Newbie Author's Guide

Helping new and aspiring authors navigate the publishing wilderness

A Buzzard in Eagle’s Clothing: This is Not MY Soaring Eagle Books! #AuthorsBeware

By Leave a Comment

Today’s off-day post came as a surprise, but I thought it should not wait and some of my Mondays are already booked for guests. At any rate we are in a wild ride! In some ways this surprise kind of sucks, but I have some blog material and I have been able to meet some new people and make some connections by a mistake I didn’t catch earlier. So there are silver linings somewhere.

Last night I was contacted on my business page for my new upcoming publishing imprint Soaring Eagle Books about another publishing company by the same name. When I set up the page, I had mistakenly put the website URL I had HOPED to obtain, but forgot to change when I found out the URL was taken. I’m as human as the next person, so mistakes happen. Presently, I don’t have a website, and my company isn’t operational yet–I just have the social media channels built and branded and the logo. Of course, when it is time to go public all of those details will be sorted out, especially when I am open for clients. I am still curious about how they found my page since I haven’t been trying to promote it at all since the company is still in the making. Anyway, I am glad they did, so they have saved me some grief on down the road and helped me fix something that needed to be pronto.

I don’t ever plan on being a big company or a small press of any kind whatsoever. I will be the one to help out with formatting, cover design, and distribution. If the author uses one of my ISBNs and are published under my imprint or their own, the author will own everything I create for them and it will be theirs to do with as they wish, including their accounts which they will be paid directly from the retailers and distributors and they will have direct access to their accounts. I don’t plan on doing all that, but I will help people who want it though, but it won’t be in my own account. I won’t take any royalties and they will print their books for wholesale through their own IngramSpark account or CreateSpace free platform account. Since the authors will have their own accounts, they can continue to upload to these accounts whether or not they use my services again. They will be free to use their files at a local printer and just use IngramSpark or CreateSpace for their distribution. They choose; it’s theirs anyway. They just pay me to package it for them just like they would a formatter or a cover designer, it’s just I help them with all that and since I know where the good ones are and I know the lingo and I hire out what I cannot do. Been around the block a few times ;). I am working on putting together a couple marketing packets, but they will be services that work, and they will guarantee exposure, not sales since no one can guarantee that if they say they can, you might want to reconsider publishing with them. I am still carefully researching that :).

I will not own any rights to the author’s work except the limited rights to print and distribute should they use my ISBN. The agreement is still a work in progress, but I plan on it being easy to read, no legalese (since this is not my 3rd language, and it makes me twitch), and no author unfriendly clauses. No unpleasant surprises or fees. Everything will be discussed up front.

I do all this since I have dealt with the dark side of publishers and self publishing. That’s one of the reasons why I have this blog. There are some nuances of even the best pay-to-publish companies that are beginning to bug me, so I plan on doing things differently. Maybe for some authors the things about these companies will be okay–they were when I was trying to get back on track and learn the ropes. Some things may work for some people, but I will be for the authors that going that route may not be quite right and going at it totally alone is not either, so I am providing the middle road as it were or just what they need. But now I have outgrown them and I know there are others who want that helping hand that are getting slaughtered out there, which also the other point of today’s post.

Buzzard in Eagle's Clothing

Penelope “Penny” Fletcher’s Soaring Eagle Books

The individuals in question that visited my page were a former partner and a former author who parted on some very unpleasant terms which I will share in a moment. To visit the site of this publisher to poke around Click Here. Please note before clicking: This is not my publishing company! At the time of this writing there is no website for my company, nor do I recommend or am affiliated with this publisher. More on that in a moment.

Here are some links for your viewing pleasure to the author’s website where she has quite an array of posts with screenshots about her ordeal with this publisher–so scroll through and look for yourself as well as a post on a forum (also read the comments). I will summarize it all in a nice little bow for you and what I think about it. The former assistant in question is a guest on her blog, so check it out.

Author Gen Griffin’s Blog/Website

Forum Post on Absolute Write

This company tries to come off as a traditional small press. Please note, a  traditional small press in any shape or form, new or old, doesn’t charge you money up front for editing, formatting, cover design, or marketing. Some hybrid presses, pay-to-publish companies, or vanity presses do this though, so what do we have here?

From what I have gathered from the website and from the posts and proof by Gen Griffin, and my own harrowing experience with Xlibris, I have drawn the conclusion that this publisher is a vanity publisher masquerading as a small traditional publisher, and when this happens, run away as fast as your proverbial feet will carry you. It is not a hybrid press, and it is not what I call a reputable pay-to-publish company either. The term “self-publishing company” is going out of style, and the term has since became tarnished because of publishers like this and Author Solutions and Publish America. To be sure, I’m sure that Author Solutions companies masquerade as traditional publishers ever since they partnered with Penguin.

As per Rachel Thompson’s quote of the hour, “Let’s deconstruct.”

On the website there is the talk of “services for fees”, but as you can see here and here there is no fee structure, so the author doesn’t know the risk thereof or has any indication to know what to expect here or any means for planning. From the forum post above and the posts on Gen Griffin’s blog, she had been approached with a contract as if this company was a traditional publisher, plus this publisher retains exclusive rights to the work for X amount of time like a trade publisher–from what I ascertain from the posts it is 3 years for this company. Not bad, well… at least it isn’t for the length of thecopyright (that’s the rest of the author’s life+ 70 years–which is BAD by the way–AKA “forever” in publishing). I also see that the publisher takes a 50/50 split from the royalties while the author is still paying for marketing services from what I can guess from the website and from the posts. Total vanity press tactic. Then there is the age old tactic from the posts that the author has to buy X amount of books for the initial print run and X amount of books yearly if the book doesn’t sell to “make up some sort of difference”.

