UNLIKE a hundred other e-publishing houses out there, I never started out to get into e-publishing at all. There were no carefully laid plans for business projections or royalties and profit ratios. I had a simple business concept about building a City on the Internet and selling little shops to professional small businesses, and promoting them year round. Back in 1996 I was really outraged at the growing number of "hit and run" webmasters that built sites for businesses and ran. Dropping new businesses into e-commerce with out a clue on how to proceed. So what am I doing here 7 years later in e-publishing? That's an interesting story.

You know the saying that life is what happens to you when you're planning the future? It happened like a wonderful character in your book your writing that just reaches out and grabs the story out of your hands and runs off. First you have control and then you don't. Being a writer myself, I've been around the block a few times. I've written in nearly every media there is, newspapers, magazines, house organs, short stories, novelettes, scripts, radio, TV, plays and books. Unlike most writers I'm also a published artist that's seen the other side, from doing logos for corporations, to painting lions on beauty shop signs, to illustrating books, to doing commissioned fine art, to producing whimsical watercolor dragons that sell all over the world. Having been in two publishing and promotions industries for over 30 years, I knew I could combine all my talents and produce web sites that were not only well balanced and well written but profitable in sales. Then just like in a story, I ran head long into a character.

I was minding my own business and had just become an official affiliate of Amazon.com and I was surfing around their web site to select the books I wanted for the City's bookstore. Naturally, I'm an avid reader too, so I wanted to include some of my favorites writers in my bookstore. I was ...in search of...when Amazon had a personal e-mail address listed for one on my absolute favorite writers. And I just couldn't resist the fun of pounding out a fan letter. The next day I got a letter back from her. So I pounded back a reply and the next thing I knew letters were flying back and forth on a daily basis. Then fate reached out and gave me a hard yank, and phone calls started flying. Then there was this idea and that idea and the next thing I know I'm building a web site for one of my favorite writers.

The story is very familiar to me now, but then I was horrified. Apparently, this writer's agent had "forgotten" to tell her that her main publishing company was doing a "clean out and revamp" of their stock and would not accept any manuscripts from any writers for a year. For a career writer this was a devastating blow, it's like saying you're fired for a year, no income, no rent money, no groceries. The writer was desperate to sell something fast. She fired her agent and started looking. She had the idea of selling a chapter every two weeks for a $1.00 or $2.00 a chapter. She knew what she wanted, but didn't know how to do it. I did. We worked the whole operation out and her web site born. She sent me an e-mail list of 200 fans, which I cleaned down to 100. I crafted a sales letter and fired it off to the fans when the first chapter was done. Integrity Tech Publishing was born.

Those early publishing days were pretty scary, we learned about e-mail gremlins, we learned about out of country conversion to greek, we learned about impatient fans and we learned how to open envelops containing cash, checks and money orders. We learned that fans want the whole book NOW or nothing and we started growing a market. We learned how to format books, how protect books and how to increase sales with "off Internet" promotions and online sales promotions. At first it was a small income for the writer, more like power bill money, but over the years it was looking better and better every month. Then we added new formatting, instant downloads and credit cards, and now the writer's income is more like mortgage payments - monthly. And it's growing. Of course when THAT kind of word gets out to writers, others want a piece of the action too. So I started adding other writers.

So here I am 6 years later with many more writers. They all want one thing. They want to be able to make monthly cash from their writing without the "big publishing house" run around. They want to be able to pay the rent and power bill without getting late fees. What they want is a fairly STEADY income. Integrity Tech Publishing was build around these concepts and my high standards for e-commerce. Together it has equaled a 50% per year growth rate and some VERY happy writers.

So you might say my this is an interesting turn of events, the writers took MY character and put it to work for them and together we have made some very interest money. Standing on the cutting edge of e-publishing technology was never my intent, but hey, who can argue with success?

Integrity Tech Enterprises was paid for in full the day it opened. So it's not going anywhere, there are no corporations, no stockholder and no committees. I tend to be a work-a-holic and often run writer's on a merry chase, which pays them well in the end.

I do things a little differently than other e-publishers, I put my writer's first and always. Accepted writers get professional web site stores, each site is professionally designed to fit that writer's work, genre(s) and tone. This is the writer's "storefront" and all their regular paper books (in print and out-of-print), e-books and other things they offer are put in one spot. A store front where fans can come and read, play and buy. Another thing we do differently is that we promote ALL our writers year round, online and off, locally and Internationally and in a co-op set up. Our writer's co-op lets each writer that attends a convention or conference promote all our writers at these events...no matter their genre. We can have one writer doing a Horror convention Dallas, another doing a Sci-fi convention in New York and still another doing a Romance convention in Miami and each promotes the other in all places. It's like each writer is in 3 places at once.

Another thing we do for our writer's is book them as guests into conventions. This is optional and when they have time. While they are there they have a great time, they give out free chapter diskettes, post flyers, give away book markers, sign old books, and sell e-books on disk too. That will change in the next few months too as we'll soon be offering online-only e-books on encrypted CD's. Growth and progress is what we're all about here.

Finally there are two more things you need to know about us. Accepted writers NEVER have to spend one dime with us to get published. We are NOT a vanity publisher. Money flows from us to writers MONTHLY. We are small and can't afford to pay up front big royalties, but once their book(s) are up and selling, the money flows to them every month to them. We offer a 50/50 publishing plan for e-books. The bottom line is that I don't make a dime until my writer's make money first. Another thing is you will find is that our e-books are a little more expensive than other e-publishers. I have studied the markets and if you sell 50 e-books for $4.00 in a month and your half is $2.00 you got $100.00 a month. What can you pay with that? The water bill and a quarter basket of groceries? Now if you sell 50 books at $20.00 each and your share is $10.00 then you would get $500.00 a month and most writer's can at least put a dent in the rent with that. So we are more into supporting writer's like national treasures, in between their paper publishing pay checks.

One thing I learned as an artist is there is no such thing as cheap art. I believe that writing is not just a talent, it's an art and if the art is good, people will pay a little more to get it first, fast and with good service and support. We warranty all our e-books for a lifetime, if one of our clients has a computer system that crashes, their computer is lost in fire we replace the books for free. On September 11th, we had two clients that had their computers blown up, we cheerfully replace the their e-books for free. In both cases it was the ONLY thing they got out of their offices. For many that alone is worth the little extra they pay. Think that Waldon's well catch that wave...don't hold your breath!

We are now activity looking for prolific writers to join our team. And THAT is what this site is about (a person can get tired out writing guidelines from scratch a few times a week. So I decided to give in and make a site just for Integrity Tech Publishing. Much like the Marines ad says, "We're looking for a few good writers." If you are interested in joining our team hit the back key and read our writer's guidelines and market needs. Good writing to you!

Debbora Wiles, Integrity Tech Enterprises owner/publisher (March 2002)