Let us create a 3D eBook for you!
Let us create a 3d Digital eBook for you! DigyCat.com

Raise Your Hand If Youd Consider Giving Up The Rights To Your Book Forever


If Random House pulls up to your house with a U-haul filled with millions and wants to buy your book, maybe you'd consider giving up the rights forever. But, let's come back to the real world. In the real world, many authors find that the best way to launch a writing career is to essentially self-publish by using a print-on-demand (POD) publisher.

The problem is that the POD buffet is filled with the equivalent of healthy choices (publishers who charge low or no publishing fees and allow authors to terminate the contracts at anytime) and unhealthy choices (publishers that charge exorbitant upfront fees and lock authors into contracts for years). Often the writer's eyes are bigger than her stomach - she makes a move for the first publisher who tells her that her work is great.

Signing a POD contract impulsively is always a mistake. Unless you are trained as a lawyer, deciphering a POD contract can be tricky since many POD publishers have paid some hefty legal fees to have attorneys sculpt contracts that could easily crush an unsuspecting author.

If you can't afford to hire a lawyer to review your POD contract you need to arm yourself with some knowledge before signing one. In my book, The Fine Print (www.book-publishers-compared.com), I take the legalese commonly found in most POD contracts and explain it in terms that will actually make sense. I also tell you the types of clauses in a POD contract that should cause you to run away from a publisher as quickly as possible.

If you don't want or can't purchase The Fine Print, here are three tips that may help you avoid a bad publishing experience.

1. Never pay more than $500 in up front POD publishing fees.

The most reputable POD publishers charge between $300-$500 for the publishing package which should always include customized cover art, formatting, placement of your book on Amazon, etc.; and ISBN number, bar code, and a sales page on the publisher's website. If you are paying more and not getting at least the services mentioned above, you are getting taken.

2. Only Sign a Contract That You Can Terminate When You Want

The best contracts are those you can terminate at any time (usually by giving 30-90 days notice). Some POD publishers that don't charge or charge very little for their services require a longer commitment on your end (1-2 years) before you can terminate. Because they have money invested in you this is understandable. Never sign a POD contract that you can't get out of easily. Some POD publishers require that you give them the rights to your book for the term of the copyright. When you see this run fast! The term of the copyright is for the life of the author, plus another 70 years - basically forever.

3. If the Publisher offers less than 30% Royalties on the Gross Sale Price Find Another Publisher

The royalties paid should, at a minimum, be 30% of the sales prices of each book. Be wary of contracts that give you some high percentage of the net sales price. This is where fuzzy math can creep in and take away almost all your profits.

The factors you should use to determine whether or not the proposed royalty is acceptable are:

? Whether it is based on the gross or net sales amount (and if based on the net sales amount, the calculation must be on hard numbers (production costs, credit card processing fees, etc.) and not vague items ("administrative costs", etc.);

? The actual production cost of the book (Production costs on POD books should be between $3.50 and $5.50. Anything higher than that and you can bet that the publisher is padding this amount to lower your actual royalty);

? The size of the publisher's distribution network and traffic to the publisher's online store (the more places your books are for sale, the more chance people have to find them); and

? Marketing efforts the publisher engages to inform readers of your book (if a publisher actually spends money to help sell your book, a lower royalty is not out of line).

? Whether the publisher treats itself like a third-party retailer (e.g. Amazon.com) and gives itself a trade discount to sell you book (For example, for a $15 book, Amazon gets $7.50 for each book sold, then the remaining $7.50 is divided between the author and publisher based the royalty agreement. Some publishers give themselves a trade discount so in effect they end up making 80% of each sale for a book that you paid them to publish!)

Again, these are just the basics of the basics, but they provide the building blocks of the foundation of knowledge you will need to have before you sign a POD publishing contract.

Mark Levine is the author of The Fine Print (http://www.book-publishers-compared.com), which dissects, analyzes and ranks the publishing contracts and services of 74 of the top POD publishers. He is also the president of Click Industries which provides business incorporation services (http://www.clickandinc.com) and copyright registration services (http://www.clickandcopyright.com)


MORE RESOURCES:

Book Marketing - Google News

This RSS feed URL is deprecated

This RSS feed URL is deprecated, please update. New URLs can be found in the footers at https://news.google.com/news

Book your place on Daily Echo digital marketing seminar - Bournemouth Echo


Bournemouth Echo

Book your place on Daily Echo digital marketing seminar
Bournemouth Echo
THERE is still time to book your place on one of the free digital marketing seminars being held by the Daily Echo. The events take place this Thursday, February 22, at the Hotel Miramar on Bournemouth's East Cliff. They are aimed at helping business ...

