Information
for Authors

Orange Hat Publishing is owned by Michael T. Braun and his wife, Lauren Nickel. We completed this purchase on July 1, 2024. Michael is employed full-time as editor-in-chief. Lauren works in acquisitions and editing, while also maintaining a full-time job in academic research (and crucially providing health benefits for our family!). 

Michael has a BA in English Literature and an MA and PhD in Communication Science, all from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His past work experience is in quantitative social science research and evaluation, and academic publishing. Lauren has a BA in Psychology and French from Ripon College, an MA in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a PhD in Personality Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Orange Hat also employs a senior editor, our longest-serving employee, Lauren Blue. Lauren handles copyediting and proofreading, as well as design and layout. Lauren has a BA in English and Professional Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a certificate in Publishing from the University of Denver. 

In addition to this core team, we have an exceptional network of freelance editors, designers, and illustrators who help us make incredible books. 

Orange Hat was founded in 2011 by Shannon Ishizaki. The name comes from her first date with her husband, Jeremy Haberer. They were set up by friends and arranged to meet in person for the first time. "How will I know who you are?" Shannon asked Jeremy. Jeremy replied, "I'll be the guy wearing the orange hat." 

Shannon's initial goal for Orange Hat was to publish six children's books a year, enough to cover the cost of her Adobe InDesign license. The company grew and grew from those humble beginnings and is now Wisconsin's largest indie publishing house.

In 2021, we launched another imprint, Ten16 Press, which publishes young adult and adult fiction and non-fiction. Authors publishing works in these areas can choose which imprint they would prefer, Orange Hat or Ten16. 

Shannon's vision and leadership for the company put relationships with authors first, and those values continue today. We are a transformational publishing home for authors looking to take their best next step in publishing. Publishing with us is the start of a lifelong relationship. Our authors are our family! 

Since founding, we have published nearly 600 books by over 400 authors. And we are growing rapidly, publishing around 80 books a year!

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Orange Hat Publishing is an indie publisher, which means we are not one of the “Big 5” traditional publishing houses. It also means we are a member of the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). For authors, indie publishing means we can be flexible and offer services to all kinds of authors, not just authors who fit into a narrow box of what big publishers think is marketable. 

Indie publishing also means all our submissions are reviewed. We select the best for publication, and publish about 15% of the submissions we receive.

We tailor all our contracts to the needs of our authors. 

Most of our contracts are hybrid, meaning the author pays to help cover the cost of the services we provide. This ensures our company can stay in business and reinvest money we receive from book sales into marketing. It also means we can work with authors of all types and books that don't fall into sales trends. 

We also offer a small number of traditional contracts each year. These contracts generally go to established authors with sizable sales and large followings on social media and other platforms. A traditional contract means we keep almost all the money from the sales of the book. In exchange, the author does not pay to help cover the cost of publishing. 

Authors who work with us have experts to handle all steps of the publishing process. We have a network of authors who support each other and promote each other's work. And we have expanded marketing services to help sell your book. These services are not available (or cost a great deal more) for self-publishing. Having the credibility that comes from working with a publisher also opens more doors for literary competitions, speaking events, virtual tours, and other opportunities that increase readership and sales.

Being a published author is a big deal! For many people, it's the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. But it also means being a more public person—someone who people talk about, think about, and have opinions on. 

No matter who you publish with, you—the author—need to represent your book. The success of your book is based on what you do to promote it, both by yourself and in partnership with your publisher, local organizations, other authors, and so on. 

Authors need to think carefully about what this role looks like for them and what their goals are for the sales of their book. We like to have these kinds of conversations with authors early and often to make sure our goals align and to ensure we are ready to support the author with whatever they need.

You! Our authors retain 100% rights to their story. Our copyright applies only to the layout of your book, which is the specific file required to turn your story into a physical product. You retain rights to everything else, including film adaptations, toys, lunch boxes, and all the other amazing things we can’t wait to see your book become!

Every book is different. The publishing timeline is ultimately dependent on the amount of time needed for editing, design, and illustration. In general, a fast turnaround would be about 3 months from contract signing to book. In other cases, especially when we work with authors to develop their work, the process can take 9–12 months. 

We are also mindful of our release schedule and want your book to come out at the right time. For example, if you’ve written a book about the Fourth of July, we would recommend it come out in late May or early June, even if that means waiting longer for publication. We also like to dedicate a week in our production schedule for your book and your book only, so that we can best celebrate and support your book! 

We will work with you to market and sell your book!

Our most successful authors are those who work the hardest to promote their books. So plan to talk about your book everywhere you go, in person, on social media, and everywhere else. Ask people to buy it. Arrange events. Give talks. This is the life of an author, no matter what the book is and who has published it! 

To support you, we will talk about it with everyone we know, post about it on social media (and re-post your posts), send it out to our author network (so they can talk about it), help you with advertising and marketing campaigns, submit your book for reviews and awards, and make sure you can buy copies of your books at a low price. 

We are also expanding our services to include book reps for placement in bookstores and libraries, and book advertising. We want to work with authors who will be partners in marketing and selling books.

Authors earn royalties from sales of their books. Your royalty is the amount of money left over after the printer charges for the cost of printing the book and each distributor/retailer collects their piece of profit from the sale.

Orange Hat's share is simple. For every book that is sold through a distributor like Ingram (our main book distributor), we take $0.50 a copy and give the rest to the author. For every book that is sold through our website (mainly pre-order copies), we take $5 and give the rest to the author. (Website is higher because we maintain the inventory and handle all orders, packaging, and shipping ourselves.) 

Let's imagine a book sells for $15 and costs $5 to print. When Amazon sells this book, they purchase it from Ingram for the wholesale price (60% of retail). Ingram takes the $9 they receive from Amazon, subtracts out the print cost along with a small fee, and gives the rest of that money to us, the publisher ($9 - $5 - fee = $3.80). We take $0.50 and give the rest to the author. The author's royalty in this case is $3.30 per book sold. Through our website, we receive $15 for the sale of the book. We subtract the print cost ($5) and our set amount ($5) and pay the rest to the author. The author's royalty for this sale is $5 per book sold. 

Royalties are lower for authors on traditional contracts, who generally earn about 5% of the retail price of the book per copy sold. On a traditional contract, no matter where the book was sold, the author receives 5% of the retail price. For the $15 book, the author would receive $0.75 per book sold.