Merry Robin Publishing | Application Preview
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General Information
Business Registration Number: 13204179-0160
Location: South Jordan, ut, United States
Length of Operation: 1-5
Number of Employees: 1-10 Employees
Annual Gross Income: Less than $100k
Annual Gross Expense: Less than $100k
Open to Loans: NO
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Funding Usage
Hello! We are a sister duo who own a small publishing company called Merry Robin Publishing. We would like to request a grant of $2,500. This money would allow us to expand our illustration opportunities. We have a children’s book manuscript edited and ready for illustration. Rather than illustrating it ourselves, which is a wonderful but very time consuming process, we would like to hire another artist. This would allow us to continue moving forward with other projects, while also caring for our families as stay at home moms. The demand for our book coaching, editing and publication services is growing more quickly than we have the time to meet. Hiring a freelance illustrator for this book would be a major step forward for our business, allowing us to maintain momentum while expanding our talent pool and diversifying our children’s book portfolio. The reason we are seeking $2,500 is because illustration is a service paid for incrementally, and in advance of book publication. The book will require 24 illustrations. Quality illustration comes at a rate of approximately $100 per illustration. Any additional cost would come out of our own pockets. Alternately, any left over funds will be put toward our book marketing efforts. Thank you for considering supporting our small, woman owned and operated business! All the best, Jayne Ann Osborne Holly Boud Kolb
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Business Plan
Over the next five years, our goal is to expand our team of two by creating an internship program in which art students and prospective editors can build their resumes and portfolios by working directly with us. We will teach them and they will work hands-on with us and with clients, participating in every part of the book publication process. By growing our team, will be able to take on more clients, publishing more and more books. This will increase our income through both book sales and service based fees. Our growth to date proves we have a service people are willing and eager to invest in. We publish books for people who have a story to tell, but aren’t interested in quitting their day job to become full time writers. We provide a middle ground for authors who are overwhelmed by the timelines, lack of creative control and small royalty rates of big publishing companies, and who are also overwhelmed by the self publication process. We have yet to invest any capital into marketing ourselves or our services. Clients have come to us and have happily paid for our services. We currently have more work available to us than we have bandwidth to accept. Receiving a grant would greatly benefit our company, allowing us to hire more hands.
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Self Identified Competition
We don’t currently have competitors that we feel are taking potential business from us. The only other company that our clientele typically considers reaching out to is Deseret Book - a publishing company specifically suited to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints community. While Deseret Book is a large, established, successful organization, we find that our clients prefer the small, one on one interaction and creative control they receive with our services. What makes our company different is the one-on-one attention each client receives. We walk our clients through every step of the editing and publication process. We provide them the opportunity to sign off on any major edits or changes, allowing them to maintain creative control of their book. When we feel certain changes, additions or edits are needed to help their book become the best it can be, we educate them about the reasons behind the changes. Following publication, our royalty agreement is very different from our competitors. While many authors are lucky to receive a 10% cut of book sales from their publisher, our authors enjoy a 50% royalty on all online book profits for the first 500 copies sold. After 500 copies, their royalty increases to 75% in perpetuity. We feel that structuring royalties this way keeps authors engaged and invested in promoting their books. Our primary source of our business income comes from the editing and design services we provide in advance of publication, which allows us the freedom to offer such royalties post-publication.
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