Frequently Asked Questions

Sales Proceeds

• Will Cloverly Publishing own any rights to my book?

  Absolutely NOT! Even better than that, we will NOT own any rights to the work we complete on your behalf (page design, cover design, illustrations, print ready files etc..).

• How do I make money from my book? Print Books

  Print Books:

  The flow of money from the retail print book purchaser (the consumer) goes through our wholesaler- Ingram Content Network. Our partnership with Ingram (the largest and most respected book wholesaler in the world) means that your book is available worldwide. Whether your book is purchased in a chain store like Barnes & Noble, a mom-and-pop local bookstore, or on Amazon, it goes through Ingram. It is best to think of Ingram as the only purchaser of your book, they then turn around and sell it to whomever requests it, and at whatever price they (Ingram) determines. The retail price set for your book creates the wholesale price that we MUST receive from Ingram, and that price is always 50%. For example, if your book’s retail price is set at $20, we know that we will receive $10 (50% of $20) from Ingram because of our wholesale agreement.

  Nearly all major publishers operate this way. The price Ingram receives from the retailers does not affect you. Just like retailers often sell items for below “suggested retail price”, so too may books be sold lower than their retail price. So, if Ingram sells your book to Barnes & Noble for $19, $18, $17, etc., it doesn’t matter to you; you’ll still receive $10 (minus printing costs) regardless. Remember, both Ingram and the retailer need to make money, but the deal between them is meaningless to you, $10 is coming to you/us either way.

  In this example, the $10 in revenue from Ingram needs to cover the costs to print the book. Thus, if it costs $4 to print your book, and you receive $10 from Ingram, a profit of $6 per book is what goes into your pocket!

• How do I make money from my book? eBook Publishing

  eBook Publishing:

  The flow of money from eBooks is a more straightforward scenario. There are no middleman “wholesalers” like Ingram when it comes to eBooks. The retailer (Amazon, Apple, Google) who sells the eBook collects the money, takes a fee (30%) for allowing us to sell it on their platform and remits the rest to us (on your behalf, as your publisher).

  Thus, an eBook that is priced at $10 will result in $7 being remitted to you/us each time an ebook is sold. Since there are no print costs to deduct, the entire $7 is profit. As you can see, there are significantly higher profit margins in selling eBooks than print books (and we encourage these sales to the greatest extent possible).

• How do I make money from my book? Audiobooks

  Audiobooks:

  If you have an audiobook edition of your book, the flow of money is quite simple, you receive 40% of any money collected by the retailer (Amazon, audible.com, Apple, etc.). Because audiobooks retail at a significantly higher price than eBooks, they can be quite lucrative. For example, on a $29.95 audiobook, you realize a pure profit (since there are no print costs to deal with) of almost $12! For more detailed information about audiobooks in general, click here to visit Cloverly Audiobook Publishing.

  Click here to download our handy “Profiting from Bookselling” summary chart.

• How does Cloverly make money from my book?

  We are partnered with you on the project, and we only make money when you do. You receive 100% of sales proceeds until you recoup whatever money you invested with us towards publishing your book. After you recoup your investment, we are entitled to a mere 25 cents (¢25) of each book sold, with you keeping the entirety of the remaining money!

Distribution and Where I can get my book published

• Where will my book be sold?

  Your book is made available to all retailers around the world, from well-known chains like Barnes & Noble and Amazon to small mom-and-pop brick and mortar bookstores.

  Your eBook edition is available for the Barnes & Noble nook, all Apple iOs devices like iPads and iPhones, and of course, the Amazon Kindle.

  Your audiobook edition (if you have one), will be available at Apple, Amazon and Audible. These are the three publishing powerhouses for audiobooks.

Submitting your manuscript for review

• In what format should I submit my manuscript for review?

  To review a manuscript, we can work with whatever format you have. While we can review anything that is readable (physical print out, PDF, etc.) we will eventually need a version in Microsoft Word (so that our editors can effectively make editorial suggestions and note them for your approval). Don’t worry though, we have a transcription team here to help if your manuscript is accepted, but not in the proper format.

  For the review process though, submit whatever is convenient, and we will iron out the formatting details at a later date. Remember, only need your manuscript in a Microsoft Word document if you are accepted by the review board and approved for publication by us.

• Do you accept unsolicited manuscripts?

  We do not. Unless you have spoken with one of our in-house literary agents first, and made arrangements for manuscript submission and review, please do not send it to us. We will not review it. All submissions must be coordinated with us in advance.

• What is your process for reviewing my manuscript?

  Our in-house review board will judge your manuscript based upon multiple criteria. Here are just a few:

  • Genre, whether your manuscript is within a genre that we see as potentially commercially viable (fiction, non-fiction, Christian, mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, biography, historical, cooking, children’s books, educational, self-help, poetry, health and fitness, to name a few).
  • Subject matter
  • Writing style/tone
  • Character development
  • Plot flow

  The key point here is that we’d be proud to publish your book and have one of the Cloverly Group’s brands alongside your name on the cover. What we are not doing is making a judgment as to whether your book will be commercially successful or not, we have no way of knowing that. We can only use our best judgment.

  Please note the criteria for our specialty Christian publishing house, Cloverly Christian Publishing, is much more stringent because it is an independent, Christian managed, and operated entity. Click here to see their specific review criteria.

• How can I be assured that my book is safe once I submit it to you?

  We provide anyone submitting a book for review with a signed, legally binding Non-Disclosure and Confidentiality Agreement, ensuring our acknowledgment that your book is entirely YOURS and you are merely showing it to us for review purposes.

  It also legally binds us so that we can never discuss with or disclose your manuscript to anyone without your express permission.

• How long does the review process take?