Mark Levine would wonder why this publisher is entitled to 50% of the royalties when they aren’t REALLY doing anything to promote your book, and you still have to buy services or left to do it on your own? He would also advise to dodge any evasive or vague terms or language about the things in the former paragraph or in regards to fees. Again, traditional small presses don’t charge fees for publishing or marketing. They just give tiny advances or none at all and their budgets are small, so the marketing would be up to you–it’s just that you wouldn’t be paying the publisher so to speak.

Then there is the question about pricing of a so-called “trade paperback”. Here is the paperback listing for Gen Griffin’s Book on Amazon and the pricing (do not buy–the author will not see a dime). If the pricing was for the regular paperback that we indie authors usually produce the pricing might be okay, but since this is supposedly a “trade paperback” or a mass market paperback, this price quite high. Why? Trade paperbacks are usually printed offset, a smaller trim size, with a cheaper paper quality, and in large quantity. All of these things drive down the printing cost per book, and that’s why you can get a 600 page book for $4.99 as opposed to ~$18. Usually, when a small press has a paperback and/or a trade paperback they have a hardcover edition available which is not too hard since the press should have the cache of ISBNs available as well as making the necessary tweaks to the cover to create the hardcover edition. Just a thought :/.

From the posts, we can see that the marketing tactics used by this publisher breaks social media rules and annoys people since it’s spam. Vanity press violations! All of the vanity presses that I know of use tactics like these that don’t work, and they just annoy people. They simply spam people and call it marketing which you pay them for. #faceplant Then there is the sad tale of missing sales reports, missing royalties, yadda yadda. When reading all this I had terrible flashbacks and memories like I did when I had my experience with Xlibris.

What makes Gen’s story even worse is that she can’t get the rights back to her book, so it had to be left to die, and she had to redo the entire series because this woman wouldn’t do the right thing and give the money owed or her rights back. I became physically ill reading about all this. Penny Fletcher has enough stuff against her to be sued by people. I would almost guess she learned from Kevin Weiss of Author Solutions or from whoever runs Publish America. They would be proud.

After looking at the website, I was not all that impressed. It was barebones at best. Not forthcoming on information and a lot of information is just plain wrong. Traditional publishing still works for some people and there are still some good small presses both old and new that would be great to work with. Evolved Publishing is one of them. Some hybrids like Booktrope are also good, so check them out. Of course there is no contract and I hope to see one soon. If I ever do, I will post about it!

Amanda Taylor’s Soaring Eagle Books

Amanda Taylor's Soaring Eagle Books

Above is the logo for my company, and you can go to the above site to see Penny Fletcher’s logo. I have purchased the domain for the company, but there won’t be anything there since I have no site. It will be soaringeaglebooks.org I will eventually have a kick butt site and I have a designer in mind. I have rectified the blunder on my associated social media sites with my publishing imprint and removed the links from Penny Fletcher’s company. MY URL will be crosslinked on all my sites and social media channels for Soaring Eagle Publicity and my author stuff. This URL will be on the copyright pages of any book that is published there as well as the logo. All roads will travel back to the above URL.

MY Soaring Eagle Books will not masquerade as anything. I will not be pretending to be a small traditional press. This is my own independent imprint that will be open to clients where I will be the go-between or provider of cover design, file formatting, and upload, and more all fees included for all work entailed by me or anyone I work with. If the author wants me to create their stuff and use their own ISBNs, no problem. My imprint will be on the book only if the author doesn’t have their own, and they use one of the ISBNs that is registered under my imprint. The books are still theirs though. I talked a bit about how things will work earlier.

My purpose of opening up to clients in the future is to not be the next big thing, the next big publisher, or any kind of traditional press or whatever. I don’t guarantee any bestsellers, but I will try to do my best to provide the best service and quality as possible at a reasonable price without all the hassles or nasty surprises. Been there, done that, so you don’t have to. I hate it when publishers say they understand what authors go through and they turn around and do the exact same thing. Another definition of insanity. Practice what you preach, people. Somebody please slap me if I don’t; I will try my best as humanly possible to NOT do crap like the aforementioned publisher or any of the other rogues that are out there.

Of course you might be wondering why don’t I just start over after this discovery? I have too much time and money invested to turn back now. I’ve spent time on branding and accounts of more than just social media. Why do I have to sacrifice my dream and hope because someone else didn’t want to do the right thing? Since this other company is not that old, it would seem that it should fall by the wayside and reputation and word of mouth should prevail. So should doing the right thing as well as faith and trying to do good by people in a world that a good name and a good reputation are hard to come by. I will keep people updated on this blog on how things progress as well as on my author and sister company streams. Amanda Taylor’s Soaring Eagle Books will be safe. I am not going to grade my own company. That’s not fair. I will let other people like clients do that for me.

Penny Fletcher’s Soaring Eagle books is not. Stay away. STAY FAR AWAY. If I was grading this company for a company review it would get a Sucks 🙁 rating. An F. Mark Levine would give it an F. Anyone I know would give it a thumbs down. Rachel Thompson would nail it for social media violations.

