We offer a full-line of publishing services that you will pay for even if you self-publish. So why not have a professional, experienced team of editors, graphic designers, and marketers, all under one roof, take care of that for you?

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If you have a newly-completed manuscript, after four dedicated years of research and writing, you will need it professionally edited, a professionally designed cover and back cover, professionally formatted, a distribution network, and marketing help. A Hybrid publisher will do this all for you, and you will be a published author by a reputable (Barringer) publisher.

 

Do you really want your manuscript to sit and collect dust? The odds of a traditional publisher saying "yes" is lottery percentage....002%. And self-publishing is like a doctor taking out his/her own appendix. Not recommended.

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Plus, our royalties are higher!!

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Here are the criteria as per IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association) for the standards that Hybrid publishers like Barringer should offer:

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Are the IBPA’s criteria the right standards?

IBPA’s criteria are here. They’re helpful, but they don’t match exactly what I expected. Let’s have a look at the nine hurdles they say a hybrid publisher must clear.

A hybrid publisher must:

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1. Define a mission and vision for its publishing program. A hybrid publisher has a publishing mission and a vision. In a traditional publishing company, the published work often reflects the interests and values of its publisher, whether that’s a passion for poetry or a specialization in business books. Good hybrid publishers are no different.

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The first criterion is the one I find least compelling. First of all, anyone can write a mission statement for their “publisher.” Suppose your mission is “Help authors create quality books.” Is this sufficient? I also question the idea that a publisher must have a mission and vision — the editorial vision of even traditional publishers is pretty muddy these days. So I don’t think this criterion is all that helpful.

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2. Vet submissions. A hybrid publisher vets submissions, publishing only those titles that meet the mission and vision of the company, as well as a defined quality level set by the publisher. Good hybrid publishers don’t publish everything that comes over the transom and often decline to publish.

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As an author, you want your book to be in good company. Greenleaf, for example, has said that it only accepts 10% of the submissions it gets, although they have accepted all the authors whose proposals I worked on. If you don’t want a selective publisher, you’re not really ready to publish a high-quality book

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3. Publish under its own imprint(s) and ISBNs. A hybrid publisher is a true publishing house, with either a publisher or a publishing team developing and distributing books using the hybrid publisher’s own imprint(s) and ISBNs.

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A hybrid publisher’s imprint should mean something, just as a traditional publisher’s does. But you should also have the option to publish under your own imprint. My book with Greenleaf, The Mobile Mind Shift, came out under “Groundswell Press,” which was intended to be Forrester’s book imprint.

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4. Publish to industry standards. A hybrid publisher accepts full responsibility for the quality of the titles it publishes. Books released by a hybrid publisher should be on par with traditionally published books in terms of adherence to industry standards, which are detailed in IBPA’s “Industry Standards Checklist for a
Professionally Published Book.”

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5. Ensure editorial, design, and production quality. A hybrid publisher is responsible for producing books edited, designed, and produced to a professional degree. This includes assigning editors for developmental editing, copyediting, and proofreading, as needed, together with following traditional standards for a professionally designed book. All editors and designers must be publisher approved.

These are the essential reasons to work with a hybrid publisher — to get a guaranteed quality result, working with professional editors and designers.

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6. Pursue and manage a range of publishing rights. A hybrid publisher normally publishes in both print and digital formats, as appropriate, and perhaps pursues other rights, in order to reach the widest possible readership. As with a traditional publisher, authors may negotiate to keep their subsidiary rights, such as foreign language, audio, and other derivative rights.

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My only problem with this is the “normally” and “perhaps.” A hybrid publisher should absolutely publish in both print and digital formats. It should also deal with foreign and audio rights, even if it does so by working with a trusted partner.

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7. Provide distribution services. A hybrid publisher has a strategic approach to distribution beyond simply making books available for purchase via online retailers. Depending on the hybrid publisher, this may mean traditional distribution, wherein a team of sales reps actively markets and sells books to retailers, or it may mean publisher outreach to a network of specialty retailers, clubs, or other niche-interest organizations. At minimum, a hybrid publisher develops, with the author, a marketing and sales strategy for each book it publishes, inclusive of appropriate sales channels for that book, and provides ongoing assistance to the author seeking to execute this strategy in order to get his or her book in front of its target audience. This is in addition to listing books with industry-recognized wholesalers.

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Distribution is the one service you’ll have great difficulty doing yourself. Even if you think the bookstore channel is less important, you’ll still want somebody to work with the airport bookstores, bulk order providers like 800-CEO-READ, and overseas English-language distribution in geographies like the UK, Australia, and India. I’m of two minds about the need for a sales force — while working with distributors is essential, the value of “push” marketing for books is steadily attenuating. As for publicity, you might be better off working with a traditional PR firm than the publisher’s publicity staff, which are balancing your needs with dozens of other books.

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8. Demonstrate respectable sales. A hybrid publisher should have a record of producing several books that sell in respectable quantities for the book’s niche. This varies from niche to niche; small niches, such as poetry and literary fiction, require sales of only a couple thousand copies, while mass-market books require
more.

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This could be sharper — what, after all, is “respectable?” But if you’re considering a hybrid publisher, get sales numbers for some of their books that are similar to yours. Bottom line, if they can’t show that they can help a book to sell, they’re not really much of a service company. A publisher that publishes quality books should have some notable successes to point to.

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9. Pay authors a higher-than-standard royalty. A hybrid publisher pays its authors more than the industry-standard* royalty range** on print and digital books, in exchange for the author’s personal investment. Although royalties are generally negotiable, the author’s share must be laid out transparently and must be commensurate with the author’s investment. In most cases, the author’s royalty should be greater than 50% of net on both print and digital books.