Hi , I wrote a Storybook and explored the tool Story Jumper to leverage their graphics & simple creation of hardback books. The royalty terms state I would get paid a royalty of 20% for each hardback sold online ( which would be my main play) but do not detail how that would relate to sales inside of an actual bookstore. Questions: 1)Are those royalty terms 'reasonable' all things considered 2) Do they technically own my book if I choose to use them? 3) Does anyone know a free alternative software that has graphics you can leverage to wed with your storybook story? Because if so, I could find another company to just make the hardback for me. If I went that route, what is the simplest way to commercialize? 4) I tried a freelance illustrator but the cost to get the detail right seemed too high (over 1k). As well, any idea on how to share my story while protecting it's rights, when getting quotes on illustrations for it? Can I just send an NDA I find online? Goal: I really just want to publish and sell/donate my storybook(s) to local bookstores and online to people who would want it. I do not want to get involved in any legal mumbo jumbo, but also do not want to just give away my intellectual property and leave money on the table that I could reinvest in making stories that ideally would make the world a better place.
This looks a lot like spam, but i'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and have just broken the links With my hat off, hell no don't use that... they charge you to print as well as taking most of the royalties... I'd say hire an illustrator (try the portal sites like reedsy) you might be able to find one who'll do it for a royalty share, but if not you should be able to get a bunch of quotes to see whats competive... then use Ingram Spark to produce it (you can always find codes online to negate their set up fees)... you'll get 60% of royalty minus print cost, which comes out at about 20-30% depending on where you price, but theres no upfront cost to the production getting it into your local stores is a whole other ball of wax... ingram will get it into the gardiners catalogue, but you'll need to convince the stores to order it
Thank you big soft moose- sorry that at first glance it is a lot like spam and I appreciate your response. My concern about getting quotes on illustration is related to having them read my story and take it - how do I protect myself from that?
this is a bit of a non issue... i doubt your story is so unique that any illustrator would want to steal it... its the same with editors... and come to that other writers (its something we hear a lot here about asking for critique)... and tbh most of the first level quoting can be done on the basis of you seeing their work, and their hourly rate and how many pages etc... once you get beyond that point sooner or later you'll have to share your manuscript, but hopefully by that point you'll have established a level of trust
