Just How Good Are Those Self-Publishing Companies?

Anyone who is an aspiring author dreams of the day they can see their book in print, whether it'd be a fictional novel, non-fiction, autobiography or memoir, maybe even a coffee-table sized photography book. Maybe the writer secretly dreams of fame, glory and recognition and that their literary contribution to the world will somehow single them out and achieve the same popularity and success as the better known top and best-selling authors, such as Stephen King, Anne Rice, or who knows, maybe even J.K. Rowling herself.

Trying to get published however, can be a daunting, exasperating experience filled with frustration, not to mention possible constant rejection. Each and every year, thousands but upon thousands of manuscripts are sent to the more traditional publication houses, such as Random House, Bantam, Harper Collins and so forth. To further complicate things, many such publication companies, won't even look at a manuscript unless one is represented by a literary agency. There is such a wonderful array of truly talented writers, but that's just it, that's the problem...there are a lot of us writers out there. I do consider myself a writer/author, and yes, I have a few novels "in the works" and long to be published once my novels are done. While my own "plan" may be the harder one to go for, with a lot more hassles and complications, I'm planning to give it a go and will go the route by submitting my manuscripts to one of the larger publication companies, rather than go the self-publishing path.

However, since the competition of so many writers is so fierce, rather than make the attempt to publish at the more traditional publication firms, more and more authors are turning to the self-publishing alternative. There are some pros and cons involved about self--publishing one's work, and one must be aware that there are a variety of self-publishing company "types".

First, there is the completely free self-publishing market, such as that offered by Lulu.com and CafePress.com. For both places, one registers with either website to set up a "storefront" that will display your finished book and it's cost to the public. There are no set up fees to create one's storefront, although, CafePress does offer a more "customized" premium storefront, beginning at $6.95 per month. There are also no initial set up fees to publish one's book, however, Lulu.com does offer more extensive marketing options that can add up quick.

For both CafePress.com and Lulu.com, one can choose the size of their book, such as 5" x 8" Standard Paperback size, to the larger 8.5" x 11". One has a variety of options as well such as choosing certain templates and formats for how the book will look, from choosing for the cover design, typeface and fonts, chapter sections and so forth, plus even a choice of several book binding options such as saddle stitch, coil bound, casewrap, bound editions, as well as hardcover books complete with dust jackets.

After one has chosen the style of their book, and have uploaded their manuscript, both companies then have a "base" price, that is the cost of how much each book will cost to be printed up. And the beauty of this is that you don't pay a cent toward this cost, but all books are "printed on demand", that is one doesn't have to order a certain amount of books to be published and worry about distribution, but are only printed up whenever someone orders the book directly from your storefront website.

What one then does is to choose just how much of a profit they wish to earn from the book by adding the profit cost. So say the base price of a 100-page book with a bound binding is $10.00 at CafePress.com, and you wish to make $5.99 from the book, you add that $5.99 to the base price, and the sale price of the book then becomes a total of $15.99.

So far, as mentioned at this point, you haven't spent one cent in getting this book published. But now one has the dilemma of how to market and promote their book. CafePress.com doesn't really have any extensive means of promoting or marketing your book. The only way one can market one's book is to self promote either through word of mouth, that is emailing one's friends and family, or by providing a link from one's own website, including one's blog site. If you really want to go all out, you can buy a certain number of copies, then have a local bookstore put it on their shelves, but naturally the store will no doubt what a "piece" of the profits themselves.

Lulu.com gets a little more extensive by providing a bunch of "freebie" marketing tools for instance, such as creating a "widget" that one can place on their own website, whether you have a MySpace page, Facebook, blog and so forth. A person clicks onto this widget and it will take them directly to your Lulu.com "storefront". However, as with anything, if you truly want to sell your book big time, now one has to consider marketing that book and for that, Lulu.com has several on-line marketing options, such as creating a "google" ad that will be on display on a Google Search page and one can buy this service for as little as $45.00 to allow for 30 Clicks to your storefront.

The downside of this relatively free self-publishing service may be obvious. These books are printed "as is", meaning that there is no editor proof-reading the text of your book to discover any typos or grammatical errors, that is unless, you wish to take advantage of Lulu.com's Editor Analysis for a fee of $300.00. Depending on how elaborate you want to get to get your book published by Lulu.com there are other marketing fees. Their total publishing package, which includes Editor's Analysis, Book Formatting (if you don't wish to design the book yourself) and custom cover which goes for a total of $500.00. There are even additional fees if one wants a registered ISBN number, On-line Advertising, that I previously mentioned for the Google Ads, and for $600.00 they can even create a website just to promote your book. With all these fees, you can see, why most people simple just go with the basic free option for self-publishing with a place like Lulu.com or CafePress.com.

