Here is what I mean by my title. Every year or almost every year I go to The Big E, The Eastern States Exposition, in MA. It's a very big fair that is held every year in Sept. My sister has a booth there and sells her shawls and purses. I go to help her out and do some shopping & have fun. There are buildings for all the states and being from CT, I went into the CT building. They had a booth w/people selling books from CT. I love to read and bought an autographed book called Joe Star, A Teenage Rock Star.

Oh my gosh, it is the worst book I have ever read! Not that the story is bad although there is some of it that could have been written differently, but the English is horrible! This person sounds like they are not from this country. The author is *J* M *Rusin* and it says in the back of the book, which I am just reading, that she attended college for 2 years and writes poetry and songs. She must have flunked English! It's awful and I didn't get A's in it, but believe me, I know correct English from incorrect. Hers isn't. Correct I mean. I am going to print a little bit of what she wrote and you tell me if this isn't awful or not. I can't believe someone would print a book like this and not correct the English or use spell check at all.

Well guys we will be jamming alls day long, and we will be working on new stuff, and new sound.

"What do you think said Joe, to his band?
Well new stuff might give a chance to be on the chart of top 20!
Yes!
But this time we will go all the ways!"

"One morning Joe star got up and a said to his mom and dad, I am going to plays and have my own band. They shook there head and said fine, son!
That's day, Joe decided to meet his friends at the West Farms malls.
He told his mom that he will be coming home late.
But his mom said, just be careful, and Rick said sure!"

I read the title, and saw some of the back of the book. It says in the book that this is a work of fiction and nothing in the book is real. She mentions DJs on a radio station by name that I know are there real radio names, the name of the real radio station, the mall that I wrote above that is it's real name and is in CT and other names of people and places that are in CT so that isn't true that things in this book are fiction. I am wishing I didn't buy this book but I am reading until the end just to see how it turns out.

Look at the publishing information. Is it a company you've heard of before? If not, Google the name and check to see if it's a vanity publisher. Anyone can pay a vanity publisher to print up a book for them. The books look completely legitimate, but they never so much as sat on the desk of an editor. lulu.com is a good example of one of these companies.

There's plenty of pros and cons to self-publishing, there's a whole argument as to why it is or should be taking off in popularity... but for the most part, that's what it remains: folks with money who can't get published based on their own merits.

Edit:
I looked it up for you.

This book is published by authorhouse.com. It's a self-published novel.

Additionally, the disclaimer in books is merely to protect the author from legal action.

So what exactly does that mean? You pay someone to print up the book and you have one book? They had a lot of books for sale. Other teachers tell me that a story I made up, which I may post here, should be made into a children's book. My preschoolers love the story, no matter which class I tell it to. I've never heard of this company before, which is why I asked.

Can you believe though they would print it like that though? I guess if it's the kind of company that will print anything, then I guess they would. This person has 6 books published.

If you check out an issue of Writers Digest magazine there are lots of ads in the classified for self publishing.

If you don't want to pay to get published and you're not ready for an agent, try submitting to small literary magazines.

I had a short story printed in one last year and I just found out I'm having another published this year. It's exciting, in it's own sad little way.

Good luck

Keep On Dancing*

Go on the websites and check it out. You can print one book, a dozen, or a hundred. I don't believe they check the text of the books at all. A picture book is different, and I expect it would be far more expensive to produce.

I'm most familiar with lulu.com, so I'll use them as an example. Here is a chart where you can calculate how much a certain printing of a book will cost. If I get the cheapest book: a 5.5 x 8.5" perfect bound black-and-white printing, I'd pay $0.015 per page plus a $2.50 "binding fee." Those are for books printed just for you personally or to be sold through lulu's marketplace.

If you are selling for distribution, of course, folks would buy in bulk. This is lulu's info page about that. Buying in bulk is cheaper, of course; I ran a quick quote and turned back a manufacturing cost of $640 for 100 100-page books.

Authorhouse.com sells packages, which lulu does as well. You can pay for an editor, a publicity plan, cover design, formatting, and ISBN assignment. These can run from $500-$1500 and up.



I have no notable authority on the subject, however I would HIGHLY, HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend against getting involved with vanity publishers. They have a bad reputation and are not seen as "real" book publishers because - as previously mentioned - anyone can get published by them. It is not based on merit. Self-publishing authors are seen as those who have been rejected from reputable publishers so many times that they've decided to bypass the system and publish themselves (hence the nickname - they do it for vanity). Most important, once you publish, your "first rights" - and often (with skeazy publishers, without your knowledge) your copyright - is GONE. When you sell a piece, a publisher wants exclusivity - your "first rights" are the valuable righst to be the first to publish the piece. If the writing has already been published, they're not interested. Some publishers, including vanity presses, will transfer the copyright of your writing from yourself to them, so you won't be able to republish your work. (This happened to my dad, which is why he is not a fan of publishing companies - he thinks he can market his book better now himself, but he's stuck.)


This is a very very basic explanation. There's benefits to self-publishing, but as you're unfamiliar with the writing world, don't go there. You put any future writing career at risk, and it gets dicey legally.

