Urging Authors to be Entrepreneurs: iUniverse CEO Kevin Weiss (Part 6)

SM: Will your publishers be paying a fee to gain access to the service?

KW: Yes, they will pay a fee to use the service. In this business, if you do not have critical mass it is really hard to drive customer satisfaction and to get costs in line. We have 20,000 books this year. We are able to provide critical mass. Small publishers do not have critical mass, but what they do have is enormous skill in specific genres and market segments. That leads to a natural partnership which facilitates increased business for both sides. If you believe the market is infinite, and I do, then I do not have a problem playing with everybody.

SM: What is your revenue level like right now?

KW: We should cross the $50 million mark this year. We will have single-digit profitability, nothing I am excited about.

SM: It does not have to be hugely profitable right away.

KW: If I am running a business, I have to get ourselves profitable so we can show the mainstream publishers this is something they should be in. That is why I have a target range of 14%-17% for operating margin. I can show mainstream publishers that they need to be in this business. They don’t have to spend money attracting customers because our model can do that. It could provide them with 10,000-15,000 new manuscripts a year.

SM: I think your biggest issue is to educate the market. Your service is excellent for authors. Rather than spending their time chasing down an agent, they can go direct to you and secure enough of a market that they can then attract publishers. I think that has a better chance of success than trying to secure a publishing deal through an agent.

KW: You never know what you are going to get when you sign with an agent. Many authors don’t understand that. We spend a lot of time with our authors. The good news for us is that over 90% of our authors say that they would do this again. You can ask them how they feel when they open the package with their book inside. They are all going to say it is great. They key is how they feel about it 90 days later. I want that mark to be 100% as well.

SM: If you can crack the code on how to market the book, then you will really get traction with authors. That is the big problem, because there is so much noise in that market. Most authors do not know how to segment their market or how to build a marketing strategy. The Internet has made it possible to do great niche marketing, and somehow you are going to have to figure that piece out.

KW: I would agree with you. Absolutely. We are working hard to tackle that problem. It is not an easy one to tackle. We have some solutions available today and are working hard to bring new ones to the market soon as well.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Urging Authors to be Entrepreneurs: iUniverse CEO Kevin Weiss
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