The intellectual property and copyright of your material is very valuable. Don't believe me? Just look at J.K. Rowling. Your publisher's contract should make it clear that you retain all your rights. If you cannot find the specific clause in their contract that grants you all rights, ask them to point it out to you. Don't take their word for it. See it in writing. For example, the very first sentence of the first clause of the Outskirts Press contracts states: "Author reserves and retains all publication and copyright licenses to the manuscript and all other material the Author submits to publisher." The contract should also be non-exclusive and you should be able to cancel your contract at any time without penalty. It should be just that simple.

Let's face it. Either your publisher is going to make the money, or you are. Make sure it's you by setting your own retail price and your own royalty. Make sure the royalty you earn is based upon the retail price of the book, not the "net profit" or some other mumbo-jumbo. And make sure you earn the same high royalty regardless of whether your book sells from the publisher's website or from Amazon. Where do YOU think the most books are sold? That's right - on Amazon. Your royalty needs to be just as high there as anywhere else. Last, but not least, be sure you can order copies of your own book below wholesale, regardless of whether you buy 5 books or 50. Do you really want to be forced to buy 100 books to get a reasonable author price? Aren't low quantities the whole point of on-demand? Your publisher should make your price dependent upon the production price of the book, not the retail price. Why should you be penalized for setting a high retail price if that is what you want to do?

If all this math is too confusing, the pricing calculator at www.outskirtspress.com/pricing does all the estimates for you. If you have published elsewhere, prepare to be amazed at what you could be earning, and what your author price could be, even for minimum quantities. Then, be prepared to switch publishers, like Mr. Ritz did, and in doing so, improved his royalty from 15% to 55%. Read the press release here.

A full-color laminated cover should be included. If you have to make compromises on the number of colors for your cover, go somewhere else. Since a barcode and ISBN are required for distribution, these should be included, too. Most importantly, professional formatting should be included. Do not try to format your own book. After the time it took to write your book, do you want it to look professional? Then have a professional format it. Any publisher that makes authors format their own books is not providing a valuable service. Author-formatted books should be an option, not a requirement.

There are many book wholesalers in the United States and the two largest ones are Ingram and Baker & Taylor. Most publishers distribute through one or the other. A handful distribute through both. Choose the latter. There is no reason not to.

Is your publisher more concerned with selling copies of your book to you and your family? Or are they concerned with educating you on marketing tactics and providing promotional tips? Find a publisher that provides marketing support like a Marketing Coach who keeps in touch for years after publication. Find one that offers book publicity tele-seminars. Find one that includes a free author webpage with your book, one that you can modify and change for free anytime you want.

Say good-bye to print runs in the thousands, or even hundreds. Stop trying to guess how many copies you should print. Your publisher should be able to respond to retail and wholesale orders on-demand by producing a single copy of your book within 24 hours and handling all the fulfillment for you. You should be able to order your book in quantities of 10 at a time, or even less if you want to, and still receive a below-wholesale cost.

Is there one single publisher that offers all this? Of course. Click here to find out more.