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Don't Give Your Baby (your book!) to A Naughty Publisher! By Angela HoyI received a series of emails from an author last week that had me puzzled. Forthree emails in a row, she questioned our Booklocker.com setup fees. She keptasking me to clarify what they were and asked me if we had any hidden fees. I keptrepeating, "$199 setup fee plus $18 annual POD file hosting fee." I added, "Nocharge if you want to use your own cover art. If you want to order a cover fromone of our designers, it's $99 for the template and $199 for original cover art(and authors retain all rights to their covers). That's it. There's nothing else."Her final email let me know why she kept emailing me. She said, "I guess I thoughtthe $199 was too good to be true, considering some of the other prices I've seen."I wrote back saying I understood her skepticism. I've compared our prices andservices to our competitors and it's appalling what some people are charging forthe same print run...literally! All the major POD players use the same printer!It's even more discouraging that most of them aggressively try to up-sell authorsfor worthless marketing products and services.What's perhaps the saddest of all is that some POD companies are demanding allrights from the author (even though they offer few or no complimentary marketingservices). Some POD publishers offer to publish your book for just a few hundreddollars, but then up-sell the authors on more and more mandatory services. By thetime the print galley arrives, these victims realize they've spent thousands. Oncean author has spent a few hundred and are then told they must spend more to goforward, he or she may feel forced to just pay a little bit more, and then alittle bit more, just to see their book in print. This type of business practiceis horrible and, in some cases, what the companies are doing is probably illegal.It's unfortunate that not only have many of our competitors priced identicalservices several times what our prices are, but they've also mucked up theirreputations so badly that they're quickly giving our entire industry a black eye.Let's face it, if one of the "leaders" in any industry has disappointed so manypeople that you can find countless inflammatory posts about them online, they'regoing to give all of us a bad name. Unfortunately, we have no recourse in thissituation other than to educate authors about how to avoid these firms.What's perhaps the most unfortunate scenario is that some authors who can't getpublished by traditional houses, and can't afford a short press run, are sofrightened by complaints they've read about these firms online that they may giveup on ever being published. It's a shame and angers me that a few bad apples inthe industry are hurting so many hopeful authors.So, what should you do to avoid firms like this?Step 1: Search the online forums for bad experiences people have had with a firm.The best ones are:WritersWeekly.com Whispers and Warningshttp://www.writersweekly.com/phpBB2/SFWA's Writer Bewarehttp://www.sfwa.org/beware/Preditors and Editorshttp://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/pubwarn.htm
The Bewares Boardhttp://p197.ezboard.com/fabsolutewritefrm11Better Business Bureauhttp://www.bbb.orgLet's face it, if you find one complaint about a company, it might be a fluke. Ifyou find numerous complaints, don't assume you'll have a good experience with thatcompany. Avoid firms that have multiple complaints posted against them online.And, remember, unscrupulous firms won't hesitate to put "plants" online to postrosy (and perhaps fictitious) experiences with that firm. You'll often find thesefollowing complaints posted about the firms. We've seen that happen onWritersWeekly Whispers & Warnings. If an overly-gushing "good experience" isposted right after a complaint, we research the poster, their IP address, theirbook title and anything else we can find out about them to see if they're a realauthor or a "plant."Step 2: Find three or more authors online who are publishing their books throughthat company and ask them exactly how much it cost them from submission of thefinal manuscript to the arrival of their print galley. To find these authors,choose a few books from the publisher's library and type the book title andauthor's name into a search engine. If the authors have personal websites, you'llquickly find them. Once there, you'll find their contact information. Book salesshouldn't be the question you pose because marketing is the author'sresponsibility, not the publisher's. (Some authors mistakenly assume thesepublishers will do all the marketing and they later learn that authors are theprimary marketers of their books, regardless if a book is self-published orpublished through a traditional publisher. But, be wary of publishers that make itlook like they'll market a book...but then don't do follow through.) Ask about thepublisher's setup fees, contract, any unexpected experiences and what the authorswas charged for books and shipping.Step 3: To avoid hidden charges, ask the company for a simple list of everythingthey offer and the charges associated with each service. This way, you'll know upfront what hidden fees might be waiting for you after you're in too deep to backout. Save all emails from the company and demand each representative give youtheir full name. If the company insists on sending you confusing verbiage thatmakes it impossible to determine what they charge and what services they offer,consider this a huge red flag.Step 4: Ask the company exactly how much they're going to charge you for authorcopies (they should offer discounts based on the quantity ordered). Make sure thisinformation is either posted publicly in their website or specifically included inyour contract.Step 5: Very important! Ask the company how much they'll charge to ship copies ofa book that matches your book's projected size and length to your address (give itto them or give them your zip code). Ask them for quotes to ship 1, 50 and 100copies. We've had numerous complaints from authors about POD companies chargingauthors two to three times what UPS charges them to ship books. We definitelyconsider this dirty business! A slight mark-up of 25% or so is acceptable...but a200%-300% mark-up is ridiculous! If you're already with a POD publisher, you cancheck their shipping costs by weighing the package you receive and getting a quotefrom ups.com about how much it would cost to ship that package from your printer'szip code to your zip code, according to the method shipped (ground, overnight,etc.).Step 6: Read the entire contract BEFORE you pay any money! And, when they send you
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| Upload Date: | 01/27/2009 |
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