Bill Brightman - Founder:
I've worked for over ten years in jobs that required me to do a lot of writing combined with a lot of marketing. I've worked for newspapers, magazines, radio stations and corporations writing news stories, lifestyles articles, advertisements, commercials, public service announcements - you name it, I've probably written it. During this time, I learned a lot about what people like to read about (or listen to), what kinds of prompts make people want to buy a product or service, and how to find and reach audiences that will enjoy a particular message. I also became very skilled in the technology tools used in publishing today.
During this time I also got to know a lot of people who had written books and wanted to get them published. I watched as they pursued various routes to publication - submitting their work to standard publishing houses, subsidy publishers, and even self-publishing. They had varying degrees of success, and their share of disappointments as well. I helped out, when asked, with things like reading manuscripts and polishing proposals. When looking at proposals, I saw that the authors often struggled with identifying target audiences and how to market to them - that's where my experience proved to be invaluable.
I started noticing that print-on-demand publishers were becoming popular, and even though they were very expensive, they seemed to offer very little in the way of services to the author. Sure, they would print a book and get it into the distribution channels; but with today's technology, that's the easy part. The hard part is actually selling the books - getting them noticed and making people want to part with their hard-earned cash to buy them. Most of these publishers offered little in the way of marketing help for authors, and those that did seemed to charge outrageously for it.
That's when I began to think "I can do this better than they can", and HandCart Press was born. We use the same world-class publishing technology and distribution channels as our competition. We also have a vast network of marketing resources and experience that will enable us sell books on a truly global scale. Our marketing plan includes reviews appearing online and in print, in national, regional and local publications; interviews with authors online, on the air and in print; advertising to chain and independent bookstores, libraries, and specialty groups; and sample copy placement in key venues. In short, we identify the target audience of a book, and build a custom marketing plan to reach and sell to that audience.
And, as you've probably already guessed, we do all this without charging our authors anything. Instead, we pay royalties based on sales. Since we make a significant financial investment in each book we publish, we only select projects we feel will be able to earn back the initial investment and produce substantial returns for both the author and HandCart Press. We view each project as a partnership between us and the author, and our goal is to continue that partnership into future projects as well.