Improvisations on Reality

And another vanity press, this one from Australia, makes its way into the Writers Beware spotlight.

Dymocks definitely presents a bad deal. If I thought Book Country was bad, Dymocks’s D-Publishing has you forking over $997 (Aussie dollars) for what Book Country would charge $549 – setting up your cover, formatting your files, uploading and release.

It’s a damn rip-off, of course, and its contract is effectively unbreachable unless the press fails to publish (which I’m sure it will not), but the press can terminate it at any time. It’s also exclusive, which means that they effectively reserve your first publication copyright, which is an author’s primary asset.

Once again, let me reiterate a known fact: set-up of cover, format of file, and the upload thereof are one-time processes. Not for nothing, but I’m about to contract a client for a fraction of the above cost to do the exact same thing, save the upload. Guess what: my client keeps his copyright. He keeps his royalties. I do my part only in the form of document formatting, and I see absolutely no reason that a one-time set-up charge is worth that much. Being an independent contractor/designer, I could do that, but guess what keeps me from it: this little thing called business ethics.

Victoria Strauss says, “The pricing isn’t horrible, by middleman self-pub standards.”

I beg to differ. If you’re really keen on paying someone to do the formatting and cover set-up, Lulu is cheaper. So is a third-party contractor, and turning a file into e-book is not that difficult. There are, once again, alternatives. Heck, if you’re willing to go that route, again, iUniverse gives you a lot more bang for your buck in terms of developing the author’s branding, and I’m pretty confident that they would be able to do international.

But the one thing that I like about this article is that Ms. Strauss thoroughly fillets the contract. It is a bad deal, top to bottom. I cannot think of a good reason to sign anything with those people, especially if you consider that there are, once again, alternatives that would allow you to keep your rights to the work.

What I dislike, however, is the utter lack of differentiating between a self-publisher and a vanity press.

Again, see above quote. Middleman self-pub standards? Self-publishing has been created for the purpose of cutting the middleman out. As in, to NOT pay someone for something that the author could take care of on his or her own. So why is there any reference to a middleman here? Publishing medium is a more accurate way to put it, if I have to get persnickety.

Vanity presses take money up front. That’s the only litmus test for self-pub vs. vanity press. You’re not “paying someone to publish” with self-pub, you’re just doing the work on your own. Reimbursement of raw materials is doing business, but after the initial proof copy, a proper way to cover costs is, like the traditional publisher, to have those costs taken out of royalties. A vanity press, like D Publishing, and like Book Country, is charging you for use of services, and on top of that, D Pub is keeping your rights, to boot. And for how long is that, precisely?

Additionally, in comments, Victoria Strauss is asking why the people aren’t as angry or taking her to task like with the last time. Simple answer: this particular press is in Australia. An enormous percentage of the authors who had lambasted Book Country before are American. This affects them directly. And most authors know to beware of foreign presses bearing contracts, so if it will not affect them directly, they would not stir up as much of a furor as what had happened with Book Country. Book Country was set forward by a seemingly reputable publishing house, but upon careful review, it is nothing more than a money grab at the author’s expense.

Let’s call a spade a spade here: a vanity press is a vanity press. Self-publishing and vanity presses are not the same thing. Kindle Direct Publishing, being free to use up front, is not a vanity press. CreateSpace, with the only real set-up cost being the cost of raw materials in proof printing, which can be avoided by an issued code, and is comparably minuscule as opposed to almost a thousand Aussie dollars in this case, is not a vanity press either. Book Country is a vanity press, and so is Dymocks’s “self-pub” option.

And, while it’s not illegal to run a vanity press, I find the practice disgusting. Basically, it’s counting on the author to not do the research and hand over money and their rights. And while a lot of authors will do their research and select an option that’s suitable for their needs, whether this requires money or not, there will be some who will fall for it, and that is how a vanity press profits.

Again, if you want to argue the “paying to publish” angle, what’s worse: handing over 30% to Amazon, or handing over 85% to a publishing house? Even if you do end up getting picked up by a publishing house, there’s no telling that the book will ever make it off the mid-list. At the very least, if your book doesn’t do well and you’re a self-pub, you don’t have to wrestle your rights away to try another avenue in publication.

K.G.

Is not what it appears.

Once again, I have to touch back onto Gayle’s piece on this. And as it turns out, there had been a good bit of brouhaha from self-published authors about this.

And I think this will be the first time I have a quibble with the people of Writers Beware, who ask “Why the hate?” and point out that the distinction between self-publication and vanity press is so blurred that there is little difference, at the core of it.

I disagree.

The “minimum fee” from Book Country is $99 up front just for the e-book and they take 30% off the royalty. While that, in and of itself, is normal (Amazon takes the same cut off their e-sales), bear in mind that this is on top of the up front fee, and is on top of the royalties made from non-Book Country sales.

Let’s get started.

What does Book Country offer?

Check out the laundry list at this link. And those, by the by, are up front fees for the services. They give you the kit and the template, and after this point, the author is on his/her own.

What are the distribution options? All e-readers are covered, yes. The print copies, however, are curious: they’re offered, but I don’t see distribution channels apart from Amazon. Do they offer bookstores as a channel, because Book Country is Penguin-owned? I don’t see it. Do they list through B&N? I can’t tell you, although I think that the wide-distribution option includes it.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a vanity press, and contrary to the Writers Beware post (and this is by no means a dig against Writers Beware; it’s a blog with excellent resources that safeguard authors; if there’s something amiss, they know about it), it is not comparable to self-publication.

Just from experience, let me contrast the experience I’ve had with self-publication.