Point and clarification made. The end.

The Rise of Unscrupulous Booksellers?

By Leave a Comment

Unscrupulous Booksellers

What I think about rogue booksellers. Photo Credit: 123rf.com

If you have read this blog at any length of time, you should know that there are unscrupulous publishers out there to scam authors. However, a while back I had an experience with a scammy bookseller. I haven’t seen anyone speak of any fraudulent or scammy booksellers on any blogs anywhere. So could this be something new to keep a lookout for? Something like this could happen to a traditional or an independent author who would try to expand their distribution if the opportunity arises.

If anyone knows anything about scammers, they should know they are attracted to places where the money is–like a moth to a light. I have read quite a bit that the self publishing boom is beginning to accumulate some dough. Again, a traditional author that is left to fend on their own will pretty much gravitate and work with people and entrepreneurs in the indie community.  I know because I have met and worked with them :).

You can also say scammers are like cockroaches; there are ten more you don’t see for every one you see.

To read the more personalized account about the whole ordeal  with this unscrupulous children’s bookseller in all its creepy glory, click on the link below to visit my author website:

Bookseller or Catfish?

I shared that story on WriterBeat and ReadWave as well as on my social media with readers and other authors, and I received some surprising reactions about what could have happened. They were actually very scared for me. I almost believe this was no ordinary scam, but a catfish scam. This is simply because the perp seemed more interested in the author herself than getting any free books or money from her. I do believe his initial contact had nothing to do with books from the get-go.

After my experiences with Xlibris and Author Solutions, I have learned how to smell a rat pretty quickly. AS reps are simply the best deceivers for anyone who doesn’t know their reputation. That said, I was onto something being pretty early on because my guard was up, but I never expected to be fishing for catfish. Until recently, the only catfish I was familiar with were the ones that live in the water. I say it’s a catfish scam since he was looking to have a relationship and he was trying to get me to go to his home country. Like I said, the books were an afterthought or not a thought at all on his part. To read more about these kinds of scams Google/Ask/Bing catfish scams for more reading.

From this ordeal I can draw some conclusions. If there are any more rogue booksellers out there, I would say most of them are not catfish. Most of them will simply want free books for them to sell and you not get your royalty.

Here is a list of things to look for/watch out for if you have suspicions:

  1. Does not have a website. Most booksellers will usually have a website where their contact information and present catalog of books to sell. My fake bookseller did not have a website of any kind.
  2. Use flattery in the initial contact. In my case this was taken more to the extreme. A scammer will use some sort of flattery since it has a ‘disarming’ effect. This is one of the main weapons in the AS arsenal. The author’s appearance or anything else about them is not relevant for business. If they say your book is so ‘great’, how do you know if they actually read it? Simple. Someone suggested asking a question or two from the book or sample that would require actual reading and cannot be pulled from the Book Description. If they get it right, the praise is legit, and they actually read it. Surely you can think of something. No one knows the book better than the author, right? This is also a handy-dandy defense, if Author Solutions tries to sell you dreams. They tell every single author that comes through their cattle chute that their book is great. That’s how they try to get you!
  3. Ask you to mail books at your expense. Booksellers will purchase books from your distributor, and it doesn’t matter where  in any part of the world. They rarely or never approach an individual author, but if they do, they will purchase the books at a wholesale discount of 40-55%. They will also ask about or look if the books are returnable.  My scammer tried this even though I provided distributor info and didn’t answer questions about royalty splits, returns, etc. Sometimes, though, an independent bookstore or sometimes Barnes and Noble will allow you to mail/bring books in which will be at your expense, but that brings me to the next point:
  4. Does not provide a written contract of any kind. I have experience in this area in both local bookstores and an independent bookstore in another state. Before any books are sent or anything is done, there is a written agreement that determines the length of time the bookstore will carry the book or details of a one time fee, etc. Royalty splits and returns of unsold books to the distributor or author will also be included. Not so with my scammer.
  5. Ask the author to pay a salary. Booksellers do not take salaries from authors in any shape or form. They make their profit by purchasing the books at a discount and reselling them. They also will take a portion of the royalty in most cases, or ask for a one time submission fee (which is usually small), but all of that is spelled out in the site and/or the written contract. This is how they make their money. Think about how Amazon works for a moment; they require a discount to purchase print and they take a fee on any book sold in any format. Booksellers usually only buy books in small portions and they usually look at samples and return unsold books after such-and-such time. My scammer tried this, but I have a feeling that the “salary” in question was not monetary since he demanded my physical presence to pay it and completely disregarded Paypal or Western Union. I know for a fact that these platforms perform services of this nature to his home country.
  6. Tries to force you to talk by phone. There is just something about scammy people in how they want to talk to you on the phone. Sometimes they try this with you on the first contact. Most business can be done by email or fax, so phone is not necessary, especially if it’s international. International correspondence can be done via Skype, but not everyone has it or is comfortable with it. Most authors would rather not talk by phone. Our minds are connected to our fingers rather than our mouths. AS reps get you on the phone and won’t let you off. I took Mark Levine’s advice and watched the movie Boiler Room. It’s dead on. That’s what any scammer will do if they get you on the phone. Don’t want to talk on the phone? You don’t have to. Politely ask to chat by email or something. If they don’t honor that, then breaking connection is perfectly okay. You don’t need that kind of stress in your life.
  7. Multiple Social Media Accounts on the Same Platform. This is not the same thing as having multiple social media accounts on different platforms. Scammers have sock puppets and or variations and/or other aliases in case one of their accounts is sniffed out. Based on a hunch, I looked the guy up since he had sent me a friend request from another Facebook profile with an alternate spelling of his name and the name on his email address he sent me had a different spelling than the Facebook profile we were connected on. What did I find? 3 other Facebook accounts with variations, and that’s all I know of, but that was quite enough, but he didn’t have a Facebook page. He also had two accounts on Linkedin. After I unfriended him, he changed the profile picture on the Facebook account we were connected on. Coincidence? I don’t think so! Who knows if there were sock puppets? There are ways to know but that is a bit to tech for me.

