Since mankind started scratching letters on papyrus with charcoal, there have been writers. And since someone started collecting papyrus rolls and trading them for gourds, there have been publishers. Sure, papyrus eventually changed to paper and gourds eventually became $20 bills but the basics hadn’t fundamentally shifted until the advent of the internet. Now, there are new rules on who can be an author (anyone) and how they can get published. With the advent of e-readers and print on demand, the marketplace has changed. Unfortunately, the publishing industry hasn’t done a very good job of changing with it. This has led to the rise of many self styled “self publishing” services that can turn a Word file and a jpg into a book but charge the authors to publish it. The more editing and cover design help required, the more the price goes up.
We at Marvcorp hope to change the business model for independent authors. Instead of charging authors to publish their work, why not (and this is the radical part), share in the sales? There’s more risk for us, we need to identify good work that’s going un-noticed and spend a little money up front to turn it into a book. However, if we do it correctly, it’s a win-win-win. A win for the author because they get some much needed help in turning their work into a book that can sell. A win for independent authors because there is a built in layer of quality control that hasn’t existed to this point with self published books. And a win for us because we make money on books we publish.
There is one caveat to add here. We don’t accept just any book. Like those traditional publishers we all lament about, we only take books we think are legitimately capable of making money. However, we can make money with a few hundred books sold instead of many thousand. That means you don’t have to be a celebrity or already published to get our attention. You just need a good, well-edited story.
