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Authors Beware: Hydra, Alibi, Flirt, and Loveswept

AK Taylor — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 18:13:53 +0000

Hydra (not to be confused with Hydra Publications), Alibi, Flirt, and Loveswept are new ebook only imprints developed by Random House that target aspiring, first time, or unagented authors. It is the first attempts for the Big 5 to come to grips with the changing publishing industry we have today totally on their own. However, they are still off the mark in so many ways it’s outright scary to be completely honest.

The first round’s offerings were: no advance to anyone, contract for the length of the copyright, 50/50 split with expenses covered at the backend and shifted to the author (so the author is really getting ~25% which is the traditional standard), and acquisition of subsidiary rights (film, international rights, TV, audio, etc). Print (if a print deal is reached) and marketing expenses are shifted to the author.

Alibi (mysteries/thrillers), Loveswept (romance), and Flirt (For the emerging New Adult market, but not the same as Young Adult) are the sisters of Hydra with similar contract terms for the stated genres.

Hydra, the fantasy/sci-fi division, was the first one that saw the light of day only to be blasted to oblivion by agents, authors, and writers groups–a good thing. Here are a few articles about the Round #1:

Scalzi: Advances and Me

Scalzi: SFWA (Science Fiction Writers Association) Responds to to Random House

SFWA Letter to Random House

Also check Google and Writer’s Beware can point you to others.

After the the authors, writer’s groups, and agents harnessed the power of the Internet and group efforts to raise their torches and pitchforks and storm the castle, Random House did listen and altered the contract a little. Here are some articles about what did change (not everything did). Also, Random House found themselves under the microscope after this epic fail. So Round #2:

Teleread.com: Backlists, Hydra, and the Future of Indie Publishing

Teleread.com: Random House’s Hydra Changes Contract Terms (see article for other embedded links to additional material)

At Random.com: A Special Message

After the heat finally subsided, Random House did listen–kudos for at least doing that–and did give the author a choice between and advance against royalties at up to $10K (you’re not guaranteed that much) and the going royalty rate of 25% of the net (not retail price) where the publisher may pay for marketing, etc, or the original schema (which sucks altogether IMHO).

It’s a little bit better; HOWEVER, there are still a lot of things wrong with the contract in my honest opinion that did not come out in the wash. These are things that an author needs to consider or be made aware of, if they should decide to publish here at any of these publishers:

the life of the contract is STILL the length of the copyright UNLESS (next point)
rights revert back to the author if she/he fails to sell 300 copies in the first 12 months, and the book goes out of print (out of print clause) Possible blacklisting?
Expenses for print editions are still shifted to author (if print deals are met)
Marketing expenses after some agreed upon amount are shifted to author and deducted from the royalty split
Publisher still may try to purchase subsidiary rights, if they see potential for those markets (doesn’t guarantee you will have a TV, film, etc contract). The parent company, Random House, has these connections, but things are still iffy here.

So, if the author works his or her butt off to sell those 300 copies, then the publisher will own all the rights they purchased or THE AUTHOR GAVE AWAY FOR FREE (if they opted for no advance) for the length of the copyright. For anyone who doesn’t know how long that is, the copyright is the rest of the author’s life + 70 years. It’s not your standard traditional contract for 5 to 10 years! This is the forever of the publishing world–basically two lifetimes to put it into yet another perspective if you will–if you live to 75 or to 115 that’s still + 70 years :O.

This may be okay for some folks. If they know that going into the contract and are in of peace of mind with it, then that’s okay. It’s FUBAR for someone who doesn’t know and wouldn’t want that for themselves and sign the contract. Read and UNDERSTAND (purposeful emphasis, do more than just read!) your contract before signing. Also keep in mind, if you hate your cover, or if something goes south, or the publisher goes out of business (never brought up in the debate, mind you–is RH immortal/too-big-to-fail like BOA or Freddie Mac?), then they have the rights to your work forever (two lifetimes!) in which you could never republish at another publisher or self publish. Something to keep in mind.

Per some of the things I learned from reading blogs, the above articles, and Mark Levine’s The Fine Print of Self Publishing (some of the principles he teaches in his book can be applied to ANY publishing contract, especially since the emergence of hybrid publishers) I can draw some conclusions:

Avoid publishers whose contracts’ terms last for the length of the copyright
Do not sell you subsidiary rights if the publisher has no programs, connections, or plans to procure deals with those rights
offer no advance to ALL authors (especially since this is usually the only money made in a traditional publishing deal unless you become a blockbuster bestseller, which is highly unlikely unless you’re lucky, or receive advances for subsidiary rights)
Avoid any publisher who tries to get/buy “all rights” (which means all levels of print and subsidiary rights which kills or limits your negotiating power or ability to sell those rights elsewhere)
Avoid any fuzzy math regarding the “net” profit. Typically the net is typically derived from in it’s simplest form is: X= retail price – seller discount – print cost – freight (print and freight omitted for ebook/freight may be paid by purchaser in some cases). Other figures may be addressed in the contract, so use it for a referral, and the publisher should supply a breakdown with real figures. When you don’t understand X, and where they mathematically derive X from the retail price, then the publisher can make X whatever it wants it to be and shave off money that may actually be yours and pocket it! Also learning what standard printing costs are is another big one per Mark Levine. This stuff has been done many times over! Mark Levine’s book covers a number of self publishing companies who have done this and there are more in traditional publishing as well that aren’t in a book. Welcome to shark infested waters, my friends! I learned this hard lesson the hard way already, and I have the battle scar to prove it.
Ask the publisher (if traditional) extensive questions about their marketing plans for your book and get it in black and white and understand what their and your responsibilities are. If you are completely responsible for marketing, and you are negotiating with a traditional publisher, and they won’t budge, then you are better off self publishing or finding another publisher–there is a danger of going out of print early or getting blacklisted if you fail to meet the sale requirements at the deadline (selling books is not easy! avoid the “Field of Dreams” mindset)–the author is really the one taking all the risk here, not the publisher. You still should help market regardless of publishing model, but the publisher is likely to help you if they invest money, but if not, you have a big decision to make. You are held responsible for the failure and not the publisher regardless, and whatever happens, the publisher keeps the rights until the term ends, and you can’t do anything until you get your rights back. Keep in mind,traditional publishing deadlines to meet X books are short! Be prepared, do your homework.

What also baffles me is that this is an ebook publisher. They are still taking a huge chunk of 50+% out of every book sold when there there is no printing or freight costs. After an ebook is formatted and a digital cover, and in some cases illustrations, is/are created, there is no cost to download or reproduce a copy. The author is not paying for printing or freight costs–nobody is. That is why ebooks cost less than print books (or they should!) and are favorable giveaway items for self published authors. That should make you ask yourself if this is worth it. What could the publisher be making in profits from a successful author?! It also should make you ask why they are taking such a huge bite out of the royalty! Even if they are helping with marketing, ebooks minimize the overhead costs for EVERYONE! This doesn’t make sense whatsoever. It doesn’t cost that much to help promote or distribute an ebook, so again, why are they taking 50+%? This might be OK for a traditional print contract, but not for an ebook.

In summary, this publisher still flunks my quiz even after the changes. Mark would label it as a “Publisher to Avoid”. This is a hybrid publisher to stay away from regardless that Author Solutions isn’t involved, but maybe Random House has had pointers taken from Author Solutions by the looks of things. If that is so, they are getting the wrong advice. I know some people they should talk to for better advice. I would never submit here, and I wouldn’t publish here if they offered me a contract for the max amount. They would have to do a lot better than that, and I have found other small presses and self publishing companies who provide better options. There are more fish in the sea, and gone are the days when authors had to settle for second best or crappy-at-best just to enter into print–and nowadays digital!

Archway Publishing: Authors Beware

AK Taylor — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:17:03 +0000

Archway Publishing, the new self publishing arm of Simon and Schuster has gotten quite a reaction from the indie community already. Why? This self publishing imprint was created by a partnership with the Evil Galactic Empire of Self Publishing (Author Solutions) and run by the Empire. All S&S has on it is its name–they don’t have any other part in the whole deal. I will include some other great articles at the end for your reading pleasure .

It does make good sense for the Big 6–now 5–to understand self publishing since it is changing publishing as we know it, but then it makes me ask this one question: What in the heck were they thinking? They are learning about self publishing from the WORST possible source. So, in short, they still don’t get it. There are quite a few other people they could have asked how to do self publishing the right way. In this scenario it makes as much sense as a young couple asking Charles Manson how to start a family.

Furthermore, S&S is not going to lend any of its editorial or design expertise to this new imprint (see articles). Instead all of that is going to be handled by Author Solutions. *headdesk* I have personally dealt with Author Solutions staff in editing and design, and it is a waste of time and money and the only payback is heartache and misery. S&S is trusting AS to handle all of this, and to make matters worse, S&S will send rejected authors to Archway. Insert Home Alone scream here. I view this scenario like this: People who don’t make the cheerleading team get sent to the camp coached by Ted Bundy. What are they thinking?

What does this mean for new authors? It means there is construction for a deadfall going on here for both self publishers and for authors seeking to be published traditionally. Since Author Solutions has entered into the hallowed halls where no self publishers has gone before and made itself a seat at the round table, it now has some very powerful bait to catch unsuspecting authors. They were good at this when they were on their own, but now they have silver spoon status. A robber dressed in fancy clothes is still a robber.

They have already been caught tooting the horn that they are affiliated with Penguin and using that as bait, so they will do the same here.

Note to author: You are not getting a contract with S&S. You are not going to be working with S&S editors or designers. If AS tells you that, they are lying to you. I knew that even before I read the first article and knew where this would probably head. They are very good at that (lying to authors)–I know this first hand without any big names being involved. That’s what makes this whole thing reek even worse. S&S may have their name on it but that’s it–it’s AS all the way, baby. It’s just another personality for Sybil nothing more.

So basically speaking this is like AS having S&S name on the bumper of their car. It’s still their car and it wasn’t made by the big name either. You can put a mustang body and emblem on a Honda and change nothing under the hood, and it’s still a Honda. That is basically what we have here.

Stay Away. There are more (and better!) alternatives out there.

Here are some other related articles about Archway. Check them out. If you have written an article about it and would like to share please do, and also feel free to leave comments!

Related Articles:

Publishers Weekly

Writer Beware

GN Braun: Simon & Schuster and Author Solutions: Not a Winning Combination?

David Gaughran: Simon & Schuster Joins Forces With Author Solutions to Rip Off Writers

Emily Suess: Sure You Don’t Want to Name It Simon and Schyster?

Authors Beware: Xlibris' New Contract

AK Taylor — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 14:43:59 +0000

A nice lady contacted me wanting to exit Xlibris, and by revisiting the contract I discovered they have a new one. This new contract has more meat on its bones, and it’s not good. An already bad contract has only gotten worse. To view the contract click here.

Things have changed a bit since I have done my time within the Evil Galactic Empire which Xlibris is just one member. The contract that I remember was pretty author friendly except for the one clause about them owning the original production files and will not sell them to you no matter what. That one clause is what made the whole thing dirty-rotten aside from all the non contract related nightmares I experienced.

I guess they figured that “heck, we can be even more mean and hawk even more money,” and added in some more deadfalls in the contract. Let’s take a look, shall we?

The Guarantee is Gone

Xlibris used to have a guarantee on their site if you terminated your contract before signing off on the physical proof you would get a full refund. Now that has gone bye-bye. Now they have come up with to decrease the money refunded as the publishing process progresses. In addition to that they pinch off an ADDITIONAL $150 for some arbitrary fee called a “set up fee” which (which is some of the BS fees Mark Levine says keep a watch for) applies to any refund request. When you get to the galley stage, you’re only getting 25% of your original fees back still minus $150. The point of no return appears to be the same after you sign off on the physical proof. Chances of receiving higher percentages of your money back are slim since the contract must be terminated before interior design starts. This is strategic in that most authors that terminate do so here since they notice the problems (or at least the ones I’ve spoken to that have cancelled out before the point of no return). This really sucks given that the package prices have gone up considerably since my time there, and all are filled with smoke-and-mirrors magic tricks that don’t work or grossly inflated stuff you can do on your own for free or low cost.

Are We Getting Our Production Files Back Now?

In the contract there is a clause that you can purchase your print edition files as PDFs for $150 and $50 for your ebook files. Are we getting original files back? Nope. I had sent a copy of the new contract to my esteemed colleague Mark Levine and statement that mentions “files as pdfs” are NOT the Indesign files which are production files–only a publishing professional would know information like that–no new author would. Noticed the statement seems to be worded a little funky? It’s that way for a reason–to be misleading. So you are paying for something you think you’re getting which you are not. The interior is practically useless unless you hired your own editor; if you used Xlibris’ editors your work is probably an editorial train wreck. If you like your cover, maybe you can use it.

The ebook files aren’t a good buy either since chances are they have formatting problems. AS companies including Xlibris are known to have the worst ebook conversion. Chances are you’ll have to have it reformatted.