These simple tips can help safeguard you if a bookseller should come your way and not your distributor’s way. So be alert!

Interaction on Goodreads Hazardous to Your Health and Your Career?

By 3 Comments

Interaction on Goodreads

There has been quite a bit of content already about the general bullying, carpet bombing, and all those fun things going on on Goodreads before and after Amazon bought it. A lot of this ire seems to be pointed at authors, but I am beginning to find out more and more that professional reviewers, companies, as well as the casual reviewer are getting burned here.

A very prominent reviewer that I know simply asked a question in a discussion and all fiery hell broke loose. She also owns a company. The “readers” and “reviewers” descended upon her like a school of piranhas and started making incorrect assumptions and accusations against her within seconds and ran her out after tarring and feathering her. That is the point of a discussion among real readers and reviewers, isn’t it? To discuss books? You would think! She had just recovered from a different attack, so this was uncool on so many levels.

Another author I am friends with was discussing how he stays off of Goodreads except for the menial tasks and avoids discussion and interaction due to all mudslinging that goes on there with a newbie author. There has been a lot cleaned up but it’s not all the way clean yet.

I know quite a few businesses and blog tour companies that use Goodreads in their marketing plans in how they shelve books, utilize lists, and post reviews there. Authors and publishers do giveaways with ARCs there in hopes of reviews. They censor their connections so none of this crap happens to them or their clients.

As for me, I only respond to private messages on GR. I shelve books for my company for clients. I list books I would like to personally read and rate and review books that I did read. For author tasks I do the occasional giveaway and list the books there and upload the epub. I censor and respond to friend requests.

There is tremendous potential for the site, but staying clear from the minefield is key. The minefield seems to be with the interaction on the site in the forums and some group discussions. If you don’t know, then steer clear. Never, ever comment on a review on the GR site definitely if it’s negative. There are still some legit negative reviews there, but there are quite a few shill negative reviews. There are some questionable positive ones as well. Some reviews attack the author and have nothing to do with why the reader didn’t like a book. If a reader says the main character is stupid, that’s fine, but not so if the reader says the author is stupid. A negative review saying the formatting is terrible or the editing has a lot to be desired is okay, but it’s not okay to say the author’s face needs to be rearranged with a hammer. Get the idea? Find something that crosses the line? Flag them as inappropriate to the GR staff. Block people who attack you. Never engage.

You can find good readers and reviewers there to friend, but I would check their profile. Do their shelves have unfriendly names? What is in their reviews both positive and negative? What do they read? Are they in questionable groups? Is their review average very, very low? Do they have one star ratings (no reviews) on hundreds and hundreds of books (which they probably didn’t read)? Maybe even go to their site! There have been some top ranking people of Goodreads such as librarians and top reviewers that have done some of these things, so titles mean nothing! So check EVERYBODY out!

This could be advice for readers, reviewers, businesses, and authors alike. Know who you’re friending. Censor your connections. You don’t want to let a fox in the hen house do you?

The questionable people that are making the biggest stink are only a small percentage, but they do a lot of damage. They are known for causing so much trouble that people’s careers have ended, hazards to health, threats to person and property, and the list goes on. Books were even sunk before release because people wrote fraud bad reviews when the ARCs weren’t even sent out. It sucks to have to use street smarts on a book site, but if you have something to loose, then it’s prudent to do so. Stop by STGRB to ID known offenders or report some you know, so others can avoid them too. They’re here for everyone and the founders are reviewers, so it’s not all about authors.

It’s great to interact with readers, but it seems to be safer elsewhere like G+, Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook. GR has tools to find these people on Goodreads as well or you can find people from your book tour on Goodreads on their sites. They may invite you to their groups. That’s a safe way to build relationships there.

Have questions? Comments? A story to share? Leave them below!

Are Retailers Stacking the Deck?

By Leave a Comment

stacking the deck

During the holiday weekend I stumbled across a post that piqued my attention on Facebook. It led me to the blog of Maya Cross and so then I found the daisy chain of other articles and other names. Here are the articles for your reading pleasure (there are more embedded in them as well):

Goodreads

Daily Mail UK (Amazon)

Passive Voice

Hugh Howey

The forerunner of this controversy is Barnes and Noble with Amazon falling in second. Who is to know if other retailers are doing it? Who knows at this point.

If you are an author this should tick you off.

If you are a reader this should tick you off.

