How to Avoid Being Ripped Off by a Publisher: Ask These Important Questions Before You Pay to Publish Your Book

By Jacquelyn Lynn

You've written a book and found a publisher that wants to publish it. You're excited—until the publisher tells you how much it's going to cost.

 

How do you know you're going to get your money's worth? Do your research and ask the right questions.

 

The publishing landscape has changed substantially. Self-publishing and paying to get your book published no longer carries the stigma it once did, but it still carries risk.

 

Pay-to-publish companies are operations that function much like a traditional publisher, except the author pays all the book's production and promotion costs. Their fees range from a few thousand dollars to $25,000 and more. Some are legitimate; many are not.

 

The abundance of pay-to-publish companies (also known as hybrid publishers and vanity presses) has increased the risk of inexperienced authors getting ripped off in their eagerness to get their books published.

 

Jacquelyn Lynn, author of The Simple Facts About Self-Publishing, has put together a comprehensive list of questions to ask before you sign a contract and pay money to get your book published. She explains how to assess the answers and thoroughly evaluate a pay-to-publish company so you spend your money wisely and don't get ripped off.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Create Teach Inspire
• Release date: Jan 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781941826454

Jacquelyn Lynn

Jacquelyn Lynn is an inspirational author, business writer and ghostwriter whose dynamic books and insightful articles have been inspiring individuals and helping business leaders work smarter and more profitably for nearly three decades. Her credits include writing or ghostwriting more than 30 books; 3,000+ articles in over 100 regional, national and international publications; and countless blogs, ebooks, newsletters, white papers, news releases, and more.

Book preview

How to Avoid Being Ripped Off by a Publisher

Ask These Important Questions Before You Pay to Publish Your Book

Contents

Introduction

About the Publisher

Publishing Details

Royalties and Cost of Services

Author Copies

Editing and Proofreading

Interior and Cover Design

Printing

Marketing

Other Services

Distribution

Beyond these questions

Self-Publishing: A Pay-to-Publish Alternative

About Jacquelyn Lynn

Introduction

How much should you expect to pay to have your book published?

Like just about everything else in our world, changes in the publishing industry are happening quickly, and it’s hard to keep up.

Today’s publishing world is dominated by three primary business models:

Traditional publishing, where publishers contract with authors and pay royalties on book sales.

Self-publishing, where authors do all the publishing work themselves.

Hybrid or pay-to-publish, where a company does the work traditional publishers do but authors pay the costs.

We’ve seen a tremendous proliferation of hybrid and pay-to-publish companies. These companies operate similarly to traditional publishers except the have the financial protection of the author paying all the costs of publishing their book. Paying to get your book published no longer carries the stigma it once did, but it still carries risk.

Pay-to-publish companies are sometimes referred to as hybrid publishers or vanity presses. I use the term pay-to-publish because it clearly describes how these companies function. They may be independent operations or subsidiaries of traditional publishers.

Some pay-to-publish companies are legitimate options for authors who are either unable to or choose not to