful articles on this topic:
What is a Traditional Publisher? How is it Different From a Hybrid Publisher?
What is a Hybrid Publisher? How Do I Know Which One is Right For Me?
The pros and cons of a traditional publisher are that you would receive an advance typically around $2,500. However, that is a difference that you would have to make up with the number of books sold. Traditional publishers have the final say over what happens with your book and can make any changes they see fit. This includes editing the content of your book, choosing how and who they market, and what the cover will look like.
What is a Traditional Publisher? How is it Different From a Hybrid Publisher?
It’s possible. It depends on how the publisher thinks they can sell it. They will tweak your book to maximize the sale opportunities; they aren’t going to tweak it based on how it’s going to maximize impact on an individual person or a community. However, it typically takes a minimum of two years to get to publication from the time you start working with a traditional publisher meaning a lost opportunity cost.
Self publishing is almost the complete opposite of traditional publishing. You are the boss and make decisions like what the cover looks like and who edits the book. The challenges with self publishing are hiring the wrong person, costing you more money and distributing it to retailers. You have to do the leg work and contact multiple retailers and bookstores to have your book sold. The benefit is that you keep a much higher portion of the profits.
What is Self-Publishing? How is it Different From Hybrid Publishing?
For us we take 15% and you keep 85% and that’s only on online sales. The 15% is just if it sells on Amazon or sells on Books a Million or any of the other online retailers. For hardcopies, we sell you the book at wholesale meaning there is no upcharge and it’s less than retail price. You sell them at whatever price you determine in live markets.
A typical price point would be around $15-$20.
We can usually publish within eight months. We have had a couple of books publish in about four months. A large amount of that eight months is the editing process. We move as fast as the author moves meaning if an author takes three weeks to reply to an email, that’s three weeks longer that the process will take. Once editing is finished, everything else is a smooth process.
A book has to fit our criteria of being a mission driven book focused on impact, focused on purpose and for someone who’s growing their business as a result of it. Whether it’s a speaking business, consulting business, training business, etc.
It’s not necessary to have a completed manuscript but the closer it is to finished allows us to give you a more accurate price for what the editing cost will be.
The way we start is that we’re licensing the use of your rights to publish your book. You still control all of your rights in all of the languages in all of the countries.
Yes, the reason why we do it is because by the end of the academy, you are familiar with our process and we are familiar with you and your book. It’s a smoother transition for someone who has been through the academy compared to an author that was just introduced.
Spring and Fall are typically the best times for publications.
Yes, it’s a matter of marketing and using the conference as a sales tool whether that be word of mouth or speaking at the conference. If you are speaking at a conference, they may not be able to pay out a large amount for speaking fees, but many conferences do have a budget for books and that can be added in addition to speaking fees.
For hardcover we price at $10 more than paperback and ebook about 50% of the paperback. For example, if the paperback is $18.95 the hardcover’s $28.95 and the ebook is around $9.45.
There are usually 2 camps or types of authors that come to us. One is a person who is already a speaker or consultant. They have been doing their work and are often asked about their book, or if they are going to write a book. They don’t see themselves as writers, but they realize that getting a book written and out to the world will increase the number of people they can serve and impact.
That person may not be a writer, but they still have amazing content and information that can truly be transformational – they just do it other ways. They are often speakers and are already an expert in their field. They have content that they’ve created and developed as part of their work.
We’ve seen that once you have a book, it really takes the business to the next level no matter what type of business you are in. We see speakers raise their fees once they have a book, or someone who has never been paid to speak can now get a nice fee for speaking.
An ISBN (known as an International Standard Book Number) is a unique identifying number for your book. Essentially this means, you will need an identifying number for your book as it enters the marketplace. Every book sold in bookstores has its own ISBN. This number helps to ensure your book can be identified, ordered and delivered correctly when an order is placed in any retail outlet. For books published by Publish Your Purpose, we take care of this for you. If you opt the self-publishing route and attend the Publish Your Purpose Academy, we discuss how to obtain ISBNs and how to use them for your book.
We love working with authors who have their manuscripts almost complete. This is a great time for us to provide insights and guidance on how to best position your book.
Our team of publishing professionals can work with you to bring your editing into a polished place, copy write your jacket copy and design your book cover. If you come to the table with any of these items already done, we will work with you to bring them up to the Purpose Driven Publishing standard. We recognize you’ve invested time and money into your book and we want, just as much as you, to use anything you’ve previously done. We don’t let our egos get in the way – we want what is best for you, the author.
You’re in luck! We can help authors at any stage in the process.
If you have an idea but don’t know how to get it down on paper you can join the Purpose Driven Authors Academy (PDAA). PDAA walks future-authors through every stage of the book creation and publishing process. At the end of the 14 week course you’ll walk away with the tools and knowledge to self-publish your book or seek a traditional publisher. Purpose Driven Publishing pulls the best of the best authors out of PDAA to publish their works.
