delightwhe.blogg.se - Publisher plus reviews

Is self-publishing or traditional publishing right for you? Sometimes the author pays a smaller fee upfront, but if a book doesn’t hit a sales target within a specified period, a clause kicks in that requires them to either make up the difference or pay back the production costs.

Include a minimum sales guarantee in their contract.

But because they choose the cost-per-copy, they can add a convenient "admin cost" to the price. Unreliable publishers may say that you need to have at least 50 or 100 copies to sell at book signings.

Require the author to buy a certain number of copies.

Withhold royalties until they ‘break even.’ Their side of the production costs can be any number they pick, as they can name any price they want for "admin costs.".

A vanity publisher may try to get authors to pay tens or even hundreds of dollars to enter a contest, claiming they've been "selected" to enter.

Entice the author into contests with high entry fees.

Initially quiet about about marketing/publicity/creating an author website, a vanity publisher will then try to charge authors extra fees for these services.

Self-publishing companies to avoid often do the following: That’s not the same as it being actively sold into stores. Usually, this means that they'll list your book with a wholesaler, like Ingram - which means that booksellers can order it. Vanity presses will often infer that they can sell your book to major chains.

Their book marketing efforts tend to range from meager to non-existent.

Editorial and design work will likely be outsourced to one of the lowest bidders.

They will happily work on titles they believe won’t sell.

Their editorial standards tend to be lower.

Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel in The Producers (image: MGM)Īs a result of the vanity publisher's business model: Think of them as the equivalent of Bialystock & Bloom from Mel Brooks’ The Producers - they can make as much money from a flop as they can from a hit.

Their end customer is the author who’s willing to pay for services like editing and design. Here’s the ugly truth: Vanity presses don’t rely on book sales to pay the bills. Notice how, at no point in this process, the author hands any money to the publisher? Vanity presses, on the other hand, will not only not offer an advance, but they will also play on the vanity of authors in order to make them bear some (or all) of the costs of publishing. Once the book is published, the author will receive a royalty of every copy sold (after the author’s total royalties have covered the advance). The publisher will then cover the costs of editorial, design, and marketing. Most reputable publishers share the same business model: the publisher acquires the rights to publish and distribute the book by paying the author an advance.