Self Publishing

Blame Everyone But Yourself

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Bestselling author Tess Gerritsen observes on her blog today that self-published authors love to blame the system for their failure rather than the vanity presses that suckered them.

They have signed up for a lesson in frustration and of course they feel rejected and angry, so they want to blame the “system”.  They should really be blaming those self-publishing companies who prey on their hopes and dreams, companies that lure them in with promises of fame and success and then take their money. But are these authors angry at the self-publishing companies who’ve victimized them?  No.  Instead, they’re angry at whoever points out the truth.

They are also unwilling to admit to themselves that their desperation and gullibility drove them to make a costly and embarrassing mistake. So they rail against the the publishing industry for being cruel, at published authors for being "elitist,"  at book stores for not selling their crappy-looking and non-returnable vanity titles, and at professional writers organizations like the MWA that won’t acknowledge them as "published authors."  What’s really sad is when these self-deluded writers defend the scammers and vanity presses as "up-and-coming small publishers" who deserve our support.

BookWise is BookStupid

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Edgar Award-winning author Burl Barer, who also happens to be my Uncle, sent me this note about his encounter with a book biz get-rich-quick huckster:

I received the following email on MYSPACE…no doubt well intentioned, but it irked me. Here  it is.

"While reading your wonderful profile I could not help but notice that you have authored some books. If getting your  words out to a larger audience is something that has some interest to you…"
I continued reading this informative missive, and then the following paragraph hit me between the eyes:
"This is a great opportunity for you as a self-published author to have your book listed and distributed along with some of the greatest books ever written!"
Since when am I self-published? The next paragraph reinforced my "irk factor":
"BookWise is very supportive of the self-published author, and one of the perks of being a member is the Author’s Workshop coming up for all members this Oct 18,and 19th, 2007. And the 20th the first company convention-FREE TO ALL it’s members"
Well, that pushed me over the edge.  I wrote back:
"I am NOT Self-Published, subsidy published, or any other variation on vanity publishing. I am PAID to write by real publishers — I do not pay printers to print up my books and then have the nerve to call myself a published author.  In my opinion, calling yourself an author when you are self-published is like calling yourself a doctor because you purchased a stethoscope."
Okay, that may have been a bit harsh.
I heard back right away informing me that  Bookwise also features real authors published by real publishers. Good for them. I wrote back and wished them the best of luck on their charity endeavors. But why do people assume that we all self-publish? 
When I was recently introduced somewhere, and it was mentioned that I’ve written a dozen books, the first question was "Have any  of your books been published?"
"Yes. That’s why they are called books, not unpublished manuscripts. I also have unpublished manuscripts that are not yet books, or may never become books. And before you ask, I did not pay for the publication of my manuscripts – the publisher paid me."

Burl Barer…self flagellating, self-promoting, self-serving but NOT self-published

I’d never heard of Bookwise, so I visited their site and listened to their come-on. They bill themselves as "the most intelligent home-based business in the world." Basically, it’s a book club that makes their money from the books you buy and the other people you convince to join the club.

It works like this: you pay a $40 enrollment fee and $35-a-month to buy their books at a 40%discount. Most of the books are from name-brand authors from name-brand publishers, but I gather from the email my Uncle got that they will soon be opening their doors to the self-published, probably for a price.

You make your millions by either selling the books you buy directly to your friends and neighbors out of the trunk of your car…or by making a commission off the other suckers, er, people you convince to join the book club and become salesmen themselves.

But they also want you to feel like you are saving the world, one book and one commission at a time. One dollar of every book they sell and 10% of their corporate earnings will go to literary programs for children. Makes you all tear-eyed, doesn’t it?

So you aren’t just paying Bookwise $460 for the opportunity to buy their books…you are, as they proclaim, helping to "stop the dumbing down of America."

But that strikes me as a self-defeating goal for Bookwise…if we stop the dumbing down of America, who will be stupid enough to sign up for this scheme?

Lori Prokop’s Spiritual Action Plan

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As you will recall, Lori Prokop charged that her Book Millionaire reality TV show scheme was ruined by the publishing industry, which was so envious of her idea that they secretly paid guys like me to question her legitimacy as a publisher (she has none), her credentials in television (she has none), her network broadcast agreements (non-existent), and the value of the "prizes" she was offering contestants (worthless).

The Book Millionaire show quietly became an online competition instead…and then it died of inertia and a profound lack of interest of popular interest without fulfilling any of its promises to contestants.

Now, in an update on her site this week, Lori Prokop says Book Millionaire isn’t dead after all.

Book Millionaire continues to move forward, not at the pace we originally intended, but with the same excitement, focus and passion for helping others. Personally, I needed some time to regroup and understand actions of others, of which I felt deep hurt and sadness.

She still maintains that the show — which promised contestants "bestseller and celebrity status" through publication with her vanity press — was undermined by a vast conspiracy.

I have observed some disparaging comments about the Book Millionaire show and me. It has come to our attention — through communications from others — this may be in connection with a group of bloggers who are allegedly blogging false, inaccurate information against about 100+ companies and projects in the publishing industry.