What most people don’t know is that I’ve considered iUniverse as a publishing option before I had decided to go with CreateSpace. The last thing that I would deny is that this too is a vanity press, but again, this was in early 2007, when I was only beginning to do the research on what publishing is like. But look at the services that are bundled in. Individually, you can get a hit-or-miss price on any of these services, and few publishers out there offer one-on-one support. iUniverse actually develops your knowledge about the industry, works out book signings, and basically takes over the legwork for you, including (for the advanced package) social media. The huge drawback of all of this is an absence of e-publication; otherwise, this would be the sort of a vanity press that people would consider. That and, of course, the costs are astronomical.

I ended up going with CreateSpace, which is an Amazon-owned company. This is not a vanity press, but this is a print-on-demand press. What does this mean? It basically means that your book is printed only when it’s bought; there are no copies sitting around in a warehouse anywhere. The thing about CreateSpace is that, for the most part, it is no cost.

“But wait!” you may say. “You need to buy proofs!”

Or you can publish without the proof, which cuts out the proofing cost altogether.

CreateSpace offers services at an additional charge, but the most important thing about that is that they are not required. You can get a professional editorial review, but if you have your own reviewer, you don’t have to get it. You can go Pro plan for expanded distribution channels, but Amazon is included by default, and if you don’t want to go Pro plan, you don’t have to. The proofing process (which I recommend, personally) is clear-cut; you’re given clear guidelines, and a cover creator, and templates if you want to do it on your own. They routinely offer free proof codes, which are a fantastic resource, and because a hard copy print is a wonderful thing for a new author to have. But, again, you can skip it. Total cost, if you’re a DIY self-pub author going through CreateSpace is…zero.

Ain’t that something.

Here’s something else: e-publication is free as well. If you go through Kindle, which is right now the industry leader, then it’s free. PubIt.com is the e-publisher for Nook. Smashwords is a distributor for e-books that makes them available to the Everything Else crowd: Kobo, Sony, Apple as well as formats friendly to the Kindle and Nook.

I respect that not all authors are do-it-yourselfers. I understand that. However, when something bills itself as self-publication that isn’t, by all definition, that’s when I get my hackles up. A common term for this is bait and switch. Moreover, it’s the simple fact that the company offering this, Penguin Publishing, has a vested interest in this sort of activity. Consider this: self-publication started up as a way for the author to cut out the middleman of agent and publishing house and do the legwork on their own. This is a publishing house basically inserting itself into the process to make the money off the author as opposed to the reader, and the tradeoff is not worthwhile. Nowhere on the site and in the publishing guidelines did I see Book Country saying that they will basically take your things and work them out for you, with the sole exception being the highest-end option, worth $549. You’re still doing the legwork on your own for the other options, for the most part. That‘s the problem here, and that’s what makes it clearly a vanity press as opposed to a legitimate self-pub.

And, not for nothing, but I offer document formatting and cover design services as part of KG Creative Enterprises. For $550, I’d not only do both of those but do a read-through of the book and toss up a formal review on the blog and give a signed one for the author to use as part of their press release. Heck, I’d help with the press release. And as part of my business, I make sure, egregiously, that it’s done the way my client likes it.

Back to topic, though. Again, what got me about the whole vanity-press-masking-as-self-publisher bit is that Penguin was banking on – and rightly, as it turned out – on writers not knowing the difference between the two. A little bit of research would tell you everything you need to know. The old law of money flows to the author had never been rescinded in the world of publishing, in any medium.

Now, kindly also explain to me why Book Country is taking an additional 30% off the royalty made through Amazon, and other distribution channels. Amazon already takes its cut. So Book Country takes 30% on top of that? What the hell, since when? And what, precisely, is that for, since the bulk of Book Country’s services are still self-formatted and uploaded, on top of the exorbitant fees?

Nice.

There is one interesting, kind of vaguely positive thing about it:  one of the biggest players in traditional publishing had acknowledged, publicly, that self-publication is a viable avenue for aspiring authors. It’s something that self-published authors had known for a while. However, the truly disgusting bit about it is that it’s a show of contempt for the self-published author trying to make it. Penguin hadn’t kept up with its audience, and once it became clear that self-pubs have something going, Penguin moved to try and make money off the authors as opposed to the readers. Last time I checked, that’s not the way it works.

Truth is, self-publication is as lucrative as its marketing. To repeat a known truth: publishing houses have a marketing team on hand. A self-pub author is on his/her own, plus anyone he or she may hire. And now that self-publishing is gathering steam and becoming both a lucrative and a working proposition for prospective authors, the traditional publishing houses are looking for a new way to get revenue that they are otherwise losing to those who are making a lucrative cut off Amazon.

Also, the whole changing prices only once every 60 days on Amazon? No offense, but that’s bull. Amazon only takes 3-4 days to publish the new price. What’s with the 60-day holdup? I can think of no good excuse to delay a royalty that long, excepting perhaps that it didn’t meet the minimum threshold for repayment.

Again I say: vanity press. It is deeply different from self-publication. Self-publication is either free or at no cost, and the author has full control over royalty distributions. And, if marketed tirelessly, it can and will be a profitable endeavor. Penguin is effectively making money on the possibility that a writer wouldn’t research the market and methodic of self-publication before going for it. And the truth is, some writers want to see their name in print so much that they don’t research the market. And that’s where the trouble begins.

Aspiring authors reading this blog: steer clear of Book Country. It is NOT what it appears to be. Do your market research and ask other self-pubs about other options.

K.G.

ETA:

Post by David Gaughran on this topic

Post by best-selling self-published author J.A. Konrath on the same.

Brilliant writing on both; check them out.