In 1937, a struggling children’s author was trudging home with his manuscript, having failed, after dozens of attempts, to find a publisher for it. His plan was to burn the pages when he reached his house, and give up his dream of being an author.

As luck–and our good fortune–would have it, he ran across a friend of his, who greeted him and asked his troubles. The author told his friend his plan, and his friend told him not to do that, but to come with him, as he, the friend, had just been given the position of children’s editor at a publishing house. A few hours later, the friend signed this author to a contract and agreed to publish the book.

What was it? And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. The author was Theodore “Ted” Geisel, known to millions as Dr. Seuss.

This story is often held up as an example (along with hundreds of others) of why, if you just keep going as a writer, eventually someone will recognize your genius and you’ll be published. At Drabatic Press, we don’t think this is an inspirational tale. We think it’s an indictment of an industry in desperate need of reform. If an author like Dr. Seuss–or JK Rowling, or Madeleine L’Engle–can write a book of total brilliance and still come within a whisker of never getting it in print, that’s not heartwarming. That’s crap. That’s a disaster. How many other Ted Geisels are there out there who didn’t get stopped by a friend on the way home? Hundreds. Thousands. And that means we don’t have their books.

There’s a better way to do this publishing thing, especially in the 21st century.

At Drabatic Press, we don’t publish bad literature. But we also don’t believe we stand as the ultimate authority on what is and is not worth reading. We share with our authors in ways no other publisher does–not even Amazon, often held up as the Icon of Virtue for authors (especially self-published authors). We support parents and families with innovative content descriptions of books (not just the long-outdated and hopelessly uninformative “YA” or “MG” designations). And we support teen authors not with rah-rah conventions but by actually publishing their work.

We offer quite a different experience from a traditional publisher, or even a small press:

• We do not acquire your copyright. We buy only first-publication rights. All subsequent publishing rights, in whatever form, remain with the author.
• We connect you with your audience by sharing purchase data with you. As a Drabatic Press author, you get to know who is buying your books, not just how many you’re selling. With every new reader, your audience grows.
• Our royalty structure is competitive even with self-publishing, especially through Amazon.
• We have a teen division, Q Branch Books, consisting of books published by teen authors.

If any or all of the above sounds like an improvement on what you are currently doing, or if you have a work you’d like to run by the acquiring editors at Drabatic, please contact us.

~Christopher Jones, Chief Editor, Founder

Become a Drabatic Author

Have a manuscript? We’d love to publish your book! Contact us here and we’ll reach out to you shortly with more information.