Publishizer is a book crowdfunding platform and literary agency that matches authors with publishers. Authors write proposals, readers pre-order copies, and publishers express interest to contact authors. Publishizer queries publishers based on criteria such as: book category, proposal quality, and pre-order copies milestones at the end of the campaign. The author receives a range of offers, and selects the best one.
Crowdfunding is a way of raising money to fund a project. It typically involves getting small amounts of money from a large number of people, or large amounts of money from a small number of people, who believe in and want to support the creator and the project.
Authors pitch a book idea to get started on Publishizer. Once the account is activated, authors can start writing each section of the proposal and are guided through the submissions process. Once the submission is approved by the Publishizer team, authors can login and manually launch their book pre-order campaign. Authors are responsible for promoting the campaign to their email contact list, social media following, and network of peers to drive and sell pre-order copies. Trending campaigns are promoted to the Publishizer audience via Reader's Picks, a weekly digest of the most popular books. Publishizer queries publishers at the end of the pre-orders campaign based on criteria such as: book category, proposal quality, and pre-order copies milestones. If 500 pre-order copies are reached at $20 per copy, Publishizer queries our acquiring editors at traditional publishing imprints with distribution and high-level support on manuscript. If 1,000 pre-order copies are reached at $20 per copy, Publishizer queries our acquiring editors at Big Five publishing houses. Authors receive a range of offers, select the best publisher, and receive their funds payment. Authors can choose to self-publish, if preferred, although most authors choose to work with a publisher.
It varies by a wide margin – it comes down to the kind of publisher you choose to work with. Service publishers typically charge $1k-5k, but you get to keep 100% of royalties. Hybrid publishers may or may not charge a cost, and you'll often maintain more creative control and 20-70% royalties. Traditional and Big Five publishers do not charge upfront costs, however, you may only end up with 5-15% of royalties. You are free to choose which option is best for you and your book and use your pre-order campaign funds to cover costs to publish your book (printing and shipping).
It’s free to start a book proposal and launch a pre-order campaign. Publishizer charges a 30% fee on total funds processed through the platform + PayPal fees of 2-4%. Authors with a 30% fee will receive support from the Publishizer team and be able to message and accept deals from publishers who express interest on the platform. There are no additional fees or upfront costs.
It's worth comparing our fees to traditional agents and self-publishing. The quick math in this spreadsheet<-- this example is useful to determine. Traditional agents earn 15% forever and they reject 96% of proposals sent to them. Based on the math, both Amazon and Publishizer allow authors to earn 4x more from their book sales. Amazon is self-publishing with a fee of 30% and personal costs usually are up to $10,000. Publishizer also earns 30% same as Amazon, but typically only on the first 500 copies or so (total funds) in the pre-order campaign.
Readers can pay in any major currency, however, all prices are displayed and charged in USD. Funds payouts to authors once a campaign ends will be convered to the local currency.
We have all kinds of authors using our platform, such as entrepreneurs, speakers, bloggers, novelists, storytellers, artists, journalists and more. We accept proposals in all trade categories (fiction and non-fiction), however, we do not currently accept proposals for STM (scientific, technical, medical) proposals or textbooks.
Book proposals are written by authors who have an idea for a book or a completed manuscript. The authors can use the step-by-step book proposal builder on Publishizer to complete each required section, which includes industry standard criteria set by acquiring editors at major publishing houses. Authors submit their completed proposals on Publishizer for approval. Only approved proposals are able to launch a pre-order campaign and appear on our website.
The author is responsible for fulfilling pre-orders and bonuses, however, often a publisher will fulfill pre-orders for you through bookstores or third parties. For authors who are self-publishing, the most common way to fulfill pre-orders is using CreateSpace or KDP Print, both of which deliver books easily.
All reader information belongs to the author. Publishizer generates a spreadsheet of names, email addresses, shipping addresses, and pre-order quantities to make fulfillment easily.
No. You can launch a pre-order campaign and get interest from our publishing partners before you write a manuscript. It is common for publishers to request edited samples, and at times even a complete manuscript, but these can be written after a campaign ends on Publishizer and once you start receiving interest from publishers.
