The Preservation Foundation Books

The Preservation Foundation was incorporated in 1976.  In 1997 we published our first story on our website.  Since then we've published more than 1,500.  

In 2001, we published our first paperback, A Curiosity of Cats.  Ten years later we published our first E-Book.  Actually, we published five - a series by 90-year-old Mary McIntosh entitled Mary's Diary, A Secret Journal of the 1930s.  The books cover the years 1935 - 1939, one volume for each year.  Not long after that we converted the series into five well-received paperbacks.

You don't need a Kindle to read the E-Books.  You can download free apps from Amazon that will let you read them on computers or practically any other internet connected devices now available or to come.

In 2012 we added print-on-demand publishing of traditional books.  We have 16 paperbacks currently for sale at Amazon and 14 E-Books.  

Why publish your manuscript as a traditional paperback and/or E-Book?  

Simple.  It will be sold by the world's largest bookseller - Amazon.  It will also be picked up and possibly sold by other retailers and wholesalers.  Once published, your paperback book can be seen, bought, and read by almost anyone in the world.  Your E-Book can be read on their computer, their mobile phone, or other internet connected device.  And you can be published soon, not years from now or never.

Do you need The Preservation Foundation as your publisher?  Couldn't you publish your own book?  The answer is yes and no. The programming for Kindle is a little daunting unless you are pretty good with computers.  I spend weeks learning how to put Mary's books on Kindle before I was able to get a satisfactory layout completed.  It took time and hard work.

After that I had to learn an entirely new process in order to convert manuscript text files into files that could be used for the production of print-on-demand paperback books.

So, yes, you could do that for yourself and be your own publisher.  If you are familiar with HTML programming and have good computer skills then I'd say give it a try.

But if you don't have those skills or the time to acquire them then you will need a publisher.

So why choose us?  What makes us different?  

If you check the web for book publishers you will find hundreds out there. Some are honest and charge a reasonable fee for their work. Most do a good job but be prepared to pay in advance for the time and expertise they give you. 

Others are just a new variety of vanity press that will promise the moon but deliver very little other than requests for money.  Don't get sucked in by empty promises.

We charge no fees for publishing your work.  We simply agree to accept 30% of any royalties that may be paid by Amazon or other retailers. Or, if you have a profit from sales you make we hope you will decide to make a voluntary contribution to our program. Since we are a nonprofit corporation any such contribution will be tax deductible if you are a U.S. citizen.   Click here to see our contract.

The only up-front costs an author might have would be for any charges from a third party that you hire for copy editing or rewriting before sending us your book.  

Should you expect your book to earn lots of bucks?  Not unless you are willing to promote it or hire someone to do it for you. Whether you publish it yourself or we do it for you, the promotion has to be done by you.  Maybe you'll get lucky and get a review that sparks great sales.  Or maybe we can convince a commercial publisher to take over the book.  It could happen. But most books are going to have to depend on whatever help you can give them.  So sales may not be great.  Still, the satisfaction of having your hard work published and available for sale may be reward enough. You'll have to decide that.

So we are willing to gamble that our time and expertise spent in making your book available to the world-wide traditional and E-Book market will eventually pay off in royalties for us both.  We know that some will do well and others may not.  If one doesn't then we are willing to take the loss.

Our fundamental reason for existing is to "preserve the extraordinary stories of 'ordinary' people." And "extraordinary people" too.

Nonfiction books, and especially biography and autobiography, are our primary focus.  Beyond that we will also publish a limited number of fiction books we judge to be outstanding.  We want to publish books that will help preserve for future readers the personal insights and wisdom of our fine family of writers. 

Now that I'm retired from my day job with Smith Barney I enjoy spending much of my time building a list of quality books for our paperback and E-Book line.  Maybe yours will be one of them. 

So if you have a book length manuscript that is ready for publication, write or call us. Together we can decide if publication by The Preservation Foundation is a good fit for both of us.

Richard Loller
Nashville, Tennessee
October 1, 2015

To Reach Us by Telephone
615 889-2968 (from inside USA)
011 1 615 889-2968 (from outside USA)

Send Us A Letter...

Richard Loller
The Preservation Foundation, Inc.
2313 Pennington Bend Road
Nashville, Tennessee 37214
USA

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Visit our list of published paperbacks and E-books

The Preservation Foundation, Inc., A Nonprofit Book Publisher