LAW FIRM INVESTIGATES AUTHOR SOLUTIONS – Repost from Dan Poynter

5 03 2013
LAW FIRM INVESTIGATES AUTHOR SOLUTIONS
Giskan Solotaroff Anderson & Stewart LLP
is currently investigating the practices of
Author Solutions and all of its brands
(AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford,
Xlibris,
Inkubook, and Wordclay). Authors using
Author Solutions have complained of deceptive practices, including enticing authors to
purchase promotional services that are not provided or are worthless, failing to pay
royalties, and spamming authors and
publishing blogs/sites with promotional material.
.
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SUBSIDY OR PAY-TO-PUBLISH PUBLISHERS

21 03 2012

PLEASE READ THIS ARTICLE AND THEN REFER TO THE ARTICLE I POSTED ON 8/17/2011

(I am currently in the process of helping a customer trying to obtain her release from iUniverse, so far it is ridiculous, they are charging her for the release of her files and they will only give her her original Word files back, she paid them to do the layout of the text, so if she paid for the work, shouldn’t it belong to her?  To date, they are still giving her the run around)

SUBSIDY OR PAY–TO–PUBLISH PUBLISHERS
–Rick Frishman – Publisher- Morgan James Publishing
http://www.morganjamespublishing.com
Subsidy or Pay–to–Publish Publishers
Also known as pay-to-publish, there are several companies that take upfront
money to publish your book. Subsidy publishers throw into the
package, interior and cover design (don’t expect miracles—most will use
their formula templates). The author then gets to buy the book at a preset
cost for resale. Most subsidy type of publishing uses a POD format—
print-on-demand—for book ordering. You can buy one copy for resale or
hundreds. The entry fee is usually less than $1,000 to enter into a
contract … but, and it’s a big but, the cost can be quite extensive per book unit;
author/publisher discounting deals are pro-publisher, always; and getting out of a
contract if things are not going well, can be difficult, if not impossible.





BEWARE and Compare POD (Online) Publishers

17 08 2011

COMPARE POD PUBLISHERS! More details about each firm below appear HERE: http://writersweekly.com/pod_price_comparison/006780_06152011.html

OBVIOUSLY, THIS INFORMATION CAME FROM WRITER’S WEEKLY. I MOSTLY AGREE WITH THEM, WITH THESE EXCEPTIONS:

BookLocker: I haven’t heard much about them one way or another.

LuLu: AVOID, I have spent more time cleaning up messes after them for customers than I can count. It is impossible to get through to a live person but you can communicate on FB with an imaginary employee they have, hmmmmmm?

CreateSpace: I’ve recently been hearing more complaints about them, BEWARE.

In my opinion, these companies are in the business of selling over priced services to people that don’t know any better, they will over-charge you to purchase “your own” books from them and they are not going to do much to help you sell books. The only reason they call themselves publishers is because they hold the ISBN and when you’re sick of them it is not an easy process to get your book rights back from them!

BookLocker: $517 (Deduct $200 if submitting your own cover)  Rated “Outstanding” by Mark Levine, attorney and author of  The Fine Print of Self-Publishing. **

iUniverse: $999.00 (includes 5 “free” copies)  Rated “Publisher to Avoid” by Mark Levine, attorney and  author of The Fine Print of Self-Publishing.

CreateSpace: $1022.00 (Deduct $299 if submitting your own cover)  Rated “Just OK” by Mark Levine, attorney and author of  The Fine Print of Self-Publishing.

Lulu: $1131.00 (Deduct $450 if submitting your own cover)  Rated “Pretty Good” by Mark Levine, attorney and author of  The Fine Print of Self-Publishing.

Trafford: $1324.00  Rated “Publisher to Avoid” by Mark Levine, attorney and > author of The Fine Print of Self-Publishing.

AuthorHouse: $1517.00  Rated “Publisher to Avoid” by Mark Levine, attorney and  author of The Fine Print of Self-Publishing.

Xlibris: $1972.00 – (includes 5 “free” copies)  Rated “Publisher to Avoid” by Mark Levine, attorney and  author of The Fine Print of Self-Publishing.

***Prices above based on least expensive package offered by  each publisher on similar offers targeting U.S. authors. Fees  include interior formatting (based on a 200-page book), original cover design with up to 5 images, print proof, ebook creation, up to 25 interior photos/graphics, an ISBN,  barcode, a listing on the publisher’s website and  distribution by Ingram, all within 6 weeks.  NOTE: All publishers above currently offer distribution  through Ingram (the largest book distributor), as well as  inclusion of their titles in the major online (amazon.com,  barnesandnoble.com, etc.) and physical bookstore systems.  NOTE: Many companies offer perks that others don’t, some try  to upsell authors on extraneous services, and a few even  claim ownership of files the author has paid them to create.  Study each publisher and contract carefully before making  your choice.