Friday, October 10, 2008

Welcome to the President's Desk..........

Well, I am very excited to begin the process of helping all of you out there not only understand the publishing industry in general, but specifically about the wonderful options and opportunities available to you at Tate Publishing that no one else can offer!

Tate Publishing is a company that my family started almost a decade ago with one desire;  create an environment where authors truly can succeed.  My parents had published a book when my father was Chief of Staff for the Lt. Governor of Oklahoma with a traditional publisher, the book was titled, "11 Reasons Families Succeed" and it sold very well, but as many authors find out the money always flowed to the publisher and rarely to the author.  In addition, my parents did all of the work, travel, speaking, promotions, just about everything.  The reality became clear that hard working authors deserved a chance to succeed and profit from their book and efforts and that opportunity didn't exist for most.

Tate Publishing was started to create this environment and has been the most successful publishing company story our industry has seen in quite some time.  Tate Publishing offers more services, products, support,marketing and distribution that any publisher out there.  Many will claim they are as good or provide the same level of service or products, but don't be deceived, none even come close.

As a Tate published author you will receive the following:

1. Editing - Copyediting, Technical Editing and Conceptual Editing
2. Custom Cover Design - Our in house design team will work with you to create the perfect cover, and back-matter that helps your book stand out on any shelf.
3.  Custom Interior Layout - Your layout artist will once again work with you to make sure that the inside of the book is just as beutiful and attractive as the outside.  
4.  Ebook Creation and distribution - Every title is available to download as an ebook from our website and other online retailers for ease and instant use.
5.  Audiobook creation and distribution - Tate Publishing produces our books as audiobooks as well, we are the largest provider of audiobooks to Apple iTunes and audible.com and have created another opportunity that no other publisher can for our authors to succeed and this gives a Tate author one more advantage over the competition.  
6.  Website design and hosting - What better way to promote than through your own website, while this can be difficult and confusing on your own we create the website for you and host it so it never costs you a dime.  Plus it gives a constant online presence for promoting and selling your work.
7.   Video book trailers and commercials - These commercials have become an amazing opportunity and tool for our marketing department and authors.  The commercials are streaming from YouTube to our website bookstore, news reports and televisions worldwide.  We have more books sold and recognized from these videos than could have every been expected.  
8.  Marketing - You are assigned an actual marketing rep that manages distribution, availability and sets up events for you worldwide.
9.  Publicity - Every event and book is promoted to local and national media for the life of the work.   We use several different publicity firms to promote you and your events, but our favorite is Key Marketing Group Communications. 
10.  Distribution - Tate Publishing product is all 100% returnable and warehoused and not simply made available for order or on a list.  We have direct relationships with every major retailer, distributor and wholesaler and provide product directly to their warehouses and are even in the large publishing division with Barnes & Noble, no one else comes close!

As you can see, no one can compare to what Tate Publishing offers, many can publish books, but NO ONE provides the services, products and support that Tate Publishing provides.  As you begin your journey ask a lot of questions, ask what other services other than simply book printing or creation a publisher can provide and make sure that you will have a partner that helps create opportunity for you.

Once again, our desire was to create an environment that an author could actually succeed.  Tate  Publishing authors out sell, work and promote all the competition.  No one should have to go it alone.  There are many options out there, but none are of the Tate standard, level of service or quality.  I want to encourage you to check out our other blogs and chat with other staff members if you would like.  

Visit our website and submit your manuscript for review, or simply call the office.  We only accept a small percentage of authors for publication and have three options available.  At Tate Publishing we either offer an advance, pick up the cost without any cost to the author or issue a contract with a refundable author investment.  Regardless, every Tate author has a mix of products, services and distribution that no other company can match.  

Let me know if you have any questions and I am looking forward to providing whatever assistance I can.  God Bless you and as always I will be praying for your success no matter where you end up on your journey!

Sincerely,

Ryan Tate


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, Ryan, my wife is currently writing a science fiction meets renaissance styled book and I was looking to see about options for publishing. Your company only accepts a small selection of those manuscripts submitted. What criteria do you use to make your choice? I ask this before I bother encouraging her to submit her work here.

Thank you,

Chris

Ryan Tate said...

Chris,

I am glad you were able to read the post and I hope it helps you as you make a decision. I will post a more detailed response to this question for you, but here is the quick version. We accept a small percentage of manuscripts for production, but all manuscripts are reviewed first. Once your wife submits her manuscript it will be reviewed for marketability, content and the quality of writing. Basically, can it sell and what is the target market. Is the story good, entertaining and relevant, and finally, is the author a good writer from a technical standpoint. All of these factors affect the production, marketing and distribution costs we must take on. Now she will also have four possible responses from our acquisitions department:
1. We will accept the manuscript and offer her an advance.
2. We will accept the manuscript without an advance, but at no cost to the author.
3. We will accept the manuscript, but the author will need to make a refundable investment with us.
4. The manuscript will be rejected, if it is rejected you will be told why and that should help for future submissions.

I hope this helps, but start by visiting the submission page on our website at http://www.tatepublishing.com/submit.php, on this page you can submit or simply request more information, either way you will receive an FAQ with lots of information and a call from our office. Once again, thanks for the question and let me know if you need anything else!

Ryan Tate

Anonymous said...

Ryan,

Thank you for your quick response. This is a good starting point for us and appreciate your help.

Chris

Elaine Littau said...

Mr Tate,

For a book to be considered sucessful, how many sales are we talking about?

Just wondering,
Elaine

Ryan Tate said...

Elaine,

Thanks for the note and great question. It really depends, as your publisher we have certain goals, as the author you have certain goals. As a Tate Publishing author we have created a situation where an author can be profitable quicker than anywhere else. Our marketing department does a fantastic job of selling and promoting our authors books, but it is important to remember that we encourage our authors to constantly be working with us to do better. Our marketing department is eager to hear from you at anytime to sell and schedule events and promote. We always set internal release goals of 5,000 units to be sold. While we love for more than this to sell, we believe that this is a realistic approach based on an authors work. That doesn't mean you have to sell 5,000 copies to be profitable, that is just a goal we try to obtain.

The bottom line is we have to work, work, work and then work some more! As you know our most successful authors take advantage of all of our marketing efforts and work hard in the partnership with us. Hard work and effort is always the formula for success. Contact Mark Mingle the Dir. of Marketing for more info and if you have any questions about what we can do. Once again congratulations on your book, we are very proud of you and it looks beautiful!

Ryan Tate

Anonymous said...

Dr. Tate I have a quick question I would like to ask you before I would consider submitting a manuscript. Is there an age requirement for any manuscript that is reviewed? I did not see one on your site but I just wanted to ask.

Thank you for your time,
Sarah