editorial

Is the Publisher Misleading You?: Subsidy Publishers Posing as Traditional Publishers

Irene Watson

Recently I was contacted by an author for advice regarding an acceptance letter to publish her book she received.  She was all excited but cautious for good reasons.  I remembered hearing about this specific company and decided to do some checking.  (Did you know if you enter into Google search the name of the company and add "scam" or "fraud" you will get hits of posts, if there are any,  in that regard?)
The publisher, on the home page, states:

We do not require any money from any of our authors for any aspect of production. We are not a self-publisher in our approach, operation, or philosophy in any way.

Although this may be true in some aspect the contract the author received said differently.  If signed, the author was committing to using their fee-based editing service, cover art, publicity package, and purchasing bulk quantities of the book.

The author didn't sign the contract. 

After this incident I went on a search to see if I could find others that misled and I did:

We are not a subsidy publisher because the fee we charge covers only part of our cost; we pay the rest. Makes no difference, a fee is a fee is a fee whether it covers all the costs or not.

We are a traditional publisher.  We don't charge fees to have your book published.  However, when I perused the site I found that actually they are a co-publishers and require the author to buy a minimum number of books. 

I'm sure there are others but what I realized is, because of the bad rap that subsidy/vanity presses get, some are trying to justify so as not to get pigeon holed into that category. 

There are many self-publishing firms (aka subsidy/vanity) and it seems like new ones are popping up daily.  I'm constantly getting emails alerting me to the new service. 

No doubt there is cost involved, whether you truly self-publish or use a self-publishing firm, and it's important not to get distracted.  If you go with a self-publishing firm keep in mind you are buying a service and not specifically chosen to be published.  If you choose to go that route it's important to be sure the service is honest and reputable as well as cost-effective.  Doing your research and comparison-shopping is a must.  An honest self-publishing firm will be upfront with the fees and will have no need to justify or try to convince you to go with them.

There are many experts that are totally against self-publishing firms and are adamant in their opinions.  They encourage authors to self-publish for many reasons and one is that you are apt to make more money.  However, it's one of those decisions you have to make yourself.  Do you have the time to put into self-publishing your own book and make more money or would you rather have someone else do it for you?  I equate it with deciding whether you are going to hire a housekeeper or do the housecleaning yourself. 

Which one will it be? I'd like to hear from you here.

The Relevance Imperative: Why and How To Become Relevant

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Fiction - Historical, Cultural, Young Adult

Innocent War: Behind an Immigrant’s Past, Book 1

Susan Violante

Outskirts Press (2011)
ISBN 9781432770471
Reviewed by Richard R. Blake for Reader Views (5/11) 

Synopsis

Based on the taped memoirs Susan Violante received from her Italian immigrant father, Innocent War is a boy's adventure during WWII. The account is written as a first person narrative revealing a boy's point of view showing the war's hardships, dangers, and tragedies, combined with humor, innocence, and awakening as he grows up during WWII in Libya and Italy. Join author Susan Violente as she gets to know her  father while also finding herself within the family she thought she knew.

Read review of Innocent War on Reader Views
Read review of Innocent War on Reader Views Kids
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Nonfiction - Poetry, Life, Family

Final Destination

Ankur Choudhury

Xlibris (2011)
ISBN 9781456864446
Reviewed by William Phenn for Reader Views (4/11)

Synopsis

Final Destination is an extract from author Ankur Choudhury's life. Having lost his mother all of a sudden in 2008, he succumbed to the darker, lonelier and painful side to reality. This book describes not only his emotions, but the raw truth that many of us feel but are scared to express. It portrays Choudhury's life, and all the struggles he had to go through.

This book however is not something that will leave readers with a smile, but rather help them start realizing the truth of life, and also help them appreciate others (when they still have an opportunity to see them) before they're gone. If people are interested in fairy tales, then this book is not for them, but if someone's looking for the real truths about a struggling youth, and all about pain and sorrow, then this is a must read.

Read review of Final Destination
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Spotlight - reader views literary awards winner

First Place Winner of Body/Mind/Spirit Category

Growing Roots: The New Generation of Sustainable Farmers, Cooks, and Food Activists by Katherine Leiner

Katherine Leiner
Sunrise Lane Productions (2010)

Katherine Leiner has been writing since she was six years old when her first published poem appeared in "Jack and Jill" around that time. Even then, seeing her work in print made her feel important. Katherine had an illusion that her words would be around long after she would and that some child might pick up one of her books, the way she had picked up, say, "Little Women" and a certain kind of life would open up for that child.

Through the years Katherine learned that writing is satisfying on so many levels. It is inventive and analytical. It's both enormously private and totally revealing of the self. Besides cooking and child rearing, writing seems to be the only work that held her fascination and attention over time. She comes to her writing in much the same way she does to cooking - without too many rules. For Sharon, both involve a certain amount of careful studying, going out in the world, seeing what is fresh and inspiring to the mind and palate, gathering ingredients, bringing them back home, putting them together, mixing, marinating, seasoning, and tasting. Sometimes the meal works from "soup to nuts," as her mother used to say; and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't work - she will re-work, refine, and sometimes throw it out and start again.

Synopsis: Growing Roots started in the car while Katherine and her daughter were driving West with their cattle dog, Luna. Katherine decided that they weren’t going to eat any fast food and so they "Googled" health food stores, restaurants and farm markets along their way. They kept notes and soon they were throwing around the idea of a book.

Healthy food is a right for everyone. The young people profiled in a very abbreviated fashion here, are examples of young people living and working across this wide nation of ours, who are exploring means of democratizing our food system to produce healthy, nutritious food for all. Sitting at their tables, Katherine became reinvigorated, enthusiastic again about her food choices. Her book is a collection of their stories and their recipes illustrated with photographs.

Read review of Growing Roots
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Enter Literary Awards Program
List of 2010 Literary Awards Winners

Spotlight - reader views literary awards winner

Second Place Winner of Body/Mind/Spirit Category

Tearing Down the Wall by Sharon M. Katzman

Outskirts Press (2010)
ISBN 9781432755546

Synopsis: After a near-fatal car accident left her with a traumatic brain injury and a multitude of internal injuries, Sharon M. Katzman found that at the age of twenty-three, she needed to learn to walk, to speak, to listen, even to think all over again. Already an acknowledged social introvert before her accident, Sharon soon discovered that it was too hard for people to look at her and hear her stumbling speech. As a result, people starting avoiding her, but Sharon was never willing to use her accident, or its devastating effects on her, as a crutch.

Sharon continued, for twenty years, with determination and will power, to learn to overcome her difficulties of what was often an exasperating road of rehabilitation and life-learning lessons. She finally was able to earn her master’s degree in technical communication, a symbolic end to her decades-long struggle to overcome what for most of us would have been insurmountable cognitive difficulties. Tearing Down the Wall is the moving and remarkable story of Sharon’s re-learning every detail of how to live her life from day to day and of her relentless journey to once again find her place in the world, both socially and professionally.

Read review of Tearing Down the Wall
Visit author's website

Enter Literary Awards Program
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This week's video

A First Guide to Space Creatures

Faiz Kermani

Lulu Publishing (2010)
ISBN 9780557748792
Reviewed by Evan Weldon (age 9) for Reader Views (1/11)

Synopsis

Wonderful space creatures abound around the galaxy. Inspired by the famous alien diplomat Ambassador Ticklydung, this small book aims to give readers the opportunity to learn about them and their habitats.