John Feldcamp, President
Chris Kelly, Vice President
Derek Huang-Xin Wang, Technnical Director

Product Line or Service — The book publishing industry publishes less than 10% of the books written every year. The other 90% of books have never been published because they can’t make money. We can make a profit publishing that 90% today.

Xlibris Corporation is a publishing services provider which applies technology to make publishing more efficient and less expensive than ever possible before. Our customers are authors. For several hundred dollars, we provide all the services necessary to publish a book.

Developments in publishing technology have had a radical impact on the cost of publishing — and costs are falling dramatically. All books will eventually get published. Most of those books will not be profitable enough to be published using the current business model of the publishing industry. As the number of titles increases in this mature industry, per-title profitability is falling dramatically. A different business model is needed to publish most books. When the cost to publish a book is several hundred dollars, everyone can afford to publish on their own. Xlibris is branding the act of self-publishing.

Authors currently pay $450 for Xlibris to publish a book and make it available for sale. Authors pay an additional $300 to achieve broad distribution throughout the bookselling marketplace. For additional investments in a price range between $250 and $1,000, authors will be able to purchase an array of additional support services.

Market Opportunities — There are 1 million authors in the United States writing 500,000 books per year. The average rejection rate for books submitted to publishers and literary agents is 98%, and no more than 1 book in 10 is ever published. Every year, 450,000 books are written that will never be published.

Left with no other alternative, many authors self-publish. Today, authors are forced to pay as much as $20,000 to publish their books. The author must buy the services of book designers, cover designers, editors, promoters, and printers.

The perception in the industry today is that there are no self-publishing companies. Vanity presses do offer publishing services, but their prices are higher than publishing by yourself, and fraud is common.

The decision to purchase publishing services today is fraught with uncertainty and risk. First, the high cost has kept it out of the reach of most individual authors. Second, the self-publishing marketplace is a fragmented, craft-based service business with no trusted, well-known service brands.

Marketing/Sales and Distribution — Direct marketing for publishing services to authors and publishers. Traditional channels for book sales.

Competition — Several small companies offer "e-books" via the Internet. Indirect competitors such as vanity publishers offer book printing services at price points an order of magnitude greater than Xlibris. Ingram and Baker & Taylor, the two largest book distributors in North America, have announced plans to offer similar services to publishers.