Though scams and con artists are relatively rare in this field, they do exist.
Recently, a new problem has emerged, and it’s related to publishing.
This came to my attention a few months ago, when an associate mentioned that he’d paid someone to publish his book. However, the book was never published and the associate never received a refund.
When I asked for more information and didn’t receive a reply, I assumed that everything had worked out.
Yesterday, when I was reviewing several new ghost-related books, I started noticing a pattern. Some books had very negative reviews. They referred to editing and proofreading issues, not necessarily the content of the books.
When I checked to see who’d published those books, all were published by one company. That company does not even have a website for its books.
Further research traced the publishing name back to the person who’d accepted money to publish a book… and then didn’t publish it.
Since I’ve worked with several publishers — as an author, an editor and an illustrator — here’s my advice.
Never pay anyone to publish your book
Regular publishers will not charge you anything to publish your book. (That should be in neon lights.)
In fact, some publishers pay you an advance, anticipating how much you’ll earn from the book. That helps cover your expenses while you’re completing the book.
A few publishers will charge you if they have to do extensive editing to make your book ready to publish. Most good publishing houses — with full editorial staffs — don’t even ask for that.
(However, if your writing isn’t very good, you should probably expect a per-hour fee for professional editing and rewriting.)
If a publisher is paid by the author, that’s usually called vanity publishing. It’s been a long-term practice, dating back to the 19th century and perhaps earlier. I don’t recommend it.
Check their reviews at Amazon.com
Find other books from that publishing house. Be sure they’re in your same field. (A publisher with no ghost-related books may not know how to market your ghost-related books. You’ll want to see at least two or three books in your field.)
Then, go to Amazon.com and read the reviews of those books.
First of all, be sure their books are at Amazon.com. It’s America’s top online retailer. If your book won’t be at Amazon.com — or it won’t be placed there, quickly — look for another publisher.
Then, read the reviews, especially the negative ones. Look for anything that suggests cheap paper, shabby bindings, ugly bookcovers, poor editing, or too many proofreading errors. (A few errors are unavoidable, even with a great publisher.)
In addition, be sure that the books earn good reviews for their content. It’s not the end of the world if you’re published by a company that signs contracts with any (and every) author that approaches them… but it’s better to choose a publisher you’re proud of.
What rights do you give the publisher?
- Does the publisher own the copyrights to your book for a certain number of years?
- Can they sell the contract to another company?
- Can they let your book sit in their warehouse, and never see the light of day?
- Does your contract require you to publish all future books through that publisher, or at least offer them your future books? (That’s called “first option” or “first refusal,” in some areas.)
- Do they control — or have an option for — the use of your pen name? In other words, can they use your pen name for the work of other writers, to capitalize on your popularity?
- Can you veto an ugly cover or a significant change in the content of your book? Are there specific terms for resolving that?
Those are just a few really important aspects of publishing contracts. (Every published author has at least one horror story. I have couple of them, myself.)
Never sign a book contract unless you understand every section of it, and agree with it, to the letter. Don’t trust what the editor or publisher says that the phrase means; get a second, independent opinion.
If you’re not sure about a publisher, check the Book Publishers section at Preditors & Editors. (Also, if you were badly treated by a publishing house, report them — with documentation — to that website.)
How long will your book stay in print?
Some publishers’ books are like magazines; they’re only available in bookstores for a very brief time. Harlequin books (romance novels) are a classic example of that.
However, if your book is published by a company that doesn’t keep books in print, your contract should allow you to place that book with another publisher as soon as the book is out of print.
Know when, and under what circumstances, you can take your book to another publisher.
Few authors get rich
If you’re hoping to become rich and famous from your books, think again. You might achieve some level of fame; getting rich is another matter.
For some books, I’m paid a flat fee for my work. That’s usually paid on a per-page basis. (After over 20 years as a published author, that’s usually a three-figure amount, per page.)
I’m paid an additional fee for illustrations that I provide.
Whether the book is a best-seller or fails miserably, I earn the same amount. That’s the risk I take when I agree to that kind of contract.
Other publishers pay me a percentage of what my book earns; for a book that sells for about $15, I’m earning an average of less than 25 cents per book.
That’s not unusual in niche nonfiction, and that is the realm of ghost-related books. In many cases, you won’t earn minimum wage from your books… not unless they’re best-sellers or keep selling for years & years.
If you’re looking for an alternative
I love some of the publishers I write for. They’re fun companies with great editors, brilliant production teams, and excellent distribution. I plan to continue writing for them, indefinitely. (Well, those quarters add up eventually!)