So they are gouging you for ANOTHER $200, and all the while they still own the stuff you bought. There isn’t much left after they get through. An already bad situation just got worse, and they are still trapping authors by the scores with their “once in a lifetime” deals. Unless people have the lifespan of mosquitoes, this isn’t true. They always have some kind of a deal and they hand them out like candy. It’s candy with a cyanide center. It’s a once in a lifetime miserable experience.

If they come knocking, run the other way!

Ridan Publishing: A Cautionary Tale for Indies

cherryallen — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 17:17:14 +0000

A couple of short years ago, Ridan Publishing was a rising star. The company seemed to be founded so that Robin Sullivan could publish her husband’s books. Michael Sullivan’s novels were at the top of the heap and the ones most talked about in interviews and such, but Nathan Lowell and his Solar Clipper series helped firmly establish Ridan as a success. Eventually, the company acquired rights for books by writers like Joe Haldeman and A.C. Crispin, among many others, and it seemed Ridan was established as a fine, profitable player in the indie scene that many, many authors would love to be published with.

*record scratch*

Fast-forward to a couple of days ago, when A.C. Crispin announced that she’d sent two certified letters terminating her contract with Ridan because despite having first published her in December 2011 and publishing 5 of her books in total, she’d never received a dime in royalties. She sent two letters because the first was never collected. The second was also ignored.

Nathan Lowell’s blog shows a history of problems going back to at least August of last year–the next book in his series being put off a month at a time (and August may not have even been the original date), long periods of no communication from Robin Sullivan, eventual publication in May 2012 (almost a year overdue) and more lack of communication while his next book sails overdue, as well. He announced on his blog yesterday that his letter of termination had arrived at their offices, so after 30 days he could begin self-publishing his wildly popular series.

(A lengthy thread at Absolute Write chronicles a great deal of problems, if you want to know more, and a recent thread at Kindle Boards’ Writers’ Cafe also offers some insight. Keep in mind that Michael Sullivan posted at the Writers’ Cafe the same day the thread was started, and Robin was once a darling of the place, offering insight and advice and telling people how it was in indie publishing. Neither have chimed in.)

This isn’t the first publisher to do this sort of thing. But usually the fly-by-night qualities are more apparent from the beginning. Ann Crispin even stressed how well she’d researched Ridan. I think most people would have looked at Ridan and thought it was a good idea, if not a great one. But now they’re latest publisher on the list of those that have been mismanaged, have hurt their authors’ careers, that continue to sell books they don’t have the right to sell and that still have a lot of money that belongs to other people. Amazingly, they’ve been ignoring authors for months and months, not paying royalties owed, while the owner, Robin Sullivan, has been appearing on panels across the country talking about self-publishing and indie publishing success. While not paying, the Sullivans went on vacation in August, according to Michael Sullivan’s blog. Hmph.

Ann Crispin’s books with Ridan, her StarBridge series, were to be her only income this year, a year during which she’s been fighting cancer. And Ridan didn’t pay her or respond to her many attempts at communication. But Robin Sullivan sat on self-publishing panels and spoke publicly about her company–and will be appearing with her husband on October 14th at the New York Comic-Con to do the same. From rising star in the industry to, um, evil? In less than a year. Remember this next time you think about submitting to a publisher.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t submit. My point is that if a company that looked to be a real rising star and player in the industry can screw people over this way, it can happen to anyone. Harlequin’s the biggest name in romance and they’ve been putting it to their authors for some time now. Whether opting for a small or big publisher, the eager author may come up against problems. No matter how well a publisher is doing today, you simply don’t know what might happen tomorrow.

Of course, this is also true of self-publishing. No one really knows what’s going to happen. All you can do is do the work, put in the time, and keep your eyes open. But like going into an agreement with a publisher, you have to be aware of the potential pitfalls and know your contract so you know your rights if a day should come when you need to get out of it.

It should be mentioned that yesterday, Robin Sullivan called Ann Crispin and said she would fix things. It should also be mentioned that Robin actually posted in an old thread of Nathan’s in January or February explaining the delay on his book and promising to fix things before disappearing again. It was still delayed another 3 or 4 months.

So I encourage you to post about this issue, Tweet about it, make other writers aware of the injustice here so that mounting pressure might motivate Ridan and Robin Sullivan to offer more than lip service to this serious problem. So many people self-publish or to go small presses because they’re tired of the way the big companies do things. Let’s not let a small company get away with even worse treatment of authors.

And when you go to publish, carefully consider your options and be aware of the potential problems you might face, no matter which path you choose.

My stories. Hey, you could buy some!

Author Solutions: The Evil Galactic Empire of Self Publishing

AK Taylor — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 17:20:43 +0000

This post is about the other goings on I found out about after I left my ex publisher and before Penguin bought them out. In my opinion they seem to be have like the Galactic Empire from Star Wars on so many levels it isn’t funny. All authors and definitely newbies need to be aware of what else these people are capable of.

Kevin Weiss, CEO of ASI

Just like how the Galactic Empire began in Star Wars with a small group called the Sith, the Self Publishing Empire called Author Solutions, Inc (ASI) has small beginnings which grew into something big and very threatening. It all began with a print on demand publisher (POD) named AuthorHouse which used to be known as 1^st Books. AuthorHouse had already gotten themselves a bad reputation among authors so then they become known as Author Solutions, Inc. They begin gobbling up some of their biggest competitors i.e. Xlibris and iUniverse when they were still known as AuthorHouse, just like how Sith sucked up the Seperatists and the Clones. However, Kevin Weiss, the CEO of ASI behaves just like Darth Sidious/Palpatine. Author Solutions is run by and invested in by Bertram Capital Management whose CEO is Jeff Drazan…he is basically the Sith Lord that was murdered by Sidious in his sleep (figuratively speaking). Not too many people know that Author Solutions has a top tier to the pyramid. However, until recently was Bertram capital the top tier, now Penguin is.

Penguin has a pristine reputation among authors, so now it looks like Darth Sidious has teamed up with Master Yoda…

Who is the Target?

The target of ASI and its imprints are authors…unsuspecting authors who want to publish their book and to be heard, not necessarily the readers even though they overpay for a crappy book so then they are like the unintentional casualties in the battle. As the Indie Author Revolution is in full swing, so are the ploys of ASI and their cronies. They play their game and hurt authors on both ends of the deal in paying huge upfront costs and printing markups and taking a royalty when they don’t help sell books…let’s not forget about the hidden costs… Just take note that they don’t exist to help authors; they exist to hurt them and only in it for the money and are not interested in any author’s success. In short “they are predators. Plain and simple.” These are words by someone else, not myself.

Don’t Let the Numbers Fool You

All of the companies under the banner of ASI empire mislead people with their statistics to authors to trick them into thinking when they publish there are going to be selling extremely well like the others. They boast that they sell thousands of books each year and boasts of thousands of authors under each roof that is really under one larger roof. In both New York Times articles in the Sources section Kevin Weiss has said himself and the New York Times has crunched the numbers to say that thousands of authors with thousands of titles equals only minute quantities of books sold by a majority of the authors there. Of the authors who make it, have they noticed anything fishy? Do they realize they have been shortchanged in their royalties? Probably not.

I also wonder how much dough they pumped into their ‘services’ to get the books out there to succeed there or what they did on their own with no help from them… I guess a couple authors have to make it with their sales model so they have some success story to use for sales hype to lure people in. If no one succeeded, they don’t have a case or “a leg to stand on” to mislead people.

Mark Levine

Keep Throwing the Books at Them, Mark

Mark Levine, author of The Fine Print of Self Publishing in all four of its editions targets unethical publishers and why they should be avoided, but the authors make their own decisions based on the findings and raw data he presents. He represents the Obi-Wan of self publishing, and reputable companies and DIYers are the Jedi. All he did was share information and start a company, BTW. An entire chapter in every single edition is devoted to Author Solutions’ companies (and a few others) as “Publishers To Avoid”. These guys would be in any author’s “Publishers to Avoid” section, not just his based on things everyone understands: customer service, hard-sell techniques, and misleading statements not backed up by material or contracts. Some publishers have changed their contracts in response to his book to make them more author friendly, but others just get mad at him.

Author Solutions’ companies either get mad or just ignore him. He keeps on because he knows he’s right and the book is doing its job by angering the bad guys; many authors are grateful that he continues to do this. Also authors are becoming more aware all the time or have someone to talk to if they get burned. I read this book myself as I was a victim of Author Solutions and their ploys, and he helped me get my bearings and back on my feet so I could turn my situation around. To see my story read the article series My Horrible Xlibris Xperience, Looking for an Out, My MCP Experience. Mark hears stories like these a lot as a result of people reading his book and contacting him—at least the ones who have had bad experiences, and it is usually at an AS company (not always).

Author Horror and Slaugher

The Horror Goes Beyond the Contract and Website

Mark’s book only covers what’s in the contract and on the website, but there is much more to the picture. You don’t know this stuff until you get sucked in or hear from people like me and others who have experienced the horrors beyond the contract for themselves and lived to tell the tale. If what you read in The Fine Print is bad, which only covers the contract; just wait. Things get much worse if you get in, and I can say that from experience.

In the books he mentions what took place during his and his colleague’s interactions with the companies’ representatives. Mark and his editor/assistant were merely mystery shoppers with industry experience so they don’t get every dirty detail, but what they do find is enough for them to give others a stomach full. Mark Levine is just one person, so he has needed and has gotten other author stories to back him up and tell him what else is going on which he then relates to others.

Authors everywhere are telling one horror story after another about Author Solutions on forums, consumer complaint boards (i.e. Better Business Bureau (BBB) and Ripoff Report). Look in the sources section, there are others where I got my sources for this article. Click on each link to see a listing of 18-21 listings for each sector of the empire that is listed which are mostly the biggest players: Xlibris, iUniverse, and Authorhouse. These same companies have complaints on the Better Business Bureau by the hundreds, not just a few. Read my story. Visit Mark’s blog and read his article and read about an advertising lie to mislead people Xlibris uses that he caught them on, but this is just one of many. Every word on every site of all the AS companies are misleading. Are we having fun yet? There’s more, so hold on, and one being the transformation of a good company to a bad one.

The Phase Change in iUniverse

I have heard many stories about iUniverse being one of the best companies to publish with about five years ago, but not so anymore. They were up there with Createspace and Lulu coming in behind them as far as the do-it-yourself/hands on model is concerned. I personally don’t know since I wasn’t in the publishing game at that time, but I have heard enough from other authors who worked with them in their former glory and through Mark’s books I can draw some conclusions.

To get a glimpse of what iUniverse used to be like I requested to see the excerpt about iUniverse from The Fine Print 2^nd Edition which came out in 2006. When I read his 3^rd edition, he made comments about it being one of the “most author friendly companies around” at one time, but then fell down to the “Avoid” list. I was curious to know what they did that was contrary to the way they are now. From what I read they still were not the perfect company, and they did have their issues, but he graded them to be “Outstanding” which says something because he is much tougher on the grading than most authors.

They did have higher retail prices a tad above what the market could bear, but they were not considered ridiculous even by him. Royalties were a bit low for the independent publishing industry, but they were still Outstanding, and he could live with that and so did many other authors.

Why?

In his very first edition Mark pointed out something in the contract that was unfair, but they were quick to fix it and draft a new contract by the 2nd. When authors would raise a complaint about something, they would fix it and did so quickly to make it more author friendly, and just about everything else was fair. Services in editing, publishing, and marketing were in line with industry standards which have not changed very much.

Also Mark mentions that they went out of their way to help the succeeding author get to the next level. Mark says he could live trading off for the higher royalty and the cope with the printing markup for this type of mindset and service potential. They used their clout as a big corporation and high traffic to help authors succeed, and they were a stand-alone company then. The contract termination terms were fair and the author could take their print ready files at no charge and leave if they so wished and go somewhere else (a biggie).

Certain phrases and statements in the third edition of The Fine Print of Self Publishing gave me an idea when he mentioned what changed between editions two and three, and the biggest one was about the print ready files for the author’s book. The third edition is the one I read where I turned my published career around. Here are the ones that stand out in my mind:

“When they began charging $1,500 for the author’s print ready files, I was appalled by this one greedy maneuver.” “I was saddened to see an outstanding company fall into the murky swamp of publishers to be avoided. Boy, what a difference an edition makes.” –Mark Levine, The Fine of Self Publishing 3^rd Edition.

These statements peaked my curiosity as a newbie when I read this book as an author with that same perspective. How did an outstanding company fall all the way down to the bottom in such a short time? I’m sure anyone who is an author would be curious to know what happened when they read this. If they did fall wouldn’t it be a little on the scale in such a brief time? Nope, not this time. After a while the truth came out, and it was they came under new management, and guess what? They were purchased by Author Solutions (they were under the name Authorhouse then).

