Collaborative Publishing

Shared Roads Press is a collaborative publisher in the sense that we sometimes ask authors whose work we accept for publication under our imprint to cover a small percentage of our pre-publication costs—only what we have to pay out of pocket to third parties. Authors are fully reimbursed for these costs as sales accrue. This makes it possible for us to consider—and publish—more good books without concern for profit margin and to publish them more quickly than we otherwise could.

We offer a standard publishing contract to authors, which includes a generous arrangement for purchase of author's copies. This allows our authors to make as much from the books they market themselves (through readings, book signings, sales to friends, and the like) as self-publishing authors do while still benefiting from the prestige of being vetted by a quality publishing house.

Take a look at the basic contract we start with, which is always subject to negotiation. To get an idea of what an Author's pre-publication costs might be, you can go to our print-on-demand (POD) printer of choice, Lulu.com, and check out their rates and distribution packages. We don't tack on extra fees beyond what we are charged. We always purchase the distribution package with ISBN for our books, which at the time of this writing was under $100. Proof cost depends on the length of your book. For example, we paid $12.11 to ship a proof by Media Mail for an 88-page volume of poetry, and often two proofs are required to get it all just right.