How Nightengale Publishing and Nightengale Press are Different

From All Other Publishers, Large or Small, Commercial or Independent.

OUR CREDO

Key Elements of Our Revolutionary Business Model:

21st Century Publishing requires innovation. Nightengale Publishing has developed a revolutionary, reality-based publishing model where the author and the publisher are partners in the author's success, the publisher is responsive to the needs of the author, and the author can earn consistent royalties from his work through his own efforts and with the education and opportunities provided on an on-going basis by the publisher.

We charge a cost-effective, all-inclusive price required to produce the author’s book, the development and maintenance of the author’s own Web site at a level of professional standard the author could not achieve on his or her own as a self-publisher. We are a Publisher for Hire who stands beside the author and his book as a partner from beginning to end. Our authors receive a professionally designed books, to which they hold the copyright, that can compete against any book on the shelf. Our authors receive a comprehensive, on-going education about book marketing, author expertising, Web marketing, and the self-reliance and responsibilities authors must bring to their books to be successful.

We pay a 100% royalty on all sales sources until the author's investment dollars (Return On Investment) are recouped through the sales of his book from all sources. Also, the author can purchase his books AT PRINT COST (plus S&H) for resale and speed up the time it takes to recoup his investment. Typically, the sale of 150 to 200 books directly by the author through events, from the author's Web site, and through group sales to organizations will recoup the investment the most rapidly.

After the 100% ROI is achieved, books sales from online bookstores, bricks and mortar bookstores and other retail sources augment the author's royalty with 50% royalty on the net proceeds (retail minus 55% industry wholesale discount minus print cost). When an autographed copy of the book sells on the author’s Web site or the author sells directly to consumers at events, he earns 70% of net ((retail – print cost) + 30% for the publisher).

Nightengale Press pays royalties on a regular six month schedule. From the first book sold, authors receive detailed accounting and payment of royalties in November and in May of each calendar year. Clear and concise explanation of sales from all sources accompany every royalty check.

There is nothing confusing about what we offer the author. Our authors win at all levels and their royalties ALWAYS far exceed the 3% to 12.5% royalty rates of the commercial publishers. As of this writing in 2009, Nightengale Press is in its sixth year, we have over sixty authors with over eighty published and more forthcoming titles among them, in mystery-thriller, sci-fi, romance, military non-fiction, medical non-fiction, fitness, inspirational non-fiction, children's educational, children’s poetry, juvenile fiction, humorous short story, historical fiction, adventure, art, life-style and living memoir genres. Our roster of authors continues to grow every month. While we do not take every author who appears on our horizon, we do work with our authors to develop the best book possible and to promote every book effectively to reach its niche market.

Pricing the book is dependent on page count, the topic relevancy of the book, and the author's marketing plan. Retail pricing of each title is determined by page count and print costs, wholesaler and distributor percentages and still having a royalty for the author of at least $.75 per book through bookstores and online stores other than the author’s Web site. Our trade paperbacks are priced from $13.95 to $19.95. Full color children’s books of 36 to 64 pages range from $16.95 to $24.95. High page count titles over 500 pages typically price at $22.95, with high page count color books reaching $29.95.

Nightengale Press offers trade distribution for select titles through Lightning Source's offset print services. These books will be printed offset in a print run of two thousand books or more and will still be available online as they currently are with the digital print option through Lightning Source. The costs of pre-press and print runs are borne by the author, and are quoted on a per-project basis.

All Nightengale Press books are available for order in bookstores nationwide through Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Follett, Brodart, Inc, and R.R. Bowker’s Books-In-Print and failing all of that, directly from the publisher. We stress the importance of creating demand to our authors, and we help them find the means to do so individually and collectively.Also, all Nightengale Press titles are available in the United Kingdom, Canada, Europe, Australia and the Far East reaching the entire global markets.

Nightengale Press pays standard wholesaler and distributor discounts and accepts bookstore returns. This willingness to play by the traditional rules when necessary sets us apart from many small publishers. We can get our books into bookstores for author signings, although there are many better venues than bookstores to sell books. In particular, we encourage online marketing and author events consistent with the book's niche market.This effectively eliminates the returns policies required for bricks and mortar bookstore signings.

We provide our authors the option to have a full-fledged, comprehensive and attractive Web site devoted to them as individual authors and to their books. Also available are book videos designed to sell the book. These videos are posted on the author's Web site, and other video sharing sites. Again, our pricing is cost-effective and advantageous to all authors, including our own.

Our response time to emails is typically within two hours. We take calls and deal personally with our authors. We are truly invested in our authors’ needs and desires, with all efforts made to communicate with them collectively, as individuals and on their behalf with whomever we can.

Nightengale Press consistently produces award-winning books to dispel the stereotypes about a publisher who charges to publish a book. The reason there are constant  misunderstandings about for-fee publishers goes back to the dawn of “vanity publishing.” These unscrupulous publishers charged an exorbitant fee to produce books of sub-standard quality, charged high per copy prices for the books, provided no marketing, paid no royalties, and essentially left the author dangling in the wind. Old stereotypes die hard, and some new twists on the old “vanity press” model make life even harder for small presses who are embracing the new printing technologies. The terms “POD publisher” and "Self-Publisher" are fraught with confusing and negative connotations. There are many reasons for this confusion, and many companies whose business policies contribute to it. But, the reality is simple:

Print On Demand is a Printing Process. It is not a Publishing Standard.

The most important contributions of digital printing to the revolution in the publishing industry in the past decade are these:

1) The printer makes the book after the customer has paid for the product.

2) There is no need or cost for warehousing.

3) The waste and inefficiency of returns are gone.

4) The risky “betting on the horses” element of the old publishing methods no longer exists.

5) On going advances in high-speed print technology make digitally printed books virtually indistinguishable from offset printed books. Color imagery is highly refined, and photo reproduction is better than ever.

6) Nearly instant delivery of digitally printed books has opened the publishing floodgate so far that over a 3,000 books are published every day in the United States alone. Not all of these books are good books. Not all of them are bad books either.

The shift away from high-risk complex systems, requiring publishers to print thousands of copies, warehouse them, ship them, return them, ship them again, with slow payment of low royalty percentages to authors, can no longer compete with nearly instant payment on sales, nearly instant production and shipment to the customer, and the enormously fluid availability of books from talented, unknown authors through online marketing and the author/publisher partnerships.

Nightengale Publishing competes on behalf of the author in today's rapidly changing publishing climate. High quality book design, responsive and relationship-driven personnel, the book industry's highest royalties and profit for the author, marketing flexibility and internet savvy all come together in one place.