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Lotus Arts Publishing is a niche publishing company that produces books, websites, and other media in specific content areas:

  • Travel
  • Yoga
  • Belly Dance

Indie Travel Guru

Destination pocket guides, articles, and ebooks for independent travelers.

I’m seeking destination guides that follow a very specific format. I’m also seeking articles and content for the Indie Travel Guru website.

Pocket Guides

Indie Travel Pocket Guides are short books for travelers who don’t want to be overwhelmed by a novel-length guidebook. A Guru Pocket Guide is aimed at budget travelers and provides:
  • An overview of a city
  • Best ways in and out of the city
  • A few Lodging options
  • Ideas for where to eat
  • Information on top attractions
  • Practical info, like great apps, bike sharing, and other resources
  • An appendix that includes language phrase cards and other tools.
These are written in a very specific format, so pitch your city and your writing background and if I think you’re a good fit, I’ll send you the guidelines.

The Website

The website publishes practical how-to information, listicles, photo essays, and destination guides (including abridged versions of the Pocket Guides).

Belly Dance U

Articles and books by authoritative writers for the belly dance community.

Think of Bellydance U books as textbooks (and workbooks!) for bellydance students who are at the intermediate  to professional level. They don’t have to be scholarly tomes, but they should be reliable, solid materials for dancers who want to further their education or are looking for information about professional careers in teaching or performance.
The perfect Bellydance U author is a seasoned instructor, someone who is known for their integrity and commitment to solid information. You’ve been teaching workshops for years, you’ve been published in the major publications in the industry, but you want to contribute something with more depth.

Kindle Singles

I’m interested in publishing short Kindle books, anywhere from 5,000 to 30,000 words. These will  allow you to delve much deeper into a topic than a blog post or magazine article allows, but without the commitment of writing a full-length manuscript. You can include images (if they are ethically sourced) and links. Sample Kindle book listing:

Paperbacks

Longer books can be offered as both Kindle and Paperback options. Pricing for paperbacks depends on length, whether we choose color or black and white photos, and other options. Sample Amazon listings:

The Website

I’m also be looking for articles for the website as it grows. These can be distillations of pieces you’ve written for your own blog, or they can be original.  You can also include links to your own content. It’s a great place to share excerpts from your Belly Dance U Press book or kindle book, too.
Belly Dance U will be a selective environment, one readers can trust. Being published there will build your authority, keep your name in front of the next generation of dancers and event organizers, and increase traffic to your own site.
Hafla for Humanity
Note: BellyDanceU is also the sponsor of the Global Hafla for Humanity charity event.

Work With Us

Working With Lotus Arts Publishing 

The upside: A very small press can give you lots of individual attention and guidance, and you aren’t competing with a thousand other manuscripts to get published. You’ll have a lot more input in the design process and control over the finished product than you would with a large publisher as well.
The downside: I can’t promise you zillions of dollars in sales, and we won’t have a huge marketing budget. You’ll be doing a lot of the work marketing your own book, with guidance and help from me.
Also, although I can promise that your finished product will be professional and attractive, I can only offer paperback printing. We’ll be selling through Amazon’s “print on demand” service, which doesn’t offer hardcover or coffee table book options.

Is this a vanity press?

No. A vanity press will print any book, regardless of whether it’s any good, and the author has to pay for the hours of editing, layout and design that go into their book, plus a nice profit margin for the press. A vanity press also often requires you to pay up front for a print run.
What I do is partner with you to publish your book through Amazon, as a paperback and/or e-book. I’ll also use my websites, social media, and marketing knowledge to help promote your book. I’m selective about who I work with; if I choose to publish your book, it means I think your idea has potential and you have the writing skill and knowledge to pull it off.
You and I will both put in sweat equity, doing all our work up front with no payment, and we will split the proceeds. You bring the written words, I bring the knowledge of how to make your words into a marketable product, and we market it together. You pay for nothing up front (except photography for a cookbook; I recommend a Kickstarter campaign to pay for that, and I’ll help you put one together!)

How does it work?

If we decide to work together, I will be publishing your book through Amazon as a print-on-demand paperback and/or a Kindle ebook.
You write the book. I do the editing, layout, cover designs, prepare the files for printing or conversion to Kindle format, write the promo copy, and get the book listed. We’ll work together on the marketing campaign. We’ll split the earnings, after hard costs, 50/50. There’s no cash outlay up front, my payment comes from your royalties. Your royalty will still be a higher percent of book sales than a traditional publisher pays, but that seems reasonable since you’ll be doing a lot of the marketing, too.

How much will my book earn?

You and I will make decisions together about the page count, use of color photography, pricing, and other variables that impact the cost and profitability of your book. We’ll split the profits from Amazon sales 50/50. In other words, your royalty will be half proceeds after expenses. This works out to be a much higher percent than royalties from a large publisher, but that’s only fair since you’re doing a lot of the marketing work. You’ll also be able to order low-cost copies to sell yourself, and your earnings on those will be even higher.
It’s impossible to give a total sales figure for any given book. If I agree to put many hours of my own work into designing, formatting and marketing your book, it means I believe it has the capacity to repay our work over time.
But I think it’s important to have reasonable expectations; you aren’t going to write one book and retire. I think it’s best to write your first book as a labor of love, and think of it as a fun creative project that will boost your authority in your industry and bring you some mad money. If your first book does well, then by all means write more, and soon you will have a nice supplemental income. The beauty of royalties is that the income is entirely passive. You’ll still be receiving this nice little stream of income two or three years from now, or perhaps longer.

What’s the first step?

If you have a manuscript or a book idea in one of the categories I’m working in, let’s see if we’re a good fit to work together.  Send me an e-mail with your idea and your questions and we’ll talk about it.
https://lotus-arts.net/
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