Xlibris Manifesto

Xlibris is a place created by writers, for writers, and about writers. We come from the world of writing, but apply new ways of looking at that world. We ask questions about why things work the way they do today and whether there are other ways to achieve the same goals. We constantly focus on the needs of creative people and on how technology and new approaches can be applied to make the lives of authors more productive and satisfying.

This is a company, and like all companies we are expected to make a profit and return value to the amazing people who have believed in us and in our vision. But this is also very much a mission to change the way the world works for a unique population of people. We are deeply committed to ideas like empowerment, democracy, opportunity, and fairness.

These two views of Xlibris are never in conflict. We believe that one of the few ways to profoundly change the world and make things better is to build a large and successful company. The only way to do this is by caring deeply about the people we are committed to serving, and doing everything in our power to make their lives better than they are today. By being smart and creative, we can make a profit even while providing services that are incredibly less expensive and more efficient that has ever been possible before, and build a large company by serving a large number of authors well.

Access to publication

More than almost any other group of people, writers are responsible for bringing an extraordinary level of richness into all of our lives. They make possible the wealth of ideas and viewpoints, stories, and deeply layered meanings that we all inhabit and gain from. The publishing industry itself, certainly, and everything associated with it is built upon this foundation of creative individuals who observe the world, try to understand and interpret what they see, and work alone to create tales and explanations and meaning. But the world is so ordered that authors are often the people who benefit least from value that they bring.

There are over a million authors in the United States and together they write about half a million books per year. Less then one in ten of those books are ever published. If you are a writer of a first novel your chances are about one in 400. If you are a writer of poetry your chances of achieving publication are even more remote. Lots of good books never make it to the market, either because they never succeed in reaching the right person at the right publishing house, or because their potential markets are too small to support the costs of publication. The world of publishing today is an arbitrary and unreachable place for most authors.

We can't solve every problem for every author - no one can. It's incredibly difficult to make a living as a writer (less than 6% of published writers can do that). And as to having a bestseller, or becoming rich and famous from your writing, that's about as difficult to accomplish as winning the lottery. Even publishers don't always know what will succeed out there in the market. Most of the books published conventionally each year also leave the market within the same year.

But we can make things better than they are today. Our mission is to change one small detail in the way the world works for authors: the opportunity for publication itself. We believe that every author has the simple right to publish their books and reach the market. We believe that the only truly unbiased judge of a work is the market itself. And we believe that evey author and every book has the right to find its own place in the market, and to have the opportunity to find its own level of success. Xlibris is about making that one thing possible.

Fundamental principles

Xlibris exists solely to serve and empower authors, and not for any other agenda. We are not a market play dreamed up by an MBA attempting to get rich; we are not interested in leveraging what we do into an ability to compete with publishers at large. We are interested in working closely with the entire industry in ways that serve the needs of authors and help make the entire world of books and publishing stronger through time. And we'll demonstrate this in everything we do.

Here are some of the core principles on which Xlibris is built:

• Everyone at Xlibris will work first and foremost for the author.
• We will work to find ways to support the community of authors and enable every author and every book to reach the market.
• We will never take an author's rights. When working with Xlibris, the author remains in total control and is effectively the publisher. They will always remain free to do anything they choose with their books at any time they choose. There will be no gotchas in our publishing agreements. An author will never have to ask for their rights back from Xlibris because they never left the author's hands.
• Our service will be non-exclusive. The author remains eternally free to publish their books elsewhere whenever they choose.
• Our royalties will be equitable and understandable and based on the retail price of the book and not on anything fuzzy or tricky. For books we sell through the bookselling channel, we will set our royalties to enable Xlibris and the author to share about equally in the profit derived from every copy sold. We will earn a little more on books we sell directly via Xlibris, which in turn will help to pay for the publishing services we provide.
• We will never offer a special deal to one author or a group of authors that we do not offer or try to make possible for everyone.

And finally, here are the four words that are the most important to us in how we approach running and growing our company:

• Inclusiveness. We will work to include and support as many authors as possible and work with anyone who can help us in our central mission of improving the lot of authors.
• Openness. We will always remain completely open about who we are, what we can and cannot do, and work to be completely sincere and honest in every conversation with everyone we touch. Sometimes that will mean saying no or that we can't do something, but it will always be honest, even when that causes us to lose some customers.
• Service. We are here to serve the author, not to be in charge of them or their work.
• Integrity. Which can only be demonstrated and not explained

Better through time

Xlibris is an amazing place today, full of wonderful people. We can do great things today, but not everything yet that an author would want. We're working hard to make everything we do better through time, and to bring in an ever-larger group of brilliant and dedicated people to help us change the world.

Xlibris is intended to be something we all feel a great deal of ownership of and something we all help to build. That certainly includes all of our staff, our shareholders, and our partners. But it also includes all of the authors we work with, and who share our vision of a better, fairer, more personally empowered and more democratic world of authorship, books and publishing. Join us.

Start Publishing Your Book Today!

Call 1-800-618-969 or email publishtoday@xlibris.com.au for your free consultation. Get Started today by requesting your Free Guide To Publishing Services