Urging Authors to be Entrepreneurs: iUniverse CEO Kevin Weiss (Part 4)

SM: How big do you think the self-publishing, or publish on demand (POD), market is?

KW: McMillen, Random House, and HarperCollins have all asked that question. My answer is that it is as big as anything else out there. There could be as many as a million manuscripts sitting around waiting to be published; people simply are unaware that POD exists.

At a dinner party where there are 12 people around the table, I would guess that no more than two would understand how to publish a book if a major house has turned them down. I think this is similar to when IBM got into the PC business. There were established companies like Compaq and Tandy. When IBM came in they put their stamp of approval on the PC market. We are in a similar situation, waiting for a large publishing house to get into this space. I believe that will happen sometime soon, and once it does the market will explode.

SM: Do you think they will take their existing deal flow and channel it through soft publishing channels?

KW: They may do that. You are also going to see them actually get into this business. The core business I am in can run at about 14-17% EBIDA. Traditional publishers cannot get there.

SM: What are the traditional publisher’s P&L? How are you disrupting that business model with 14-17% EBIDA?

KW: I don’t disrupt their model. In fact, I do not want to play in their space. Traditional publishing is like a VC portfolio. Major houses may publish 2,500 books a year, but after about 250 books they begin to lose their shirt. They have to pick the winners in a space to be successful. They advance royalties and their entire business model is based on volume sales, which is particularly difficult in a soft economy.

We can make money on the very first copy. We can make money on the services to put together a world-class book. That is the reason major publishers are going to have to get into this industry whether they want to or not, because they have to do a little more on their portfolio management. I have never encountered a business that had leads come in which get kicked to the curb. People submit manuscripts to publishers on a regular basis, and it is amazing how they are discarded.

SM: From a writer’s perspective, your model creates an interesting opportunity. As a writer myself, I have a large readership for my blog already. If I self-publish and sell a significant number of copies, I could bring my book to a major publisher and tell them I have a proven product on a defined scale.

KW: You have something that is working and they know it. The major houses know what you are selling. There are systems out there that tell you what is going on with ISBNs, and they will come and find you and try to sell you on the idea that they can do a better job than you can.

SM: Is that what you see with the titles you talked about earlier that have sold 30,000 – 50,000 copies?

KW: Some of them. We just had several authors get picked up. This year we have had three cases so far. Elle Newmark wrote “Bones of the Dead” which was a Premier Plus, Publishers Choice 2007 award winner and was purchased by Developmental Editing. Lisa Genova was signed by Select after writing “Still Alice”. Finally Terry Fallis was signed by McClelland & Stewart after writing “The Best Laid Plans”. All of the deals were very substantial and we are extremely happy for the authors.

SM: Where do you see most of your writers? Is there a particular genre or segment?

KW: We cut across every single genre.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Urging Authors to be Entrepreneurs: iUniverse CEO Kevin Weiss
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