About publishing

From a Woodley author:

Hearing from people that they have bought my book from Amazon, but [   ] told me Woodley Authors don't get any of the money for that. Can you explain how that works? About 20 people, so far, I'm estimating, have said they gotta book from someplace besides me. I'm honored that they got all Motivated but still, it would be nice to see that dough.

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Yes--the dough from booksales. Amazon.com makes their money, even with a 6% online discount, because they get some kind of percentage break from Ingrams--the book distributor. Ingrams set up Lightning Source as a subsidiary to keep the money in-house when a book is needed. Woodley uses Lightning Source as an inexpensive way to publish books. That means amazon.com says they need books from Ingrams at a special percentage rate off the cover, Ingrams tells Lightning Source to print the books, Woodley is paid by Lightning Source per copy sold, which is discounted rate minus publishing cost, which is usually a dollar. Woodley uses this money to offset the setup cost of the author's book. In other words, Woodley can't publish an author unless it has the funding to setup a title, order a proof, etc.

On another note, since Woodley is a special non-profit organization interested in getting awesome Kansas poets and writers out there, we also feel the author should make some money out of it. That is why we give the free copies of the book, as well as a 40% discount to the author and bookstores.

Sadly, when bookstores sell your book, they make the 40% of the cover price.

However, I've heard Barnes & Noble cuts a check for 80% of the book price after a reading.

Another note about us who work for Woodley: as Woodley is very not-for-profit, none of us get paid. Really, it is a love for working with a Press and seeing amazing authors get published in a competative publishing world.

I hope this helps,
Dennis