The readers have spoken. It’s the readers who really choose who the bestsellers are and who rises and who falls. They are the real gatekeepers. Everything around publishing is about the reader. That’s why writers write, reviewers write reviews, why books and ereaders exist…

The Big 6 do not determine who succeeds. The NYT does not. USA Today does not. It’s the readers–always has been. So why in the world are retailers (and anyone else who is involved) should be stacking the deck in favor of ANYONE else? Why are they hiding what readers want? Even if Angelina Jolie wrote a book, it still shouldn’t be #1 because someone stacked the deck. That should only happen, if the readers say so by talking about it and buying it.

The common denominator is that these authors are indie. Indie authors have discovered there is a glass ceiling despite the readers have spoken. There is also discrimination of genre. This creates the problem of discovering more readers which is the whole idea behind everything an author does. This is not a traditional vs indie author post. At all. If the shoe was on the other foot, then it still wouldn’t be right. There really isn’t a division among authors–we all do the same thing. We all write something, hammer it as close to perfection as possible, and try to find a readership.

This outrage also has a bit of hypocrisy to it as well (see sources).

The point here is it shouldn’t matter where the book comes from or who made it, if the readers want it, and they say it rocks. They are the ones who choose what they want to read, not Random House or NYT or some invisible elitist group. It’s up to the authors to write it or write something new and try to get it discovered. Everyone else are just middlemen who get the product to the buyer (reader) in a pretty package.

From a business standpoint this doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Barnes and Noble has driven another nail into their own coffin by doing this. Neither do we need a monopoly which wouldn’t benefit anyone either. What are we to do? Spread the love. How? Publish and distribute at as many retailers as possible and readers buy at more than one if/whenever they can.

If B&N doesn’t get their act together they may be out of business and it will make Amazon that much closer to world domination (which we don’t need). As long as Amazon has competitors, then it will be in check and be a nice place for authors (their system isn’t perfect). Just another reason why to spread the love.

Authors Beware: Hydra, Alibi, Flirt, and Loveswept

By Leave a Comment

Hydra, Alibi, Flirt, Lovestruck Publishing

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!

More of Author Solutions’ Dirty Secrets Exposed

By 7 Comments

In the second part of this year of 2012 I have been able to discover some more of the skeletons in the closets of the Evil Empire of Self Publishing due to readers leaving comments on the blog and from reading other blogs–and also due to another ridiculous occurrence that I had with my ex publisher Xlibris. All of of this in this post is on top of or in addition to to everything I have already talked about in my previous articles: “My Horrible Xlibris Xperience” and “Author Solutions: The Evil Galactic Empire of Self Publishing”.

Even though I have discovered more of the skeletons in their closets, this is without a doubt not all of them. I suppose I will start off  with the fiasco that occurred with my ex publisher to start off.

Bookkeeping Gone Bad

In the “Evil Empire” article I had already written about royalty theft, failure to report royalties, and customer complaints about such matters, and my my own personal story about a paltry sum I would probably never see since it’s MIA… Well, to make this intro short, this comes back to those missing royalties with an unexpected twist or two.

One day I get something in the mail from Xlibris. I have no idea what in the world it could be, so I open it. It’s a check for $2.88. I take a minute to think about where this money could be coming from, and then I remember about those missing royalties–but I was only expecting $2.00, so this means there was another paperback sold somewhere, so it’s time to  log on and go hunting.

Furthermore, on the check stub they say they are withholding $1.12 because they didn’t have a W-9 form on file from me. Hold the phone. When this book was published in 2009 (yes 3 years ago) I was never sent, instructed,  or there was no mention of such a form–all they ever asked for was my SSN when I made my submission. Any publishers I have worked with since then do this during the publishing process and setup, and I have grown many seasons wiser since I left their poisoned gates, but I digress. Again, this has been three years since the book was published, and they are just now asking for a W-9 form? What the heck? This isn’t even the fun part yet.

I know that half of these royalties came from Amazon since I sold a book there, and I know this because of my Author Central account. I also know when the book was sold–in April of 2011. Back in 2011, I had checked my Xlibris account and there was no record of this book being sold. I check on and off again when I started this blog in early 2012 when I wrote my Evil Empire article, and there is still no record of this book being sold. Considering it lost forever, I don’t waste my time worrying about it since I was making more money and sales from my new publisher and working on getting my second book redone and was having much better success.

So when I receive this check in November of 2012, there is finally a record for this book and one other being sold in June of 2011–at over a year later. WTC? But wait! There’s  more!

In addition to this freak show of bookkeeping, they report the location of the book being sold in Laverne TN. This is the location of Lightning Source, their printer and distributor, and they have this in the FAQ section of their website since this doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. This is the stupidest thing I had ever heard of from a business standpoint, and other publishers do a better job at sales reporting. Wouldn’t anybody in their right mind want to know where and when their books are being sold? Any author I know of wants to know how well their book is selling in each of their channels. I would also surmise that reporting sales in this way would also account for the theft of royalties and possibly screwing people out of what was owed since they won’t report if any books are sold off the Xlibris website if they feel like it.

So with that being said, the only way I knew one of the books was sold on Amazon was through Amazon’s sales reporting. The other, well, I’ll never know, but if I had to guess it would probably be through Barnes and Noble.

Furthermore they don’t issue checks until they meet a $30 threshold unless you terminate your contract. People aren’t told this in the contract BTW–you have to find this info on in the FAQ section of the website which takes looking at the sitemap to find. Just like they said in Alice in Wonderland, “Curiouser and Curiouser”.

Now I wonder if it will take me another year to receive the remaining $1.12 they owe me. We just have to see.