Do you want to get your book into retail bookstores internationally? Are you looking to learn how book publishing works and what it takes to sell your book to readers and publishers? If you have a book idea that you'd like to get published and are looking for representation, then Publishizer may be a good fit. You will receive the support of a literary agent and a team whose sole mission is to enable authors and their book ideas.
A proposal is like a business plan for a book. It's the tool traditionally used by publishers to gauge their interest in publishing a book. Many authors believe potential publishers will read their manuscript, however, this is rarely the case due to the number of proposals received. A proposal states the case for a book clearly and concisely. Book proposals on Publishizer include a the industry standard one-pager, as well as a campaign video and bonuses.
A book idea and motivation to share it with the world are all you need. You can dive straight into writing your proposal on Publishizer, completely for free and privately. The Publishizer platform guides you step-by-step through writing and submitting your proposal to our team. Only once approved and you launch your pre-orders campaign will your proposal be public.
Bonuses are incentives for readers to pre-order your book. These are the perks of a crowdfunding campaign. The more unique they are, the more appealing to readers. You can offer unique items, relevant experiences, or something of tangible value. If you have specific skill sets, you could offer your readers a session with you and a bunch of copies of your book as a higher-tier bonus.
Yes. The first 30 days of promotions are the most impactful on book sales and is the typical time is takes to exhaust your network of peers. When the campaign ends, readers will no longer be able to pre-order your book on Publishizer. This also creates a sense of urgency for readers to pre-order your book now!
Submitted proposals with all required sections and parts including a completed one-pager, campaign video, and bonuses will be vetted by our professional team at Publishizer. You will receive an email within 1-3 business days notifying you if it's been approved.
Yes! You are able to re-submit your proposal on Publishizer if it has been rejected. We strongly recommend investing time into making your proposal the very best it can be before submitting it for approval. All required sections and parts must be high quality, including the one-pager, campaign video, and bonuses.
Readers come from the sales and marketing efforts of you, the author. The best way to obtain a high number of book pre-order copies in a crowdfunding campaign is send personalized emails and messages to your network of peers. Use your email list, social media following, partners, endorsers, sponsors, clients, and any community you have built who are interested in supporting you and your book project. Create unique bonuses to attract more readers! Publishizer will promote popular campaigns to our own reader list through Reader's Picks.
Reader's Picks is an email that Publishizer sends out once a week to readers who subscribe to book categories on our website. To get featured in Reader's Picks, your pre-orders campaign must have the most readers per week, per category. If you get the most readers in a new week in your category, you'll be featured to all Publishizer readers who subscribe to that category.
You can edit your one-pager and author profile after you launch a pre-orders campaign. To edit your bonuses once you launch, you must request a change from the Publishizer team. Anything can be edited except for the price, the number of copies, and shipping if a reader has already pre-ordered that reward.
If you don't hit the goal of 500 pre-order copies at $20 each by the end of the campaign, you will still be able to receive your funds and interest from publishers. The publishers who may express interest at this level may not have the distribution of traditional and fast-growing independent or hybrid publishers. If your campaign sells less than 50 copies, and you would like to refund your readers, please contact us.
Fantastic! More pre-orders simply increases demand for your book among publishers, and will result in you receiveing more and better publishing options.
The more pre-order copies you sell during your 30-day campaign, the more of our publishing parnters will express interest. Because we cannot guarantee strong interest if you sell less than 50 copies, we can offer a refund. If you sell between 50-250 copies you can expect service publishers to express interest. If you sell between 250-500 copies your can expect hybrid publisher and small presses to express interest. If you sell between 500-1000 copies you can expect some traditional and growng independent publishers to express interest. If you sell above 1,000 copies we can query our Big 5 publishing house imprints.
Publishizer will process your payment once we have received appopriate tax forms based on your country of location and bank details for a funds transfer. Your funds payment typically arrives within 3-10 working days of your request. For campaigns with funds under $600 we will process via PayPal once requested.
If you have chosen a publisher to work with, they will take it from here and help you print, publish, and fulfill your reader pre-order copies. If you choose to self publish, it is your responsibility to fulfill your pre-orders. In either case, you should continue to send updates to your readers about your progress and when they may have the book in their hands. Publishizer will provide notificaiotn to you to send updates to your readers. You can also celebrate your progress and pre-orders milestones with your readers during your campaign.