However, I’ve also become an independent publisher, and I recommend that as an alternative.
(That is, I’m not recommending my publishing house; I’m suggesting that you consider starting your own. I am expanding to work with a few other authors, but that’s not the point of this article.)
Independent publishing
Thanks to resources such as LightningSource.com and CreateSpace.com, anyone can become an independent publisher.
Of course, there are issues that you may not want to deal with. They include:
- Book design
- Editing
- Proofreading
- Preparing illustrations
- Cover design – graphics and text
- Marketing and distribution
- Promotion
However, as many other authors describe it, independent publishing means about 10x the income for about 4x the work. From my experiences so far, that’s exactly right.
LightningSource.com
There are some up-front charges to set up a book with LightningSource.com, and several technicalities to work with, but your potential, long-term profits are best with them.
However, I don’t necessarily recommend them to anyone who’s new to writing and publishing. (Pros will be more comfortable with the financial risks as well as the extra work involved.)
CreateSpace.com
For many people, it’s better to start with CreateSpace.com, which is conveniently owned by Amazon.com. Though you’ll be doing all the work yourself, your only up-front expense will be the wholesale cost of a proof copy of your book.
That’s usually less than $10 (including shipping). It’s required so you see what your book will look like before it’s sold to the public.
Skip the scams
As you can see, you have several options if you want to write a book.
None of them involve paying someone to publish your book, especially someone whose editorial staff (if there are any) don’t do a very good job.
- You can find a regular, mainstream publisher who handles books similar to yours.
- You may choose to become an independent publisher.
- You might work with a group of friends — each with their own publishing skills (cover design, editing, proofreading, etc.) — and help each other publish, independently.
And, though I do not recommend it, you can pay someone else to publish your book. If you choose that route, be absolutely sure that you’re getting your money’s worth.
But frankly, I can’t think of any reason to pay someone else to publish your book for you.
If you have questions or comments, use the form below. I’d like to know about your publishing experiences, and your questions about writing and publishing.
I am working on a manuscript regarding culture shock entitled You Might Be A Southerner, similar to Jeff Foxworthy material but includes my own encounters and thoughts. I guess you would call it a small coffee table type book to be shared with friends/family.
I retired from teaching after many years and moved from Louisiana to the Berkshires in Mass. a couple of months back. What is the first step for me after I complete my manuscript? I would appreciate any advice from you.
Thanks,
Nora
Nora,
I highly recommend checking CreateSpace.com. With almost nothing out-of-pocket, you can create your own books, decide their distribution, and even sell them through Amazon.com, if you like.
I have only good things to say about CreateSpace.com.
Cheerfully,
Fiona
Fiona,
Could you email me so I can get some further advice from you about CreateSpace.com
Thanks!
thanks for the informaation
Hello,
Thank you for all the helpful advice. Wish I had this before I decided to publish my first three books with Authorhouse. As a warning to all, here’s my experince with them to date:
To my utter misfortune, I became acquainted and started to use the services offered by 1stBooks publishers now known as Authorhouse, and published my first two books in 2003. At the time, I detected no problem with their services and accepted that being my work was academic, would not sell many copies. I decided to publish my third book with them, a large 2 volume edition in 2008, and due to the reviews and publicity received, and the professors that contacted me personally, I became fully aware of the university libraries and public libraries who processed my work into their establishments, or were interested in my work.
However, I noticed the first major discrepancy in their promises was that if I turned my manuscript in within a certain time frame, I would receive fourteen free copies of my work when it was printed.
I e-mailed my text, and mailed my contract via snail-mail two weeks before the deadline, I know the contract arrived on time—I live in Europe, and mail does not take longer than 4 to 8 days to arrive in the US, however, there is no way to prove this, and they could not honour the free copy agreement as they allegedly hadn’t received the contracts on time. They never mentioned the agreement included receiving the contracts, just the manuscript. I received just my usual free review copy of each volume. I decided to let the matter go.
Then, they have a very careless attitude with other aspects of their services. For example, their Press Wire program that sends your Press Release electronically to 14,000 media outlets. Where did I find my academic books being promoted? In the financial sections of several media outlets, and not to my target audience found in the academic, history, biography, or even literature, areas.
(I also discovered my university level academic book on classical music categorised as a “children’s book”.)