Now the $30 threshold explains why I didn’t receive any money until I terminated my contract, but that is no excuse for why it was never reported until over a year and a half later >:(. Furthermore, that sort of information should be in the contract–that’s what I learned from Mark Levine at any rate. It’s not in the old or the new one–I guess they forgot to add that in when they decided to make a new, more author unfriendly contract…

Black Hat SEO Techniques

I have heard my colleague Mark Levine speak of “White Hat” and “Black Hat” SEO techniques before. The color code should give you an indication of which side of the fence one lies in regards to the other. It goes without saying that ASI engages in black (evil) SEO. Reputable publishers, bloggers, and independent authors engage in white (good) SEO.

In addition to using Google Adwords to embed their ads in every area that authors congregate, these other SEO techniques are the reasons why ASI companies are so easy to find and rank high on search engines when people start looking for self publishing companies. With each imprint of AS all doing this, it’s a no brainer to know why Google search results have become a mine field for the the new, untrained author–I know since I was there once.

This article by David Gaughran contains some wonderful information about some of these Black Hat SEO techniques. Even though the first part of the article speaks of the merging with AS and S&S, the part about AS and thereafter has what you need to know. Pay close attention to the sections where Mr. Gaughran talks about fake people and spam bots. Fake people is where I am going next.

Fake People Oh My!

As you read from the article, Author Solutions is creating fake social media accounts and hordes of spam bots to tout how “wonderful” their services are and to spam social media and blogs and to boost their SEO with black hat techniques. My other colleague Rachel Thompson would be so proud and probably go on another anti-spam rant, but I digress. With that being said this is a form of sock puppetry, and some of the stuff that took place in 2012 should give you an indication of how the online community views such a practice. On one of the customer complaint boards, I saw such a AS sock puppet trying to discredit a customer’s legitimate complaint and try to save face for Author Solutions. Classic sock puppet job.

In addition to the fake accounts, sock puppets, and spam bots, we also have people working for Author Solutions companies under fake identities. I know of one person for certain who has a fake identity, and I will talk about him in a moment. If there is one, then there has to be more. Does that mean that everyone has fake identities or just some of them? Or most of them? I don’t think it matters too much in giving anyone reading this article to stay the heck away from any Author Solutions company regardless if they have Penguin and S&S affiliated with it. Just one fake person being expose is enough for me to raise a question. Also having fake accounts on the Internet also makes them look more suspicious if you ask me.

Miguel Guzman Exposed

In case you are wondering who Miguel Guzman is and how I know him, he is the marketing consultant from Xlibris that made my life a living hell while I was there. If you want to know that story, read my article “My Horrible Xlibris Xperience”. Two readers have come by my blog and told me that this is not the creep’s real name. One reader has also given me a video and photos of said perp which I will share with you. I know you are wondering why I have a photo of Butt-head. Here’s why. I still don’t know the perp’s real name, and it has been said it starts with the letter B. As you can see from the video and pics he looks like Butt-head, and he is a butthead. So now since I know his name is not Miguel, and he isn’t even a Spanish-speaking person, he will now be dubbed Butt-head, and if I remember correctly, he even laughs like said MTV character. Here are the photos and pics as promised for your viewing pleasure.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTQuhllDPDk?feature=player_embedded]

Major Update: This YouTube video has been removed a few weeks after this post was live. I will keep the link here to prove that the video DID exist. YouTube mentions that it was removed since it violated their TOS (click on link) either by complaints by users or Xlibris.

Photo #1

Photo #2

As you can see from the video (taken at face value mind you) Butt-head is Xlibris’ top marketing guy. Both of the readers who left comments mention that he is also their top earning marketing person at this one imprint alone–how much he earns is irrelevant. He brings into Xlibris $150K a month from all the authors he scams as I have been told by others. This is probably give or take, and from my experience with the man, it’s possible  since he likes to push some very expensive marketing services on people, and they are not the top tiering services at this publisher either. His favorites are the 10M targeted email campaign which retails at ~$10K and the Hollywood movie trailer which retails at ~$18K. Xlibris has new “marketing” services all the time and some of them top out at over $100K. Go by their website and poke around sometime if you don’t believe me. His most effective tactics to make people crack is to hound and nag  you until you either cave in or cuss him out on a service and then nag you some more. You know how much everyone hates a nag? He nags more than an old woman and people cave in to make him shut up, but them he will just come back and nag you about something else.

Butt-head’s fake name also appears on customer complaint boards, Google search results all the time. I know this due to my Google search tools and SEO stats for this blog. Due to my SEO for this blog my article about my interaction with Butt-head gets found quite a bit.

On the complaint boards there was another author who was swindled into the trap I had almost been swindled into about two years ago. I was able to get out of it before it was too late, but he wasn’t so lucky, and he wrote about it, and I was able to find it (probably along with thousands of other people). You can find it on the Ripoff Report links at the end of  “Author Solutions: The Evil Galactic Empire of Self Publishing” or buy Google-ing “complaints against Miguel Guzman Xlibris” and looking under the Ripoff Report that comes up.

The only reason why I escaped and wasn’t swindled out of $2500 was because I met and was given great advice by Mark Levine at this time which I acted on without hesitation. If I had hesitated, I would have been screwed. He tried to get 10 Gs from a poor, backwood college grad before this, but that just wasn’t happening–this other scam was round #2 and the last straw for me.

