It’s about time I talk about my wretched experience with
publishers, and why you might want to consider self-publishing instead.
The big question this decade has been, Should I go traditional, or should I go the self-publishing route? Increasingly
so, many have been saying to go the self-published route, and I have to side
with them.
For the record, I’ve published three works. Two
self-published, one published by a small publisher—and let me tell you, going
with them instead of publishing on my own has been a regret that has stuck with
me every night since I’ve signed that contract with them.
As a disclaimer, this is only my opinion and my experience.
I believe some authors out there can do well going strictly the traditional
route. It all depends on people’s circumstances. But I’m not talking about
those people, I’m talking about my experience—something I’ve lived through and
know happened for a fact.
I just read a compelling article from the author Dean WesleySmith on why you shouldn’t start up with traditional publishing, but should
start self-publishing, and maybe even not ever deal with traditional
publishers. It’s a great read, and he’s quite impassioned about his viewpoint.
I suggest giving it a read sometime. But why I bring that article up is because
my recent publisher, Unlimited Publishing (AKA UP), is guilty of many of the
money-grabbing practices that Dean describes in his article, and it’s sad that
I realized this too late.
My Experience with UP
Part of the contract I
signed with UP states that I’m not allowed to discuss specifics about the pay
or the contract itself, but I can mention my experience with them in general.
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| Originally, I had sent them this proof to work with |
It is understandable that signing on with a publisher means
that you are ultimately going to take a smaller cut of the profits, but it is
also expected that you’ll receive something for having the publishers take that
cut. For me, it was the editing, formatting, cover art, purchasing the ISNB,
publishing it on multiple different outlets, and marketing. I figured these
services would help recoup the low profit I’d be making per book sale. (It’s
down to cents what I make from the book I signed with UP, when I make around
$2.00 with my self-published pieces.)
So, you can imagine my disappointment with UP when they
changed one word in my manuscript for the editing treatment that they promised,
formatted the book for publishing on the Kindle (but in the process added
errors to my text that I had to notify them of to change), was going to publish
my book with this cover…
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Which after I mentioned some obvious poor design choices, they changed it to this...
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And once
it came out, their attempt to “market” my book came down to telling me to sign
up for Google Alerts, and asked me to retrieve some fax numbers from local
outlets for them to send a fax out to.
I was less than happy about how our relation had gone at
that point; but, I’m a pretty laid-back kinda guy, and decided to wait a few
months to see if they kicked into gear in four or five months.
I asked how many copies I had sold, but was given no number.
I mentioned the quarterly payment was coming up, but was told that I had to
reach a high threshold amount of sales before I could get paid, I wanted to
know if they had any plans of continuing to market my book and was told that
maybe I should stop being lazy and start marketing my book for them (like I wasn’t
already, literally out in the streets, speaking to creative writing high-school
classes, doing my best with the usually social media outlets, begging anyone I
had connection to in the world to PLEASE READ MY BOOK, working my butt off
every day trying to promote my work).
Eventually, enough was enough, and I mentioned that I wasn’t
happy with the way our relationship had gone, and, even though I knew they had
me in a contract and that they didn’t have to respect my request, I wanted out,
and if they would be so kind to just terminate the contract, I’d be very
please.
Of course they place my dissatisfaction and blame on myself,
saying that if I didn’t complain so much, and, again, spent more time marketing
the book, that I’d be getting more sales—but that wasn’t my point. My point was
they were not delivering on their promises, and to be honest, at that point I
started to wonder why should I try to sell my book for them? I made only a
fraction of profit from each copy, when they made over half of the total sale,
and there was no talk whatsoever now about print publishing, which they had
previously had alluded to as being almost an inevitable course for my book.
It’s a sad story, and one that’s not ending anytime soon. I’ll
have to wait just under three years now to get my book back from them, and that’s
sad since I’m working on the rest of the series, and will need to wait to
release a box-set of that series.
The Takeaway
My experience isn’t unique. I know others have had similar experiences
with publishers. And while much of it comes down to doing you research and making
sure you know what you’re signing up with, a big portion of this whole fiasco
with my publisher couldn’t have been foreseen, since they listed much of what I
desired a publisher to do in the contract, saying that they’d provide it, but
then only completing the legal bear minimum to make sure they weren’t going to
get into a lawsuit over it.
This is why self-publishing is my road going forward. I’ve
been scared off from traditional publishing for the time being. I tried that
route and got burned. I’m not saying it’s an invalid route to take. I’m not
saying everyone’s experience will be similar. I’m saying that this is what
happened to me, and for you to take that experience into account. Take from
this story what you will, and hopefully I’ve helped some other writers out
there become the wiser, not having to go through this sort of experience themselves.
