my father wrote a book, a friend in usa showed it to a publisher it could be published for 10.000dollars but?

Question

now they say that they can publish for under 300 dollars, is this a con ?can anyone tell of experience in this field, i have always understood that if your book is ok they pay you. please help as i dont want my father to be conned

Answer 1

The $10,000 figure looks like a vanity press. Basically they want your dad to be his own publisher and carry the expense of paying for the initial run of books and whatever else is involved.

The end result is your dad will get stuck with $10,000 worth of books and ZERO help to sell them. A real publisher actually spends his own money in marketing your book. You get paid an advance, and royalties once the publisher recovers his investment.

The $300 figure looks like a print on demand shop. Print on demand is a bit different because, well, it doesn't cost $10,000 and you won't be left with a huge inventory to sell.

I did two books using the print on demand method. Lulu.com will publish your book for free, but YOU do all the work. You design your covers, you proof read, you build your print-ready book file, you do your marketing, etc. If you want an international standard book number, or ISBN, they will sell it to you for about $35 (those are only sold in bulk, so $35 for a single ISBN is very reasonable).

You only need ISBN if you want to sell your book through traditional channels like bookstores, Amazon, etc. I paid for it, it includes being added to Books in Print, that by itself was well worth the $35.

When you use a service like Lulu, you get your own bookstore website, you can take a look at mine at http://www.lulu.com/pedro

If you want to see what my books look like, I allow people to download them for free and pass them around. Writing for me is a hobby, I would prefer having more readers even if it means less sales:

http://veraperez.com/pdf/ShiningStarReadandShare.pdf
http://veraperez.com/pdf/PullingStringsReadandShare.pdf

I have seen the print version of both books and they look fantastic, I was shocked at how professional they look. my friends bought copies and had me sign them in case I became famous they could cash out on it :-)

I did not need any specialized software to put these two books together. I wrote the first one in MS Word for Mac. I wrote the second one with Open Office 2.0.

By the way, print on demand is becoming more popular. It is so popular that Barnes and Noble owns one of these companies, theirs is at iuniverse.com.

Tell your dad to check this list of known writer scams:

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/306562

Answer 2

Hahahaha!
Welcome to the wonderful world of the Vanity Press.
You can have anything you want published, but that doesn't mean it is any good. That only means a printer will turn whatever you give him into a book with printed pages and front and back covers.
Reputable publishers pay you for writing a book. It's a fee based on how many copies are sold and is called a royalty. Music writers are paid this way as well.
But what reputable publishers do that vanity press publishers DON'T do, is to set up a way to market the book. Most book stores won't touch books published by vanity publishers, or self-published works. So even if you do have it published (and isn't it strange that the price dropped from $1,000 to $300?) and end up with, let's just say 100 books, for an example, what are you going to do with them? Sit on the street corner and flog them?
If you have a topic that is of interest to a small group of people, you can often do a self-published book and make it pay by selling to that group of people. But it's usually a local club or organization. If you have to try and sell a book across the nation, that means you have to advertise it (that costs money) you have to ship it to the buyer once someone orders it (and that costs money) and in order to recover these costs, you have to price your book so highly that no one is going to want to buy it.
So tell you dad to send the manuscript to a reputable publisher (you can find thousands of them in a book called Writer's Market) or to an agent. But stay away from the self-publishing or vanity press.
Good on your for keeping an eye out on your dad's behalf. It's easy to con people when their pride is involved.

Answer 3

A publish should pay YOU. What most publishers do is ask for a certain percentage from the books you sell. Whatever that percentage is, is of course something that changes and should be looked out for because that too can become a scam in a way. DO NOT I REPEATE DO NOT Pay someone to publish this book. There is a many great books out there about getting your book published. Don't let your dad do this, it is a scam. By the way, I have a degree in Publishing. Seriously, tell him to go to his local bookstore and pick up the latest edition of Writers Market. It will have all the different publishers out there and what kind of manuscripts they are looking for and what they publish. Oh, and one last tip, never send the whole thing. Just send a synopsis and a perhaps 2 or 3 chapters.

Answer 4

If they told him one price, then increased the price when he was more involved, then yes, it was a con.

Some publishers pay you to publish your book. They are picky about what they publish, because they want to make money.

Any publisher that charges a writer to publish the book makes its money from the writers, not from selling the book. This is often called "vanity" publishing.

Your father could also self-publish the book where he takes all the risk and pays all the expenses to publish it. He could check and compare prices for printing, etc., and control the costs himself.

I believe, from what you said, that he is being conned. He should take the book back, and do some research online or at a library.

Answer 5

Yes,in a way it is a con for these legitimate businesses to call themselves publishers when what they are really just printers and bookbinders. Under no circumstances ever pay to have your book published not even a small amount of money!! A real publishing house will edit,print and market your book and pay you a royalty from the sales of your books and would never ask for any money up front. Rather they are more likely to pay you an advance against future royalties. "Publishers" who will print your book for a fee do only that and you must market and sell them on your own.....probably 99% of those who go this way end up losing money. Self publishing as this method is called will not earn you any respect in the literary community as it is no proof of talent,it just proves you can raise money.

Answer 6

Don't let him do it. All decent, reputable publishers, pay you, they never ask for money. It's never happened to me but I've read about it enough times to know that it's called vanity press. The publisher expect you to pay them, they go through the process of putting together the books but they just don't do anything with them because they don't care. Their side of the bargain has been done. They've published it and someone's paid, that's all they care about. They won't try to get the book into the market or in bookstores.

If he does it, it'll be three hundred dollars he'll never see again.

Answer 7

There are many publishing houses that are called Vanity Press. They exist on people who write books that are not good enough to be picked up by a real publisher. It is not illegal, nor is there anything wrong with it but you should realize that you aren't going to make any money. They do not promote the book as a real publisher would, they make their money from the vanity of their authors wanting to see their work in print.

Answer 8

Your father should not pay to have his book published. It is almost invariably a con and there will be no marketing behind the book, just a crate full of Christmas gifts for him to hand out to patient friends and relatives. If he is interested in self-publishing, try lulu.com. They will print books to order and you can web market from there.

Answer 9

yes it's a con
a reputable publisher pays you for the book not the other way round
UNLESS
you are asking someone to print a limited print run FOR YOU then yes a printer you pay for a print run this is a different thing to bieng a published author - it's not on public sale, you get all the copies then you get to try and find buyers or give them as presents

Answer 10

It sounds like vanity publishing. Books can be published for as little as $300.00 if it's a "print on demand" publishing company.