Butt-head or Miguel Guzman or whatever you want to call him is nothing more than a con artist hired to work for a publishing company–the last place you would expect to find such a con artist, and that’s what is going for this guy.  He probably used to scam the elderly or passers by in his home town before coming to work for Xlibris and that’s why he does so well at scamming unwary authors. Xlibris and all Author Solutions’ companies are in this to make money from scamming and ripping off authors plain and simple. It’s just that Miguel is one of their big guns. As Gaughran has said in his article all AS companies and personnel modus operandi  relies on customer (author) ignorance. Butt-head is no different.

From the video he has know called himself Migz. When I saw this I think MiG (yes the Soviet fighter jet) came to mind and his marketing tactics reminds me of the dog-fighting tactics that had to be used against the US tomcats and British fighters, but I digress.

Also from the video he has been crowned “King of Xlibris” either by himself, a big wig at Xlibris, or by Kevin Weiss ( Darth Sideous). Could this be the Darth Maul or Darth Vader of the Empire? Are there any Kings of Trafford, iUniverse, or Authorhouse, etc that anyone needs to know about? Whatever the case, this King of Xlibris needs to be dethroned and sent back down flat on his proverbial arse for all authors’ sakes. Or better yet, the whole Empire needs to be sent crashing down in a hail of flames. Until then, it’s best to keep away and warn any newbie or aspiring author you bump into and help those trying to escape the pit.

The Truth About the Supervisor

The reader who provided me with the video and pics has a couple words about Robert Fuentes, Butt-head’s “supervisor”. This was the same supervisor that I demanded to give me a new marketing consultant and filed  my complaint against Butt-head that I had a hard time pinning down. Come to find out Robert and Butt-head are actually in this together and backing each other up. I sort of had an idea of this two years ago since things just didn’t seem right. Robert is probably not his real name either. So I guess his name can be Beavis, and I would laugh at the irony if he looks remotely like Beavis–they certainly go together like Beavis and Butt-head. He was probably giving Butt-head a “that-a-boy” pat on the back as I was fuming and chewing his butt for a new marketing consultant, but I digress.

I think everyone at Xlibris has fake names since most all of them I had ever spoken to had Hispanic sounding names when they were not any type of American–I could tell they weren’t Hispanics. There is nothing wrong with hiring people from the Philippines for customer service at all. But, there is something definitely wrong with giving them fake identities in which they engage in dishonest business practices.

As for Miguel, how are we sure that Butt-head is not just another fake identity? If I have learned anything from watching the news any length of time when the authorities busts an identity theft ring or a trickster with fake identities, is that they have plenty more to fall back on–but knowing he has one is enough for a cause for worry.

There is one more thing I would like to uncover, but I probably won’t until 2013, and if there is something there I will definitely share it here.

Archway Publishing: Authors Beware

By 12 Comments

Simon and Schuster and Author Solutions

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

By 17 Comments

Xlibris

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!

Review Overkill Syndrome

By 2 Comments

overkill

From discussion groups, forums, and blog posts I have come to notice there seems to be an epidemic among authors that I am calling “Review Overkill Syndrome“. I believe this is one of the things that is causing a lot of the havoc and division in the community and other things that are going on (sock puppets and buying 5 star reviews). It spreads like the Black Death did in the Middle Ages and the mortality rate is just as high!

Because of these things, reviews have lost a lot of their value to the readers. They are learning how to spot fake reviews. Loss of value and gaming the systems are usually the result of overkill.

First things first. I know that reviews are necessary and we need to have them for marketing  (for blurbs and other stuff). We need them to some extent so that other readers will know what other people thought about the book. But then the question becomes: how many are enough for me to sweat bullets over to get? This is usually necessary at the launch stage, but to keep at this after that will drive you mad.

First let’s define the word ‘overkill‘

Noun:
  1. The amount by which destruction or the capacity for destruction exceeds what is necessary.
  2. Excessive use, treatment, or action; too much of something: “animators now face technology overkill”.

Source: Google

First of all, there seems to a pressure to get X reviews in X time. I felt it for myself, but I cannot determine where it comes from. Is it peer pressure? Publisher pressure? Keeping up with the Joneses? After some contemplation before I had come across some of the great insight I have read lately, it began to sink in that this isn’t the only thing that is important to an author. Sure they’re great and all, but reviews aren’t what you exist for and that’s not all that book bloggers, book groups, etc exist for either.

It’s all about the reader in reality. You need reviews to give a perspective reader a good picture of what the book is like and what others thought so they can decide if they want one too. But due to overkill, that may not be enough any longer!

overkill

Review Overkill is so bad that authors’ better judgement have become impaired. Screw events, social media interaction, blogging, etc–it’s all about the reviews, baby (said: positive)! If they get a bad review due to any number of reasons, then a whole new can of worms is opened. Some things authors do for the sake of the illness leads to bad reviews: discourtesy,  rudeness, presumptuousness, etc.   That’s not always the case, but it can be a majority of the time. Other times it just happens.