Comparing this excerpt from 2006 to the latest edition which is the 4^th edition (editions 3 and 4 are about the same as far as the raw data is concerned) there was plenty more that went wrong besides the print ready production file cost of $1,500 total ($750 for each unless you wait 18 months, but I’m not going there). The already high printing markups then went sky high. Now we have retail prices that are ridiculous and way outside what the market can bear. The editing services are twice the industry standard, and the publishing packages are now much more expensive for what you get. The packages they have now would be wonderful and an improvement if they were under the old management, and that’s sad.

On the service note that also went down the tubes. The author friendly mindset of going out of their way to help the working author who is making it also went away, and they won’t change any unfair contract terms no matter who complains about it even if it was Stephen King who filed a complaint. If any changes are made, they’ll be worse and not better. Now it’s the same old stuff with hard-sell techniques, shady statements, and waiting three weeks to answer someone’s email when they want a prompt, reasonable response to a question.

Now, they look and feel like any other Author Solutions company when they were bought out. They became just another face of Authorhouse/Author Solutions (Authorhouse also reminds me of Sybil with its many publisher personalities) that was spliced with the old iUniverse in some way to create a big genetic monster.

No one could ever tell iUniverse used to be a great company, except those who know their prime past. It’s sad really, but it gives you a good bird’s eye view of what is really going on at Author Solutions, Inc, and the fact that they can turn a good, reputable company to a scummy one is worth a conversation. iUniverse is now involved in the ultimate dirty deeds that I am going to write about next, and they are one of the biggest players in it.

Xlibris is another company that had a similar fate before iUniverse, but now that’s so ancient that the findings are sketchy.

In a way you could say that AS is a threat to other publishers as well since they want to gobble them up or make it hard for them to take their disgruntled clients when they want to go to a new publisher. If they buy out your company you can see what it could turn out like, and it will become another personality of the publishing world’s Sybil with the intent on harming authors. If you are an author and you find out that AS is buying out your company, you may want to abandon ship while you can!

But wait; there’s even more bad stuff happening!

Authors beware

The Grim Reaper of Self Publishing

Just when you thought egregious printing markups, fat publisher royalties, bad customer service, overpriced, shoddy marketing services, bad book production, the non-return or ransom for your print ready files, transforming companies, and hidden costs were not bad enough, just wait. In my source articles below which I will summarize below will stop your heart.

Royalty Theft: This goes way beyond the printing markups, inflated print costs, etc, this means even the paltry sum that is left over is also swiped. How?

They fail on purpose to report sales and royalties to the author account which the author trusts will be done by the publisher. Authors put a lot of trust in publishers to do the right thing, and believe they should be professionals (I did). Read what I learned from my mistakes in the “Mistake” series here on this blog.

However, in the sources section authors have found means to check and found out that their books were selling more copies than what is reported on the sales page and that authors have called and been lied to about the situation. Authors received ridiculously small royalty checks and then they found out by word of mouth, Book Finder.com, and Google Books that they should have been paid more and their royalties are “missing”.

The formula they give you makes it possible to find out how much you should have gotten, so you can instantly find the discrepancies. The fact remains that more was owed to the author that has been discretely swept under the rug and they hoped no one would notice and where it goes no one knows. When the authors call them on it; no one has a clue what they mean, conveniently.

**My story for proof: I sold a copy of my second book Escape From Ancient Egypt on Amazon which has to stayed at Xlibris till I cut the lines. A book has to sell in order for me to have a ranking number. There is a number for the paperback and not the hardback which means I sold a paperback, and this was a few months ago. I also log into my AuthorCentral account where it shows I sold a book in June 2011 sometime. In 2012 metadeta from their bookstore also told me that I had sold books.

I log into my My Xlibris account (the sales tracking system) and there is no record of the books being sold; all that is there are no books sold and/or no royalties. It is supposed to be in real time. I’ll never see those tawdry royalties, and calling them about it is a waste of time. Their customer service sucks and nothing will be done about it. A waste of my time.

Copyright Fraud: Look closely! That copyright page in the front of your ASI published book may not be legit! It looks like an ordinary copyright page to me, you say. Well, other articles and the ones below can say otherwise and I have a personal story to tell. So what you pay in the package or as an add-on may not be a real copyright!

**My story: When I republished my first book Neiko’s Five Land Adventure at Mill City Press, one of many reputable publishers, I found a big surprise on my copyright papers which was mailed to me from MillCity for my records. On the new registration I did mention there was a previous publication at a different publisher. However there was a date of previous publication on file (which I provided at registration), but for the actual documentation it was PENDING at a year later!

All other legit information: registration number, year, etc was all present and accounted for Mill City. There was no such thing for Xlibris except for PENDING, and I didn’t receive any documents for copyright proof, but being a newbie, I didn’t know that I could have these. I’ll never know if two copies of the book had been mailed to the copyright office by Xlibris since they are supposed to do it for you.

I knew they got there from my publication with Mill City because I mailed them myself by insured/certified mail and was given explicit instructions on what I was supposed to do. I never received such papers from Xlibris or any means to prove my registration. How interesting, I wonder if the same thing will be on my papers for Escape from Ancient Egypt…

ISBN switching: This is another way ASI covertly steals author royalties by tweaking the ISBN numbers so the royalties from the retailer doesn’t go to the author. Authors have gone back to plug in their listed ISBNs and it be different than the original number. See sources. I checked mine and it came up clean; maybe because my books are not selling well enough yet for them to do that to me.

Illegal Book Switch: When an author leaves and ASI company and signs on with a reputable company, then the books begins to sell better. While that author is sleeping, they have found a way to remove the new edition and replace it with the ASI edition and take advantage of the booming sales. I saw this last year on Google stated by another author who filed a complaint against the representative and company which was Xlibris, and now I am seeing new appearances from new authors on this matter at all other Author Solutions companies including Xlibris. If my book starts selling at MCP, then I may need to keep a watch on my book…or anyone else who was previously published by any ASI company also should whether they moved to a different publisher or DIY.

Loosing of important papers (Copyright/contracts, etc): People have filed complaints about copyright registration, etc, being “lost” in order for them to hawk more money. Another author talks about the author’s social security number, which they have to give up to receive royalties, was misplaced and had to be resubmitted. That almost seems suspicious. Signed contracts are also MIA (missing in action) so the author misses out on the discount or extra ‘free’ copies they push for and so they have to resubmit.

Most of the time the contracts require the SSN (social security number) at signing at any of the other Author Solutions companies; Mill City doesn’t do this, so I don’t think other reputable companies ask for this up front and have other means to get royalties to the author. With all the identity theft going on, giving up the SSN is almost dangerous, and the handling of such important personal information so irresponsibly should raise some questions.

One day in 2011 I got a call from Xlibris wanting my SSN because they misplaced it or something; I didn’t give it to them. I had no royalties, so why should I care? Also when I submitted my materials for Escape from Ancient Egypt they said they got my CD-ROMs that had my copies of my character sketches, but they didn’t work after I checked them before sending them in. Also, my contract and written instructions for my illustrations didn’t come in. Strange. How could one thing and not the other come in? By the way, that paperwork supposedly never came in so I had to redo, scan, email everything.

What Does All This Equal?

This means this could be the biggest money laundering scheme in US history that is taking advantage of the Revolution of the Written Word based on the comments by some of the authors who posted on Ripoff Report. They have found every way to rob authors blind. Similar statements are made by the Better Business Bureau and Writers Beware. Those are not my words about the money laundering and fraud, but that’s basically what is going on. They pocket the money and have gotten it out of the country by the highways and byways of the Internet. Fraud is harder to track on the Internet, but they have been nailed on fraud (see below) and sued successfully. If there are millions independent authors, and ASI publishes one in fifteen titles, then that is a lot of money when you factor in all the money they are taking from each author!

There is an article about Kevin Weiss receiving recognition for providing the Bloomington community with jobs in 2011, but then he covertly lays off thousands and outsources the jobs to people to the Philippines (see sources), and I had read about a massive layoff taking place in Xlibris and the jobs being sent to the Philippines not too long after I left Xlibris. Is this why your service sucks, because there are underpaid and overworked people? No. The service has always sucked; it just means its worse.

One post reiterates this and speaks of the work conditions at any of the companies. It is doubtful it was written by an author; a disgruntled ex worker perhaps? I have heard other tales about the working conditions here from friends, and it’s not pretty.

Among the fraud and questionable ethics, Author Solutions and all of its imprints also specialize in the most author unfriendly practices out there. Their customer service practices confounds what anyone knows or has been taught about customer service practices when they enter the workforce or what they receive in public anywhere. These people don’t get fired or punished for insulting a customer or if someone files a complaint against them like anywhere else. They get a pat on the back and not a pink slip.

Anyone connected to Author Solutions does the same things and it makes one wonder, and I wonder if they send their representatives in training to Hard-sell Techniques 101 and to Customer Unservice Boot Camp at orientation to dismantle any professional customer service training they may have had at a different job. It seems like it since their representatives seem to act all the same way and do the same things and they are at different companies but at the same address.

All these companies and their practices would receive and F on any author’s grading scale.

Other authors who know about the practices of the ASI family also know to stay away. There is tons of information out there, but it takes some looking around. I have heard a lot from friends and what they think, and some of the language used by some can’t be repeated around kids when they speak of any one of AS companies. I have often wondered why they want to make the worst conditions for their customers and exist only to rip people off. Of all the companies, Authorhouse is the worst and they are the lead player in the bad dealings with authors.

If they chose to do things right and not do detestable things I believe they would be much more successful and make more money, but they choose to be evil instead.

Sources

Scam Informer
http://www.scaminformer.com/scam-report/xlibris-author-solutions-kevin-weiss-bertram-capital-c37525.html

Rip Off Reports:

Xlibris:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/Search/xlibris.aspx

Author Solutions, Inc (ASI):
http://www.ripoffreport.com/Search/Author-Solutions.aspx

Authorhouse:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/Search/author-house.aspx

iUniverse:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/Search/iuniverse.aspx

Bertram Capital Management:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/Search/bertram-capital-management.aspx

Media:

New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/books/review/Donadio-t.html?_r=1&em&ex=1209355200&en=7113749badd3929c&ei=5070

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/books/28selfpub.html?_r=1&ref=business

Books

“iUniverse” unedited excerpt of The Fine Print of Self Publishing 2^nd Edition. 2006. Excerpt provided by author.

“iUniverse” The Fine Print of Self Publishing 4^th Edition. 2011. pp 194-206

The Fine Print of Self Publishing 3^rd Edition. 2008. (quotes and information)

My Publisher Sucks...Now What?

AK Taylor — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:09:52 +0000

Based on the quiz and your own perceptions of what you can and can’t tolerate you have determined your publisher sucks. Now what? Of course the no brainer answer would to be get out. However there are some activities and some conditions to be aware of when you do.

One thing to do is to rescue your brainchild: your book. Don’t leave it there to drown when you walk away from your publisher. If it’s your first book or your fifteenth, it doesn’t matter. All books are a part of you!

I have done this myself, so I know how to do this first hand. I was in the worst case scenario of leaving a publisher, but I was able to survive. I was in a fight for survival at that point. I do carry a scar from that bull shark bite, but now I share my knowledge with others to prove it can be done!

Look Before Leaping

Try to look for a better publisher before cancelling out unless it is the last straw and you have absolutely had it. My camel’s back was broken, but I have kept my book listed just until I could move it elsewhere. My book wasn’t out long when I decided to abandon the SS Xlibris ship and go to another/better one. Someone may have wanted to buy it even though I was thoroughly displeased with it. You can do this if your contract is nonexclusive.

If your contract is exclusive, then you must terminate after the life of the contract term first and then follow the terms for termination before moving on. Not obeying the terms will land you in the courtroom no matter how peeved you are at your publisher or how rotten they are. The court looks at contracts, not people skills. Unless you can nail them for more dire transgressions like fraud or theft, you won’t win the round in court. Bad customer service is not a viable excuse for breach of contract in court. Reread and pay close attention to your contract terms.

In my scenario, my sucky publisher had a nonexclusive contract that I could cancel at any time. This was the only thing that was good about it, so I didn’t have to worry too much about that so terminating was easy compared to the other things I had to before terminating. I’ll get to that shortly.

Also, take note of the mistakes you made that landed you in this situation. You don’t want to publish with another publisher that does the same thing. Think about what you want done differently and find the publisher that meets those needs and makes a better score on your quiz.

Ask other authors on forums or in your network. Article I in Part I: A good reputation among writers in the quiz is very important in finding out if a new publisher flunks out on that article. You don’t want to pick out another publisher that sucks. If you don’t have a network yet or don’t know where to find forums pick up a copy of The Fine Print of Self Publishing where most of the work was done for you. Please note that Mark hasn’t listed every single publisher that exists in the industry. New ones pop up every week, but what he teaches you in his book will help you dissect any self publishing contract. There are a lot of options for help, and you don’t have to be alone forever. Reach out.

I Found a New Publisher So What’s Next?

Okay, get in touch with the submissions department and determine what steps you need to take to submit a previously published book. The website may only go into detail about the submission process for brand new, unpublished books. Also determine what you need/want from this new publisher in marketing, publishing, etc. Also this all depends on what files you have to submit to them which can involve a different schema than that of a brand new manuscript.

