What Juggernaut Looks For
Juggernaut is primarily a non-fiction-focused publisher, and we generate most ideas ourselves and commission them. We look for non-fiction by domain specialists or books that have very strong concepts. If you are an experienced psychiatrist with a book on parenting, a scientist who wants to popularize his research, a historian who wants to uncover a rarely told story, an investor who wants to write about the stock market or a naturalist who wants to create fun animal books for kids, or simply someone with a great idea – you’ve come to the right place.
We do, however, tend not to publish a lot of fiction and do a small, select list of fiction and poetry for both children and adults.
Editor-in-chief Parth Mehrotra talks about Juggernaut’s list
Why Do We Have Such a Small Fiction and Poetry List?
As an independent start-up publisher, we had to create a list that would find sales and readers – we quickly realized that there was a dependable readership for all kinds of non-fiction, one that we could predict. This led us to pivoting towards non-fiction and as we got good at it and had many successes, we decided to primarily focus on this area.
Our Submission Process
Send two chapters and a one-page synopsis to submissions@juggernaut.in. Please do write a detailed note about yourself.
You will get an automated reply saying your email has been received. If we like it, we will respond usually within 8 weeks.
Why Don’t We Respond to All of You?
Juggernaut is a small team and our hands are full, pretty much all the time. Our young editors will read your submissions and pass the promising ones to senior editors. If we like them, we will get in touch, but we don’t have the bandwidth to individually respond to everyone who writes to us and explain what didn’t work. We’re really sorry about this.
What Affects Our Decisions?
Apart from the subject, we look at the voice of the author and also try and get a sense of the sharpness of the arguments through the chapter plan. Sometimes, we are floored by the writing style. Sometimes it’s the originality of the book. In other instances, it’s the profile of the author that impresses us.
Many of you will send a book idea that’s nicely written, but to us, it won’t stand out in its subject or the style of the writing. We read many submissions and edit many books, so we are also comparing your submission to what we’ve seen before. That tends to be the most common reason we turn down a book/pitch.
How Should You Write to an Agent or a Publisher?
Keep your letter to a single page. Spend a paragraph talking about the project, a paragraph on why you wanted to write this and a paragraph on yourself. In the paragraph about yourself, tell us about any related prizes you have won (e.g. writing prizes/fellowships, etc.) or aspects about yourself that you think are sales-worthy (for example, social media following, if you have any). Don’t worry if you haven’t won prizes or aren’t on social media. Those things aren’t deal breakers. Ultimately, it’s your writing and your book idea that will be the deciding factors.
Don’t write an overlong letter and yes, do work on the style.
Do agents matter?
Yes. We (and most publishers) tend to take an agented submission more seriously. The main reason being that they have already done one layer of vetting. Agents do tend to negotiate a better deal for writers and they manage the contract and the financials too.
Here is a list of Indian agents we and other publishers commonly work with.
Please note this is not a comprehensive listing:
Publisher Chiki Sarkar talks about what gets us to say yes to a submission
Managing editor Nishtha Kapil talks about the process of a book once the manuscript is submitted
Editorial director Swati Chopra talks about the role of a commissioning editor
What Is the Publishing Process Like?
If we like your work, we will make you an offer – this will be either an advance with royalties or an offer that moves directly to royalties. Your main editor, called the commissioning editor, will give you feedback if needed and a submission date for the final reworked manuscript. Through the different stages of the publishing journey, you will have conversations with different teams/people in the company, but your commissioning editor will be your chief point of contact.
Once the manuscript is in and the commissioning editor is happy with it, the managing editor and their team will take this through for copy editing, typesetting to printing. From this point on, you’ll be working more closely with the copy editorial team who does all this work. Alongside this, your commissioning editor will share a design of a book jacket and a blurb for the book. The two of you will also start thinking about who might give your book an endorsement if it is needed. About a month or so before publication, the publicity department will start planning the campaign for the book. So, your publicist will be someone you’ll be speaking to a lot at this stage and through to publication.
Soon before you know it, the book will be out in stores, ready to find its readers!
What Are the Finances of a Book?
The Publisher’s Costs
Publishing usually works as follows: the author writes the book. The publisher edits the book, typesets it, designs the book cover, prints the book, keeps it in their warehouse, and sells the stock to distributors and retailers who actually sell the book to the customer.