It greatly depends on the type or publisher, and many other factors. It's safe it give Publishizer 1-6 months after your campaign ends to exhaust our publisher list and await responses.
Should you encounter problems, contact us and we'll do our best to find a solution to help you.
If you are in the EU, then 9% VAT will be added to your preorder transactions upon receipt. This will be included in your fees from Publishizer. Per EU regulation this VAT is shifted to the reader, and so we suggst you add 9% VAT to your book price in order to be compliant and cover this cost.
When you pre-order a book, you receive bonuses from the author, such as signed copies, invites to the book launch event, even the chance to have a coffee or a hangout with the author in-person. Other rewards might include a thank you inside the book, your name acknowledged as a patron, or more unique experiential rewards that the authors would be able to offer such as free coaching sessions, workshops, retreats, or professional services.
Read the author's bio and book proposal to gauge if you trust the author will follow through with their book. If the author is running a strong campaign, this is a good sign that the author will follow through and attract a publisher, which increases the likelihood of the book being published professionally and delivered to you. Publishizer helps ensure readers will receive the book(s) by approving proposals that have all the appropriate criteria and by actively matching authors with publishers to get the book in your hands.
You can message an author directly from the campaign page, or from their profile. The author will receive an email notification that you have contacted them.
If your payment is declined through both Braintree and PayPal, we recommend contacting your bank. A common problem is when the minimum credit card balance has not been paid off, and the bank will decline payments until this has been cleared. If you continue to experience payments issues, please try refreshing your browser, switching devices, or checking your internet connecton, and then try again.
Not at this time.
The time it takes to prepare and send out the book and rewards will vary greatly from author to author. Some authors do this in less than a month, some in a year. Publishizer reminds authors to send regular, monthly updates to you.
The author is obligated by our Terms and Conditions to fulfil and deliver books and bonuses. With the help of a publisher, this increases the quality and efficiency of books getting delivered to you. Authors are prompted to provide regular updates to readers, and you can contact them directly. If any problems persist, please contact us.
Authors are encouraged and prompted to send status updates, so do look out for those emails. If you have changed your email or unsubscribed from the updates, you can find their campaign page and re-subscribe or leave a comment to the author.
If an author does not fulfil their obligations and remains unresponsive, please report this to us and we will get in touch with the author.
You can contact us here.
Publishizer brings validated proposals from marketable authors directly to you. Publishizer authors have existing platforms with access to readers who can help share and promote for the eventual book launch. You can choose specific book categories and pre-order levels and Publishizer will only send queries that match your criteria.
It is free for publishers to subscribe to receive queries from us. Publishizer earns fees from authors during pre-orders processed on their campaigns on Publishizer. There are no upfront costs to authors or publishers, plain and simple.
Yes. If you're interested in exploring this for your publishing company please contact us.
Publishizer works with literary agents to get book deals for their clients on the platform. While our platform connects authors with publishers in a targeted way, many agents choose to better serve their clients using Publishizer. An agent may be added by the author in the setup process, and those agents can communicate with publishers on their client's behalf. Publishizer has acted as an agency and negotiated publishing contracts with paid advances, however, that is not something we do with every single author.
Authors are guided step-by-step through the process of writing and submitting a professional book proposal by Publishizer. Our guidelines were created with the assistance of literary agents and publishing professionals.
Authors can verify their identity using Facebook and/or Twitter. Publishizer staff members also conduct background checks on authors before their campaign is approved to ensure we maintain a high standard of authors.
Authors can only message you are you have expressed interest in their proposal. And often times, need the assistance of a Publishizer agent before making contact. Authors do not receive access to email address or personal information of editors. As a precautionary measure, you can block or mute authors at any time.
Publishizer captures all required informaiton at checkout: reader name, shipping addresses for physical books, quantities and more. This can all be downloaded as a CSV spreadsheet. Fulfillment of pre-orders is the responsibility of authors, however, it is very common for book pre-order copies to be fulfilled by the publishers once an agreement is made, through bookstore partners or directly from the printer. Sometimes, advance paperback copies are fulfilled through CreateSpace, which prints and delivers copies directly to the readers very easily. It is recommended that you add a clause in the publishing agreement to your authors.