What's
the big deal about a contract that reads "... in
all languages throughout the
world"?
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This seems to be the most popular question by
far. Here you have the explanation:
A translation is usually a work for hire, which
means that, even though no one can publish a
translation of you work without your consent,
you do not own the rights to a
translation unless you were the one who paid for
it, and you cannot give away the rights to
something you don't own. In other words, having a
clause like this in your contract means that,
chances are, no foreign publisher will want to
touch your book, and a fee-charging POD publisher
is not likely to want to take on the expense of
having the work translated for you.
Simply put, this clause pretty much closes the
door on any foreign language market. This is not a
good idea, especially when you consider that your
chances of landing a good deal abroad are increased
by the fact that the agent is a far less prominent
figure in those markets.
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Is
there a significant difference in the quality of
the books provided by the different
publishers?
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Not really. Most POD publishers work with
similar setups (in fact, a lot of them share the
same printing company). The quality
of the design may vary, since this is provided by
the publisher, but the physical quality of the
books, as far as the materials that are used to
make them go, does not.
An example: you may notice that a number of
publishers charge a yearly "storage fee" of
$14.00-$15.00. All these publishers use the exact
same printing company (a number of other publishers
also use this company, but they don't openly pass
that fee to the author).
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Where
will my book be made available?
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This is a very important concern. The fact is
that, POD published books are sold almost
exclusively through online retailers, such as
amazon.com and b&n.com. "Brick and mortar"
bookstores demand a higher discount than those
offered by most POD publishers, and more
importantly, they demand a return policy that is
all but incompatible with this technology.
Also, some publishers make a lot of noise about
their books being available through Barnes &
Noble. You have to be careful here. While I'm
not saying this is impossible, or necessarily
untrue, they are too often taking advantage of the
confusion created by the fact that there are
two Barnes & Noble: the
traditional bookstore chain and b&n.com. A
pretty sure way to test this: go to the Barnes
& Noble store closest to your location, and
ask them which books they have available from the
publisher of your choice. This should provide you
with a real life answer as to whether or not they
stock books by any given publisher.
And while we are on the subject of dubious
advertisement claims, keep in mind that most, if
not all, the POD published books that you see
listed in amazon, b&n.com and bamm.com are
available through Ingram and Baker &
Taylor. The only difference is that some
publishers are louder than others when advertising
this fact.
As I said above. Take a couple of hours to find
out where will your book really be
made available under any given publisher.
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If all
fee-charging POD publishers are usually labelled as
"vanity presses" by bookstores, why do you put so
much emphasis in whether or not they screen
manuscripts?
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The reason for this is that all POD publishers
are for the most part "new" companies, and while
none of them has currently a "good name" within the
publishing industry, only those that screen
manuscripts stand a chance of ever developing some
sort of serious recognition (and even then it's a
longshot). Not even a best-seller would ever enable
a publisher that does not screen manuscripts to be
seen as a serious option within the industry.
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I've
noticed that sometimes two publishers have the same
setup fee, yet you describe one fee as affordable
and the other as expensive, do you think that's
fair?
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I can understand why that may seem unfair at
first sight, but in fact it is not a matter of
"liking one publisher better than the other", it
has to do with the royalties they pay.
As I explain in the Is
POD for me? section, I believe that the set up
fee should not be greater than the royalties that
would be due to the author for 100 copies sold
through a bookstore. I also believe that this fee
should include a non-generic cover, however both
LCCN and copyright registration are acceptable
extras.
So, using this basic definition, we have that,
although two publishers may have the same setup
fee, if there is a significant difference in the
royalties they pay that could lead to a difference
in whether that fee is described as fair or as
expensive. For example, let's say one publisher
pays $3.00 in royalties for a book sold through a
bookstore, while the other pays only $1.50, then
one would be described as fair up to
$300.00, but the other one would be labeled as
expensive if the setup fee is higher than
$150.00.
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I had
a wonderful / awful experience with ***... if I
tell you about it, would you modify your
rating?
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Sorry, no.
The reason why I refuse to modify the ratings is
simple: I'm trying to keep all publishers on the
same footing, so all of the information presented
here comes from their respective websites, and in
some instances it also includes my impressions
about a first contact that predates the creation of
this page. I may point out the fact that there is a
contradiction, or something that is obviously
misleading, in a particular publisher's site, but
this comes from reading between the lines, nothing
more. Including personal experiences in some of the
reviews would break that balance.
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Could
you add some sort of forum so that authors can
share their experiences?
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There used to be a message board to do just that
but there were some rather obvious incidents of
abuse (in one instance all but one of the
publishers had very bad reviews --all posted from
the same IP,using different aliases-- and the other
one was described as wonderful). The thing is that
while some of these incidents were easily spotted
and the respective posts deleted I never felt
comfortable doing that for fear of accidentally
deleting a legitimate complaint.