However, the major problems developed with royalty accounting. I began keeping a record of the copies available of my new two-volume work at Amazon US, UK, Canada, and their Marketplace vendors. (This is practically the only way you can discern how many books may be selling in the public domain.) Considering this is Print On Demand, when a number of available copies drops, you can expect it to be a sale since stores have no reason to keep raising and dropping the numbers unless they make a sale and then re-list the book. (For the record, I withdrew all my publications from Authorhouse June 14th 2010.)
Authorhouse’s numbers were way below the daily tallies I kept from the Amazon numbers, they only reported between 10% and maybe up to 20% of the sales on any given quarter. September 7th for example, I received the worst report yet: they reported only 1 copy of Volume One sold in the second quarter (April 1 to June 14th, the time I withdrew my publications from them), and only 3 copies for Volume 2. According to my numbers from the Amazon rankings and marketplace sellers in the US, Canada and UK: 28 copies of Volume 1 sold, and 27 of Volume 2. Therefore they have reported only 4% of the sales, and they obviously are pocketing the rest. And this does not include other sales that may have been made through other sellers like Barnes and Noble, etc.
However, there is no way to be compensated for these discrepancies, Authorhouse demands you provide receipts of all sales as proof of your claim—how on earth do you track such receipts? Authorhouse knows it’s an impossibility. Of course, Nielsen Book Scan offers sales report services, but you cannot use them to reclaim royalties, or display or disclose your sales report to any third party as Nielsen deems such action a breach of trademark confidentiality and would possible incur a lawsuit.
The simplest answer would be to cancel all contracts with Authourhouse as they assure the authors retain full rights to their work, but this is not as easy as they make it out to be. To date, they continue to reassure me my books are no longer in print, but as I have discovered September 7, they are still listed with UK wholesale distributors as available within 5 days as Print on Demand, so they are technically still available by Authorhouse illegally.
1st Books / Authorhouse in my estimation is the most disreputable company allowed to carry on a business offering a sham service to the public, robbing authors of the fruits of their labours. Surely they are required to have a business license to operate as all other businesses? How can any state issue a license and continue to allow such a rogue business like this to continue? They are operating on such a large scale, and if they are doing this to every author, then one must consider the possibility they are committing grand larceny on a massive scale. They claim to have thousands of authors with their company.
Authors Beware: if you are considering publishing your book using Print On Demand, stay well away from this company. Even if they paid all the royalties, they do little or nothing to help promote your work, but expect you to pay additional hundreds and even thousands for various promotion packages that provide little if no results. For those of you poor authors who now hold a contract with Authorhouse publishing your work, my sympathies go out to all of you.
Hello,
I would like to know if anyone has used Lightning Source and if there have been any problems with accounting etc. Now that I would like to use POD, I am hearing the downsides of some other companies. Would like to avoid mistakes if possible. Also, has anyone heard of problems if you allow returns?
Thanks for any info,
Heidi
Heidi,
As I understand it, Lightning Source is the resource for many POD companies, so you’d be going directly to the source. However, the last time I checked, their requirements were more involved than dealing with CreateSpace.com, etc.
Everything I’ve heard about Lightning Source has been excellent.
Cheerfully,
Fiona
Hello Fiona.
Again, I would like to commedate your site and all the useful information posted noty only for beginners but for vetrans as well.
I am writting this to let you know I have recently printed a lot of articles from Hollow Hill and put them in a master binder. The reason for this for all PINK members have the oppertunity to study and learn from them. Many members do not have internet access. It is sort of a text book for our members only. I have not changed any wording. Your name and site is on every page and on the cover of the binder. I hope you don’t mind. If so, I will destroy it.
Rich.
Hi Rich,
I’m flattered! Thanks!
I am working on a compilation of my articles — updated and organized by topic — for publication. (See, great minds think alike! *grin*)
However, I wrote these articles so that people can learn more about the real art & science of ghost hunting. So, I’m honored that you’ve done so much work, and that your team will benefit from it.
Thank you!
Cheerfully,
Fiona
I, too, used Authorhouse. My question – is there a way to get a real publisher to consider your book once you have published it yourself? If so, who are they and which publishers do you recommend? My genre is romance mystery. My book is The Ideal aka Katherine Boulder. Thanks
I am using Lightning Source for my POD book titled “CAPITALIZE on CREDIT POWER”
I am getting really good feedback from people who have purchased my book so I know people are buying it, but Lightning Source claims I have not sold any books for the last 5 months.
My book is in several libraries but I was not paid for them.
I met another school teach at a birthday party last night that purchased my book in September and she said it was on her coffee table. I was not paid for that book either.
I complained to Lightning Source last month, but they claimed their records are accurate.
If anyone else is not getting paid by Lightning Source, please let me know.