Double check your editorial quality if you have doubts especially if this new publisher is choosy about quality in where you need to go. If you worked with a real, professional editor during your first run before you published at the previous publisher, then you are in the clear. If, however, you have doubts about the editors at your previous publisher, by all means get it checked out. It can save your life, and I can say this from experience. I can also tell you that not all publishers hire or work with high caliber editors. Find an industry professional or reputable editor to give you an assessment.

If you have to start at square one with the editing, do it and postpone republishing if you don’t have the budget to publish again. Get the badly edited book off the market sooner rather than later or it will damage your reputation. My zero sales at my previous publisher were actually a blessing in disguise because of this discovery.

Get What You Can Prior to Leaving

**Insert Mission Impossible song here***

This part of the process can make you feel like you’re a spy. It did for me! Anyway here we go!

Getting what you can from your soon to be ex publisher will cut your losses significantly or greatly—maybe that’s why bad publishers put the screws to you here. There will be less you have to do over. If you can get your printable pdf files from your ex publisher, then you are in luck (highly unlikely by a universally sucky publisher). This will greatly reduce your losses and stuff to be redone. If your book needs a better edit, but you have these, then ask the staff at the publisher what you need to do next. They should tell you step by step in a clear concise manner.

If your publisher won’t give you your printable pdfs then that really sucks, and so do they. This is where I was during my move. Some publishers make you pay a king’s ransom for those files, and some won’t give them to you at all. My ex publisher won’t give them to you at all. They force you to buy a CD archive of the book for $99 which is overpriced and almost useless. However, for me, these came with the package I bought, so I didn’t pay anything extra here. I got these packages buy one and get one free, so I have them for both my books.

If you have images and/or illustrations try your best to get the high resolution pdfs of these—I succeeded here. Your new publisher will need these to recreate the book’s images. Also, try your best to get the high resolution pdf to you cover. This can be tricky. High resolution means that the image is clear and is at 300 dots per inch (dpi) or better. They may not be printable, but the new publisher can recreate the cover. However, if the publisher will not give them to you come hell or high water, don’t loose heart. If there is a will there is a way.

Scan your cover at high resolution instead (300 dpi or better) on your own scanner or go to theUPSor Fedex store if you have to. Do anything to get it. Then upload and send it in to the appropriate person/department by email or through the automated publishing system whichever the case is. Scan it front and back and the publisher will do its best to recreate the concept.

However, the back cover copy and author bio may need tweaking, but for me that was the least of my worries. I was pretty sure the original sucked just like everything else did except the front cover, but my new publisher made sure that it was attractive and appealing to readers. In case you’re wondering, these needed tweaking and they are better. It meant much to me to preserve the front cover that my readers loved than the text on the back.

Lastly, cancel any outstanding services that have not been fulfilled yet. You should get your money back. If you are with an unethical publisher, then you will have to fight for it since they will try to play games with you to make you throw in the towel. I cancelled the outstanding services and demanded my money back. I was too ticked off and determined to back down despite how frustrating the games had become. I was able to get enough money back to republish and edit Neiko’s Five Land Adventure, but book #2 had to hang out in limbo until I could budget the money to republish it, and it also needs an edit.

Any services that have commenced and your publishing fees are you losses. The point of this section will help lower your losses some. You have to eat it and move on. Counting you losses and living with them is better than staying with a bad publisher. You and your book will die a slow and painful death if you stay here. Don’t pine over a sucky publisher’s “hard work”. They didn’t work hard at all—they mainly slapped it together and jerry-rigged it and it shows. Sucky publishers don’t work hard; they hardly work. Keep that in mind.

Terminate Your Contract

Always remember this is the LAST step!

Now that you have all of the materials and money in your hands as well as your plan of execution and a new publisher destination, now it is time to terminate your contract with your ex publisher. Read you contract CAREFULLY in how to do this. If you are in an exclusive contract, then you’re stuck for the life of the contract which is spelled out for you in the terms. If you are in a nonexclusive contract that can be cancelled at any time, then you can proceed unhindered. Follow the instructions precisely. If you are stuck in an exclusive contract for X years, still gather your things or duplicates of them, and don’t buy any more services. Save back money for republishing or publish another book in the meantime if you have one on deck. When the contract ends, then you can proceed and pull your book out.

Terminating the contract is usually done in writing. Follow the instructions the publisher gives you if there are any on the website or in the contract. Don’t ask a staff member at an unethical publisher in how to terminate or they will know what you are up to. Don’t let that publisher know you are out the door until your letter of termination arrives at the front desk. If they find out you are leaving, you may not get your stuff back or they will make it harder for you to get your stuff back. In the letter be sure to include the title of the book or any other numbers or identifying information that the publisher uses to locate the book.

Don’t cancel the contract via email. It can be conveniently misplaced or deleted, and then you have to play a new game. They know what’s up and may try to stop you. Nip it in the bud. Write the letter, print it off, sign it, tromp to the post office, and send it by certified mail. That way, you know it arrived there because they had to sign for it, and you get a slip with the signature on it, and they know you mean serious business.

Don’t hesitate to ask for email confirmation that the termination and removal of the book is being carried out and who has received your letter and handling the process within the letter. Keep the letter file on your computer for your records, just in case. If no one sends an email with a week or two, call in. Ask about the letter, and you demand that someone email you to confirm they are carrying out your wishes, and you know the letter was received because of the slip of paper. They can’t say they didn’t get it or they’re lying.

Also, about a month or so after termination, double check to make sure that your book has been removed off of their online bookstore, online retailers, etc. Bad publishers are not always upfront about this.

Republish with Your New Publisher

You have your materials and money, and you have either had your book reedited or plan to use the new publisher’s inhouse editors. Your prior engagement is terminated. Now it is time to republish your book with your new publisher. Take time to read the contract to understand what is going on. The publisher took the time to write it, so take the time to read it…again if need be. Don’t hesitate to ask questions, but don’t be boorish either. Sure, you have had a bad prior experience, but if you are working with people who are really trying to help you have a better experience, then don’t rude. Any changes made will make you put out a better product. Trust me on this one, and I can say so for myself.

After you new venture commences, take time to compare your experience and your final product. Are you glad you did it? Was/is everything better than last time? Do you feel empowered in a position that you can now turn things around and have a better chance of success? A new publisher, a new version of a book, and new marketing services do not equal guaranteed success. You now have better stuff to work with, so now you must get out there and market you book! Being an author is a job and it takes work. It’s not magic. You don’t build it and they come running to it. A book is not a magnet; it is a light. Let people see it and draw their attention to it.

That is how I felt after republishing. I had better things to work with, but everything was still up to me. Not only that I had industry professionals to ask questions if I needed help. Also, I am not hitting barriers and brick walls at every turn every time I try to do something. My publisher’s name is not like skunk spray on me and my book. That empowers me just as much as my book becoming a real piece of art that I am proud of.

Does My Publisher Suck?

AK Taylor — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 21:31:13 +0000

You are probably wondering what I mean by the title of this article. I have worked with both a good publisher and a sucky one. I hear from other authors about who is good and who is not. When I was having my bad experience with my ex publisher, Xlibris, I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was or could pinpoint it. I was wondering why my marketing efforts were hitting barriers and why things and people were stressing me out. I will compile the checklist quiz to give your perspective/present publisher and other diagnoses to test them through their contracts and other behaviors if you have doubts of their integrity or your publishing experience. A cast of doubt can be the mark of a bad experience. The list comes from my personal experiences and crucial points and the “Author’s Bill of Rights” created by Mark Levine. These simple points will help you determine if your publisher sucks. The grade the publisher gets for “Sucks” or “Cool” is subjective based on what the author can tolerate. I gave Xlibris this quiz after I discovered it and they score “Suck” on my grading scale.

The below checklist quiz is like the “Self Publishing Rights” we that have in self publishing. These are not the same as those in traditional publishing: copyrights and subsidiary rights because these remain with the author in self publishing (or they should). These rights do not exist in traditional publishing, so the quiz does not apply. They play by a different set of rules. Then it all comes down to what the author can tolerate and what they think is fair in that arena.

Sometimes the author may not be with a bad publisher. Sometimes they may be working with someone who is not a good fit for them. If they are not bad or sucky then it will be easy to leave and go elsewhere to a better fit to your needs or choose to go the DIY route if you have learned how to do so.

The Quiz

The first two parts are directly quoted in Mark Levine’s words from The Fine Print of Self Publishing Edition 4.

Quiz Part I: “The Nine Qualities of a Good Self Publishing Company” The Fine Print Edition 4 page 22.

A good reputation among writers
Fair publishing fees
Generous royalties without any fuzzy math
Low printing costs and high production value
Favorable contract terms
Fair policy regarding the return of your book’s original production files
Fairly priced add-on services, such as marketing and copyright registration
A standard offering of an ISBN, EAN bar code, and LCCN (Library of Congress Control Number) as part of any basic publishing package
Availability through at least one wholesaler, and listings on major online retailers

Quiz Part II: “The Ideal Publishing Package” a subdivision of Article II that includes Articles VI-IX The Fine Print Edition 4 pages: 24-25

A high-quality, custom-designed book cover (don’t use any publisher’s template—covers sell books)
Professional layout of the book’s interior
Registration with Ingram or Baker & Taylor and listings on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and other online retailers
A page on the publisher’s website or some other online venue (other than a third-party online retailer) where you can sell your book
The ability to purchase your own books for a reasonable price
A contract that you can cancel at any time
The return of the original production files, or at least press-ready PDFs, of your interior and cover

Quiz PartIII: “The Author Bill of Rights”. I listed them in my own words below:

Publisher allows you to see the contract when asked for
Publisher takes no rights to your book including movie rights, etc
Explains the exact calculation of royalties without vague terms (i.e. administrative costs)
Publisher does not double dip by taking a royalty and inflating the print cost
Publisher does not give itself a trade discount on its own online store
Publisher allows you to terminate the contract at any time with no more than 60 days written notice and without penalty
Upon termination the publisher gives you your printable files at no additional cost
Upon termination the publisher ceases the selling of your book except for those still in their possession

Other things to consider:

Customer Service

Humans or Robots and Zombies?

Does the staff at the publisher seem like they are inhuman or mindless in their answers and service? Can you not get competent answers to your questions? The robots seem like they are programmed to say ‘yes’ to everything. Zombies mindlessly go through the motions and are someone else’s control. Here I speak of the mindless and controlled voodoo zombie and not theHollywoodzombie that eats the living. Although…unethical publishers do get a craving for the unsuspecting authors… Dealing with a robot/zombie staff can be frustrating. Has anyone called a company and talked to an automated answering service? It is frustrating, and you wish to speak to a human. Even the easiest solution to a small problem can become frustrating with staff that behaves like this.

Hide and Seek, Tag, Keepaway, Hot Potato, or Dodgeball?

Does the staff at the publisher seem to be playing games with you over the phone? Is it hard to pin down the person you need to speak with for your question/problem? Do you have delayed responses to your queries that go on for more than 24 to 48 hours? Do you feel like you being passed from one person to the other like a hot potato and have to retell your problem or ask the question again…and again…and again until someone gets caught with you and has to address your question/problem? Does the problem or question get passed between two people and the author can’t catch a break or a solution? These games frustrate people and sometimes are done on purpose. Problems don’t get solved or the time spent is a waste. Sometimes pulling crocodile teeth can be easier than putting up with the games.

My Consultant Team Acts like Used Car Salesmen and Bill Collectors

Does your consultant team seem like they bug you all the time and harass you so that you will buy something? Do they use hard-sell and high pressure techniques rather than offer suggestions? Do they try to force you to buy something you don’t want and act like you owe the money when you don’t? I have dealt with this and this is the biggest indicator to me that my ex publisher was unscrupulous. Staff that behaves like this can drive you mad, stress you out, and make marketing your book frustrating and unbearable.

Why is Everything So Expensive? Why Does it Phase Out So Quickly?

Sucky publishers seem to but a lofty price tag on marketing services that phase out in such a short time. After this phases out, they come back and try to pressure you into buying yet another pricey service that also doesn’t last more than a day. High priced services should last for a year or more and keep on giving and not appear as blowing in the wind.

The Notorious Bull Shark

Bull Shark Attack

Bull sharks are responsible for more shark attacks than the fierce and well renowned great white. Why? Bull sharks are the only shark species that can come into fresh water and stay for a great length of time due to a unique adaptation. You don’t have to go out into the deep ocean or to the ocean at all to get attacked by a bull shark. They have been known to swim up rivers and not stay in the estuaries. They come to you, you don’t go to them like the great white. Did you enter the fresh publishing waters and the bull sharks come to you? This is an indicator of a bad publisher. Ethical publishers let you swim to them and with them like a dolphin. If you swim with sharks, you will get bitten sooner or later. I still carry the scar and I will have one for the rest of my publishing career. Xlibris acted like a bull shark in how it approached me. I was new to the sea. I mistook it for a dolphin, and I got bitten. Now I can identify the shark thanks to an experienced diver.

