Too good to be true…
If you happen to read the NY Times Book Review, you might notice a full page ad with lots of thumbnail cover images from various print-on-demand outfits (PODs)—iUniverse, Author House, Xlibris, etc. If you’re thinking about publishing your first book, you might say, “Geez, I should choose one of these PODs—they advertise in the NY Times Book Review.” Yes, they’ll do that for your book too. What’s in your wallet? In other words, get ready to take out a second mortgage if you’re lucky enough to own a house in this economic environment. And, by the way, these PODs are all associated with Author Solutions, which has a multiple class action lawsuits pending.
Times have changed for The Times. “All the news that’s fit to print” doesn’t necessarily apply to the ads that appear in the venerable paper; they’ll advertise just about anything because they need ad money to survive. Just recently a full-page ad for one of the drug companies named in a Sixty Minutes expose about companies who contribute to the opioid epidemic appeared (it was PR damage control with complicity from The Times, of course: “We’re fighting the opioid epidemic”).
CNN does this too, mimicking their right-wing brethren—you might have seen the ads for Page Publishing among the reverse mortgage and ambulance-chaser ads. If you wonder how a publisher can afford an ad on CNN, you’re not alone. Not even Big Five publishers have ads on CNN. Page Publishing is an old-fashioned vanity press: $295 gets your manuscript in the door, and, if they “accept” it, $3200 over ten months gets your book “published.” They might do a good job in giving you a polished product; I don’t want to find out. For my “indie” books (not vanity as much as Big Five authors and publishers say it), I never spend that much, counting cost centers like editing, formatting, and covert art, and even adding in PR and marketing.
Do The Times and CNN realize that they’re pushing false advertising? OK, “false” might be too strong a word; let’s use “misleading.” Authors starting out, or even seasoned ones wanting to try something different, often don’t realize that these services are too good to be true. “Misleading” means that they’re still dishonest and rank below places like Kirkus and BookBub who are completely honest about the exorbitant prices they’ll charge for their services.
What about that author’s “friend,” Amazon? Go to Smashwords to see CEO Mark Coker’s expose about egregious Amazon practices. Here’s an addendum: Amazon’s nasty little bots are eliminating book reviews, many of them obtained by authors in the internet trenches working hard to scrounge up a few. That’s becoming harder—hence my word “egregious.” (I recently sent out queries for a review of A. B. Carolan’s The Secret of the Urns to bookbloggers in the Indie View list—nary a bite so far.) I’ve lost reviews myself, and have had my own reviews rejected by Amazon because they’re too long (silly me to suppose a review that’s a bit more than the usual two- or three-line review that appears on their website). Many other authors have lost reviews. The replies from Amazon’s “help team” are classic examples of zero-content excuses.
Amazon’s POD Create Space offers no real advantage over those listed in the NY Times’s ads. Many of their ebook advertising features are limited to book exclusively sold on Amazon. The retailer isn’t a friend to authors. On Smashwords, I can launch an ad campaign for an ebook, and the sale price gets passed on to affiliated Smashwords retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, and others). Amazon has no affiliated retailers, so having your book exclusive there takes away potential customers you might want to reach out to (iBooks readers are my main customers now). Amazon’s ACX program is another one to avoid.
What’s going on? Publishers, retailers, and marketing gurus are competing for unsuspecting authors, that’s what. To entice you, they’re making offers too good to be true. I’ve been tempted to try BookBub, for example; many authors tell me how great it is. Too good to be true once you see what they charge, and they’re tight with Amazon: your book has to be on sale at that retailer, and you need some number of five-star reviews (that completes the vicious circle an author can be trapped in).
A lot of the too-good-to-be-true promises come in the publishing end game of PR and marketing. Page Publishing spans the whole spectrum. So do most of the old PODs featured in The Times’s ads, because they offer “marketing packages” (they amount to “spamming the internet universe”—maybe that’s where iUniverse got its name?). Book publishing is like any other activity where money is involved. You have to be a smart business person. Everyone’s guilty until proven innocent. And you don’t need to spend $3200 to publish a book. Probably more time than money, unless you’re one of the old mares and stallions in the Big Five’s stables. In fact, if you decide to traditionally publish, you won’t have any up-front costs at all (and small presses will provide more TLC than any Big Five publisher).
Whether you traditionally publish or go indie, you will be spending time and money on PR and marketing. In both cases, it’s YOUR money. Spend it wisely. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is, so avoid it like the plague. In general, if something seems too good to be true, it’s probably not worth it—that’s a mantra for our times.
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The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan. This novel bridges between the “Detectives Chen and Castiblanco Series” and the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy.” The plot revolves around a government program that makes sure elderly ex-government employees don’t divulge national secrets. The main character is from the first series; the villain starts there as a nemesis of the detectives and does his dirty deeds in many of my tales, a modern Moriarty if you will. Mystery, suspense, thriller? You’ll have to decide. Available on Amazon and Smashwords and all its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc). Great summer reading!
In libris libertas….
