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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.
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