[…]Could it be true that someone is paying for this group of bloggers to blog hate messages about more than 100 companies and projects in the publishing industry that compete with this company? Could this be how the bloggers are paying their bills and feeding their families?

After the Book Millionaire debacle, she says she was angry and depressed…a helpless victim of a publishing industry conspiracy, the uncontrolled rudeness and cruelty of bloggers, and rampant sexism against women.

But now she is taking a new approach.

Lori Prokop — the woman who offered the dream of authorship to chiropractors, cheap leases on brand new cars for the masses, bestseller celebrity status for the unpublished, maximized search engine rankings for everyone, and self-enlightenment for humanity — is initiating her Spiritual Action Plan. Prepare yourselves.

It took some time for me to make my choice that instead of attacking or retaliating for what I perceived as false, misguided actions of others, I decided to find a spiritual understanding and develop a spiritual action plan. It’s my desire that this experience helps me spiritually grow as an individual and leader.

[…]As a result of this spiritual growth, I have learned that anything perceived as an attack from another is an expression of his or her needs.

So I would like to have my attention on that need. What could their needs be?

[…]I have gone to their blogs and contacted them to ask for open dialogues to gain an understanding of their perceptions and provide accurate information. They have responded with additional attacks and threats, rather than peaceful, life-enhancing dialogues.

I haven’t heard from Lori yet, but I am looking forward to it…and the spiritual enlightenment I know it will bring (and, perhaps, a cheap lease on a new BMW).I will be glad to tell her what motivates me to blog about Book Millionaire: a desire to expose unscrupulous and dishonest people who prey on the desperation and gullibility of aspiring authors for financial gain.

Even though I do not personally know these people, I can imagine these are beautiful human beings who are misguided in trying to have their needs met, doing so in tragic ways.

I can understand that they are making these choices for the same reason all human beings do everything: to meet needs in the best way they know how at the moment.

I believe Love is the answer to this.

I love you, too, Lori Prokop. I love how you never quit coming up with schemes to make money off the Internet, how you keep re-inventing yourself in new and exciting ways, and how you offer me the chance to do the same thing for only $16-a -day.

You are a wonderful person and a beautiful human being, Lori Prokop, but you already know that.

UPDATE 9-19-07: Victoria Strauss, a tireless crusader against publishing scams, blogs today about Lori Prokop, humanitarian, philosopher,  publisher, web master, motivational speaker, and champion for chiropractors everywhere.

A Cautionary Tale

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An article this week in the San Diego Union Tribune about Martell Publishing, a vanity press scam that bilked authors out of thousands of dollars, should serve as a cautionary tale to anyone who is considering paying to be published. The article reads, in part:

Ed Johnson operated Simon & Northrop Publishing, formed in 1998, and created Martell Publishing in 2005, according to state records. Both ventures were housed at different times in a one-room unit at 3333 Midway Drive, a complex that appears to be an old motel converted into offices.

Lynn Karstens, a former Martell employee, said Johnson purposely deceived potential clients about the scale of his one-room operation. He used pseudonyms when answering the telephone or in correspondence to potential clients to “make it seem like he had a staff.”

Karstens also said Johnson instructed her to tell clients who telephoned him that he was “on the other side of the building” so they’d think the company was housed in a large facility.

Karstens said she was hired as an office manager. But Johnson soon had her editing manuscripts, a job for which she had no qualifications, she said.

Most aspiring authors found the San Diego publishing houses on the Internet or by answering ads placed in small regional newspapers and out-of-state Yellow Pages.

[…]Johnson was unapologetic about taking money from Perry and others even as he failed to pay his rent and other bills.

“Is it a crime not to pay your bills? I tried to keep the company rolling and it didn’t happen,” Johnson said. “I didn’t try to cheat anyone. I sold some books for some people. Authors are all unhappy unless they have a best-seller.”

Sadly, scams like this are NOT the exception but the norm in the vanity press world. If you are still intent on throwing your money away, at least go with iUniverse or Lulu, which are about as reputable as you can get in the self-publishing POD business.

Praise Whores

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Chicago Sun-Times book critic David Montgomery offers some good advice for anyone who is foolishly contemplating paying Kirkus Discoveries $300 to jerk them off with a positive review of their books.

Folks, I can’t tell you enough what a mistake it is to purchase a book review. A Kirkus Discoveries review is like a real Kirkus Review in the same way that chicken salad is like chicken shit. A purchased review has less than no credibility; it actually diminishes the reputation of the work and the author, rather than bolstering it.

The only real discovery at Kirkus Discoveries is how gullible and desperate some authors can be…

Double the Vanity

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iUniverse and Authorhouse are merging to become one huge vanity press.  In a press release, iUniverse CEO Susan Driscoll says:

Why this move, and why now? Quite simply, the strengths and the capabilities of
AuthorHouse and iUniverse complement one another, and by building on our
individual strengths we can expand the range and enhance the quality of the
services that each company offers.
[…] I’m delighted that my iUniverse colleagues and I will be working with Bryan
Smith and with the entire AuthorHouse team to define a world where publishing is
truly author-centric.