As you can imagine, there are scores of other self-publishing places, whether vanity press or other publish on demand sites companies, and almost all of them, one does have to pay for, not only the "privilege" of being published, but in some cases, they will only publish your book with a specified number of copies published which adds to the costs involved. It is advisable to really hunt around and read the "fine print" of exactly what your options are.

To give an example, one self-publishing site, is Outskirts Press that offers the writer several package deals of how extensive you wish to go with your book. They have their "Diamond", "Ruby", "Sapphire", "Pearl" and "Emerald" packages for publication of your book. To give you an example for instance, their "Diamond" package starts at $999.00, which includes an ISBN barcode, wholesale distribution to places like Amazon.com, customized webpage, and customized covers and interior formatting. What's not included is an editing service which goes for an additional 1.4 cents per word for basic editing, to a more extensive editing job that goes for more. Another $99.00 charge is added if you wish copyright registration. On their website, you can download their price list for all services.

If by chance you think these fees are a lot at Outskirts, they are in a sense nothing compared to a top notch self-publishing company such as Xlibris, which has a tie with the Random House publishing company. This publishing company does have a very basic plan called the "Advantage Package" which goes for a mere $299.00 all the way to their "Platinum Package" that goes for a whopping $12,999 but with this plan, as you can imagine, just about everything is available, including editing services, U.S. Copyright and Library of Congress Registration, registration with Amazon.com, Borders.com, BarnesandNoble.com, a public Author and Book Webpage, and the ability to consult with an Xlibris design consultant in the appearance of your book.

For other basic reviews of some other print or publish on demand, self-publishing sites, I would like to refer you to Publish On Demand Website which includes a listing of seventeen publishers, including a rating which are recommended, such as Xlibris, Aventine Press, Llumina Press, and which to avoid, such as Action Tales, and Book Publisher. This website review of publishers also gives the basic rates of what these places charge in fees, whether they are selective in what type of submissions of manuscripts are accepted, and whether the publishing rights are non-exclusive, meaning that it's possible to publish the book elsewhere, to exclusive where it is in their domain and can't be published elsewhere, that is not unless you want them to sue you.

Now a word of caution. Really, really do some research on any self-publishing company and take particular interest if anything "negative" has been written up about them, particularly those that do not charge any fees. One such place I've read a number of very negative reviews about, is Publish America. Unlike other self-publishing companies where there are certain fees involved, Publish America doesn't charge any fees at all, and you can't believe the negative comments I read about this company. One of the best sources for information about Publish America is Absolute Write a writer's forum I happen to belong to. For instance on the Publish America website itself, it claims that it's a highly selective book publishing site, and carefully reviews each manuscript and rejects about 80% of submissions. According to Absolute Write, this is not so...in other words, they accept anything, good, bad, to downright terrible, and to prove this, a prank was played with the creation of a book written by a group of writers who decided to write the worse book possible and called "Atlanta Nights" by Travis Tea. One can even download this 237 page book at PublishAmerica Sting

Absolute Write also exposes the fact that Publish America does not edit the book, save for the manuscript going through a spellcheck, but in the process often adds typos, nor do they edit for grammatical mistakes. I point this out as I've seen a few publications by Publish America myself and there were typo and grammatical errors galore. Also, many major on-line book websites now refuse to accept any books published by Publish America, such as Barnes and Noble, and none of these books are shelved in traditional bookstores either since they are a publish or print on demand type of book, not like traditional book publishers who run copies in the hundreds or thousands for book store distribution. There's also no promotion of the published book, leaving the author to completely self-promote and market their own book. (1)

So if you are an aspiring author and wish to see your prized manuscript in print, you do have many options to you, especially in the self-publication of your book, from going the relatively free route like CafePress.com or Lulu.com, to paying extensive fees for the publication of your book. Just remember, do some research, and especially become aware of any negative insights or reputation any self-publishing company may have. As for me? Comes the time I publish my book, I think I'll stick to the old fashioned way of getting my book published, that is the more established and traditional publishing companies.

CafePress Self-Publishing

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/books.aspx
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/help/learn_book.aspx#marketing_techniques

Lulu.com Self-Publishing

http://www.lulu.com/en/products/

(Marketing Tools for Lulu.com)
http://www.lulu.com/en/services/online_marketing/

Other Self-Publishing Markets

Outskirts Press
http://outskirtspress.com/index.php

Xlibris

http://www2.xlibris.com/requestkit/index.asp?src=goo&gkw=xlibris+content&gclid=CLy94fnDz5MCFQrPGgodWRWhig

http://www2.xlibris.com/pubservices/index.asp

Articles about Self-Publishing

http://www.publishondemand.net/article.asp?ArticleID=2

Writer Beware Articles/Scams

http://www.sfwa.org/BEWARE/printondemand.html

Cautions About Publish America

http://www.wizardessbooks.com/html/PA_stories.htm

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10211(1)

http://www.lisamaliga.com/AtlantaNightsLosAngelesTimes.htm