My Publisher’s Mark of Excellence with Booksellers?

I Get Backlash Every Time I Mention My Publisher’s Name

When you deal with bookstores, reviewers, and the like, they may ask you who your publisher is. Bookstores will definitely ask you. When I was published with Xlibris and several times I was nigh to having me a book signing and it fell through just as soon as I told the person who my publisher was. Then it was like my book and I had skunk spray on us, and it didn’t matter that it was returnable. It wasn’t my fault, but bookstores know who the sharks are. That was the second notion I had received that there is something up with my publisher, and this is before I had the privilege of finding out about and meeting Mark Levine. This is a very good indicator that your publisher sucks.

The Print Costs Aren’t the Only Things Inflated Around Here

This one has been hit in several different angles in the article. When you shop around at outside sources, other publishers, etc, and they offer the same or better service for ½ or less the cost that your publisher charges should make you wake up. This was both an eye opener and a wake up call for me after I had been in the water a little while.

Conclusion

If you give your publisher this quiz on its contracts, websites, materials and etc, and they violate many of these and you can’t live with it, then you can say “My publisher sucks.” Then you are going to ask, “Well, my publisher sucks. Now what?” That will be answered next week.

My Mill City Press Experience

AK Taylor — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:43:18 +0000

Continued from “Looking for an Out”

This part of the story picks up after my 30 min talk with Mark Levine and walking out the door with my stuff for Neiko’s Five Land Adventure and Escape from Ancient Egypt, but at this present point and time I can only publish Neiko’s Five Land Adventure. I will talk about my raw experience here too.

My Mill City Press Publishing Experience

I have my necessary materials to submit to Mill City Press. I go to the “Contact Us” tab to find out who to contact and I talk to Michelle Brown the Director of Sales who also takes the submissions. I tell her what I have and how do I submit and who I should speak to. She tells me that I can do everything from the website, and I don’t have to contact anyone. If I had any trouble, I could speak to her if I needed to.

I go to the “Publish Now” tab and buy my editing, basic package, and a few other services. I plan to buy the Expanded program later, just as long as it was purchased before the book went to layout. I asked ahead of time so I didn’t mess up anything.

The system is set up to show me where I am in the process and I am contacted when I need to do something. They give you a timeline on how long each step should take and what I needed to do at each step. Here is where I upload everything and go through the process pretty much on my own, kind of like a dashboard. I was pointed to the person I need to speak with if I had trouble, which was Danielle Adelman the Author Coordinator most of the time. I had to talk to her a few times due to a couple issues, but she was a big help and knocked out the problem in no time. I had to get my high resolution cover files about this time from Xlibris or scan my cover. I had low resolution files and that would not help in recreating my cover. I get the files for both books to be done with it so I didn’t have to do it later. I didn’t have to chase people down or wonder about anything at Mill City Press. I don’t send an email and wonder who would answer back and try to remember who I was supposed to talk to for what purpose. Also questions were answered in a reasonable amount of time. I didn’t have to set deadlines for them and remember to get back with them if I didn’t hear back from them. My first stop was editing.

This editing experience was much different that my prior edit. When I got my first round of edits back, I could see a BIG difference. The editing level I picked allowed me to speak to my editor with questions. My editor’s name was Ken Kane—I could pronounce his name and remember it unlike last time. When I had my call with him, I could ask him for editorial advice to make sure the things I was trying to do were done in the right way, and how my changes looked. He gave me good advice and helped me smooth the rough edges I had tussled with since I was a teen. After this, my second round is done. Editing is the longest and the most important step of the process.

Sometime after this I purchase my Expanded Distribution, and I submit it for the assessment to point me to which imprint that I would publish with. After this assessment I add a glossary and do a few other changes and submit it to the layout stage.

After the editing and assessment, the rest of the process is very swift, even swifter than at Xlibris. It was pretty smooth but some of the ways Xlibris did things or something that was missing would cause a glitch, but I was given advice to handle it effectively, or they would give honest solutions. I know what to do when I redo Escape from Ancient Egypt later. All my following books will be even smoother than that since I don’t have to clean up Xlibris’s mess.

Questionnaires for several of the stages were really detailed, and some questions weren’t even asked at Xlibris. Everything just seemed much more polished and great and not so rough around the edges from what I saw from the proofs. I can’t wait to see my final physical product.

It doesn’t take them very long to release my book, and I knew when my release date was because it was posted during the process. Xlibris was swift on publishing but then took forever for them to release my book; I was wondering what they were waiting on. It floated in Wonderland until late November (for like 2 or 3 months) and I didn’t know what was happening. I was also able to calculate my first book order cost which I get at wholesale as compared to a fat markup. That was great.

I then get my 10 free copies. I crack one open and I look at the difference. Now this book was a work of art. I wished I could show Mark how crappy my other book looked compared to MCP’s work (he probably already had a guess). I showed other family members, and they could see the difference. I hold this book up compared to my old edition and the difference is amazing. The colors were more vivid on my new book cover, the illustrations were sharper, and my book had drop caps! My other book didn’t have those! That had an artistic touch I didn’t anticipate, and I loved that. This book was more massive than the other and the text had a bigger font so no one had to have a magnifying glass to read it. In my old edition, the letters were also very close together that made my eyes hurt. In the Xlibris edition, the maps of Qari and Hawote were just slapped on the page. At MCP they added an artistic border on the maps and gave them a more artistic touch. Sophie Chi, my interior designer, went the extra mile on making it look like a fantasy book and adding the artistic stuff I never thought of. That pleased this artist! The cover was also much more durable and a whole lot shinier. It almost seemed to me that Xlibris made the letters small and put as much text as they could on a page by going from the gutter to a quarter inch (or less) to the edge of the page so that they could make it as short as possible so they could give me the biggest markup. Overall, it was just better. Xlibris also seemed to give me the crappiest paper and the lousiest cover. They use Lightning Source, but other books, publishers, and indie authors who use Lightning Source don’t have such bad quality books. How do I know? When I was exploring distribution options, I had kicked Lightning Source’s tires and they sent me sample books. The samples were better than my books! By the way Mill City formatted it, the book was about fifty pages longer, but remember I also added some content between editions which would have added a few more to the tally. They made the book reader friendly. No one’s eyes would be watering when reading my new book!

In summary, my Xlibris book was an overpriced piece of crap and my new book was fairly priced work of art!

The marketing stage was a complete one eighty from Xlibris. Nobody harassed me or treated me like I was incompetent. I have hardly spoken to anyone on the phone since I have been here. I mostly email people when I need something and they get back to me pretty quickly. People give me honest and competent answers without putting me down. There are no bill collectors or used car salesmen here. They give tons of free advice on their website and sister sites in how to market my book on and off the Internet.

The marketing services also work for a long period of time–a year at the minimum before renewal or as long as my book is available. They are not something that reminds me of dumping powered sugar in your hands and blowing on it and that’s it; that’s what Xlibris services are like and then they ask to do another and another while they don’t sell books—and they cost a lot too. The prices are also much fairer. Everything in general at Xlibris is inflated, not just their printing costs.

Since I have published at Mill City, I have had much more success. I have been able to enjoy book signings, and when people pick up my book, they want to buy it and not turn their nose up at it. I have also been able to sell a few books through my other channels, but my author career has only really started. I am not selling truckloads; I’m just selling books. My numbers are not zip. I was happy when I was mailed my first royalty check. It was nothing fabulous, but it was my first one when I didn’t get a single one at Xlibris, and still haven’t for that matter (and never will).

I don’t count the prior year as far as my marketing prowess, I only talk about it for purposes like this. I didn’t learn anything about marketing from Xlibris. They didn’t teach me squat other than what doesn’t work. All they taught me was what bad customer service looks like and what a bad quality book looks like. They wasted my money and a year of my life, but since then I have been in the silver lining. Otherwise I would not have found Mark Levine or Mill City Press. All things happen for a reason, but I would have liked to have found him and his company under better and less painful circumstances. I guess I may have not learned as much as I have otherwise.

After Mill City Press

This part of my author career is still being written. I have had a lot of good things happen to me since I have left Xlibris. My career is catapulting forward and I am not hitting a brick wall at every turn now. I found out there are ways you can market your book without spending a fortune because I didn’t have it to begin with, and I can do it on my own, and I have people there to ask if I have questions. They don’t harass me. I am also on the fastrack of learning now. I have learned so much in a year that I’m dizzy. My network and connections have grown as well and are still growing.

I have had the unique opportunity to write a small ebook about what I had found, tried, or invented in thin budget marketing which will be released later this year. Mark wanted to work with me in a project with it since he saw a market for it after telling me to write it and seeing it. He told me to compile my information because I kept him updated on my progress and marketing my book on a tiny budget after republishing. He invites all other authors he talks with to keep in touch, and he would like to work with others too. As a result of that, this blog came into being since the publishing industry is changing as much as the weather right now. I find new stuff all the time to share and blog about.

You never know, Mark could surprise you with an email to work with you on some project—that’s the way it was for me. I never had any idea or saw it coming. They always have something going on there. Believe me, I was surprised, and I have enjoyed working with him. Also, Go Publish Yourself.com is undergoing renovation and being improved. I have been invited to write articles and content for a new section of the site presently under construction at the time of this writing. GPY.com is accessible, but not complete. It was a really cool opportunity and was grateful for the offer and the career opportunity to do what I do best: write. I have been able to meet a some of the staff of Mill City, its sister Publish Green, and its parent company Hillcrest Media. Everyone is friendly and professional and great to work with. Nobody is rude or uncouth.

My one year anniversary at Mill City came on September 1, 2011. As I mentioned, this part of my publishing experience is still being written. Any anniversary at a good publisher (no matter who it is) is sweet success and sweeter after you have been in the dark side of the publishing industry. MCP is not for everyone, and there are quite a few other great publishers out there. I can say that MCP is not for the do-it-yourselfer; they tell you that they aren’t for everyone up front. They are for the author who needs assistance in POD publishing, or the author who wants to have access to the traditional side of the industry without the risks, hurdles, puny royalties, and politics of traditional publishing. Most (75+%) of the authors who publish here (myself included) for access to the traditional channels. I didn’t go the DIY route since my book publishing needs were more extensive than what I could do (and do right) on my own. I didn’t want to flood my basement and worse (figuratively speaking) after hiring a bad contractor and trying fixing it on my own when I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought it was best to hire a professional, especially since I was interested in more traditional channels. That is NOT a DIY project; POD publishing can be for the tech savvy with connections (more about that later). I’ve done most of my marketing DIY style though.

Also, the Mill City Press website that I had been to no longer exists. They updated and rolled out a new and improved website. The “Progressive Price Chart” is still on the site, but it is also found in their publishing brochure. Their cousin websites Go Publish Yourself and Published.com have information and tools available for the do-it-yourselfers to find their needed tools and contractors. Some of the tools I have found in addition to those found on GPY.com and Published can be found on this blog on the resources and tools pages. These pages are updated periodically.

Afterward

I have learned a lot since I’ve gotten through this rough patch and by getting out and exploring things about publishing and marketing. I am not an expert, and I am still learning more all the time. I have also learned I am not the only person in the world that this has happened to. Thousands of others have similar stories, and they are posted in cyberspace. You can take the necessary steps just like I did and still get in trouble because publishers can lie to you on the phone, website, and in their publishing material. If you are not an expert or know where to look, how can you know? That’s why Mark wrote his book. He also wrote a blog post about a misleading line in an advertisement by Xlibris. Even HE had to dig around to find answers. That’s how slick they are! After leaving Xlibris, I found other disturbing facts about them and their associates that I will write about later.

I was curious one day and I wanted to ask Mark how many people come to him with cases like mine. I was surprised to know that I was a rare case. Most of the time, he talks to people about the book matter or answers questions that people have about self publishing in general. I was certainly glad he could help. He is no magician; he simply gave me the information and advice, and I acted on it. I wanted to listen since I couldn’t afford another mess-up. Not everyone listens to him which I could have done too–easily.

Where Do I Find Mark?

You can find him on his website or his blog. You can find his book there too. If you do contact him, I would recommend reading his book or blog or keeping the subject on self publishing or help with self publishing. Don’t email him about the weather or pitch your book at him. You can mention that you’ve been by this blog and mention my name. He will refer to the book or ask questions straight from the book or blog post since that is the point of his 30 minute chat, unless you are being screwed by a publisher and need help (like I was), but it’s still a good idea to read the book. I will warn you though; he doesn’t sugar-coat anything and tells you like it is. If that’s something you don’t like, you may want stay out of the kitchen or be ready and don’t get offended. He does this for your best interest and to help you, not hurt you. It’s a little hard to swallow at first, but I know from personal experience and by getting to know him that he has your best interest at heart. Also, since he is this way I know for a fact that he means what he says, and I don’t have any doubts if he really meant that. He really does want to help other authors.

That’s a wrap for this series. I will post about something else before sharing the other bad news about Xlibris and their compatriots of doom.

