Penny One Publishing

Publishing in Today’s Market (i.e. so-called scams) December 12, 2010

It is certainly a shame that so many of today’s publishers are nothing more than ‘vanity publishers.’ As soon as a new author is focused on getting that hard-copy book, they become obsessed with POD, vanity, and like publishing companies.  There are loads of costs and fees and I have never heard of anyone recouping these costs through book sales.  Once authors sell copies to their friends and family (10-20 books on avg.), that is it.  The dream is over.  I see over and over that the authors become disenchanted with their ‘publishing’ company.  When in reality, the hard truth is that you weren’t scammed, you were just naive.  Perhaps looking through those rose-colored glasses of success and delusions of grandeur.

Many new authors also think that getting a book in print guarantees them success and sales.  This is absolutely not true.  They are fooling themselves if they think it is.  Authors are so hung up on getting a hard copy of their book, that they seem to lose sight of the newest in publishing trends, primarily digital. The digital movement only makes sense for so many reasons: earth friendly, ease of storage, ease of access to published materials, and costs far less to the consumer.

More important than all the aforementioned facts, is your copyright.  As soon as you place your book with a publishing house, no matter what they say, THEY own the copyright.  So, for instance, if your novel does become a huge success and Hollywood comes knocking, the movie rights no longer belong to you exclusively.  These copyright arrangements also do not have the rights of surviorship for your family.  So now if you, God forbid, pass away from all the excitement of your book sales, your surviving kin will not have any copyright claims.

That being said I must call attention to several articles with regard to publishing house scams.  They may seem like a good deal to authors, however, the only one who makes money is the publishing house.  For example:

Publish America

AuthorHouse

Xlibris Iuniverse and Others

When choosing which company to print your book, keep in mind that they will be getting paid for their efforts.  Your best bet in this market is to self-publish digitally (Kindle or Ipad).  This is the only way you will not lose money.