Self-Publishing Swindle

Disclaimer: These notes are based solely on my individual experience with a company called Xlibris Publishing.

Remember that naivety I spoke of in my first post? Enough said.

After being warned many times about how long it could take to be ‘picked up’ by a big traditional publisher, I foolishly decided to try self-publishing as a stepping stone. While it quelled my need for instant gratification, I was definitely in for a rude awakening.

Disillusion No. 1 – The company will help you to sell tons of copies of your book and you will get rich.

Lesson - Self-publishing companies (or at least the one I went through) actually make their money from you, the author, not the book-buying public.

You pay the (sometimes astronomical) set-up and printing fees, then you pay for all the marketing fees and, then you have to work out some way of getting your book seen by people who will want to buy it.

Also, they kept pestering me to enter my book in several different US book fairs which sounded great, until they told me that I would have to pay an extra $1200 fee for each one.

It’s a lot of money to lay down and a lot of work to sell it.

My only saviour was the fact that I used a ‘print-on-demand’ company, so there was no minimum order. The books are printed as ordered, so I was not left with a garage full of books to try and sell.

Disillusion No.2 – You will have total control over how your book looks.

Lesson - Even if you pay the extra fees to be able to ‘fiddle’ around with the layout of the book, you still need to fit into their limited templates – and for me, this produced something quite far from what I had envisioned for my kids picture book (it would probably be ok for a novel though).

Disillusion No. 3 – The retail price of your book will be reasonable.

Lesson - The company sets the price of your book (unless you pay extra to ‘set your own price’ – which I was not told about until later). It didn’t even occur to me to ask what that price would be before I signed up, because (silly me) I thought that it would be reasonable and, in line with other comparable books in the market. However, they set mine at $30.99AUD (which in Australia, is absolutely ridiculous for a 32-page paperback children’s picture book by an unknown author).

I love my book but I would not pay that much for it – not even a new Pamela Allen would be priced that high.

You’d think that the companies would set the price so that they sell more copies and make more money – or is it just me?

Also, since it is only available online, you have to add about $10AUD for postage which makes it such a ‘rip-off’ I wouldn’t even let my family buy a copy of the book.

Update: It’s now been nearly six months since my book went on sale and, I have only just sold my first copy. That is because they have finally released it to their online resellers (Amazon and Barnes&Noble) which have taken the price down to around $12AUD.

By the way, I only make 10% of royalties on each book – even though they lured me with promises of 25% (that’s only for direct sales through their website which are highly unlikely since the book price is about 3 times higher there than on the resellers’ sites).

Good points about Self-Publishing (yes, there are some – well actually only 2 really):

You still retain the rights to your work – i.e. the deal was not exclusive so you can still be signed by a traditional publisher.

It is a very quick turnaround. My book was available for purchase within 48hours of galley approvals.

I’ve now decided to start submitting manuscripts to traditional publishing houses and see how I go. So, if you are thinking about self-publishing..........just beware and good luck!