New Publishing Company Pays It Forward
New publishing company Crimson Cloak Publishing is leading the way with a new way of Paying It Forward to charities, who will benefit from their new Crimson Cloak Anthologies range. The Anthologies, collections of short stories and other items donated by authors and illustrators, are sold alongside the publisher's conventional catalogue, but with all profit going to the designated charity for that volume.
Missouri, USA, June 24, 2015 (Newswire.com) - In an interview, Owner Carly McCracken explained the thinking behind this groundbreaking idea.
Why do you do this?
Come Pink Piffing with us!
Carly McCracken, Owner and Director
Like the juggler who performed his acrobatics at the altar because he had no cash offering to lay upon it, we give what we can, donating our skills. Stories are only live when they are being read. Like children, after the struggle to bring them forth writers only want them to be happy and to do some good in the world. This way they can.
What do you get out of it?
To sell books, authors have to be visible; their work has to be seen. This way they can introduce their works to the world while doing some good. Everyone wins. Kindness is catching, you know! That’s why we started our Pink Piffing campaign: encouraging people to Pay It Forward in gratitude for their blessings, anything from being afforded the sight of a beautiful sunset to an unexpected windfall.
Isn’t this just corporate sponsorship?
As far as we know, this has never been done before in quite this way. It is a gift we make to a charity, followed up by marketing work to help it grow for them. It is their book, every copy sold generates money for the charity, none of the contributors earn anything from the anthologies. To raise money for themselves, a charity has only to open their heart and encourage people to buy the book, no request is made for actual publicity or branding. Some selling platforms don’t allow books to be permanently free, so selling it increases the range of outlets that will carry the book and generates more money for the charity. And if the charity can get direct sponsorship of their anthology for themselves, we will give them the written right to do this.
Aren’t you giving the book away as well?
Publishing is an odd business, giving a book away is a proven way of generating sales for it. People have to know about it before they can buy it! Each anthology contains a section about the charity it’s in aid of, what they are trying to do, links to their website etc., so the book acts like an advertising leaflet for that charity. Everyone loves a freebie: if the charity offers the book for free they can use it to thank their supporters for their interest, reward donors, tell new people about what they do, and create a buzz that leads to new funding. Everyone wins!
Don’t they have to pay for the Print version?
The publisher donates time, experience and money preparing and marketing the book for the charity, and couldn’t afford to give away printed copies on top. Each print-on-demand print book is sold at COST plus one dollar for the charity, so anyone, including the charity and its supporters, is free to buy it and sell it on at a profit to raise funds for them. This is a win-win situation as the charity will still receive the $1 per print book sold even if they buy their own book for resale, or to use as a raffle prize in fundraisers.
Isn’t this just a gimmick?
Our lovely contributors were so enthusiastic about the first one that we incorporated the anthologies into a permanent expression of our corporate ethos. Four volumes will come out in 2015 and we will continue to produce new ones. It is our way of Piffing.
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Find out more from Crimson Cloak publishing's website
http://crimsoncloakpublishing.com
Volume 1, a collection of children's stories called Glodwyn's Treasure Chest, is sold in aid of the World Literacy Foundation, which champions the rights of children worldwide to basic standards of literacy as a means of raising themselves out of poverty. Volume 2, a volume created around a theme of Time and called Steps in Time, is sold to raise money for the international research programme of Alzheimer's Research UK.