Re-blogged by Erika M Szabo: The Warning Signs of Vanity Publishers

Wolves in sheep's clothing

Re-blogged by Erika M Szabo

I wrote this article on my website in February and I hope author and especially aspiring authors will benefit from reading about the warning signs.

Re-blogged:
"Vanity publishers contact me, and I assume they contact as many authors they can find, from time to time either on my website or on the phone (which supposedly hidden on social sites, but I guess made accessible to those who pay for the list)

​They hire great salespeople, I have to give them that!

I had a message and a pleasant female voice stated that she read my book, loved it and would like to offer a publishing contract. Not knowing where she was calling from I called her back.
"Which book did you like?" I asked.
I heard papers shuffling and keyboard clicking and then she said, "The Ancestors' Secrets trilogy."
"What did you like about the series?"
"Uhm… I really like the story and I'd like to publish it for you. It has great potentials and you will make a large profit after we publish and market your book."

It was obvious she knew nothing about my books and was trying to find a naïve and willing pigeon to make a large profit.

Lately, since self-published or first time publishing authors are more aware of the pitfalls of vanity publishers, they often pose as a traditional publisher.

When asked, they vehemently deny that they are vanity publishers.
"We don’t accept everyone who submits their manuscript." They'd say.
Yeah, right! They're hounding authors all over the net."

CONTINUE READING

Publishers and Publishing Help

You wrote a fantastic story. Now What?

There are many selling sites where you can self-publish your book.

However, it takes a long time to learn the requirements such as correct book formatting and uploading the manuscript, have an attractive book cover made, register copyright, and when the book is published, promote and market your book. Not every author has the time to learn the process.

Traditional publishing:

When a reputable publisher accepts you book, they do every step of the publishing process and they don't charge any fees. Your book is published under the publisher's name and they pay you the agreed percentage of the royalty collected from sales. Traditional publishers make sure your book is edited and they market the book because their investment return depends on the high number of sales.

Vanity publishers:

They accept any book and offer publishing packages ranging from $2,000 to $5,000 or more. They format your book, create book cover (usually don't edit) and publish your book under their name and pay you royalty. Vanity publishers are not interested in marketing and selling the book, they make their profit by selling the publishing packages to authors and the books are usually priced very high, therefore there is very little chance of getting sales.

Self-publishing services:

Publishing services provide assistance to authors who can't or don't want to learn the entire publishing process. Some services do only certain steps of the publishing process such as formatting or book cover design.

Others do the entire process. The author gives them the edited or unedited manuscript and they every step with the author's approval. they publish the book under your selling site account, under your name, and you collect 100% of the royalties earned.

When you have the manuscript ready, shop around and find the best way to publish it. Author support groups are great to get word of mouth recommendations from those who worked with the services before. Best of luck with your new books!

Golden Box Books is a Publishing Service Provider.

Click to read our portfolio below and visit the WEBSITE

Publishing Resources for Authors by Erika M Szabo

Help for self-publishing authors

by Erika M Szabo

The publishing business is changing.

With smaller publishers closing their doors because the investment into marketing is too high to make a decent profit, or because they can't compete with big publishers, low book prices, and free giveaways created by self-published authors.

The large publishers are cautious and choosy because they want to publish only potential bestsellers. I've seen a publisher putting it on their submission page: "We'll consider self-published books that sold at least 500 copies."

Yeah, it would be profitable to publish a book that is popular already, but then why would the author need a publisher if their book is selling so well?

Authors who decide to self publish:

There is a lot of help on the net and you can learn the publishing process step by step.

Editing:

There are a few great editing programs out there. I've tried a few and although they provide great help, correct grammar and catch improper word usage, nothing replaces a good human editor. It's worth to invest in editing and have your story corrected and polished by a good editor.

Book formatting:

There are formatting programs you can use but I'm partial to manually format books in MS word. I used the Kindle formatter recently and although the book looked okay on the formatter program's screen, there were a lot of issues after I uploaded the Mobi file to KDP. I ended up reformatting the book manually.

In this video you can see the formatting errors authors make.

Formatting errors

 

A little help for authors who don't know how to use the formatting options in MS word.

(Sorry for the bad recording, my PC is ancient and I really need a new microphone) Authors can download a free, formatted template from my website.

Download the MS word template here: https://www.authorerikamszabo.com/store/p238/Formatted_Book_Template.html

Need help preparing your book for publishing? GBB Publishing Services: https://www.goldenboxbooks.com/

YouTube has many educational videos, this is a pretty good one that explains how to format in MS word.

Correct formatting

Book cover design:

If you use Photoshop, this tutorial is pretty useful.



Marketing and promotion help:

This video explains how to set up your AMS ad

This tutorial is helpful when you advertise on Facebook:



Getting help with the steps you need help with:

There are a lot of Publishing Services you can use. Do your research, compare prices, and get recommendations from fellow authors.

Beware of vanity publishers that promise to do everything but deliver very little. They rely on the authors to pay for everything, therefore, they have little interest in selling books to other than the authors. Don't fall for their great salesperson's well designed speech.
https://www.authorerikamszabo.com/my-thinking-board/the-warning-signs-of-vanity-publishers

Research Publishing Services that tell you exactly what you're getting for the price you pay.

https://www.goldenboxbooks.com/book-publishing.html

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