Self Publishing book companies? Scam or legit?

Post Reply New Topic

TheSnarkKnight, I loved reading your bit on vanity publishers. If your goal is to be a published author, I agree with you 100%.

But vanity publishers do fill a niche in the market place: vanity publishing. Here's a good case in point: There's an annual event I participate in. Typically there are 50-100 participants. At the end of the event everyone submits writing and photography to an editor, typically a participant who volunteers for the job. The end result is a book of about 100 pages containing the writing and photography of the participants. The global market for these books is 50-100 copies, or one for each participant. This is where vanity publishers (or rather vanity PRINTERS) really excel: niche market, small print run, no editing or marketing required or even wanted, and since it's 100% volunteer there's no expectations of profit from anyone involved but the printer. Just print 'em and ship 'em. For something like this a printer like Lulu is perfect.

But if I was trying to get a book of my own photography and writing in a bookstore, there's no way in @#%^ I'd do it this way for all the reasons you listed.

i used to make chapbooks from scratch & xerox them from a master at Kinko's. (i still think everyone should do this once just to see what it's like.)

now i use lulu.com which is not a vanity publisher like the ones that try to get you to send a lot of money up front, to pay for overpriced volumes you will never be able to get rid of. Lulu is a print-on-demand service which costs nothing from the author (in its most basic form), but they take a percentage (not exorbitant) out of every sale. the great advantage for me is that you can just give people a url & they can order from anywhere in the world.

the disadvantage is that, while some people will buy after seeing your book, convincing them to order one is harder (even with the look-inside feature), & essentially you have to have already convinced them you are a serious writer.

many books published this way are terrible, & while the industry's standard isn't high, it's still not this bad--so there's a stigma to overcome.

however, economically i think this is the only way to go. in fact, i think most books in the future will be printed on demand if they exist on paper at all.

I found this on Craigslist today:

http://www.pandoraprojectpublisher.com/

They claim that they'll publish any story over 5,000 words long as an E-Book and give you royalties twice a year. I'm not 100% sure it's not a scam, but I'm feeling pretty desperate to get a short story published anyway.

They sell their catalog?! That's a scam, and a great one.


So, they "publish" as an ebook?
Honestly, you could save the money by saving as PDF. Done, you got an ebook.

First of all, you need to market it, to advertise it, it's not gonna sell by itself. You're still not 100% there, only 'til you MARKET and SHOUT to the 4 corners of the earth that your GREAT book is here, only then people will listen to you.

Set up a website, take paypal and sell it as a PDF. No royalties, no middleman, 100% profit for you.

I have heard that the literary world does not take self publishing very seiously. Say if you were to write a book that was being reviewed by a publisher...the books you self published can be a strike against you. There is a real stigma with this type of publishing. The best way to get published is to research publishers and find one that fits your style and subject based on the books that they publish...then do your research on all that person you are sending it to has done in his/her own works and mention them in the cover letter. I know this sounds like brown nosing, but it is what gets you in the door. Also very important...the first 3 pages are the most important. You must be able to dazzle them with your brilliance in the first 3 pages cause if you cant do that, they often put the book down and go on to the next book. I know you hate to think your book would be disregarded like that, but this person has alot of books to read and if you cant catch his/her attention in 3 pages then they figure that it is not worth reading the rest of it.

I'm hardly an expert, but I've considered writing a book (not enough to do it, though...

Some of the things I hear are about 'slush piles' (unsolicited manuscripts that some 'bottom-rung' employee has to go through) is where many manuscripts wind up. There are any number of books on writing and publishing at places like free book spot, and penty of books, that you can find out about.

One thing that intrigued me was that editors don't want to see 1 book, they want a minimum of 4 books, to prove a writer has a track record ( this could explain why there are so many @#$ing
series out there...

I Twilight

I think the reason many books wind up in the slush pile is because their authors could not get an agent or did not look for an agent. Publishing companies also tend to have their submissions guidelines readily available on their websites, as well, so many authors might opt for the easiest route.

The issue about editors wanting more than one book is not true, though some might request additional books in a series if the book falls within a certain genre (mystery, fantasy) that follow certain formulae. From what I understand, authors will often opt to expand their work into a series for extra money (Stephenie Meyer's publisher offered her something like $750,000 for a 3-4 book deal, as opposed to the $30,000 she would have gotten for just one). For literary or experimental fiction (what I'm trying to write), where formulae need not apply, one book is more than sufficient.