Or does it make for abuses and copy write problems in the long run!? Are they a safe area for people to try to get their books published, or are they a rip off!?Www@QuestionHome@Com
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Position:Home>Books & Authors> How are the "Self Publishing" websites? Are they worth it?Question: How are the "Self Publishing" websites!? Are they worth it!? Or does it make for abuses and copy write problems in the long run!? Are they a safe area for people to try to get their books published, or are they a rip off!?Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: No self publishing aka "vanity publishing" is not worth it!. It is a financial black hole!. All it does is cost you money and more money!. Self published books do NOT go on shelves in bookstores!. They can only be ordered online!. And if nobody knows about them, nobody orders them!. In order for you to promote your book, you would have to hire a marketing firm at great personal expense to set up an advertising program for you and even then, it is very unlikely you would sell very many books!. The average sales of a self published book is 100 or roughly 2/3 the number of your family and friends!. In the history of self publishing, there have been about 10 books (out of millions!) that became best sellers!. One was Wayne Dyer's book!. One was the Celestine Prophecy!. Both authors did it by literally loading their cars with books that they paid for themselves and travelled around the country from store to store selling them!. Unless you have a lot of time and money for gas and to pay in advance for your books, I don't think you are going to be able to do that!. And then you have another issue to contend with!. Amazon recently bought Book Surge - their own self publishing company!. They are currently threatening to turn off the BUY buttons on all self published books not printed by Book Surge!. That would mean your father won't be able to sell via Amazon!. Several companies are currently fighting Amazon in court, but the fact is, they will likely lose!. Amazon is like a store and has the right to sell whatever they want!. If this goes through, you will have to pay 29!.99 a year fee to Amazon, PLUS pay them 55% of the cover price of every book they sell for you PLUS you will have to buy the books from AuthorHouse and pay to ship them to Amazon!. If this happens, self publishers like you will be put out of business!. It will literally cost you money to have people read your books!. You will will be deeper in the red with each sale!. We have to wait and see how that litigation comes out!. It is not looking good now for the little guy!. This is the cold, hard truth!. This is how the publishing world works!. Without a major publisher behind you to get your books into bookstores, you are going nowhere!. Uncle Jim's Law is well known in the publishing business - it states "Money should flow TOWARD the author - not away from him!." So far - all the money has flowed AWAY from your father, right!? He had to pay to publish the book!. To that, I add Persi's Law #1 - "If you believe in yourself and in your book, you owe it to yourself to spend at least twice as long trying to publish traditionally as you did writing the book!." Had your father done that, perhaps a publisher might have picked it up and paid him an advance instead of him paying a publisher!. That is how the real publishing business works!. Get a copy of Writers Market and read it!. It will help you and your father to understand!. also if you go to my profile and look you will see I star all good Q and A on publishing and writing!. Some very successful authors have offered information!. Feel free to use any that will help!. I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but a self published book will never become a bestseller without spending a lot of money to make money!. People have to be able to know about it to find it on Amazon - there among over one million titles!. How will they do that without advertising it someplace!? Good luck to you anyway!. Pax-CWww@QuestionHome@Com Self-publishing is almost always a bad idea and there are many reasons that explain why it is!. However, the reasons aren't even worth mentioning now that Amazon is on the brink of excluding all self-published titles that aren't published through BookSurge, Amazon's premier POD self-publisher!. Regardless of the Amazon situation self-published books cost YOU money (instead of the publisher), they don't count as a publishing credit, you receive no--or nearly no--respect from the traditional publishing community (since anybody with a check book can self-publish), self-published books' physical quality is poor, your book will NOT be found in brick and mortar book stores, you have to do your own promoting and advertising (which is a /huge/ task in itself) and you have to battle the fact that self-published authors have the worst sales records of all authors!. There are even more reasons, but I think you get the picture!.Www@QuestionHome@Com it depends on what you want from them, and how well you check them out!. There are rip-offs and there are legityimate ones!. They are appropriate for someone who wants maybe family copies for a book or whose work has a very small market!. They are not going to be publishing the next best seller!. They will not do your editing and formatting for you (unless you pay extra!.) THey do NOT do your marketing for you!. If you are looking for limited volumes printed, you want a Print-on-Demand publisher, not a vanity press!. It depends on what YOU want and expect, and on YOU doing your research!. THe rip-offs outnumber the reliables, but there are some out there -- if used properly, and for what they areWww@QuestionHome@Com You really want to only use the big websites like Amazon!.com if you're going to use those kind of websites!. Even then, it's easy to get lost in a needle-in-a-haystack kind of way!. Or else you can make your own website to sell your books, but be ready to advertise!. (Check out a website called http://www!.projectwonderful!.com for that!.)Www@QuestionHome@Com They are a rip-ff and end up being very costly!. They prey on the vulnerable would-be writer!. I went that route and got massively screwed!.Www@QuestionHome@Com no, they are NOT worth your time or money!. They are a rip off!Www@QuestionHome@Com Very expensive, and they will steal your work!. Don't do it!.Www@QuestionHome@Com |