The retailer/book distributor gives the publisher part of the revenue they make on the sales of a book and keep a part for themselves. The publisher uses their share of the revenue to pay for the printing and storing of the book, and also pay the author a certain amount (called royalty) on every book sold.
Understanding Royalties
For every copy of your book sold, publishers will pay you a certain percentage of the MRP. This is called a royalty. So if your book is priced at Rs 100, and your royalty rate is 7.5%, that means you will get Rs 7.5 for every copy sold.
The royalty rate changes from book to book. At Juggernaut they start at 2% of MRP and cap at 15%. The usual royalty rate for most writers range from 7.5-10% of MRP.
Sometimes your royalty rate will not be on the MRP of a book but net receipts of the publisher. I.e. you won’t get it on the cover price but on the amount of money the publisher actually receives. E.g. publishers will give you royalties on net receipts on books they have sold overseas because there are additional costs and different currencies involved.
Publishers will include details on how often and when you will get royalty statements (typically twice a year). They will also ask for your bank details.
Many publishing contracts will include a concept called reserve against royalties where publishers hold back a certain percentage of your royalty for three consecutive royalty terms, i.e., if your reserve against royalties is that of 25%, and you earn royalties of Rs 100 in the first term, the publisher will pay you Rs 75 and adjust the Rs 25 later.
We do this because we often get returns from the bookshops after 9–12 months of a book being published. This means that the original sales number we reported may be higher than the final sales number of your book after returns. The reserve thus allows for easy adjustments.
How Advances Work
The author will often get an advance against his royalties when we sign up the book. If this is the case, he/she won’t get their royalties until that amount has been earned out. Imagine your book is priced at Rs 100, your royalties are 10% of the MRP and we paid you an advance of Rs 1,000. That means your book has to sell 100 copies before we pay you royalties: Rs 10 (royalty/copy sold) x 100 = Rs 1,000.
Other Ways An Author Can Earn
Authors can also earn through the sales of subsidiary rights of a book – primarily selling audio, film and language rights. If the sale is done via the publisher, then they keep a commission and give the balance to the author.
What Is a Book Contract Like?
We won’t lie – a book contract is written in legal language which may seem like another language to you. At Juggernaut, we have created an explainer to our contract for anyone who works with us.
- 1: Warranties and obligations
- 2: Legal reads
- 3: Rights
- 4: Territories
- 5: Copyright
- 6: Payments
- 7:Remainders
- 8: Finances around the agreement
The author has to give an undertaking that they have the right to enter the contract, i.e., the book in question is theirs or that they have the right to represent the book. They also have to make an assurance that the book is original to them and is not plagiarized. In some contracts, the author has to make other assurances.
Many books may require a legal read. Many publishers will ask for the cost of this legal read to be split between author and publisher. Based on the legal read, the publisher will say what changes need to be made. The publisher has the right to exit the contract if the changes aren’t made.
The publisher typically asks for some other rights around the book alongside the physical and digital rights. The common rights are audiobook rights, language rights (i.e., the right to publish in other languages or sell the book to publishers in other languages). Alongside these, they may ask for film rights.
Now when a publisher asks for rights, it doesn’t mean they own these. It simply means they can sell these rights on your behalf and collect a commission on the sales. Typically, a publisher takes 25–35% of the revenue made on these sales, and gives you the balance.
The contract will specify which territories the publisher can sell your book in. They could, for example, sell you just within India (or your home territory), or internationally as well as domestically. The international territories your publisher has will also be defined – e.g., throughout the World/India and Commonwealth/USA and Canada, etc.
A publisher doesn’t own your book. They simply have a licence from you to publish your book for a period of time. This could be a limited term (10/15/25 years, or for the term of copyright). You, the creator, own the copyright of the book. Every contract has a copyright line confirming this.
Publishers will include details on how often and when you will get royalty statements (typically twice a year). They will also ask for your bank details.
What happens if a book stops selling and the publisher needs to dispose of its stock? Occasionally, publishers will dispose of excess stock by doing a bulk sale at heavily discounted prices. This is called remaindering and there is a section in the contract which deals with this. The clause will describe what payments you will get in such a case, and how the publisher will communicate with you about it.
These clauses talk about the advance and royalties. The royalties will also include export royalties if the publisher is selling you internationally.
Ready to Publish Your Story?
Send two chapters and a one page synopsis to submissions@juggernaut.in. Please do write a detailed note about yourself
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