Looking for an Out

AK Taylor — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 18:01:46 +0000

Continued from “My Horrible Xlibris Xperience”

This part of the story takes up at my last and final heated phone call with Miguel, the Marketing Consultant from hell at Xlibris, and my continuing research at Mill City Press and other publishers. I will talk about how I found Mark Levine’s The Fine Print of Self Publishing and the 30 min call that helped me figure out how to turn things around.

Investigating Mill City Press

At this point and time I was through with Xlibris. I was ready to try out a new publisher, but my publishing finances were scarcely low at this time due to Xlibris’ pillaging and no books sold. My books had only been out a couple months and I was already ready to leave them and go elsewhere. It didn’t take me very long to learn I had been stuck with a lemon—a green one at that. I didn’t cancel out yet because someone may want a copy of the book and I didn’t know how long it would be before I could republish. I almost felt stuck, and I would have to wait a year before I could start again. I decide to look at the Mill City Press website a bit closer and start planning my next move. I was happy with my free phone consultation with Rosey Cashman the Marketing Coordinator at Mill City Press and what I had seen on the website so far.

I flipped through the site and found a comparison of printing costs and royalties with several companies against Mill City Press—Xlibris included. It reminded me of the Progressive insurance commercial with the remote control and screen with Progressive’s price compared with other top insurance companies. They also include the source of the information which you can go to and see for yourself. I remembered that an order for 25 books for Escape from Ancient Egypt cost me $300 which I thought was steep. I had to place an order because Xlibris cheated me out of my “free” books that came with the package. That also ticked me off—definitely after I saw this!

I can see that MCP’s printing costs were really low and their royalties were really high—the highest you can get: 100%. Their printing costs are wholesale and Xlibris marks up the printing costs at 150+%. It didn’t take me too long to figure out this was a total ripoff and I thought back to my expensive order for just a handful of books. Furthermore, my royalty percent at Xlbris is only 10-25% and that depends on where my book is sold. At MCP it’s 100% across the board. Now I found somewhere I can receive 100%? Wow! Coming here seemed like a no brainer (at least for me), but I needed to look closer to make sure they had everything else I needed.

I look around on this webpage some more to find more information. All of their information was on the site in plain view, and I didn’t have to go on a scavenger hunt for anything. They even put their contract on the homepage. For Xlibris I had to go to the Site Map to find it. As I am looking around, I find a link for more information on a book that compares publishers. This is where I find the bombshell.

I click on this link, and it gives me a demo of where publishers fall into a category: Outstanding, Pretty Good, Just OK, and Avoid. I find out where my publisher falls…in the “Avoid” category (it has changed a little in 2 years). I want to know why, but for more information I had to buy the book The Fine Print of Self Publishing in its 3^rd edition at the time. At first I got the ebook only, but my computer kept messing it up. I wanted a physical copy for easier reference to each publisher’s website when I find a new one I want to investigate. I find a great lump package to get the physical copy and other stuff. The packet had: the ebook, the physical book, and the free 30 min phone consultation with the author Mark Levine. I liked this option. I don’t know of too many authors who make themselves available to chat with people.“Well, I’ll talk to this guy and see what he has to say, and maybe I can learn something or get some advice,” I think to myself. I’m already confused and at loss for words from what little I’ve seen so far.

I wondered why Mark Levine was featured on this company’s website. Was he their best selling author or something? I couldn’t wait to find out. I definitely couldn’t wait to find out why Xlibris was in the Avoid category. Could this explain why my publishing experience was so horrible at Xlibris?

I took a risk and bought the packet since it was a much smaller cost than a service or republishing. I took it as an investment into my publishing future. What did I have to loose? I was already at my wits end and I needed help—desperately—from anyone who would offer any help whatsoever. I already knew I had nobody else to talk to about my issues and offer any help or advice. Everyone I knew didn’t understand anything about what I was doing. So I wait impatiently for the book to arrive.

The Bombshell in The Fine Print of Self Publishing

I received the book on a Friday. I opened up my mail package, but I find more than just a book. There was the publishing information for MCP and a personalized letter addressed to me from Mark with his signature with a business letterhead called Published.com (I still have this today). “What’s Published.com?” I wondered. I also thought it was a nice touch. The letter was a “thank you” note and instructions on how to get in touch with him to set up the chat. I wondered why MCP had enclosed the publishing booklet, but then I thought that was because he was their bestselling author. Well, I didn’t have to request one now since they had sent me one.

My husband and I are leaving for the weekend, so I take the book with me to read in the car or during downtime. I read the entire book in a day and a half. When I cracked the book open, I found out that he owns and founded MCP. I had to go back and reread that a few times. That made sense of why the MCP packet was there. He didn’t review his own company and “pimp it out” (Mark’s favorite phrase of all time) in his book when he could have easily done it; he doesn’t say this phrase in the book. He says, “I don’t review my own company because that would be unfair.” So it was up to me to review the company for myself and I choose whether or not they were for me. Comparing MCP to other companies was just made easier for me since all of the information was in my lap.

When I read the book, all the companies were already compared for me so I didn’t have to do it. This saved me a lot of time. He also translated all the legalese in all the featured contracts and broke down what every author should know before they self publish. I wished I had found this book so much sooner. I learned what I was doing right and what I wasn’t doing right. I had to read Xlibris’ section after reading the front matter. The front matter taught me my ‘bill of rights’ and the other great information that was great to know before I proceeded.

After reading the front matter and the Xlibris section, the fog of lies was finally lifted and everything came together. I learned that my situation was so much worse than I had ever dreamed. I learned that there are publishers who lie to authors to get them in a contract! He had proof in his book of where Xlibris tried to do it to him, but he had the industry knowledge to counteract the attack. Ordinary authors like me aren’t so lucky, and that was the point of the information. He recorded everything his book and showed me where they lied and why it was a lie. I thought about the incidences that I had caught them in lies in my own situation.

We then get into the steep printing markups, fat publisher royalties, inflated retail prices, and me overpaying for my author copies. He interpreted a clause I had misinterpreted that was going to make leaving them very difficult, but not impossible. This was the one clause in their barebones contract that was going to cause trouble. It was written ambiguously on purpose to trap people and to make fleeing authors’ lives a living hell.

Other than that this contract was not as bad as some others in the “Avoid” section, but that didn’t make me feel any better. I used Mark’s simple equation to calculate the print costs for both my books. What I find was appalling. Escape from Ancient Egypt had a much bigger markup than Neiko’s Five Land Adventure; it was over 100 pages shorter and it was listed at the same retail price. Neiko’s Five Land Adventure was already overpriced so Escape from Ancient Egypt was GROSSLY overpriced! I thought both books being the same price was a little weird in the beginning; I thought EEE would have been less. But, I thought I was working with experts. Boy, was I wrong!

I wondered how I would ever get out of this hell with my books, artwork, and sanity intact! I wondered how in the world I ended up here. This is what I tried to avoid in the first place. I tried to carefully research. I didn’t jump into anything. It’s really hard to research a lie when you don’t know where to look. I find out later that this happens to a lot of people, so I wasn’t the only one. This is mentioned in the book as well and this was the main reason why the book was written.

My Cry for Help to Mark Levine

After reading the book cover to cover, I send the email to ask for my consultation and wait. He responds with some dates and times to choose from. I pick one and I send him my response along with my background, so I didn’t have to go through that. We only had thirty minutes and I didn’t have time to waste on intros. I thought it could help him better prepare in how he could help. I wait for the day to come.

I had my phone consultation with Mark a few weeks after reading his book. I wanted to use every second to hopefully find some solutions to my problems so I could construct an escape plan. I wasn’t sure of what was going on at Xlibris anymore. I second-guessed and was confused about everything. Nothing made sense any more. Everything Xlibris said was a lie as far as I was concerned. I was also dreadfully nervous and I hoped that he wouldn’t think I was a total dope because sometimes I can feel so awkward when talking to a new person and because I was so confused.

After the first few minutes of the call, I was on the verge of tears. After talking to him ten minutes, my situation was so much worse than ever before (when I didn’t think it could get any worse) than when I began the conversation. He asked me simple questions, and I no longer able to answer them because I didn’t know anymore. All I could tell him was, “They say this, but I don’t know if that’s true anymore.” I admitted to him that I was completely dazed and confused, and they have lied to me so much I don’t know what the truth is and what isn’t. I couldn’t tell him who owned the website because I really didn’t know. He said, “That’s the way it is with these people,” as he punched in the keys to check the site whois. I didn’t know much about tech stuff like that. I tell him, “They say I do, but how do I know they aren’t lying to me because they have lied about everything else so far,” I say. “I hope he doesn’t think I’m a total idiot,” I think helplessly since that was how I felt about myself at the moment.

I knew editing was important from reading his book, but I always knew that. He reiterated this during the call. He asked me if the books were edited. I say yes. He pulls up my website and looks at the excerpts. Then he told me that my book was probably an editorial nightmare by looking at the excerpt. There were five mistakes on the first page! My editing wasn’t even done right, and it was not a quality edit. I had to have a real professional tell me that because I didn’t notice. Bam! Another lie busted. All the exposure stuff I wanted to do would get me the wrong attention with my books the way they are, and their bloggers would judge it very harshly if I submitted them to them the way they were. Everything would have negative consequences. I was defeated before I had even begun! I’m glad he was candid and told me what I needed to know before I really screwed up.

Everything so far was a waste, and I had to start over—from scratch. My cover and illustrations were fine, but everything else was crap. I was even more furious at Xlibris. I am very sad at the same time since my dreams were in jeopardy. He let me recognize that anything I do doesn’t benefit me at this present time; it only benefits them until I cancel. I can’t do anything to salvage the situation in my favor until I get out. I had to recognize that for myself, and I tried out different plans to save face and money, but I was only able to cut my losses and get what I could. Any little thing helps.

Mark told me to cancel all the services I can and get what I can. I can still fix this and turn it around, but I needed to listen to him and act. He told me what to do step by step. He had already established his credibility as far as I was concerned. This is when I found out that little clause I misinterpreted came back to bite me in the butt; I couldn’t have my books’ print ready pdfs which would have saved me a lot of time and money. I had to redo the editing anyway, and I don’t think you can edit a pdf. I don’t think it would have mattered too much at this point. The formatting was atrocious. He didn’t actually see the formatting, but he could guess if everything he sees sucks, it must suck too. I asked him what editing level I needed so I know exactly where to start when I signed on at Mill City Press.

He told me to cancel the email campaign service as soon as I hung up with him. I can get better services and get more services for that $2500 amount. I have more services to cancel besides that one. I calculate how much I would be getting back and what the dollar amount would be for publishing and editing at Mill City. I can republish Neiko’s Five Land Adventure at Mill City with some money to spare with the included edit. I couldn’t get everything I wanted, but I had enough to republish and start getting out! Escape from Ancient Egypt, on the other hand, had to wait.

The problem wasn’t resolved in one call; I had to email him a few times after that, and he wanted me to keep him informed on each step.

After our talk is when I cancelled all the services. It took me a couple days to do because I had to play phone chase, and I was being passed around like in the latest Discover commercial where Peggy and his coworkers pass the phone around and say “Transfer!” and nothing gets resolved. I was ready to grapple; I was determined. It takes me a while to get my money back. I cancelled the author video, a bookstore return service for Escape from Ancient Egypt, and what I had paid on that dumb Email Campaign and stopped it just in the nick of time. If I had waited until the next day, I would have been too late. I was glad I listened to Mark and did it when I did. I tried to get my publishing fees back just for spite, but I didn’t win that round. That left a scar.

I try one last menial service for $199 with a new consultant with some of the money I got for Book Expo America showcase for their last chance. They flunked out; no books were sold. Game over. I go to Mill City without any hesitation. I wasn’t looking back at Xlibris ever again.

After getting my money back I asked for my CD archives for both books that had my high resolution illustrations. I didn’t have to pay extra; they came with the packages. Xlibris reps started asking if everything was all right and I say yes, and I quietly step out even though I could have made a scene. If I would have said no, they would know something was up or try to talk me out of it. They wouldn’t have succeeded if they had tried.

After this point is when my publishing experience with Mill City Press begins. I also keep in touch with Mark about what was new with the book because I thought he might like to know, and he also asked me to.

This is now where my publishing experience with Mill City Press begins. Now to “My Mill City Experience”.

My Horrible Xlibris Xperience

AK Taylor — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 17:46:23 +0000

Intro to Xlibris and Backstory

Xlibris and other unethical/author unfriendly companies do an outstanding job of luring people in with their publishing deals and their seemingly friendly approaches to even the wariest author; I speak for myself. They can be very convincing when you ask questions. They rank high on search engines when you plug in “self publishing” so they come up above some of the more reputable companies and they camp out in author portals so they are very easy to find for the obvious reasons. In their websites and publishing brochures they act like they are your friends and understand the challenges of being an author and the publishing industry. Once you go in so far in there is no going back. There is a point of no return, and that is after you sign off on your physical proof. I can tell you this because I have been here. They make sure you get there with a seemingly smooth publishing experience with as few bumps as possible. I had problems here as well, but it pales in comparison to what I will write about. The marketing phase is where everything comes apart, and they show their true colors, and the good experience nosedives into a nightmare full of misery. There are thousands of other stories like this out there, but differing from person to person. This is the purpose of this article: to tell my story.

