Publisher or Scam Artist?
(first published in The PennWriter, 2005)
By Nancy Martin
You’ve finished your fiction manuscript and polished it to perfection. And now the time has come to send your baby out into the world. Your first goal should be to find a reputable agent. (The subject of another, more important article!) But some writers—perhaps ill-informed, desperate, fed up with rejection or believing their work is too far out of the mainstream to appeal to traditional publishing houses--still insist upon making overtures directly to publishers. These days, between trade publishers, subsidy presses, small presses, vanity presses and co-ops or whatever new buzz words are floating around, it’s harder and harder to identify companies that rip you off while claiming they can make your dreams of publication come true.
To find yourself a legitimate, traditional publisher for your work of fiction (this article doesn’t address non-fiction work) careful research and networking with published writers is vital. How to spot a scam? Use these questions as you conduct your research:
1. Can you easily find lots of books published by the company in bricks and mortar bookstores such as Barnes and Noble, Borders and independent booksellers? (Legitimate publishing houses have marketing and sales departments that distribute books nationwide. Vanity presses have no distribution systems in place, although they send brochures to large outlets such as Ingram, Baker and Taylor and the chains. But a brochure isn't the same as an active sales staff. If you can't find books published by the company you're investigating, you should sell your work elsewhere.)
2. Is the publisher offering an advance on royalties of more than $500? (Advances paid to authors reflect the publisher's carefully calculated expected sales & the royalties. For first books, royalties often don't exceed the advance paid. Vanity presses sometimes pay a token advance to disguise themselves, but unless they're prepared to invest real money in you, they're probably a scam.)
3. Is the author asked to pay any expenses whatsoever? (Legitimate publishing houses pay for editing, copyrights, printing, marketing, sales, and distribution.)
4. Is the author required to buy copies of the book to hand-sell? (If you have to buy and sell your own books, the "publisher" isn't a publisher at all, but a printer. And if you are selling books out of the trunk of your car or spending your time on self-promotion to sell the books you have stacked in your garage, you aren't writing anymore, are you?)
5. Are the finished books competitively priced? A traditional publisher might sell a trade size paperback between the $10 to $15 price point, but some vanity presses put a cover price of $25 or more on the same kind of product. Books must be sensibly priced to attract buyers, so go to your local bookstore and do some comparison shopping.
6. Does the publisher accept returns from bookstores? Booksellers generally stock hardcover and trade paperback books from legitimate publishers with the understanding that unsold books may be returned. But vanity presses and some small presses require booksellers to purchase non-refundable books. Unsold books must therefore languish on shelves—taking up valuable real estate--until they are disposed of at a loss. Since the bookselling business operates on a slim profit margin, non-refundable books are bad news to booksellers.
If you get the wrong answer for even one of these red flag questions, you should move on in your search for the right publisher.
Here are a few more red flags that aren’t necessarily deal-breakers, but they often signal a scam:
1. Does the publisher want to buy just one manuscript from you? (Legitimate publishing houses are reluctant to invest in one-hit wonders and usually offer contracts for two or more fiction books.)
2. Is the author paid in copies instead of money? (Traditional publishing houses usually give the author 15 to 25 free copies in addition to an advance.)
3. Is the author promised cover approval in lieu of monetary reward? (This sounds like a wonderful perk, since most authors don't love their covers. But it's a cheap way for scam artists to make writers happy.)
4. Are you promised that your words will not be tampered with? (This means no editing. No writer should go to print without three kinds of editorial input: Content editing addresses story and marketing issues. Line editing is grammatical editing, but also addresses style issues. Copy editing is catching grammar, spelling and typos. If you think you don't need an editor, you've been listening to your mother too much.)
Why sell yourself short? If you’ve worked hard and produced a manuscript you think people will enjoy reading, don’t make a final stumble and end up at a vanity press. Revise and polish until your work is accepted by a reputable literary agent who can place your work at a house that will publish you as well as you deserve.