I guess  by "author centric" they mean that they make their money off the desperate, naive authors rather than from selling books to readers. It’s unfortunate that iUniverse, seemingly the most honest of the vanity presses, is teaming up with one of the sleaziest.

A Lulu from Lulu

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Publisher’s Weekly reports this week that Lulu.com is,and I quote, "Turning Bad Books Into Big Bucks."

"We publish a huge number of really bad books," admitted Bob Young, the Canadian entrepreneur who founded the digital publisher Lulu.com in 2002.

He doesn’t care whether the books he publishes are are good or bad. His job is to play on the ego and despiration of aspiring authors who are eager to see their unpublished (and usually unpublishable) manuscripts printed in book form so they can delude themselves into thinking they have been published. Lulu, like most vanity presses, makes the vast majority of their money on authors, not readers. 

Andrew Pate, Lulu’s vp of global fullfillment (now there’s an interestig professional title….I wonder if his wife agrees with it?), provides a statistic that puts Lulu’s business into sharp perspective: 80% of their orders are for ONE copy of a book. Can you guess who is buying that copy? The author, of course.

"Retail is still a low percentage of sales," said Pate. About one million people have signed on as members, with about 60% of those buying an item from the site and 40% using the site to create a product.

The company is heading towards revenue of $30 million this year

Getting Tough

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This morning the board of Mystery Writers of America, on which I serve, approved tough new guidelines for approving publishers (and, by extension, accepting books published by them for Edgar consideration and their authors for active membership). These rigorous new standards are the result of a lot of hard work by the membership committee, on which I also serve. I will be posting a link to these new standards soon, but I can say that they will result in an immediate end to the "case by case list of approved publishers." A publisher either meets our standards for professionalism… or they don’t. It’s that simple.

These changes were long overdue and I believe will do our industry and our membership a service by alerting authors to thinly disguised vanity presses, companies with a history of unprofessional conduct and/or serious conflicts-of-interest…and denying those companies the legitimacy of our implied endorsement. As any reader of this blog knows, this is a subject that I am passionate about.

But I want to stress that these new standards will in no way change the current membership status of any writers who became members as a result of being published by a company that falls off the list.

Self-Publish Only Over Your Dead Body

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Bestselling novelist Jan Burke has two excellent posts on her blog this week on the pros (virtually none) and cons (too many to count) of self-publishing. For non-fiction,  self-publishing can make sense. But if you’re a novelist, 99% of the time it’s a mistake:

So when should you self-publish a first novel?

If you are terminally ill — I am not saying this facetiously — and you all you want is for your family to have copies of your story in trade paperback book form (and simply making a photocopy of a clean manuscript to pass down to your grandchildren won’t satisfy you), and you have the money needed to self-publish, by all means do so.

[…]If you aren’t dying, you probably don’t have a worthwhile excuse for your impatience.

Unless, of course, you have written something that you are certain will never appeal to more than 80 or so readers and has no commercial value, and you have no fear of embarrassing yourself, and you really don’t care if you have to hand sell every single copy of your book yourself. If that’s the case, go ahead and self-publish.

Go After The Scammers

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I received this email from Phillip R. Dolan, who got the rights to his manuscript and his money back from PublishAmerica. Rather than paraphrase his email, I am reposting it in its entirety:

Some scam publishers can be stopped. Publish
America’s contract has an arbitration clause to prevent authors from suing them.
To me, it seems to be a mistake because lawsuits are expensive and time
consuming. Arbitration under their contract requires that the American
Arbitration Association rules be followed. Those rules are user friendly and
inexpensive, especially when the prevailing party is reimbursed for all fees and
expenses. Even attorney fees if one uses an attorney. Anyone with a high school
education can handle an arbitration if they are so inclined.

Anyway, I filed for arbitration against PA and won. It took
eight months and I did it without an attorney. My contract was rescinded (not
just terminated) to the date it was signed and I received damages and expenses.
I thought this would be but the first of many arbitrations and that PA might be
driven out of business. It cost them quite a bit.

To help other authors complete arbitrations I posted how I
had done it, including my mistakes, at Arbitration And How To Do It (PublishAmerica, Publish
America)

http://p208.ezboard.com/bedandsootswritersguild

I had a forensic accountant examine PA’s sales records and
posted that info. I had an intellectual property attorney analyze the whole
thing and I posted excerpts of that. Together it is a blueprint of how to know
when PA breaches the contract and how to make them pay for it and get author’s
rights returned.

In about six months there have been 4,691 views just of the
accountant’s report so I know a lot of people have looked at the arbitration
material. But not one author, other than me, has filed
for arbitration. Two other anti-scam sites even offered to pay all the costs
attendant to arbitration. Not one PA author took them up on it.

I think that any author who feels they were scammed by
PublishAmerica and refuses to take any action other than complaining is right
where they should be.

Phillip R. Dolan