The Worst Marketing Consultant Ever

Here enter the Marketing Consultant from hell, Miguel Guzman. I hear from him after my marketing services from my package are ready to launch and after my book is ready to be released. My mother gets a message from him for me to call him because I am at work and I left my home number for the publisher to call. She gives him my cell number, and we chat as I am travelling in rush hour traffic because I had a long hard day in the lab that day. I still took most of my calls at their house and not giving out my cell number. Our first chat was pretty pleasant, and I told him I need advice on marketing because I didn’t know anything, and I was a bad salesman. I also said I have a tight budget to work with so I need services to fit it. “I’ll be glad to help,” he said, and little did I know I just opened myself up for punishment. I thought he would be honest and helpful and follow my budget wishes; I felt that people who are in the publishing industry are professionals. I could not have been more wrong.

The next day he calls me and has all this “awesome” information after scoping out my book’s electronic proof. He was talking about it being Hollywood movie material, and I should do a Hollywood movie trailer, author video on location, and on and on while I was having a very busy day at work, and I was trying to pay attention to what I was doing more than what he was talking about. I needed more time to process it properly. I was doubtful because I am freshly published, unknown, and my book wasn’t even out yet. Wouldn’t a book need to be widely accepted and raved by the public to be a movie? Every book to movie example I could think of was the case, and I didn’t think it was so easy. I did have thoughts of my books being a movie run across my mind as teen and young adult–a daydream. That’s a child’s dream and extremely unlikely to happen. I need to be realistic; I need readers first! Time for a reality check!

He was insinuating he could help me get it into a movie if I followed his advice and my original thoughts of how movies were made were not so. I didn’t tell him about my kid fantasies of seeing my characters on the silver screen. I was wary; there ain’t no way it’s as easy as 1-2-3. I told him I was at work and could we talk later since I was really busy. I was excited, but I couldn’t do this right now—let people read my book first, and let them tell me what they think. He wouldn’t let me off the phone.

I asked about the prices for some of this stuff. When I started hearing these prices of these services: $20K…$5K…I start saying whoa, whoa, whoa! My meager budget can’t support this! Can we do something else first? I bought the executive package so I didn’t have to have any marketing services for a while, and I mean for the first 6 months or year. Show me that we can sell books. If we sell books, then the royalty money can pay for this. Until then, I can’t do it.

He also talked about me as an artist as well as being an amazing writer on this same conversation, and still keeping me on the phone. I said I had another book on board too. After hearing how young I was, he was comparing me to the person who wrote The Informant!, Eragon (Christopher Paolini), and even J.K. Rowling—no way! You can’t compare me to Rowling because I have no wizards or wizarding world, and my book is a lot different than either Eragon or The Informant!. I felt like he was hooking up a bellows to my ego and trying to pump it up, it worked—sort of. I began to think regular people must also think those thoughts—the books must be reader tested, reader approved—not Miguel approved. One person’s thoughts aren’t going to cut it!

I had to back up a minute and make sure I examined myself before I did something dumb. He seemed to be lying on the sweet-talk very thick, and I was waiting for a side swipe, but it didn’t happen just yet. I knew it was going to happen eventually, and I was ready for it—call it intuition. Was he showering me with praise to inflate my ego so he could slip something in? I asked, “How I can be sure that you don’t say that to every author you talk to?” He had something slick to say, but I can’t remember what it was, but I still was a little wary. I also think that when he found out young I was that I was supposed to be stupid. So he automatically thinks young + college grad =stupid. I may be young and inexperienced, but I am not stupid! I am here to learn and gain my experience.

On a later and different conversation he started getting flirtatious when he saw my author photo. He looked it up so he could see what I looked like and talked about some of my other interesting background. I was quick to say I’m married—but wait for it—he side swipes me about this “targeted” email marketing campaign for $10K to build me up so I can buy the big stuff, and this is his big crescendo to get me to Hollywood. I said I can’t afford it; it was multiple times outside the budget. He also made a comment that I should be getting ready to spend lots of money to have a successful campaign. But, what if I can’t? Am I going to fail? The dummy email did look cool and everything, but I didn’t think it was worth the price. $10K to create and send out emails? I asked him, “What’s the difference between this and the other campaign I got?”

He gets all cocky and miffed about my question. By the tone of his voice it told me, “You moron! It’s so simple. LOOK at it, stupid!” He actually says, “You wanna know the difference?! I’ll SHOW you the difference.” When he spoke to me with that tone I was taken aback, and I did the angry cat’s meow in my head. He attempts to ‘show me’, but there wasn’t that much of a difference to justify the purchase for that much money, which I couldn’t do anyway and didn’t want to if I could. I wasn’t very convinced. He acted this way other times I had asked a simple question—just plain rude. You’re the professional here (or supposed to be). I am asking the questions because I don’t know, and aren’t you supposed to answer them with PROFESSIONAL and educated answers? I want intelligent answers not to be treated like an idiot who has no capacity to think for herself. Other times he flat out lied about stuff and treated me like I should have graduated from the special ed class and not be a biology honor graduate. Sometimes I visualized a mean and cranky Bill Engvall (Bill is not this way in his comedy act) saying “Here’s your sign!” and throwing it at me for a response to a seemingly intelligent and thought out question.

The Harrassment Begins…

He calls me again one night when we had guests over at my parents’. This was on a Friday night. Miguel called me so many times that night during their visit and interrupting the evening. I told him don’t call; I have company. I thought he would have respected my privacy and would have called back later. Any normal human being would have done so and so would any normal business professional. Then he called back five minutes later after I had specifically told him not to. He kept trying sound cordial and the “sorry to bother you” hype, but then call back after hanging up. This happened like three more times. I was thinking “Are you serious?” I felt like this was on the verge of harassment, and this is the beginning of the harassment I endured. I finally had to cut the phone off so I could enjoy my guests. After they leave, I check the phone later he leaves a voice mail. OMG!

He called me back the next day on Saturday morning because I had told him to. He comes up with this “great” deal where I could get 20M email campaign featuring both books, and I get the author video for “free” but it will still cost me $10K. I said I couldn’t afford it, but he kept pressuring me and acted like he didn’t hear a word I just said. After five minutes of repeatedly saying “I can’t afford it”, he says some other things that were off color and unprofessional that also made me feel VERY uncomfortable. That threw up a big red flag in my mind. I also felt like I was dealing with a bill collector who was trying to collect money on a bill I didn’t owe. The tactics were exactly the same! It was a combination of that with a bad used car salesman. Other heated verbal exchanges were made during this conversation, but not very important to mention.

After getting off the phone—FINALLY—I was thinking: the reason why I published my book was because I wanted to and because I had money set aside for this, and it was my time. I felt that this was MY marketing campaign and not his, so who was he to tell me what my budget is, what to spend, and what I should do? Whose name is on this book? Whose money are we spending here? He acted like he was running the show like he was my agent. It’s his way or no way, and the highway is not an option—with a machismo (narcissistic) attitude. I had a budget for marketing, and I was sticking to it—no if, ands, or buts. I thought all his only purpose was to offer me advice and I take it or leave it, or to tell me about the services and answer questions and help me buy the service that I want and set it up. He shouldn’t be harassing me about something I don’t want and acting like a bill collector. Why is he trying to force me to buy something I don’t want?!

Other confrontations after this last one looked like this: after 10 to 15 firm no’s, he would hang up and call back five minutes later…and again…and again, and this went on for a while. It didn’t take me too long to learn his game, and I felt like I was being harassed nonstop. I start talking to people for advice because something doesn’t seem right, and I was becoming a very stressed out. I normally don’t stress out too much. Everyone had some raised eyebrows and warned me to be careful. They tell me something is not right from a business standpoint, and my dad was one of them because he has been in management. Good business practices don’t include harassing people, and it doesn’t take rocket science to figure that out.

The Phone Wars

I was beginning to wonder if this is what book marketing and the publishing experience is like, and was this another reason why I was reluctant to publish aside from not getting in the gate at a traditional publisher? If so, then I need to toughen my skin or something before I go mad. I had no idea that publishers were pushy people, and I don’t like pushy people, so now am I supposed to deal with them and stuff like this to go on with my publishing career?

A few days after another powwow, he calls me again about this stupid combo with the campaign and video, but this time I was at work and very busy, but he wouldn’t let me off the phone no matter how hard I tried. I said I would get in trouble, which may happen, but I kind of stretched the truth a bit so he would leave me alone. I had to tell him to hold on because my supervisor had something to tell me. We are allowed to talk on the phone at work, but I didn’t want to abuse this privilege. Just to make him shut up and get off, I went along with his scheme, but I had a plan.

I had already planned to go back and cancel it or once he forwarded me to the collection department, I would say I just changed my mind and I get off…no—didn’t work. She wouldn’t let me off till I did a transaction. What is with these people? Why can’t I get off the phone with them when I want/need to? Don’t they know I have a life? I apologize to my supervisor and she was cool about it, and she had overheard me trying so hard to get off. I had never been hung on the phone before. I am usually able to get off the phone when I want to with normal people and people aren’t forcing me to stay on. I usually am never on the phone at the job even though it was allowed, so they knew I had legitimate reasons for being on the phone. I almost hung up on him so I could get off, but I thought that might be unprofessional.

I call Miguel back to cancel the service a couple hours later, and it seems like the services were cancelled because he said it they were, but I had a gut feeling they weren’t. I check back and it’s not cancelled. I am mad—I’m not mad—I’m ticked off! I couldn’t believe he lied to me straight up! After a few phone wars, the services are still not cancelled. It’s getting close for another payment. I try to go around him to cancel it, but I don’t succeed. I write him an angry email to cancel the service right now and not to call me at work. He’s lucky I didn’t pepper it with cuss words because I wanted to so bad, and this is saying something because I normally don’t cuss people out. I do have after I blow up, and I was just about there. The services still don’t get cancelled!

A day later I call and try to nail him at work because he was dodging me, and I knew it. This lasted for almost a week. I also find out they have caller ID there, so he would see my number come up and not answer the phone. I leave voice mails without any response. I call and try to find out when he’s there or is coming in. I called him a lot and gave him a taste of his own medicine, but then he turned my email around on me saying that is why he didn’t call me back. That was a load of bull; he didn’t fool me. Somewhere around this time I dubbed him the “Email Nazi” because he was always trying to shove this email campaign down my throat with a crowbar. My parents had a sarcastic comment saying “It’s your buddy” when he would call which I didn’t find very funny at all.

When “Xlibris” showed up on my caller ID, I didn’t want to answer the phone if I didn’t have the strength to deal with him. He would leave a message, and I would have to deal with him sooner or later. After a phone war I would feel worn out, nervous, irritable, and seething, and it seemed like my nerves were exposed and raw. I usually had to find something to hit or kick—I made sure it wasn’t the dog, cat, or my sister. Sometimes I almost threw my cell phone across the room or crushed it in my hands with an angry growl because I was so angry after hanging up. If we didn’t live in a subdivision, I would have stepped out side and screamed at the top of my lungs.

There is one night he calls and tells me he finds out that I had been checking up on him and he scolds me for it. He’s also wondering why I want to cancel the services, insinuated that I was off my rocker for wanting to cancel them. He said everything comes back to him; so in other words, he indirectly told me he was the source of the problem why my services are not cancelled when I want them cancelled. He talked down to me like I was 4 and not 29! He indirectly insulted my intelligence and my age for the fifth time since we had met. I am a young author, but I am not stupid or two years old! I am an adult! “I can’t afford it! How many times do I have to tell you that!” I say nearly screaming and gnashing my teeth. He even told me that need to go to the shooting range to cool down after I said that last hot sentence.

Visualize a mushroom cloud going off behind me like that from Hiroshima at that very second. Can you believe that!? I was like—are you kidding me? Can you say things like that to a customer? If I did that at my job at Chick-fil-a or Publix I would have gotten fired! This and everything else he had done went against everything I had learned about customer service at any job anywhere. I am smoldering after that, and you could have fried eggs on me I was so hot and furious. I thought to myself, “Alright, that’s it—I wouldn’t have to go unload some lead or arrows on a target if you weren’t doing this to me!” He knew I liked shooting and archery from the small bit of small talk and from my author bio. You could imagine what I would have liked to do when I went to the range. I also wished I had a punching bag. I was so stressed out, and I was also sick from a stomach virus about this time. That was it; I’ve had enough. This means war. I was in war mode now.

I call the front office and ask for his supervisor’s name and contact info. I also file a complaint against him. It takes forever for me to get in touch with his supervisor. The supervisor still talks me into that stupid video, but I am able to get out of the original engagement…FINALLY. I also demand a new marketing consultant who wasn’t rude and overbearing. After this I didn’t hear from Miguel again so that was a big relief.

