Angry FFDO Editor

While perusing FaceBook today, I happened upon a side advertisement that said “Writers Wanted.” I have been unemployed now since June, so I occasionally view sites with that sort of information on them. When I clicked, I saw the unthinkable. A “publisher” was requesting manuscripts (with absolutely no guidelines as to genre, length, content, of any sort), and I continued reading through the steps the “publisher” would take. I thought it sounded fairly similar to the steps an agent would take, until step three, wherein the “publisher” would request a one-time upload fee of $199.

Here, I stopped. This was not the first of these I encountered, nor will it likely be the last. I had even seen a similar “publishing” style on an author website that actually has legitimate utility to writers, as long as you do not do the publishing through that site. Pay the site a few hundred, and they will publish your book. Sounds great, right?

Actually, it pretty much sounds like vanity presses have evolved, and I am certain sites like Writer Beware will be all over this nefarious activity. Not familiar with vanity presses? Allow me to explain. A vanity press will acquire your book for a nominal fee, publish X amount of copies of the book, and send them to you. Theoretically, what you do with them at that point is completely up to you, and the press does not really care. They already have their money.

This new evolution is even more insidious than that though. They charge you up front, the upload fee, and then (after reading the fine print, as I am wont to do), they also take 50% of your royalty! Holy highwaymen on speed, Batman, yes, you pay them up front AND they get residuals off YOUR effort to sell it. As if that is not some down right awful behavior, wait, it gets better. This is to only do e-book distribution. They will not even make physical, printed copies of your book.

Why would I be so righteously indignant about this? Simple. I am tech-savvy and capable of navigating my way through all the same forms and processes these people would do. These systems are FREE. Want to sell a book on Amazon’s Kindle? It is FREE. Want to setup on Barnes and Noble’s Nook? It is FREE. They are all free. They do not cost you anything to setup. Amazon will only take 30% (or 70% if you elect to do that). I honestly have not researched B&N’s cut, but given their ongoing fight with Amazon, I could not imagine it being any worse.

Further, let us look at traditional publishing for a moment. An agent will only take 15% at most of your royalty. The rest is yours (minus government deductions and what not, obviously). An agent that will navigate, negotiate, wheel and deal, finalize, advise, setup, work, and keep records of everything for you, only costs 15%, and I can guarantee these “publishers” will not do even a tenth of what an agent will do.

So let this simply be a warning to all the writers out there. Scammers exist in many forms, and they will cheat, swindle, and steal from you any chance they can. And if you let them, they will take hundreds, if not thousands from you. If you want to self-publish, do it right. If you cannot figure out how to do it right on your own, *begin sarcastic joke* contact me, and I’ll do all the setup and stuff for an e-book like these people will for a mere 15% of your royalty.*end sarcastic joke*

Picture: Found through Google Images at http://personaldevelopment.me/ and used here to illustrate anger at scams.