FAQs

Mascot is a full service publishing company. Its hybrid publishing model combines the control and speed-to-market that self-publishing offers with the high-quality book production, book marketing, and book distribution that’s historically only been available to traditionally published authors.
To learn more, please keep reading here. If you have a story to tell, visit our submissions page and tell us more about your project.

To learn more, please keep reading here. If you have a story to tell, visit our submissions page and tell us more about your project.

We work with both established and new authors.

Hundreds of self-published authors have looked to Mascot for help in the areas of book production, book marketing, and book distribution. We’re also at the center of an industry trend involving traditionally published authors seeking to take back greater control of their content and distribution. Here’s a blog Naren wrote on the topic.

There are production-related costs each of our authors pay. In exchange, we manage the production process and provide our authors access to meaningful distribution channels. For sales through Mascot distribution (national booksellers), authors earn 85% of sales. For independent author sales, authors keep 100% of sales.

Production-related costs depend on various factors, including the level of writing support required (if any) and the specifications of each book (i.e. hard case versus paperback, page count, trim size, number of physical copies via offset printing or digital printing, eBook, etc.).

Before talking specific costs, we learn about each submitted project, and if we can add value, we will follow up with a customized publishing proposal.

Mascot is a multi-genre publishing company. We publish fiction, nonfiction, cookbooks, and children’s titles. If you have good content, we invite you to visit our submissions page and tell us about your project.

Mascot is a full service independent publishing company that provides services in the areas of book production, book marketing, and book distribution.

Working with Mascot, each author retains 100% of the intellectual property rights associated with their book, including any modifications, additions, images, and designs created by Mascot. At every stage during the book production process, an author has the opportunity to review and approve their work.

Mascot titles appear at the leading online and physical bookstores, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, independent bookstores, warehouse clubs, airport shops, grocery stores, collegiate bookstores, independent and chain gift stores, hospitals, museums, and more. We work with leading distributors and wholesalers that give our titles national coverage, including Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Partners Book Distributing, ReaderLink, American West, and more.

To be clear, we’re not suggesting that each and every book we publish ends up on bookshelves of each of our retail partners, but many do. We have the channels and relationships in place to maximize each title’s distribution opportunities.

Mascot takes a hands-on approach to each and every project we undertake. Each project is assigned a dedicated project manager. A collaborative approach yields new ideas, improves a book’s presentation, and ultimately results in a better product. Since 2003, we’ve worked hard to establish ourselves as a trusted independent publisher, and because of that good standing in the marketplace, we have the opportunity to work on many of the best indie publishing projects on the market.

Generally, our books hit the market between four and six months after we first hear about them, which is at least a year sooner than traditionally published titles. However, we try not to rush the process either.

The creative process is fluid and there are many variables that impact product timelines. As CEO and publisher Naren Aryal often tells our authors, “Publishing is a process, and as a result, projects are completed when they’re meant to be completed.”

Mascot sees projects at all stages. Some manuscripts arrive fully written and thoroughly edited. However, it’s more common for authors to first share a synopsis, an outline, a partial script, or early script.

As a full service publishing company, we offer writing and editorial support to concepts and scripts that might benefit from professional editorial review. In addition to employing in-house editing and project management professionals, we routinely subcontract work to ghostwriters and editors who specialize in a particular genre.

If you have additional questions, feel free to visit our contact page and reach electronically or by calling us at (703) 437-3584.