Exclusive Preview of 'Marketing, Interrupted' - Business 2 Community


Business 2 Community

Exclusive Preview of 'Marketing, Interrupted'
Business 2 Community
While writing this book, I had the great opportunity of examining how successful brands tell truly transformational stories. Use the link below to pre-order and receive 50% off your copy of Marketing Interrupted. Traditional marketing is broken. These ...

Fischetti's book tells story of friendship, transformation - The Ridgefield Press


The Ridgefield Press

Fischetti's book tells story of friendship, transformation
The Ridgefield Press
When interviewing Fischetti, a cinephile with an encyclopedic knowledge of film history, it's hard not to recall the image of James Stewart's George Bailey â a man whose close-knit friendships around the small, fictional town of Bedford Falls are his ...

Marketing Beyond The Product - MediaPost Communications


Marketing Beyond The Product
MediaPost Communications
Airbnb recently funded a digital campaign to promote tourism to destinations that President Trump allegedly referred to as âs---holes.â The money was used to promote the company's listings in Haiti, El Salvador and African countries. In a series of ...

and more »

Book Marketing Announcements: The Authors Show Lineup For The Week Of February 19, 2018 - PR Urgent (press release)


Book Marketing Announcements: The Authors Show Lineup For The Week Of February 19, 2018
PR Urgent (press release)
Book Marketing serves as a resource for authors and allows members to engage in promotion and publicity for marketing purposes. The site offers no-charge marketing training, book publicity opportunities and a buyers club for book marketing services ...

and more »

Byron Sharp's new 'marketing' textbook is a fiery trip down under - The Drum


The Drum

Byron Sharp's new 'marketing' textbook is a fiery trip down under
The Drum
The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute aims to be âthe home of evidence-based marketingâ and uses its methods to answer questions such as âAre big brands dying?â and âDoes the iPhone defy the double jeopardy law?â Sharp, whose previous work includes How Brands ...

Plainville mom's Easter children's book to be sold in malls nationwide - The Sun Chronicle


The Sun Chronicle

Plainville mom's Easter children's book to be sold in malls nationwide
The Sun Chronicle
âI gave them my spiel and soon after the Simon Malls' marketing department contacted me,â she said. âThey said they liked the idea and to send them a sample.â Starting this year, âPeek-a-Bunnyâ will be sold in over 50 malls across the country ...

Marketing 'Deadpool 2' As A Comedy Sequel Is A Calculated Risk - Forbes


Forbes

Marketing 'Deadpool 2' As A Comedy Sequel Is A Calculated Risk
Forbes
Now if director David Leitch's Deadpool 2 plays like a comic book sequel, frankly the sky is the limit in terms of retention. There haven't been many comic book superhero sequels that have earned noticeably less than their âpart 1â predecessors since ...

and more »

7 Content Marketing Books to Read in 2018 - Entrepreneur


Entrepreneur

7 Content Marketing Books to Read in 2018
Entrepreneur
Where will marketing be without content? It's the most important part of any marketing strategy. But, it's even more important for developing the right type of high-quality content to achieve successful results. Content - The Atomic Particle of ...

LargeFriends.com - the best dating site for plus-sized singles!
SuccessfulMatchCentral.com - the best dating site for plus-sized singles!

PreLaunchX

PrimeNews Domain Is For Sale - $5,000 For Enquiries eMail Us

© www.PrimeNews.biz - 2012

home | site map | links
http://book.primenews.biz/5719.php
book.primenews.biz
crawl=CC-MAIN-2018-09
48819
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:KCLDL6QBUEIA6LFJXRVZQUGSR46XTFY7
<urn:uuid:5ea5b4f0-75cd-4651-97ae-bbf6f6bdca72>
2018-02-20T13:25:55Z
74.220.207.125
text/html
sha1:IWBHNI5ICO62QASAOLW6ZZE2UMSQKXVV
<urn:uuid:878fad07-dd4e-460f-bc55-b593964493de>
http://book.primenews.biz/5719.php
response
<urn:uuid:b7410d1e-fecf-4cd4-8eff-ed1ae74055e2>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-81-147-252.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2018-09
operator: Common Crawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for February 2018
publisher: Common Crawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf