Creating Authors and a whole lot more (Publishers in general)

Member Name: docpov

Product:	Publishers in general
Date:	14/07/07 (173 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: In the cutthroat publishing world, it is a way in

Disadvantages: It is expensive there is no denying that.

As some of you might know we are about to have our first novel published, as written about in another review. After that review I was asked for more information on the company responsible for publishing our masterpiece.

The publishing world is a notoriously difficult world to gain a foothold in. It is your typical catch 22 situation; publishers don’t want to know if you are a first time or an inexperienced writer but you can’t gain experience and exposure if you can’t get a publisher.
This is where the world of the self publisher comes into its own. This too is not without its difficulties, apart from coming up with the money to pay to have your masterpiece turned from a manuscript into a novel it is a minefield finding the publisher that is right for you.
There are so many companies offering to turn you into a novelist and it is not any easy task to decide which company offers the best package for you. In our case after careful consideration we chose Troubador publishing under their Matador press.

Troubador publishing.

Founded in the 1980’s the company was at first involved just in the production of academic texts but in the late 1990’s expanded into different areas including fiction and non fiction covering a wide range of subjects. This expanded area is covered under the mantle of Matador self publishing, the part of the company we are using.
The company has different sections dealing with different kinds of books.
The Italian studies section deals with many facets of Italian life. Emerging Communication and service technologies along with communication ethics are both series of books and papers dealing with technological information.
The T-2 imprint publishes a small number of fiction and non fiction titles each year.
Troubador also deal with many academic texts and offer a wide range of services in that field including editing, design and publication.
The Matador press is the self publishing part of troubadour where we have our experience. Matador publishes a wide range of works of both fiction and non fiction.

Our experience.

Once we had written a large proportion of Halleswell hall there came a time when we had to decide what we were going to do with the finished article. We were happy with what we had written and seriously considered sending the manuscript to big publishing houses. However, on doing a large amount of research we found that it was going to be almost impossible to have them read our work let alone agree to print it.
On a large publication run there are so many costs involved that unless they are certain to make a good return on their investment most of them won’t touch new authors, indeed most of them won’t even look at your work unless it comes through an agent and even then the chances are slim. Of course finding an agent is no easy task either, in fact most of the reputable ones are almost as hard to find as publishers. The world of books is such a crowded marketplace that none of them are prepared to take a risk on an unknown. Understandable to a point but that didn’t really help us too much.

So we looked at the self publishing market. This too is crowded with many companies offering to make you a novelist. It is hard to decide which one to go for, many seem to offer a great deal for not a huge amount of money but in this market you get what you pay for and a stunning deal will possibly leave you disappointed when you see the finished article. Others will do it for you but it will cost you a fortune and then again there are the vanity publishes who will tell you that your work is the best they have ever read and then proceed to rip you off left right and centre. I ought to say at this point that not all of them are likely to rip you off but I have certainly heard some horror stories about some of them.

That was our position when we found the Troubador website. The tone and the enormous amount of information available to the budding novelist on their site really impressed us. It stated plainly what to expect from entering into the world of publishing and what to expect from their services. Also they state that they don’t take all work offered to them and if it is not up to standard they will advise you that it is probably not worth your while spending the money.
A phone call to them explaining what we wanted to achieve convinced us that we had made the right choice, Jeremy was very helpful and knowledgeable and laid out very plainly what we could expect from the process, should he accept our work as up to a good enough standard to make going ahead viable.

The next step was to send a copy of Halleswell Hall for evaluation and after a few days nervous wait we received the go ahead. The wheels were set in motion and our publishing dream was about to start to become a reality.
Troubador offer a wide range of services to help your work become as successful as it can do.
At this stage there are decisions to make as to which services you wish to use, of course there is a charge for whichever services you choose but it is up to the individual to decide which is suited to the project in hand although there is advice available as to how the services work and which might be of use.

The full publishing service includes providing proofs, ISBN allocation, registration, legal deposit, bar code and inclusion in Amazon and WH Smith’s internet bookshop.
This is called Prepress and cost us £740.00
The printing part of the service costs depend on number of copies and number of pages to be printed. Of course the more copies you have printed the cheaper it becomes.

As an example of our book for 100 copies it would have cost us £14.60 a copy.
For 500 £6.04 a copy.
For 1000 copies £3.56 a copy.
So you see that to make it financially viable you need to have a goodly amount of copies printed to make it worthwhile or to even cover your costs.
There are extras available such as their marketing and distribution services which include sending out review copies and arranging media coverage as well as distribution and stock fulfilment. The basic cost of this is £350.00 plus postage.

Also they will hold copies of your book for sales arising from bookshops and distributors. This costs 15% of the cover price. Also it needs to be stated here that the bookshops take their cut too and its not a small one, between 35 and 60% of the cover price. That means that after you have paid for the book to be printed and the bookshops and publishers have had their cut there is very little left for the author which I think is a little wrong, well I think it is a very large chunk for the bookshops to take but that’s the market and very little that I can do to change it.

Other services such as proof reading are available for a fee too.
So you can see that a self published book is never going to make an author a millionaire, what it does do however is get your foot in the door. If your book does take off and achieve notable sales then there is always the chance that a bigger publisher will take up your work or the next time you have a book ready for publishing they might be more willing to give you a hearing should your self published work have been a success.

Back to the publishing process.
Once you have sent your manuscript top them they proceed to start to turn it into a book. A typeset proof is sent to you to check through for errors and any corrections are made and the proof is returned. This process continues until you, the author are as sure as you can be that errors have been eliminated. Of course should you not want to undertake this task, and task it is I can assure you, then proof reading is available from Troubador for a cost. With hindsight I think we might have been better to have employed this service rather than trying to do it ourselves. It is a big job and as we were so close to the work I think it made it harder to be objective and to notice errors.

So proof done and as perfect as it can be then it is sent off to the printers to be printed and bound.
Concurrent with that word proof a cover proof is produced. This is either from the authors design or Troubador will design one for you, again of course for a fee.
Once the cover is approved its full steam ahead for publication. This sounds simple enough but it is time consuming and takes several months depending of course on individual cases, but from our example from receiving the first proof till today when delivery is imminent it has taken just over three months.

That is where we are now, awaiting delivery of the finished article. Excitement abounds and I really can’t wait to see the first copy of our hard work.

So what are Troubador like to deal with?

I have been very impressed. Communication has been first class and all our questions and queries have been answered promptly and to our satisfaction. They are an easy company to deal with and are friendly and helpful.
The relationship doesn’t finish with the publication. Our book will feature in their bookshop and they are keeping a certain amount of copies to deal with orders from both their site and online bookshops. If Halleswell Hall sells as well as we hope then it is easy to get reprints. There is a three week time span to create another run of your work. This can be ongoing for as long as you are selling copies and the type runs can be of as many copies as you wish. This will cost the same as your original cost per copy price.

Would I recommend Troubador?

If you wish to spend the money to fulfil a wish to be a published author and if the self publishing route is the one you choose then yes I would recommend Troubador. I think they have done us very well although the proof of the pudding is in the eating, when we receive the copies of the book, I am glad we decided to go with them and should we decide to go down the same route for the novel we are working on now I would have no hesitation using them again.

If you are interested then further detailed information can be found on their website
www.troubador.co.uk.

© Docpov July 2007

Summary: Written a masterpiece? maybe Troubador can help you publish.