There is a list of staff and their work backgrounds and qualifications are provided along with direct phone and email contact details. I noted no direct references to staff working for publishing houses. Mill City Press has a key investor in Click Industries, owned and run by Mark Levine, author of ‘The Fine Print of Self Publishing’. It is very obvious where Mill City Press have inherited their ‘author friendly’ contract and transparent publishing philosophy. Mill City is clear about their key principals to authors.
The service claims no inflated print charges passed on to authors; that authors purchasing copies of their own books pay exactly the print cost of under $4, and that the only other cut from the list-selling price goes to the wholesaler or online retailer. Perhaps that is not quite the 100% royalty they claim, but the intention is genuine enough for most authors to quickly see they are not being taken for a ride here.
The marketing and promotion should be embraced by the author and should be internet centric, targeting and driving traffic to the authors and their books. Simple philosophies, but lost to many large self publishing companies who seem purely centred on making money from authors and quickly casting them adrift. The approach is somewhat similar to a previously reviewed publisher on these pages—Booklocker.
The marketing and promotion should be embraced by the author and should be internet centric, targeting and driving traffic to the authors and their books. Simple philosophies, but lost to many large self publishing companies who seem purely centred on making money from authors and quickly casting them adrift. The approach is somewhat similar to a previously reviewed publisher on these pages—Booklocker.
“If you still think the best way to sell your books is to sit at book fairs, plan book signings before you have a following, send out hundreds of non-targeted review copies, or by printing bookmarks and other promotional pieces, Mill City Press may not be right for you.”
“When you make an investment in the internet as a tool to market your book, it will work. Treating your book like a mini-ecommerce company is what we do best. An effective online marketing strategy for your book will keep working for months and years to come, unlike a radio or TV interview that has little value after it's aired.”
Mill City Press offers two packages. Their standard package is for $1497 and while this might strike an author initially as on the expensive side; it does include a full customised front cover and interior design, copyright registration and library cataloguing, website and a year’s hosting, submissions to Google Search Inside, Amazon Search Inside, 10 copies of your book, and a Marketing Strategy Session. Often the custom designs, search inside programs, website and library cataloguing are paid add on services with cheaper packages from other self publishing companies. The premier package is pricey at $3798, and in my opinion outside the range of many authors. It is not because of the quality or value for money that you get for the added Bookstore & Library Distribution (sales reps directly selling), Ebook edition, website order fulfillment, returns program and a back-cover blurb sales copy. But on two separate grounds this troubles me. Firstly, I have spoken about returns programs with POD publishers in other articles, and while I see the arguments for one, in my mind, it goes against the model of print on demand books. In publishing as a whole, we need to be moving away from large return options, let alone start to heavily promote it in self publishing as the way to go. Mill City argue that the returns program is a way for them to make their author's books more appealing to retailers and allows thems to deal directly with real distributors for increased 'brick and mortar'book sales. Secondly, and the more worrying aspect to the $3798 premium package is the following disclaimer:
“If you want a book publishing experience that has wider distribution, through a book distributor presenting your book to retailers and libraries, our Premium Publishing & Distribution package is what you'd want. Because all books in this expanded distribution are presented to the book trade, we require that these books be edited by us. We have several levels of editing to meet your needs.”
All very laudible, but the costs of that editing are not covered in this package—meaning there is a further charge to the author, and the request that ‘books be edited by us” makes it almost a hidden extra charge to buy the Bookstore & Library Distribution pack. Even on Mill City’s basic edit, a 100k book would work out at an additional $1500 cost—and for me—Mill City have just shot themselves in the foot. An author could buy this on its own at $1299 plus the edit fee along with the basic package, either way, you are still looking at $4296. It also begs the question, what of an author who has already had their book professionally edited elsewhere? Is Mill City going to offer those authors a waiver?
Authors also get to own and keep the original PDF book files which they pay for in their package.
Mill City looks daring and innovative as a self publishing company. Their basic book service leaves many expensive ‘high end’ packages by other companies far behind. Mill City have clarified that if an author can show that their manuscript has had editing from a professional editor then they would offer a waiver on the additional editing fee.
Additional services:
Smarter Book Marketing
RATING: 7/10
Additional services:
Smarter Book Marketing
RATING: 7/10
15 Comments
