Writer Beware: Penguin And Author Solutions

David Gaughran throws down the gauntlet in his excellent blog post The Author Exploitation Business. He writes:

[Being a writer is] a dream job, and like any profession with a horde of neophytes seeking to break in, there are plenty of sharks waiting to chew them to bits.

... [M]any organizations who claim to help writers, to respect them, to assist them along the path to publication are actually screwing them over.

Before the digital revolution made self-publishing viable on a wide scale, the dividing lines were easier to spot. Traditional publishers paid you if they wanted to buy the rights to your novel. Self-publishers were people who filled their garages with books and tried to hawk them at events. And vanity presses were the scammers, luring the unsuspecting with false promises and roundly condemned by self-publishers and traditional publishers alike.

Today it’s very different. The scammy vanity presses are owned by traditional publishers who are marketing them as the “easy” way to self-publish – when it’s nothing more than a horrifically expensive and terribly ineffective way to publish your work, guaranteed to kill your book’s chance of success stone dead, while emptying your bank account in the process.

The target for David's ire is Penguin, owners of the biggest shark out there: Author Solutions. His article is a must read for any writer.

Question: Have you ever had dealings with Author Solutions? If so, what was your experience?

Other articles you might like:

- Chuck Wendig On Finding Your Voice
- Creating The Perfect Sleuth
- How Many Books Would You Have To Write To Quit Your Job?

Photo credit: "Robbery not allowed" by Arenamontanus under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Simon & Schuster Partners With Author House To Create Archway Publishing

Simon & Schuster Creates A Self-Publishing Portal

Just today Simon & Schuster announced it's partnering with Author Solutions to create Archway Publishing.

[Archway Publishing] will focus on self-published fiction, nonfiction, business and children's books. Digital technology has helped lead to the proliferation of self-published books, with Sylvia Day and Amanda Hocking among those becoming bestselling authors.

Archway will offer a range of services to budding authors beginning at $1,599.

Archway will offer a range of services, from a basic $1,599 package that includes "editorial assessment" and "cover copy review" to a $24,999 "Outreach" program for business books that features an "author profile video" and a reception at BookExpo America, the industry's annual national convention.

Why this is NOT good news for authors

I wrote about 1,000 words on this subject and then came across Carla King's article on Penguin's purchase of Author Solutions earlier this year: Why Self-Publishers Should Care That Penguin Bought Author Solutions. Yes, the article is about Penguin rather than Simon & Schuster but the same objections apply. Carla writes:

Smashwords founder Mark Coker is a longtime critic of Author Solutions, pointing out in his blog that they make more money from selling services to authors than selling authors' books: "Author Solutions is one of the companies that put the 'V' in vanity.  Author Solutions earns two-thirds or more of their income selling services and books to authors, not selling authors' books to readers ..."

Add to that Jane Friedman's comments:

Jane Friedman, in her Writer Unboxed blog, notes that ASI's acquisitions are "appearing more and more like a huge scramble to squeeze a few more profitable dollars out of a service that is no longer needed, that is incredibly overpriced when compared to the new and growing competition, and has less to recommend it with each passing day ..."

In my view this isn't a win for self-publishers, this is just another shark in already crowded waters.

Writer beware.

Other articles you might like:

- Editing: Make Sure Your Story's Bones Are Strong
- 11 Steps To Edit Your Manuscript. Edit Ruthlessly & Kill Your Darlings
- NaNoWriMo: The Homestretch & Kindling The Will To Write

Reference links:

- Writer Beware: The Return Of The Vanity Press
- Indie Authors: Don't Give Anyone Ownership Of Your Work
- Snake Oil Salesmen And The Indie Author
- Why Self-Publishers Should Care That Penguin Bought Author Solutions
- How a Traditional Publisher Could Harm a Writer's Career
- A Step-By-Step Guide to U.S. Copyright Registration for Self-Publishers
- Bookbaby: Get published Now! (Bookbaby does NOT take a royalty)

Photo credit: "Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)" by mikebaird under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Writer Beware: The Return Of The Vanity Press

I was first introduced to the idea of the vanity press by Umberto Eco in his book Foucault's Pendulum. Eco does an excellent job of explaining why vanity presses have such a bad name: they are the literary equivalent of carnies and writers are their marks.

Years ago, before I had discovered Joe Konrath's blog, I confused vanity publishing with self publishing. Vanity publishing strips the author of their money and gives next to nothing back while self-publishing--publishing ones book oneself--is a sound business strategy.

