Greg Ioannou of Iguana Books is creating a new publishing model

Dancing with the Vodka Terrorists
by Rob Ferguson,
available from Iguana Books

If you were at my Ryerson University seminar on June 15 (here), you had the pleasure of hearing Greg Ioannou speak about the exciting things he’s doing at Iguana Books. For those of you who missed it, Iguana is an ebook publisher in Toronto that’s trying to create a new publishing model.  

Unlike traditional publishers, Iguana does not finance the publication of any books itself. It doesn’t cover the costs for editing, designing or marketing your book and pays no advance. 

Instead, sometimes it operate like a self-publishing company, in which the author pays all the expense of publishing their own book. Often, though, Iguana helps authors raise the money to publish their books through crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding is a platform that takes advantage of modern social networking. It’s a way to share your idea(s) with family, friends, community, and the internet at large in hopes that they will help fund your project. Crowdfunding lets you get your manuscript out to people all over the world who will be able to see your book and help contribute. –Brian

What Iguana has to say for itself:

Iguana is a somewhere between traditional publishing and the new do-it-yourself digital world. Traditional publishers can afford to publish only a fraction of the good manuscripts that come their way — leaving quality work unpublished. Do-it-yourself and self-publishers publish every manuscript that comes their way — error-filled first drafts as well as polished gems.

Dragon Whisperer
by Vanessa Ricci-Thode

Iguana is different. Iguana publishes every book that meets our quality standards — but we publish ONLY the books that meet our standards. That doesn’t mean your manuscript has to be perfect when it comes to us. It just means we won’t publish it with our (and, more important, your) name on it until it’s as ready as any book coming out of one of the traditional publishing houses.

You won’t be on your own as you get your work ready for print. Iguana has an extensive network of talented editors, designers, and other professionals ready to help your book take form. However, Iguana isn’t a free service provider, either. We ask that all of our authors cover the costs of editing and producing their books. This doesn’t necessarily mean writing a cheque. Instead, Iguana often uses crowdfunding to cover the cost of producing the book.

Asking authors to share the financial risk is what lets us open our doors to every good book. It’s also what lets us pay a royalty rate of 85%. For books sold in our Bookstore, Iguana Authors get 85% of the full selling price. Other sellers (like Amazon or Kobo) take their own cut of the selling price, so when a book is sold by a third party Iguana Authors get 85% of net (which is what remains after the sellers take their slice).

Unlike traditional print publishers, Iguana doesn’t have to recoup any advances or (because of our focus on ebooks) much overhead. If your book hits it big — and, as a party with a vested interest, we’ll do everything we can to make sure it does — you’re the one who sees the most money.

See more about publishing with Iguana here.

See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Kingston, Peterborough, Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Georgetown, Milton, Oakville, Burlington, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Dundas, Kitchener, Guelph, London, Woodstock, Orangeville, Newmarket, Barrie, Orillia, Bracebridge, Sudbury, Muskoka, Peel, Halton, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.