Indie Publishing Company Changes the Way People Read

MARBLE, NC, February 21, 2013 (Press-News.org) Word Branch Publishing, an independent publishing company located in western North Carolina, has a message to both readers and writers: be open to new ideas and new opportunities will come to you.

Founder of Word Branch Publishing, Catherine Rayburn-Trobaugh, a writer herself, was disenchanted with the traditional publishing process that often diminished the role of the writer.

"I saw a system that was, if not broken, severely outdated," says Rayburn-Trobaugh, "The big guys weren't keeping up with changes, and writers often were confused by the myriad of options for self-publishing."

With the influx of e-books and writers taking publishing into their own hands, traditional publishing companies were scrambling to catch up to new technologies and markets, and some of the big corporations took on some major damage.

Conversely, despite new technology and opportunities for self-publishing, writers were struggling with some of the basics of marketing, cover creation and book formatting. This is where Word Branch bridges the gap with a new way of going about publishing.

"We are essentially a co-op of talented people pooling our strengths for a fair share of royalties." No one working with Word Branch Publishing, or WBP, gets a salary; everyone from the writers, illustrator, editors and readers work strictly for a portion of book sales. Not only does this make it cost effective to take on new authors, it gives everyone incentive to present the best product possible.

Rayburn-Trobaugh says this system benefits readers as well. "By keeping our overhead low, we can afford to take on unproven authors who may not be accepted by a large publishing company. Because we can take chances, we are able to bring readers new and exciting material at a good price."

Word Branch Publishing was founded in January of 2012, and since then the small company has grown quickly. "Although we began with the intention of only publishing e-books, we quickly moved to publishing paperbacks in most titles as well," Rayburn-Trobaugh said. Currently, WBP has 15 e-books available and 10 paperback titles with the intention of adding at least 10 new titles in 2013.