I used to think vanity publishing was dead, driven out by a tsumami wave of embowered writers publishing their own work themselves.

I was naive.

For the past week or so I haven't paid much attention to the ads on my site. I apologize. Over the past two days I've noticed many of these ads were for businesses offering to help writers publish their books.

At first I didn't think much of it. It can make good sense for a busy person to pay someone to help with certain aspects of publication--help with cover design, line editing, content editing, formatting, and so on. These services can sometimes cost as much as $1,000 dollars. (I'm not including the cost of a book trailer, website, and so on.)

What I've just mentioned is still self-publishing because, and this is the key point, the writer themselves uploads the finished file to the stores where it will be sold (e.g., Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, and so on). If a book is self-published it means the writer published it rather than paying someone else to, as in traditional publishing. Yes, in traditional publishing the money flows to the writer. The publishing company shares the proceeds from each sale with you, the writer, because they are the ones who shelled out the money to publish your book. They've earned it.

At the very least, even if you get someone to help you upload the file to, for instance, Amazon, it is very important that you are the one who controls the accounts. This gives you access to your sales figures. You'll know exactly how many books you sold at each place (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, etc.), you'll set how much each book will be sold for and the retail outlet will give you detailed royalty statements. No guessing involved.

Now, someone might say, "But, Karen, I just don't want the bother! I'll gladly pay someone to do that sort of thing for me. I just want to hand my finished manuscript to someone, have them take care of the formatting, the cover design, the uploading. I don't want to have to bother with all those different accounts--one with Amazon, one with Smashwords, one with Barnes & Noble, one with Kobo; my head is hurting already!--I just want someone to take my manuscript, do it up, publish it and then send me a check every so often."

Okay. Fine. But that isn't self-publishing. You have two options: go the vanity press route, which I do not recommend, or shop your manuscript to traditional publishers.

If self-publishing isn't for you--and there's nothing wrong if it isn't--then by all means don't do it! There are many reputable publishers out there and sometimes small presses will accept projects that larger ones won't. But please don't waste your hard-earned money by going the vanity press route.

How to recognize a vanity press: The company charges you to format your book and then also takes a percentage of each sale.

One vanity press I contacted was offering, for the 'mere' sum of $5,000, to set the writer up with a website--how generous! When I asked if that included a blog they said no, a blog would be $350 extra. Uh huh.

Sorry for nattering on about this. I'm steamed. It bothers me when folks try and prey on writers. I'm not against writers paying others for help--cover art, formatting, editing, and so on--but for a company to charge outrageous sums for these services and then to also want 50% of all sales ... Wow. That's chutzpah.


Related reading:
- Self Publishing: 3 Steps To Success
- Penquin's Purchase Of Author Solutions: Going To The Dark Side?
- International Writers And The U.S. 30% Withholding Tax: Getting It Back

Links to reputable tradespeople:
After I published my post I got to thinking, it's one thing to say, "Stop! Don't do that!" and quite another to provide a solution. So I went over to Joe Konrath's page and looked at who he gets to help him out with formatting his books, his cover art, and so on. You can go over to his page and get this information, but I know he wouldn't mind my including it here as well:

- Joe Konrath's cover artist
- Joe Konrath's ebook designer
- Joe Konrath's print designer

Joe's books look fabulous so I have no hesitation offering these links. If anyone knows of any links they'd like to add to this list get in touch with me.

Book Country by Penguin Group

Update (August 16, 2016): It looks as though Book Country no longer exists.

Penguin Group's latest venture is Book Country, a website for writers of genre fiction. According to a New York Times article by Julie Bosman, Penguin says that the site is intended to help build a community of writers by, among other things, giving them the ability to comment on and critique the manuscripts of other writers.

In addition to forming a community of writers and telling them a about how the traditional publishing industry works; agents, agents and publishers can swing by bookcountry.com and look for new talent, giving writers who use Book Country a way to get in contact with industry professionals that they wouldn't otherwise have.

One thing I was curious about. Penguin said that in a few months time they will attempt to generate revenue from the site by giving members of Book Country a way to self-publish their books for a fee by ordering printed copies. I'm not sure what that means. However, given the recent success of ebooks as a publishing format I wonder why Putnam is putting emphasis on printed copies which are far more expensive to produce and store than electronic copies.

It will be interesting to watch and see what happens.