There was a story on self-published books and vanity publishers in the Washington Post Sunday magazine a few years ago. There is a local firm in this area which does this and they are pretty up-front about the odds on selling the books. For one, they have no real sales departments and the chances of getting a hook up with a mass marketer like B&N or Borders are slim. The few exceptions have been books dealing with antique collecting. There is apparently one book on some form of antiques which was self-published which has had print runs in the six figures and a consistant seller for 20 years as of the time of the Post article. I played a small role in a self-published book about 20 years ago. My boss in my real life job was a collector and something of an expert on "Maryland Earthenware Pottery" and developed a manuscript on it. My role was that I took some photographs of his examples (Several other people did the photos as well.) His intent was to go to various antique shows, sell things he had collected and sell his books at these shows. I retired and had no further contact with him and he died a few years after that so while I heard he got the book (self) published, I had no idea if he ever sold any. I never saw the book or my photos in it.

One twist to this I had never heard of before, but I have two books in this category. Another boss of mine wrote and self published an autobiography called "Confessions of a Codebreaker." The other one was written by my last and most famous violin teacher, Robert Gerle, shortly before he died of Parkinsons. While Gerle was rather famous in his day, his career was cut short by the onset of Parkinson's some 30 years before he died, yet he had a fascinating story (survived the Nazi's in Hungary, almost executed by a firing squad by the Russians, but managed to convince the Russian officer he really was a violinist by playing a Russian concerto for him.) Both were pretty good reads. I heard about them on-line. Apparently these vanity publishers did their work "on-demand" with desktop publishing. They did not maintain an inventory of the books,but had them on computer files. If I wanted the book, I ordered it on-line, either directly or through Amazon, and they had an automated process to create the book and bind it in either paperback or hardcover (I have one of each) as each sale is made and they mailed it to me about a week later. I had not heard of this before (or since.)

Jon

I have a friend whose sister got a book published using lulu.com like someone else mentioned.

Print-on-demand is common in academic works, Jon.

Online marketing makes selling self-published books a lot easier. Anyone - literally - can sell books on Amazon, or through a personal website.

I had no idea there was such a thing as vanity publishing. You learn something new everyday. Well, at least I do.

I know it would be hard to get a children's book published because they have to have pictures. It is just something that some of the teachers have said to me. If I was a better artist, I'd do the art work my self too. Oh well, it was just something people have said. I will probably never act on it but it's cool to think about.

I used to work with a guy who published a book through a vanity publisher. It was so, so bad. Not quite as bad as the example you posted, but it was BAD. He also told me an elaborate story about how he won an award from poetry.com and went to a convention to do a reading. I have no doubt he was telling the truth, because EVERYONE who submits to poetry.com gets told that they have won an award, that they can go to a convention to be presented with the award, and that they are being published in a poetry anthology - all for a fee, of course. And I looked up his poetry, and it, too, was shockingly bad.

Let me tell you about my writing. I have always loved to write. I've written poetry but because it didn't rhyme, I was told by a poetry group I belonged to that it wasn't poetry and they basically kicked me out. This was in the 70's I think. All the while the guy who was kicking me out wanted a copy of a poem I had read at the last meeting. I guess he liked it? Go figure. In High School I got B's in my Comp class. I would have gotten all A's but my Comp teacher thought no one was as smart as he was. He used to ask us a question in another language, like for instance Swahili, and when we looked at him like what have you been smoking (he was not a young teacher either), he'd answer us. It was never a language we might know like Spanish or French. He did speak English a lot too but just sometimes he would go off and speak something no one knew. I never got anything below or above a B. He loved my handwriting but hated what he called my "donut holes" over my I's (I put circles over my I's) and he would circle them in red. That was the only thing that ever got corrected. I wasn't about to change my handwriting for half a year (the other half was Speech). This was Senior year. So I am guessing my papers were pretty good. Could I write a story and have it published by someone who was legit and not vanity? Who knows? Maybe. Someday I may try. I think it would be fun to be published but it would also be fun to be known for my jewelry and greeting cards and stamping, some of which are posted here.

Okay, I've rambled on enough here. Thanks for listening.

I know of Blurb.com, which I really like. I've been thinking about doing some 'Yearbook' like books for just me, including on with all my undergrad papers and fun stuff like that: I'd love to hbe able to reference them without digging through my hundreds of paper files.

But, I agree, I've even bought e-books that were TERRIBLE. Just awful language, awful spelling and punctuation. It's disappointing to see that they couldn't even get it proof read by ANYONE.

Like I said, I had never heard of vanity publishing, so I assumed they proof read everything. I am a voracious reader and I can think of 2 books, not by name mind you, that had one mistake in them. 99% of them are fine as far as I can see. I know that they now have spell check on a computer but when you have a mistake, like too for to, the words are spelled correctly so it won't tell you which is wrong. You can spell a word right but it doesn't belong in there and spell check won't tell you. I know they used to have people whose job was to spell check a book but I think that was before computers. I just hate when you read a book and the spelling is all wrong or the English is all wrong. It's like the people on the Jerry Springer show. Listen to them talk. That's what some books remind me of, the people on that show.

Heart wrote:

Print-on-demand is common in academic works, Jon.

Online marketing makes selling self-published books a lot easier. Anyone - literally - can sell books on Amazon, or through a personal website.

Shows you how far I am removed from formal schooling. [My last graduation...MA from Johns Hopkins...was in 1975.] All my other schooling since then was either on the Government's nickel where they take care of the texts and that ended with retirement in 1999, or classes such as music or photography which didn't really involve textbooks.

Jon