  In most cases, the review board will have an answer for you within three business days. Please note that whether your book is accepted or rejected, we will not provide feedback. The review process results are a simple “yes” or “no” with no additional explanation. We are not here to criticize anyone’s manuscript.

• If my book is accepted, will the review board tell me which of your specialty publishing houses has accepted it?

  Yes. Based on the review criteria, we will accept your book at one of our specialty publishing houses. For example, an illustrated children’s book will be accepted by Cloverly Children’s Publishing, a book already in print and intended to be released in an audiobook format will be accepted by Cloverly Audiobook Publishing, etc..

  Please note, a faith-based book will be accepted by Cloverly Christian Publishing, but they will not accept books that are gratuitously violent or in any way blasphemous, immoral, etc..

  There are significantly more stringent criteria at Cloverly Christian Publishing than our other brands. Please let us know if you wish for your manuscript to be reviewed only by our Christian specialty publishing brand.

Publishing process / best way to publish a book

• What different types of print books do you distribute?

  Softcover- roughly half of all books sold are physical print editions (as opposed to eBooks and audiobooks) and of those, the majority are paperbacks. The printing cost for a paperback is radically less expensive than printing a hardcover which means that the suggested retail price can be lower, and the book more accessible to most consumers. It is for this reason that every book we accept for publication is automatically distributed in paperback format.

  Be extremely wary of any publisher that will not publish a print edition of your book and instead claims that online/ePub versions are sufficient- they are not! These publishers know better (you would be missing out on half the market), but they encourage such an awful strategy because they are not a member of the Ingram distribution network, and they lack the massive production staff that we have, a professional staff that is needed to properly produce a finished print edition.

  Hardcover- This format of a hardcover book, while beautiful in its presentation, is exceptionally expensive to print and thus quite expensive in terms of retail price. The average book purchaser will prefer a softcover at half the price of a hardcover. However, upon special request we can distribute your book in both paperback and hardcover editions.

  We would expect that the paperback edition will sell more units than the hardcover, but we are happy to distribute the book in both formats if you wish.

• What is an ISBN?

  ISBN is an acronym for “International Standard Book Number.” It is essentially an identification code for your book. Anyone with access to the ISBN system can scan your ISBN barcode and immediately learn your name, the title of the book, your publisher, the suggested retail price, etc. It is the industry standard used to track and buy your book by publishers, booksellers, libraries, online retailers, and distributors.

  We handle all aspects of obtaining and registering the ISBN for your book. In fact, we obtain a separate ISBN for each edition of your book. For example, if we are distributing your book in paperback, hardcover, eBook and audiobook, we will obtain four distinct ISBNs – one for each edition.

• How long does the process take?

  Our motto is that “we aim to do it perfectly, not quickly.” We can work as fast or as slow as you wish. Remember, you are in charge of the process, not us. Each step in the process requires your approval to ensure it is correct. If you respond quickly to our requests for approval of things like edits, cover design, typesetting, children’s book illustrations, press release, and web page, the process will move along rapidly.

  Indeed, most authors who focus on the process will have a print copy of the book in their hands within six months! If your manuscript is accepted, your Publishing Liaison will provide you with a detailed schedule of exactly how each step in the process should work and expected time of completion.

  There are many things happening during this process, each equally important, but dependent on the previous one being completed.

• Will I receive free copies of my book?

  Absolutely! We will send you 20 copies of your book so you can share it with family, friends, influencers and for personal use. After that, you can contact us to order more copies at wholesale, directly from our printer.

Editorial Services

• What is involved in the editing process?

  Human experience and skill, not software (of any kind), is utilized during this process. Anyone who believes that grammar checking software, or worse, Artificial Intelligence, can be used to accomplish a full copy edit is sorely mistaken. We prohibit any use of artificial intelligence at the Cloverly Group. It may have useful applications in some industries, but not in publishing.

  Your copy edit will be performed by a professional editor from our in-house pool of editors. Our editors adhere to the industry standard “bible” of book editing, the Chicago Manual of Style. Utilizing this tool, they will scrutinize your manuscript for syntax, grammar, spelling, word usage, sentence structure, consistency and organization.

  All proposed editorial revisions will be clearly presented to you, line by line, for approval, modification or rejection. As we stress again and again, you are in complete control of the process. Nothing in your manuscript is modified without your direct approval. If you diligently respond to our proposed editorial changes, this process (the most challenging and time-intensive of all steps in the publishing process) should take between 8 and 12 weeks from start to finish.

• Am I required to approve all proposed edits?

  If it becomes clear to you immediately that our editors are doing the professional job that we know they will, feel free to approve all edits “en masse” with one click of the button, and the project will immediately progress to the next step of typesetting (more about that below).

• What makes editing so crucial?

  A book that is published and distributed by a large and respected publishing house such as Cloverly Publishing must meet certain market expectations and quality standards. Our reputations — yours as the author and ours as your partner and publisher — are on the line. Let’s present the market with the best possible version of your book.

• Can a friend edit my book?

  There is no harm in having someone with a good eye take a look at your manuscript before you submit it to the review board, but if accepted, an experienced editor should still edit it.

Typesetting and Formatting

• What type of book formats do you publish?

  Every book we publish is distributed in print and eBook versions and can also be professionally narrated in order to produce an audiobook edition if you wish. Remember, the majority of book purchasers still demand print editions, which is why we insist on producing and distributing this format. If you desire to publish in eBook format only, we are not the publisher for you.

• Can images be included in my book?

  Absolutely- any images you wish to supply (photos, charts, graphs, illustrations drawn by you) can be included in your finished book.

• Can my book be printed in color?

  It can, and in some cases (like illustrated children’s books, coffee table books, etc.) it should.