Thanks for the vote of confidence. I just hope we could provide the answers (and possible solutions) to all of your questions.

Let me know if we can be of any further assistance when and if you decide to publish your journal.

-Justin

No, not sick of you, don’t worry. Your questions are insightful and very useful to everyone.

Let’s start with the Wordclay production and shipping questions first. Unfortunately, there is no discount on shipping, even for not-for-profit. That could change in the future, if we take on a significant number of not-for-profit organizations, such as journals, but as of now, shipping remains the same for all. Either way, it’s probably going to be less expensive to ship individually through Wordclay than have issues shipped to you in bulk from Lightning Source and then pay your mailing discount. You may want to check if and when that time arrives though.

Neither are there specific discounts on any packages for not-for-profit organizations at this time. Like I said, though, who knows if and when that will change. It all depends on whether Wordclay becomes a feasable solution for these organizations, which I, personally, believe it definitely could.

We do, however, offer a not-for-profit discount on book orders.

0-99 is 20% off
100-249 is 25% off

Bear in mind that you can also order as the author/editor discount, which is essentially the cost of printing and shipping. Which one of these (editor or not-for-profit) is the better order discount is something that isn’t likely to be known until you go to order. There’s a number of factors to consider, like page count, size, etc.

As for the PDF of a cover, you can definitely do that. I can’t really quote a price, since we don’t have the PDF, but price will range anywhere from $25-150.00. It all depends on the amount of work Wordclay designers have to do. So if you know what you’re doing and you have the specs I referred to in a previous post, expect a lower cost. The person with less design experience might inadvertantly mistake the trim lines or bleed or neglect to leave space for the barcode, etc.

As for the Amazon buy button, the buy button will remain on. In the coming weeks, I’ll post some details about the BookSurge situation as they are revealed, so bear with us. For now, though, Wordclay is dipping into our margin in order to ensure books (with distribution) are available at Amazon. It’s not a fee you have to pay, so don’t worry about that.

Hope all that information helps!

Thanks again, Valya, for your interest!

-Justin

I noticed that one of your featured titles, Expectations of a Purple Hat by Karen Knapp can still be purchased through Amazon. Is this because of an extra fee paid by WordClay to have the button put on? What kind of price is something like that (approximately)?

Also, back to the cover art, if I sent a pdf for the cover, I would still have to pay a custom quoted fee, what kind of range might something like that be? (I’m trying to gauge my costs before making my decision, and its difficult when there are so many variables)

Regarding shipping, if my journal is put out by a not-for-profit tax exempt press (which we are), can we also apply that discount to the shipping costs? Or are the shipping costs that you’d offer even less than the discounted cost I would pay at the post-office?

I don’t suppose there are any other discounts for not-for-profits, are there? No discount on the “Be Your Own Publisher Start-up Package ” by chance?
;)

Thanks for the vote of encouragement, and when Wordclay has an official stance on the Amazon/BookSurge “Buy Now Button” issue, I’m sure Angie or I will post an indepth blog, outlining the situation and its repercussions as well.

Glad to hear you were impressed with the quality of our re-publication. Hopefully, when you start your journal, we can impress you again with the same performance, this time on your publication, right?

-Justin

I recently received my copy of Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland published by Wordclay, and I was impressed with the quality. Much nicer than the printing I’ve seen with some POD.

I’m sure you’ll hear from me again.
:)

~Valya

As for your questions, like you said, POD is definitely the most eco-friendly way of publishing and printing. Though our printer doesn’t use recycled paper with our publications (or the Be Your Own Publisher) at this time, we are starting a promotion in April (and hopefully continuting it in other months and years to come) where you can have a tree planted for every book you publish. We’ll have the details finalized in the next few days, but we are most likely teaming up with Trees for the Future, in case you were wondering.

As for the Amazon/BookSurge situation, Wordclay will post an official comment soon. But like the article you suggested says, and I paraphrase, “another vendor might just become the next online book retail powerhouse (like B&N) instead of Amazon.”

It has affected Wordclay though. Whenever someone calculates their pricing argreement during publishing, Wordclay has to factor in this fee to have the Amazon “buy now” button activated. Somehow, we’ve still managed to underbid other self-publishing houses (or at least maintain fair retail prices) during this situation.

If you want my prediction, think POD exposure and Amazon restructuring.

Hope all that info helps, Valya.

-Justin

Another little tidbit I found out today was that we can give a discount to serial publications for a bulk order of 10 ISBNs. So since each is $80.00, normally you’d have to pay $800.00 for 10 ISBNs. But you can buy 10 ISBNs from Wordclay at $500.00.

So it’s good if you’re looking to print at least 10 journals (which could mean a biannual series for 5 years), then it’s definitely economical to buy in bulk.

Just thought you’d like to know.

-Justin

I have 2 questions for you:

What are your options for recycled paper and environmentally-friendly . Certainly POD is by nature better because you don’t have a glut of book sitting around. But have you taken any steps beyond that? Are there any thoughts about this for the future. I recommend http://www.greenpressinitiative.org

I also have another questions on the POD distribution front. I heard about Amazon’s efforts to bully PODs into using Booksurge.
http://www.writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/004597_03272008.html

How would this affect Wordclay distribution? What are your thoughts

Thanks again!