I’ve had a very interesting pattern develop in some of my rejections for Hurricane Baby–three of my six rejections have offered to publish my book in a self-publishing format. They want me to pay them a fee to print my book, edit it, and distribute it.
This kind of offer is sketchy for several reasons.
Each house that has done this advertises themselves as a traditional publishing house. That means if they take you on, they are making a commitment of their own money to the project and therefore, have a vested interest in recouping that investment.
Offering what are essentially vanity press services makes me think that maybe they weren’t on the up-and-up to begin with; maybe they never publish anyone with their own money and don’t pay royalties. It makes me think I dodged a bullet in dealing with them.
They try to make it sweeter by saying I can keep more of the profit off of each book sale under this arrangement. Well, if they have no money invested, they therefore don’t have any motivation to help me sell it; therefore, I am essentially the publisher, and they are simply a printing service. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn’t be sending it out to other publishers; I’d have already done it myself.
I am pointing these red flags out because so many of us are so desperate to get our work out there. We want to have our voices heard. But book publishing is not a charity endeavor–someone has to make money. I know my book needs someone’s expertise to get into bookstores, to be edited professionally, to be marketed effectively to readers.
Any publisher that offers a service where you pay them for any of these components needs to market themselves as what they are–a printing service for authors prepared to sell their books wholly by themselves. I’m not saying that is wrong–calling yourself a hybrid publisher or a for-fee publisher keeps your intentions aboveboard. To advertise yourself as anything else borders on the predatory. Writers live on hopes and dreams. Sometimes the hopes and dreams overcome our business sense.
All in all, you want someone who will champion your work–not simply collect a fee from you. I will not name the companies here–just warn you to do your due diligence in steering clear of anyone that might have your money flow to themselves instead of the other way around.
Julie Liddell Whitehead 