Interview with James Price, Founder of The Author Market

This won’t be the first time I’ve expounded on the many hats an author must wear. With traditional publishing, an author received an advance for turning in a manuscript. Then, the publisher took over, providing editing and cover art to create a finished product. Then, they developed promotional advertising and marketed your book, and with luck and some talent, the author could sit back, write another book, and collect royalty checks down the road. Okay, let’s be honest, the author might have been required to participate in the marketing through tours featuring readings and signings, but it was all set up by the publishers.

Not so today. With the rise of digital publishing, it’s easier than ever to publish your own book, changing the look of the publishing industry. Even traditionally published authors may be responsible for more and more of the promotion and marketing for their books, while advances may be less and less. This only serves to make self-publishing look like a more appealing alternative. Think about it. Why go through the whole submission process time and time again, suffering countless rejections, if your going to have to do all the work of promotion yourself anyway?

Self-publishing is on the rise, and anyone who wants to has the ability to publish a book. As I’ve pointed out before, this leads to a lot of want to be writers, who just throw stuff out there, without the gate keepers of traditional publishing to ensure a quality finished product.

As I’ve also pointed out, this often makes it difficult for authors to get good honest reviews when a book is riddled with typos and grammatical errors, which it goes to follow, also effects sales. That’s why I’ve teamed up to offer my editing services on The Author Market, where authors can go to ensure a quality product, and find assistance with all of those non-writing chores an author has to do these days. The Author Market teams up with service providers to offer authors editing, proofreading, and cover design, or they can publish the book for you, as well. It’s even possible to get assistance with marketing and promotion, through the personal assistants available on the site.

As a freelance editor and proofreader, I offer my services through The Author Market, as well as here on this site. You’ll also find services available from our Monthly Memo writer, Robin Conley and an author I interviewed recently, DeAnna Knippling , who are both talented authors and skilled editors. The Author Market has a cool referral program, too, which we’ll hear more about in just a bit.

Here today to tell us a little bit more about how The Author Market works is the owner and founder, James Price. Please join me in welcoming him to Writing to be Read.

Kaye: Tell me about James Price. What writing and publishing experience do you have under your belt?

James: Well I am a father of 6 with one on the way, yes I do know where they come from ha-ha.

I am an author, however I don’t tell anyone my pen name. I currently work 3 jobs, during the day I work as an aircraft mechanic, and at night I promote author service providers, and I am also a service provider. I have been working in publishing and author services for around three years, I own The Author Market, Aep Book Covers, as well as Nazzaro and Price Publishing. I personally have published and helped publish around 300 different titles, and have made an ungodly amount of covers over the past three years.

Initially it wasn’t me who got me into author services or even writing. It was my wife. She has been my inspiration for everything, and honestly I would have never even tried if it wasn’t for her. We got into this business, mainly because we couldn’t afford author services, mainly cover artist. Since my wife is a technical editor she pretty much handled everything herself, except for art. One day she looked at me designing a program in visual basic, and told me to get Photoshop and try making covers myself for her. Of course past experience of Photoshop made me angry so I fought her on the subject until I got tired of paying for artist. It wasn’t until then that I found what I truly enjoy that was work related.

Kaye: What inspired you to create The Author Market?

James: I created The Author Market because of the hardships that come with being an author, and even more so as an author service provider. It is frowned upon for service providers to post in author groups, or even to try to sell their services anywhere. We are usually ignored, and it is extremely hard for up and coming service providers to get a start. We constantly fight to get in the spotlight, and most of the time we end up giving up long before we are discovered. Personally it took me what felt like a lifetime of trying to get where I personally am, and if my wife didn’t constantly write, or my customers didn’t come back I would have quit a long time ago. So, I created The Author Market. A place where anyone can sell their wares/services, and a place that makes it far to easy to comment go to The Author Market! I wanted a place where an author can find any service they can to be successful! I’ve also created a refer and earn program for anyone to be apart of. That way if a cover artist who isn’t making any sales sees a FB post looking for editors, they can make income off of saying go to The Author Market. I figured why not. We all have our favorites, get them signed up and then every time you refer them (which you’re going to anyways) you make money!

Kaye: What services does The Author Market offer?

James: Personally, I sell my own services there, and I am a cover artist, formatter, web designer and gosh so many other things. The Author Market, however sells anyone’s services, we have Editors, Proofreaders, Trailer Designers, Cover Artist, Personal Assistants, and we are always looking for more new and exciting services to offer.

Kaye: Say an author chooses to have The Author Market publish their book. What platforms do you publish on? What is your accountability to the author?

James: If an author publishes with The Author Market, we will publish on Kobo, Barnes and Nobles, Create space, Amazon, Smash words, IBook’s, and any that the author wants us to.

Our accountability to the author, is as such.: By the tenth of each month we will send out royalties from previous months (whichever comes in for that author) and sales reports from the previous month. We WILL NOT gouge our clients, LIE to our clients, or STEAL from our clients. I wanted a one stop publishing platform for authors, that they can trust. Today there are a lot of publishing companies that force authors into ungodly contracts, with extremely high rates, and with no way out. I wanted a place that an author can go to that will make them happy, without taking advantage of their creativity.

Authors are being taken advantage of by these fly by night companies, and I wanted a place that was different. To publish with us all you do is get it ready for eBook and print. That includes, cover art, formatting, editing if you choose to do so. Send it to us and we will publish it. If you are not satisfied it cost $20.00 and we will remove your books from the platforms. Our price for publishing with us is 10% of royalties on print and eBook. We also will offer the author their book in print at cost plus $1.00 per book plus shipping and handling. We are not like the other companies who sell the author their own book for list price. That is just crazy!

Kaye: Would you like to talk about the Refer and Earn program offered by The Author Market?

James: Well our refer and earn program is simple. We sell other service providers services, at the point of a sale, we retain 15% of that sale. We then take that 15% and determine who it goes to. If someone refers a service provider to The Author Market, they will receive 25% (of The Author Market‘s Commission) of everything that provider sells through us. If they refer a customer to The Author Market they will receive 50% of (of The Author Market’s Commission). If you refer a customer to a service provider that you got to sign up at The Author Market then you will receive 75% (of The Author Market‘s Commission) of that sale. That way you have a reason to continue to promote your service providers, and get them meaningful work!

Kaye: The Author Market also has a cover art contest to show appreciation for your great cover artists. Would like to talk about that a little?

James: Our Cover Artist appreciation month is in September. We are giving away two prizes. One prize goes to the artist of the winning cover, and one to the author of that cover. This time we are giving away $150.00 to the winning artist, and $50.00 to the author of that cover. We want to give back to those who work hard in the background, but still want to give the author incentive to want to get them in the contest. Our service providers need appreciation and The Author Market will continue to do prizes, for all of our service providers! We love them all and want them to continue even when times are tough!

I want to thank James for joining us today. The Author Market makes it easy and convenient for authors to be sure they’re producing the best possible book they can through editing, proofreading and cover design. Their personal assistants offer help in getting the word out, and they will partner in publishing your book, if you like. And for freelance service providers, it offers a place to hang your shingle. They have a great referral program, so after reading this, if you decide to sign up as an author or a service provider, be sure to mention this post on Writing to be Read. Happy writing!

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