Symptoms of Review Overkill Syndrome:

  1. Spend 24/7 submitting to reviewers and nothing else
  2. Spamming discussion forums and groups with review requests
  3. If someone talks to you, you beg them for a review
  4. Instead of cherry picking book bloggers and reviewers, you submit to every blogger you come to regardless if they review your genre or not.
  5. Beating down virtual doors if there is a delay or asking for proverbial ups from the waiting period ahead of others for any reason other than ARCs or launch day. (basically abusing a book blogger’s good will)
  6. Complete disregard of other events and functions book bloggers can do for you. i.e. A book blogger is unable to review your book and offers and interview instead–that blogger is cut off and you yell and scream at them since it’s all about the reviews!
  7. You will get those reviews anywhere you can get them and it doesn’t matter. You make your own if you have to.
  8. If people don’t give me those reviews I’ll play dirty if I have to. I’ll get them one way or another.

overkill

Review Overkill Syndrome is a very bad disease and if you don’t get treatment soon your author career could die or be permanently disfigured. Nipping it in the bud early is optimal.

How to treat:

  1. Carefully choose reviewers. Check out this guest post by Naomi Blackburn, a very prominent reviewer, on Terri G. Long’s blog. I am presently drafting a post for BadReadHead Media for choosing reviewers from a different angle.
  2. Get involved in the community and have fun. There is much fun to be had!
  3. Getting involved also can lead to reviews, but don’t  let that be the main focus of the event. Look to connect with others first–especially readers!
  4. Remember that reviews are not for you, they are for the reader. When querying book bloggers, feel free to ask them if they review books with their own opinions as well as the perspective of the target audience. This is optimal for any author, but even more so for children’s, MG, and YA books.
  5. Make yourself accessible to readers. Fan mail, interaction, and things such as that are more rewarding than JUST the book reviews. Look at reviews as favors rather than necessity
  6. Not worrying about book reviews all the time creates more peace of mind. Spend more time perfecting your craft and producing a killer product.

Curing this disease would make happier authors, readers, and reviewers and a better place for everyone. But until then keep a watch out for the symptoms and treat it accordingly.

Author Solutions: The Evil Galactic Empire of Self Publishing

By 5 Comments

Author Solutions the Galactic Empire of Self Publishing

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.

Author Solutions the Galactic Empire of Self Publishing

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 1st 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 author of The Fine Print of Self Publishing

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

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 2nd Edition which came out in 2006. When I read his 3rd 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 3rd 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 4th 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!

Author Solutions the Grim Reaper of Self Publishing

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 2nd Edition. 2006. Excerpt provided by author.

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

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

Smelly Publisher Politics Alert

By Leave a Comment

smelly publisher politics

Today the Twitterverse and the Blogosphere and other worlds of the virtual universe are alive with activity about these stinky publisher politics toward authors. It’s bad for all unwary authors, but even more so for the emerging, fledgling self-publishing authors who don’t know the sharks from the dolphins (I know because I was this type of author once). This post is on an odd day, I know, but I couldn’t wait another minute.

What’s going on?

Penguin (one of the Big Six) just bought out the most evil self publishing (read: vanity) operations in all of Indieauthordom, Author Solutions, from its parent company Bertram Capital. Penguin must see this as publishing helter-skelter, but a lot of established self published authors in-the-know are saying this is a Manson Family Massacre or a Match-Made-in-Hell.

Here are a couple blog articles for you to whet your appetites that I found on Twitter and Digg, and there’s a lot of good stuff in the comments too! Digital Book World and IndieReader

smelly publisher politics

Author Solutions for anyone who doesn’t know is the scummiest collection of companies I have ever had the unprivilege of working with (Xlibris branch). I know what these people are capable of firsthand, and I have found out about and learned about more horrible things since I left, but that’s a post for later.

Does Penguin really know what’s going on there and why they were able to rake in $100M in sales last year? I can tell you it’s not by great integrity or wonderful customer service. If so, this makes the whole thing even smellier. The only thing they must be seeing is dollar signs and a large base of authors who are being pillaged left and right. Penguin probably doesn’t know how much AS companies’ production levels suck or how overpriced they are in their offerings, or they simply don’t care. Will Penguin make their money back and then some or will they loose revenue

Also please note, dear friends, do not be fooled into thinking you’ll be getting a Penguin contract by publishing at and Author Solutions company! Author Solutions is 110% guaranteed to use this partnership to lure unsuspecting authors into the deathtrap. This could be a two-way exploitation. They use all kinds of misleading advertising to dupe unsuspecting authors, so why not? It will work the same way as Penguin’s “self publishing” company Book Country. I went to Book Country’s website and graded them with my quiz on “Does My Publisher Suck” post and BC scores a “Suck” on my and probably many other indie authors’ quiz from those I talked to.  Publishing with BC doesn’t secure you a Penguin contract either. You’re better off going DIY or working with a reputable “hybrid” or POD publisher. Author Solutions and all of its imprints all suck too as far as I and many other authors are concerned.

I don’t hold a grudge  against these people; I know their stinky practices, and I am a good, concerned neighbor wanting to warn others from getting ripped off.

So in other words a big commercial publisher has just purchased a self publishing giant that had been gobbling up other larger self publishing companies who have been gobbling up tons of authors. Authors and their readers are on the bottom of the food chain, folks. Stay away from these people. Penguin is creating “hybrid” publishers gone bad (another post for later). Could Penguin be doing this to get ahead of its five competitors in the publishing industry? Their reputation may have just been tarnished by buying up such a shady company.

Will AS prices go from ‘through the roof’ and into the stratosphere? Possibly. Indie authors and other publishing professionals, bloggers, and niche experts are watching.

Again, just stay away.