I can understand that authors leaving positive
feedback were perfectly happy signing their posts
with their real names while those that were leaving
a negative review were more likely to hide behind
an alias (especially if the contract hasn't been
terminated), but I couldn't help but feel that this
potential for abuse could turn the forum into a
tool to benefit the least ethical of publishers
(though I have no evidence that any of the
publishers were behind the abuses that were
detected... they could just as easily have been the
initiative of an overzealus author with a positive
experience).
Anyway this is the reason why, when the site
moved some time ago, I decided not to recreate the
forums. I may decide to recreate them in the future
though, I'm just not sure how valid they can
be.
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Publisher
*** offers a bulk discount when the author places a
large order, how come you don't mention
this?
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I used to include this information in the early
days of this, unfortunately I ran into two
problems:
- Some publishers keep changing their bulk
discounts, so keeping this information up to date
got to be quite difficult.
- Some publishers don't advertise their bulk
discounts, and I had no way of knowing which
publishers don't offer bulk discounts and which
publishers offer them but don't advertise them.
Because of this I ran into some trouble trying to
be fair. I just didn't have the means to make an
accurate comparison (I had a similar problem when I
tried to feature bookstores' discounts as a
reference).
Taking these two situations into account I
decided to remove all references to bulk discounts
except for mentioning that they may be available.
Regardless of the difficulties, I could have worked
around the first one of these problems, but the
second one proved to be unsurmountable.
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Publisher
*** is great! Why isn't it in the top
four?
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I won't deny that, in using uniform criteria, I
may be overlooking some characteristics that would
allow a particular publisher to stand out in some
circumstances. The top four are the ones I consider
the best options over all, but if you are looking
for one very special defining characteristic, then
the best publisher for you may not be one of the
top four.
Another aspect --which some might consider
cheating-- is that I'm trying to maintain some sort
of balance. For instance, maunscript screeining is,
as far as I'm concerned, one of the most important
characteristics. on the other hand I know not
everyone wants manuscript screening, so I'll always
try to have at least one publisher in the top four
that does not screen manuscripts. This attempt at
maintaing a balance between what different authors
may be looking for (which extends beyond manuscript
screening) is not all that objective but it may be
seen as a tiebreaker in some instances.
Finally, there is a sort of requirement before a
publisher can even be considered for the top four:
they must have been in business for at least a
year. This is a new requirement and it is intended
to weed out publishers that are deemed to have a
high risk of going belly up within a few months and
it is also intended to protect authors from
potential mistakes due to lack of experience. It
does not mean that new publishers are a bad idea,
it's just a precaution.
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I saw
in a Newsgroup that you had a problem getting your
book listed in amazon.com, yet you still recommend
Virtualbookworm... what
gives?
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First of all, that problem has been solved for
years by now, and in fact I must say I received
more support from virtualbookworm than I probably
would have received from a bigger publisher under
similar circumstances.
Second, the problem was not the
publisher's fault. It was a glitch that
took a while to track down because of the
multi-layered distribution system that is used by
most bookstores. It's a great system when it works,
but there are too many things that can go wrong,
and unknown authors are not at the top of the
priority list when it comes to getting things
straightened out by hand in what is, for the most
part, an automated process.
Finally, even if the problem had
been the publisher's fault , I'm not sure if I
would have changed my review. As I explained above,
I am trying to keep all the publishers on the same
footing here, so I am reluctant to modify a rating
for something that may or may not have happened had
I chosen a different publisher, and in an area in
which I can't possibly expect to make an accurate,
or fair, comparison.
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Are
you affiliated with a particular
publisher?
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No, I'm not, though my books are published by
Virtual Bookworm. This comparison was born when,
after I had done my homework while looking for a
publisher, I decided to share some of that info
because I thought it could save someone else some
time and the site has kept on growing ever since. I
obviously wasn't about to go with a publisher that
didn't meet my basic requirements so
yes Virtual Bookworm is my publisher
and it's also the company that comes off better in
the comparison, however my findings predate my
choice, and not the other way around.
I also want to say that *ALL*
reviews (including the one from Virtual Bookworm)
are based entirely on the contents of the
publishers sites. I can't speak from personal
experience when it comes to other publishers so my
personal experiences with Virtual Bookworm are not
a factor when it comes to their review.
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How
often do you update the
comparison?
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I do a major update each January in which I go
over all the publishers' sites to make sure that
the site is accurate. In addition to that when I
learn that a publisher has made some changes
mid-year I update that publisher's page as soon as
I can. If I find a new publisher I add it at that
time.
I know that sometimes something in this site may
be outdated due to an update that I am not aware
of. If you notice such an inconsistency please let
me know and I'll correct it as soon as I can.
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