Feb 27 2008
Stay Clear of Vanity Publishers
Lynn Price from Behler Publications recently wrote:
“Not only is vanity publication a huge waste of financial resources, it destroys the author’s potential. How? The author is basically damaged goods now because the book is already on the market and has wormed its way through all the online stores and databases.”
Read the rest of Price’s entry here.
First of all, this author who is complaining about Infinity Publishing has things a wee bit wrong. Infinity will publish her book for a price, which is $499, and if the author wants to buy the Ingram option, he pays $149 extra.
That is the only fee that Infinity has, therefore, the line about “thousands of dollars” spent with Infinity is NOT true.
An Infinity author keeps ALL his rights. If his book is picked up by a tradicional publisher, by a film company, etc., it’s the author’s decision and Infinity has no saying. Infinity publisher his work and puts the finished product in the distributors’ databases. It is the author’s job to market his book.
I have published with Infinity twice and have a third book ready for them, and they are not only very honest, they don’t promise anything in less time than they know they can deliver.
An author will never hear empty promises from Infinity - in fact, they may “under-promise” as far as publishing time is concerned so that the author will not put his hopes too high…and they always have the book ready a week or 10 days before the promised date.
The best thing is, remember, the author keeps all his rights! they pay monthly royalties (not every 3 months like all the rest), and their statements are clear and to the point.
If anyone there needs more information please contact me. Go to www.bbotw.com and look up my two books under my name Christina Brett, then write to me through that website.
I believe that putting down companies just to keep your going is not kosher… in fact, it’s downright crooked. Reminds me of another publisher in Colorado that will chop anyone down in order to get a book…
Christina,
Thank you for posting your experience with Infinity. As I read Prices’ post, hers is more convincing than yours.
Most visitors of this blog want to be recognized as authors, and as a result, I post information on Vanity Presses and POD’s so they will understand that if they choose that printing route (notice the word printing), they are not authors.
You will disagree, but I don’t make up the rules. The facts are the facts. Only writers who are published with a commericial publisher are considered authors. The evidence is clear. Read any agent blog and you will be told the same. Read contest rules for first time authors. They allow entrants from those who printed their books through a Vanity Press or POD. Why? Because they are not considered authors.
Price can certainly defend herself - and if you repost your comment on her blog, I’m sure she will - but she used Infinity as an example because a writer was misinformed and she thought it was in her best interest to use a POD so she could get the attention of a commercial publisher. Price then provided her thoughts and what her experience is as a publisher if she wants to market a book that has already been printed.
What she offered to writers is her practical experience. She has nothing to gain. In fact, if my visitors read her post and also the comment section, she makes it clear that she was once scammed and that is why she is passionate about the subject.
ETA: It’s not unusual for writers who get their books printed to spend thousands of dollars. Though the setup fee may be in the hundreds, most writers will buy their own books to market at presentations. Others may purchase their own books and ask a bookstore to carry them on consignment. It is RARE for a printed writer to just pay the setup fees and not buy copies of their own books. Because the majority do, that is where the “thousands of dollars” figure comes in.
Auria Cortes: What a wonderful thing is to live in a country where people can argue their beliefs until they are blue on the face!! You say that someone who self-publishes is not “an author”… but looking into a Thesaurus or a dictionary you will see that the word “author” pertains to “a writer, novelist, playwright, storyteller, dramatist, journalist…” in fact, anyone who has “authored” a piece of his writing is an AUTHOR.
Then you speak about “commercial publisher”… as opposed to what? “Non-commercial publishers”? What is that?
One more point: Self-publishers and POD Publishers are two different things: Self-published books will go into the distributors’ databases and they will be offered to the public through the Internet and other channels… just like any author who published with Random House and the other Big Boys.
POD means Print On Demand - and they print a certain amount of books that the AUTHOR will sell from his website, or from the trunk of his car. He gets an amount of books he ordered and that’s it! People who write about their family geneaology, their biography, usually use PODs because their marketing world is very narrow: mostly their families, because who else is going to be interested in their lives or their ancestors?
When I wrote my book “Old Sins Cast Long Shadows” I looked for an agent because I thought that I had a good story to sell (my book is about a mafia daughter who was trained by her father to kill without remorse - a true story, by the way)…but agents were not interested.
The book was self-published (look it up in Amazon), and I have just finished writing the script together with a Hollywood film editor who read the self-published story and found it so compelling he contacted me… Now he is talking to Hilary Swank to portray the heroine of the story.
I translated “Old Sins…” into Spanish and I am selling it very well in Uruguay (my country) through a distributor, and it was presented in the Havana Book Fair in February. You may see it in Infinity’s website www.bbotw.com
I will always stay by Infinity Publishing but not by many others out there who have ripped people off with promises they cannot keep (that’s another story - smile).
I consider myself an AUTHOR and I’m very proud of my achievements.
Christina Brett
Christina,
You are arguing with the wrong person here. I don’t make up the rules in the industry. If you want to be considered a published author by industry players then take up your issue with them. Not with me.
By industry standards you are not considered a published author. You can define yourself as you wish. That doesn’t change the facts.
I know many people who have self-published so I’m not knocking that avenue. If it works for them and you, then it works.
But as I stated before, I post the facts for my visitors so they can understand how the industry works. If they want to be considered published authors, they need to be aware that self-published, POD, and vanity press books isn’t going to cut it.
Again, I didn’t make up the rules. I’m just playing by them.
Fine. I still stand by my beliefs.