We’re out to make publishing more daring, more accessible.
It’s not in our best interest to toss good work in the rejection pile. We green light books that are worth reading, even if they may not return immediate, massive sales. This affords writers greater opportunities to reach audiences—and booksellers and readers an exciting means to discover new talent.
We don’t believe agents are the final authority on discovering talent.
Many publishers won’t work directly with writers, preferring instead to route all communication through literary agents. Paraguas Books takes a different approach. We like working with authors directly. Writing a good book is hard enough. The last thing talented writers need—especially those seeking to publish for the first time—is having to choose between paying for their book to be published or a series of closed doors. We maintain and open-door policy for writers, who are welcome to send unsolicited manuscripts our way.
Paraguas Books is molded from fair trade principles.
Writers should make decent earnings from their work, while those who are marketing and selling their products should operate transparently.
In the traditional publishing world, writers typically make just 10% of their books’ cover prices. We find that unfair. At Paraguas Books, writers take home the largest percentage of their book sales.
We launched Paraguas Books with the aim of taking as many “risks” as possible.
Thanks to print-on-demand (POD) services, we can print books as they’re ordered. POD technology eliminates the need to print massive quantities of books and to maintain huge warehouses to store all of the books. As a result, we avoid a lot of waste—unsold books don’t sit around gathering dust, we save a ton of overhead costs, and booksellers aren’t pressured to order large numbers of books they may not be able to sell. All of this adds up to a major plus: we can devote more of our financial resources to collaborating with and supporting authors.
Have questions about our processes or submitting your work? See our FAQ.