Doubts About My Publisher and Publishing Experience

I do the video and it was okay, but I had second thoughts about it, and none of the other services were selling books either. All the books I sold were direct sales, but my other channels were still zip. I try to set up some stuff on my own, like book signings, but I got nowhere. I almost had a book signing one time, but when I said who my publisher was that’s when it fell through. I knew I had a problem. I also had trouble selling to family and friends. I was not the problem nor was the book; the publisher was the problem. I had to either get out or find some outside help for marketing because this isn’t working.

At this time I do some distribution research to widen my channels. I run across Mill City Press who offers traditional channels to self published authors. I go by and check them out and while thumbing through their website, I discover they offer a free phone consultation for marketing help to outside authors. I fill out the questionnaire and set up a talk with Rosey Cashman the Marketing Coordinator for MCP at the time. She gave me some tips and told me about their website exposure and Amazon exposure programs. She even told me about the book trailer service that they were working on then. The prices of the services were much lower than what I was used to seeing at Xlibris by about 10x. After talking with her, I read more about their Expanded Program and while I look for it I find a valuable piece of treasure and a bombshell that I will talk about in the next post “Looking for an Out”.

Guess Who’s Back and More Doubts

One day out of the blue, Miguel calls me. This was sometime during the time I was investigating marketing, Mill City Press, and other publishers at the time. It had been months since our last powwow. I am surprised to hear from him because I thought we were through. He acts surprised that I cancelled out all these services, and he acted like he knew nothing about it. He tried one more time to pitch that stupid 10M Email Campaign at me again and this time for $2500 with his old tricks and a ‘guarantee’ to boot.

This guarantee stated that I would get my money back, if I didn’t sell any books which I thought may be unlikely. The opt-in campaign was a failure, so why would this be any better? Everything in general was a failure at this point. He says my prior cancellation was a ‘blessing in disguise’. “Humph, yeah…whatever,” I say in my head. I tell him no and put my foot down firmly. He lets me off easy this time. I thought I would have a different marketing consultant at this time, so why is it him again? Did that supervisor not hear me? I almost hoped Miguel had gotten fired by treating people the way he did, but no dice.

He calls again a few days later and tries again, and he wouldn’t even give me room to think without the bill collector/used car sales tactics, haranguing, and begging. I put him off for 24 hours. He had the nerve to call back one time and pressure me some more. I am getting ticked off, and I’m about tell him to stick it where the sun don’t shine if he keeps roughhousing me. I get off, and he calls again at about five minutes later on the dot, and my parents say it’s Xlibris. I say, “I’m not answering it…it’s just Miguel playing his old phone game again. If you answer it, then just say I’m busy, or I just left.” He has the nerve to leave a message with the exact same message as the last live talk like I am that absent minded. We talk the next day, and I cave in because it is much cheaper than $10K, and I was mentally exhausted with deductive reasoning, so I second guessed my reasoning. I ask a few questions before caving in, but he lies to me and gives me some more ‘here’s your sign’ treatment and ‘Duh!’ responses. I began having second thoughts and at this point I have had it and begin looking for a way out.

This right here is what broke the camel’s back and leaves this part of the story. The next story marks the turning point from here and the road to my new publisher Mill City Press. I will also share the bombshell I find in the MCP website.

Next post: “Looking For an Out”

Mistake #4: Beware of the Easiest to Find Publishers!

AK Taylor — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 01:23:57 +0000

The worst of the worst publishers are also the easiest to find…for the obvious reasons to rip people off. However, the best or really good ones are pretty easy to find as well so searching for a publisher can be like playing sharks and minnows by doing an Internet search. Even the DIY alternative has these perils when it comes quality of work and price since you are taking a chance and don’t know the person.

99.99% of newbie authors are not going to know the good guys from the bad guys at first glance without doing some background checks or talking to other people. It is almost like telling someone who has never been to the ocean or learned about it at all and then asking them to identity the bottle-nosed dolphin from a bull shark. It is purely chance if they answer correctly.

Publishing experts all realize the power of the internet and the strength of search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a topic for later and a valuable tool for authors. The concept is very simple, but it is very powerful. This is how they rank so high on Google and other search engines when someone puts in a keyword like: “self publishing companies”. SEO is just one way that publishers are easily found. You get both good and bad publishers when you do this since both sides of the publishing force understand this concept. They dump a ton of money into this and have experts working on this day in and day out to make sure they stay up there since the Internet changes all the time and not just every once in a while.

In some author communities and portals I see publishers camping out there–both good and bad. It’s obvious isn’t it? They are basically fishing for their potential clients. It works the same way as authors hanging out with the readers on Goodreads, but Goodreads has proper channels in how author promote themselves without spamming. It’s the same thing so to speak since I never received any spam mail by the publishers who put ads there. It’s nice to see the good guys at an author portal, but I am appalled to see the bad ones right there with them! Heads or tails…your publishing future…is good…or bad!

Without a background check there is no way to tell who’s good and who’s not especially when everyone advertises they are the best. If anyone can learn anything from this opening series it is to abandon the ‘benefit of the doubt’ scenario since it doesn’t work in determining who is good for you or your book or any piece of it. Always do a background check or ask for samples if there aren’t available!

It would almost seem like that it would to be done best yourself, but like any other DIY project, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you could flood the basement (or in an author’s sense ruin your reputation), but that is a topic for later.

Next week I will tell about my ex publisher that taught me the painful lessons that I was able to learn from. At least during that process I wasn’t really discovered and they didn’t help me sell any books which became a blessing in disguise.

Mistake #3: Being Swayed by Publisher Reps

AK Taylor — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:06:00 +0000

This post can go hand in hand with mistakes 1 & 2. I did mention this briefly in the last post since some of the information I received was from a representative at my ex publisher.

Most publishing representatives are very helpful people and are the ones to go to if you have questions. However, the publisher they work for must be ethical.

Why?

Lying publishers will teach their representatives to lie to their clients. How can you tell at face value? That’s just it, you can’t outside of secondary background checks on the publisher in question like I have mentioned before.

Publishing representatives can and will tell you things that may or may not be backed up by the contract as well. Scary and true. My ex publishing company’s representatives would tell you all kinds of things, but their contract was simple, barebones, and purposefully ambiguous…and/or is spread out over a series of other documents on their various services they have. So, I can tell you this for myself since I DIDN’T know how or where to check. I was swayed by the suave talk of some smooth reps!

Also, if you read The Fine Print of Self Publishing you will learn that this can also happen to a professional, but in Mark’s case he had experience and knowledge to counteract the attack. My ex publisher was one of the offenders, but these are some tips I learned both on my own and from the book when speaking with reps:

Beware of the reps who act like they’re your best friend that you didn’t know you had. It’s not the same thing as being polite. Real helpful representatives will answer the questions correctly and not say yes to everything while sometimes being a little candid and not tell you everything you want to hear. Don’t be in publishing Neverland where they never say ‘no’.
Double check everything a representative tells you by checking the contract and materials. If it doesn’t line up, you may want to ask questions or do some other research elsewhere. If you ask two different people and get two different answers for the same question and neither line up with what’s written, you may want to pay attention.
At a questionable publisher even the supervisors can or will provide questionable information.
If you get a statement by someone, and it doesn’t line up with the contract, get it in writing for proof or better yet, don’t buy into it. If they won’t give it to you, there may be questionable ethics at work here. Go find another publisher, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
It’s better not to trust people until they prove themselves to be trustworthy and find out they’re clean than it is to be hoodwinked while giving them the benefit of a doubt. Trust me on that one!
If you feel like you always have to double check for people’s credibility or you have to scavenger hunt for vital information, find another publisher. There are plenty of them that don’t do this kind of behavior and have everything you need where to find it
A book is like a child to an author and finding a publisher is like trying to find a reputable babysitter for your child. Take the same precautions you would in finding a reputable babysitter when you want someone to care for your baby—that is if you don’t want to do it yourself. Even in the DIY category you will still have to work with people for cover design, formatting, etc that you can’t do yourself. The DIY arena is not free of sharks either.

Tune in next week for Mistake #4: Beware of the Easiest to Find Publishers! After this post I will then do my three part series about my publishing road and the offending publisher that taught me everything NOT to do!

Mistake #1: All Publishers Are Honest

AK Taylor — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:31:56 +0000

The title of this blog post goes back to when I began my journey as an published author. I was a young person and maybe a little naive, but doubtfully my youth was not the source of the trouble. The trouble comes from the fact that publishers LIE.

I really think any new author that begins the road thinks publishers are honest…ALL of them–at least the ones who don’t know or realize otherwise. Also you are led to believe somehow that they are all business professionals.

Well, most of them are, but there are some that aren’t, but they lead you to believe they are. Because the dishonest ones LIE.

Where does the assumption come from? I’m not the only one who has thought this. It also doesn’t matter if it’s a traditional publisher or a self publisher. Sharks are everywhere.

Maybe it’s because many of us grew up or hear more about the traditional arena and they try their best to keep a good public image. That’s not a bad thing, right? Of course not. Dishonest publishers inhabit both worlds.

Publishing companies are not compared to used car lots, credit card companies, or big corporate banks that are known to house sharks and people are taught to be aware of them. Publishers can be sharks too. That is why there are author forums, Writer’s Beware, the BBB, and The Fine Print of Self Publishing, and blogs similar to this one.

With the assumption ‘publishers are honest’ in mind, I begin to try to find the publisher that best fit my needs of what I had planned for the book: editing, custom cover, and illustrations. After some research and talking with my now ex publisher, they seem to conform to all my publishing needs. I don’t think I asked the ordinary questions, but they seemed to say yes to everything and even offered me a discount. That looked good to me because I am a savvy shopper. Nothing wrong with that.

However, things didn’t get terrible until after I sign off on the physical proof–the publishing process had several bumps in the road, but I considered that normal; I didn’t have anything to compare it to. Marketing is where things get unhinged and things go horribly awry. This particular publisher seemed to believe that Fort Knox was in my backyard and my pockets were as deep as the Grand Canyon. I was just a twenty-something who saved up to publish her book. Where did they get the idea I was a trust fund kid? They tried to hard sell me things that were ten times my budget limit. On top of that they did a lot of wrong things, and I began to doubt their integrity. Some things I thought were on the verge of being illegal. I would constantly say that’s not within my budget, and they thought I was lying or something. Any normal business has a budget and businesses working together or with a client discuss a budget, don’t they? What in the heck? I thought that you were professionals, but you sure are not acting like it! Their business sense seems to be from another planet like Mars…

The particular person in question at Publisher A, my marketing consultant, acted as if he may have been a debt collector, a used car salesman, or a loan shark in another life or before he was hired by Publisher A. It was that bad. I began to stress out and have anxiety. I was even being harassed like I owed something I didn’t! It was so bad I refused to answer the phone if he called. I felt like I just entered an abusive business relationship. Is this how publishing a book is supposed to be?

Nope.

I try to get a new marketing consultant and people acted like they were incompetent. That stressed me out too. Nothing was being done about the situation or it was painfully slow. I would have had better luck trying to dental work on a unsedated crocodile than talking to these people and getting them to work with me professionally.

Over time and working with a different publisher–let’s name it Publisher B. I find out this is not the case at all. It’s not supposed to be stressful. I found out what real publishing professionals ‘look’ and ‘feel’ like. It was not anything like what I had experienced at Publisher A. It’s hard work, but it’s not supposed to cause me panic attacks and depression over a phone call or working with someone. Publisher B is a 180 degrees the other direction as Publisher A.

After leaving Publisher A by reading a book and some other research on forms, the BBB, Writer’s Beware, etc, Publisher A has a notable bad reputation, but they are netting newbies by the thousands…by lying and not living up to their own hype of providing a great publishing experience (which is what they pitch). Their finished product is also second rate. Comparing my completed product, which was the same book, from Publishers A and B, I could see a huge difference in product quality. The product from Publisher A was an overpriced piece of CRAP compared to the well priced and stellar product from Publisher B.

There’s much more to it than that…there are many other lies I have uncovered and others have uncovered as well. All that any newbie needs to know from this is not to believe everything someone tells you, the publisher’s website, or their material. Do outside investigations on forums, reading, or the BBB. Publisher A has hundreds of complaints. Publisher B had zip the last I checked. If they have a handful, there is nothing to worry about, but if a publisher has hundreds of complaints, don’t go there. Publisher A has a good BBB rating since they “attempt” to resolve the complaints. Maybe they lie to the BBB too. That’s what I learned in my own experience after the aftermath. Asking fellow authors definitely is a place to start.

I didn’t have access to these tools in the past. I didn’t know where to find them. As I mentioned before I hardly knew anything about publishing in general. That’s where many newbies begin. Some get lucky and find a decent publisher, and others…well, they share my fate. I suffered a shark bite but I bandaged it up and kept going anyway. It was a painful lesson I don’t want anyone else to endure, but there are thousands of stories out there just like mine. Publisher A has confederates that are under a bigger roof, but that’s another story for another time…