No, we are selective about each book we choose to publish. They must meet our criteria of being purpose driven and designed to change the world, one reader at a time. We understand this means we may be missing out on your amazing manuscript, but we would be happy to refer you to another publisher who might be a better fit for you. Remember, as the publisher, your work has the Purpose Driven Publishing name on it too, which means it must fulfill the mission of being purpose driven.
Someone who is looking to write a book in a new space to change their path. They might be working in a field that no longer fits them. They know that by being a published author they can break into a new field and be recognized as an expert much more quickly.
For example one of our authors does trainings for automotive companies. She travels 40 weeks a year, training at dealerships and she’s great at it. She loves it but it’s not what she’s most passionate about.
She wrote a book in the law of attraction genre and we are helping her transition out of this very corporate training type of job into something else. Her new focus is more about healing and it’s very different and she’s not known in that area.
She knows that having the book means she can share her story and articulate her thoughts and expertise to help her gain credibility faster in her new field.
I have a masters in marketing. I’ve been eating and sleeping marketing and I don’t think it’s a dirty word. But many people do, even those who are in business. I want people to know that marketing your book isn’t sleazy and doesn’t have to feel that way, ever. It can be very authentic.
With that understanding, we have some authors who are natural-born marketers. Everything they say and do is in alignment with their brand and it’s just how they show up, so we don’t have to worry about mind-set. We just tell them what they need to do. Essentially give them a checklist and they get it, they run with it.
Then there are others who are on the other end of the spectrum. They have some resistance to the idea of marketing so it’s a bit harder for them. Most of our authors fall somewhere in the middle.
Every strategy for marketing is tweaked depending on the author and what they are comfortable with and what they feel good about doing. We do that because we don’t want any of our authors to feel tenuous about marketing their book.
Many book marketers have a list that they use. You do A, then B and so on without variations. But there are now cookie cutter approaches or one-size fits all plans that work for everyone.
Here’s what we know. The average book sells 250 copies in its lifetime. That’s including traditional publishing, self-published – all of it.
Our authors sell an average of 410 copies per year. Some sell much more, and some don’t sell many at all but that is our average with all of the authors we’ve worked with.
We see greater success with our marketing efforts because we do tailor them to the authors. We also pay attention to what’s working, and review strategies with each new author we work with because things change.
I will talk to anyone who is interested in non-fiction or memoir publishing. That’s what I know. Fiction isn’t in my area of expertise. I talk to anyone and advise them as best I can, even if they aren’t a fit for us. Many people who come to us feel that they can get a traditional book deal. I try to help re-frame that conversation with them.
We know that there is a lot of work that goes into getting a book deal. More than there has ever been and the advance on royalties is lower than ever. The financial considerations are usually where I start the conversation. I let them know that they will likely pay the same amount of money if they self-publish, work with a publisher like us, or go the traditional book-publishing route.
I try to let people know what to expect financially. I want them to understand so they know up front not matter what they decide to do. I also try to make them aware of mistakes that can happen, like choosing the wrong editor, or the wrong cover designer and things that can add to the costs because the process is much more complicated than people realize.
I explain that we are beholden (best word I can think of) to our authors because from the very beginning we want to be sure we know how the book is going to support them. We understand what are the goals and how can we help them get there. If you self-publish, no one is looking out for you and if you go with a traditional publisher, they have no interest in your business, or other goals outside of getting the book published.
We choose to focus on this because we don’t want people to get misled. We want them to accomplish their goals as it relates to their business. Learn more about Self-Publishing.
Right. In our world publishing the book isn’t the finale, it’s just the beginning. Once the book is out there, we are focused on consumer marketing. Selling books to individual consumers.
If our client is a business owner, we are also looking at events months in advance to support them in a business environment. How can we help them sell their books and advance their other priorities?
A traditional publisher is all about the initial push to get on a best-seller list. That’s the game for them. Our push is way beyond that and for a much more sustained time frame.
I’m not saying our authors can’t get on a best seller list. Many of our authors do hit Amazon best seller lists, which is nice. But we don’t stop there. We have a much longer view for our clients.
I’m not sure I should say this but you asked – you’re hearing it here first. One of the things we see our authors struggle with is the speaking side of things, so we will be testing some additional support services for our authors around this. I don’t know how it’s going to look, but we know our authors so well, we want to help them get additional exposure and new ways to support them from the speaking side of things.
Publishing the book is just the beginning. We know that a well-written book can have a long shelf life and we want to keep helping to find ways for our authors to understand how to keep promoting their book and their work.
You can go to meetwithpyp.com and that will take you to my calendar where anyone can schedule a call with me personally and I will happily chat with you about your non-fiction or memoir book or you can go to the website link: http://publishyourpurposepress.com/ and all our contact info is there as well.
Our next Publish Your Purpose Academy starts in March and that gives you the whole landscape about how to publish. It teaches you what you need to know if you want to get your book published.
