Our Story.

The publishing industry is not what it used to be. Gone are the days where a few elite publishing houses held all the power over hopeful authors. It is the now era of the voice of the people where inspirational authors have their own platforms.

Badger Publishing house is here to provide a tailored publishing package to suit what your specific business and industry needs. Founded and lead by multi-time best-selling author Dr Julie Bhosale, Badger Publishing House has a highly experienced team of professionals from photographers, designers, writers, editors, and creators and more to help you at every stage of your publishing journey. The hardest part of any resource is getting it to final completion – which is exactly where we come in.

Are we a traditional publishing house?

No!

Is the short answer, however we are sure you are interested in a longer explanation and would also like to understand the difference between traditional publishing and self publishing….read on.

To get your work published through a traditional publishing house you submit your writing, and it is assessed for selection. Generally, you need to have a fully completed manuscript before you submit it. Traditional publishing houses are typically swamped with applications and manuscripts. Sometimes there is a team of people (often who have never written a book themselves before!) tasked with the job of sorting through these. Sometimes you simply never hear back, and you just live with knowing your work and manuscript is out there in the abyss. If you are lucky, you may get a rejection letter. If your book is one of the select few that the publishers consider worthy of selling you will be given a publishing deal. The key point to highlight here is that the publishing company owns your work. They carry the financial risk and pay for the editing, marketing (this we will come back to) and production of the book including the printing. Authors will receive a royalty of book sales normally a minimum of six months after the book hits the market. Royalties can be as low as 2% up to possibly 10%. Once you sign a contract with the publishing company often part of the contract is that they reserve the first right for subsequent books.  They will also reserve the right to decide if a book gets reprinted again.

Self-publishing means you that you do the full production of your book from start to finish. You do the writing, pay for the editing, proof reading, design, photography and printing. Your work therefore firmly belongs to you. You are also fully responsible for the marketing and selling of your work.

One other key point of difference between these two options is that traditional publishing houses do not typically offer other mediums for your work. They solely produce physical books. Other mediums such as E-books, electronic guides or audiobooks are still done at your own cost. They also do not assist with any brand strategy, logos, or even photographs. Photography can come at a huge cost especially in image heavy books such as a cookbook. It was this which ultimately led Badger Publishing House founder, Dr Julie, to challenge the old guard at her now ex-publishers.

Cookbook photography starts at about $20,000 (approximately $200-$300/image). On top of this is the cost of a food stylist and the actual ingredients. If you are paying for this yourself then no longer is it a fair split for the traditional publishing house to take 90% of the financial profit from the book sales.

With the domination of social media, mainstream media which once held the keys to the marketing castle, no longer holds the power and leverage that it once did. Often traditional publishing houses do not provide social media assistance (in any form) or online marketing and do not use influencers. If you are with a traditional publishing house and have this set up, they benefit considerably for all the work you do on social media – which is both your time and often money in paid advertising.

So where does Badger Publishing House sit?

This publishing house was born from the heart-felt desire of Dr Julie to ensure that no creative ever had to experience what she did from a traditional publishing house. After successfully publishing two titles (The Nourished Baby and The Nourished Toddler), Dr Julie was working on her third title – a cookbook – when negotiations around the cost of the photographs and who was going to pay for them dragged on. The publishers were going to contribute $1000 towards this which is beyond ridiculous.

After working on the book for five months, on the understanding an agreement would be made on the cost of the photographs – the publishers simply emailed one day to say that they were no longer going to give a contract for this cookbook. Now, the issue was not the cookbook which Dr Julie knew she could effectively self-publish herself, given she had done numerous titles, including other self-published books at this stage. The issue was that the publishers owned her other two titles and were only willing to sell the manuscripts back to Dr Julie as an astronomical fee. They also threatened to pulp the remaining stock of books they held of these titles as well. The fight that Dr Julie went through took everything she had and then some – while she did manage to legally extract from the publishers and get her titles back it took a considerable toll on her.

Social media has literally changed the game when it comes to the marketing and selling of books. The rise of electronic mediums for books has as well. Writing is now well beyond the scope of just traditional books. Content is also required to updated quickly and fast – and produced in lightening speed as well. The team at Badger Publishing House know this all too well.

Badger Publishing House effectively helps creatives and authors to self-publish with the full support of a team who have been working alongside Dr Julie for nearly a decade now. However, the team also helps guide authors and creatives right from the start – setting up a strong brand, getting clear on what content will work, providing writing coaching and advice. They will take you right to the end stage – copy editing, proof reading, book design, production and providing competitive printing prices at volumes that are manageable for authors to afford and move. If you are in Auckland we even have a space for your own book launch. Your work remains yours. While there is a cost involved with these stages, there would be regardless – the difference is you get a team who is dedicated to help you and who cares about your work as well as the reputation of Badger Publishing House.

As a funny side note – in case you are wondering where the name came from – this publishing house has been named after a honey badger whose key traits are fearlessness, being thick skinned and being unwavering. They are well known for attacking enemies with far greater size and strength (and there is a great internet meme too – if you know you know!).

Possibly as some of you reading this will have already discovered there are many challenges that come with producing a book or content. It can be hard to find people that you trust and who will get the job done – and done on a deadline. Here at Badger Publishing House we know this all too well. Dr Julie has produced a book every year for over five years and that is not including her ebooks and audiobooks. You can also see examples of work that the team here have helped authors create – including ebooks and physical books in our gallery.

Ultimately Badger Publishing House is here to make your dreams a reality. To help you write your tomorrow just as our tag line suggests:

 “Your voice, your story, your tomorrow”