Choose The Best Self-Publishing Services E-Book

Alliance of Independent Authors

• Herausgeber: Font Publications
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Complete Publishing Guides for Indie Authors
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 288

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Authors: Want to know how to assemble the perfect self-publishing team for you, which services are reputable and which to avoid? This guide has the answers.

Choose the Best Self-Publishing Services is a comprehensive guide to hiring services across the seven stages of the publishing process: editorial, design, production, distribution, marketing, promotion and rights licensing.

Drawing on the experience of the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi)’s watchdog desk, it sources industry data from a thousands-strong community of professional authors working every day on the publishing front line.

The book assesses companies that sell publishing tools and services against a code of standards for ethics and excellence. It takes an individualist and creative approach, encouraging you to think critically and choose the best self-publishing partners for your business, covering everyone from large players like Amazon KDP and Apple Books to your local freelance editors and designers.

In easy-to-understand chunks, you will learn:

• What collaborators you need to produce high-quality books
• When and what to outsource, and how much it should cost
• Processes to assess any tool or service before you pay
• The criteria you need to assess any service for yourself
• The steps you can take to recover if you’ve fallen for a scam

The principles and practices outlined in this book work across all genres—fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—and will empower you to build a strong publishing team, produce better books, and sell more copies around the world.

Leseprobe

CHOOSE THE BEST SELF-PUBLISHING SERVICES

ALLI’S GUIDE TO ASSEMBLING YOUR TOOLS AND TEAM

ALLIANCE OF INDEPENDENT AUTHORS

JOHN DOPPLER

Series EditorORNA A. ROSS

CHOOSE THE BEST SELF-PUBLISHING SERVICES

ALLi’s Guide to Assembling Your Tools and Your Team

5th edition

© 2022 John Doppler, Orna Ross

Alliance of Independent Authors

E-BOOK: 978-1-913588-79-3

PAPERBACK: 978-1-913588-61-8

LARGE PRINT: 978-1-913588-62-5

HB: 978-1-913588-63-2

AUDIO: 978-1-913349-05-9

Editorial: Daisy Editorial, Dan Parsons, Denise Cowle, Lauren Johnson

Cover Design: Jane Dixon Smith

The authors’ moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. Enquiries: [email protected]

Created with Vellum

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks are due to many people for the creation of this book. For book production, thanks to Margaret Hunter at Daisy Editorial for editorial and formatting of previous editions, to Lauren Johnson for this edition, and to Dan Parsons and Sarah Begley for publishing production. Thanks also to the fine folks at Scrivener for their writing software and Vellum for their formatting app.

In gathering information about self-publishing services, we owe a debt of thanks to author community activists like David Gaughran, Dan Holloway, Giacomo (Jim) Giammatteo, Joanna Penn, Mick Rooney, Helen Sedwick, Victoria Strauss, and Mark Williams and many others, for their unfailing work on behalf of authors.

And, as ever, our thanks to the members of the Alliance of Independent Authors—Author and Partner Members—whose experiences and feedback form the backbone of this book and all ALLi services.

* * *

CONTENTS

I. Introduction

Protection & Proactivity

How ALLi Can Help

Protection: Writer Beware®

Proactivity: The Value of Control

II. Publishers & Publishing Services

1. The Principle of Non-Exclusivity

2. Contracts & Agreements

III. Independent Self-Publishing

3. Going Indie

4. Writing Services

5. Editorial Services

6. Design Services

7. Production Services

8. Distribution Services

9. Marketing Services

10. Promotion Services

11. Publishing Rights Services

IV. Assisted Self-Publishing

12. Packaged Services

13. Hybrid Publishers

14. Vanity Presses

V. How to Evaluate Any Self-Publishing Service

15. Publishing Models: Risks and Advantages

16. ALLi’s Service Ratings

17. Evaluating a Service Yourself

18. Ten Questions To Ask A Self-Publishing Service

VI. When Things Go Wrong

19. How to Deal with an Unresponsive Service

20. Recovering from a Bad Service

VII. The Future

21. The Creator Economy

22. Emerging Technologies

Your Next Step

Glossary of Terms

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y

Other Guides

PARTI

INTRODUCTION

BY ORNA A. ROSS, DAVID GAUGHRAN AND VICTORIA STRAUSS

This book defines the questions every author needs to ask about any services they’re considering for hire, whether they are a beginner, or are publishing a first book, or have many books in their backlist. Its aim is to enable you to choose the best self-publishing service for whatever point you’re at in your book publishing, right now.

In this section, three community activists explain the self-publishing services sector, through the lens of self-protection and proactivity, and the sorts of issues that arise.

* * *

PROTECTION & PROACTIVITY

BY ORNA A. ROSS

As self-publishers, we spend our lives grappling with questions. How do I make a better book? How do I reach more readers? What services and supports do I need? How much will it cost me? How much can I make?

At the beginning, many writers begin by typing “self-publishing” into a search engine and instantly find themselves drowning in jargon and in listings paid for by vanity services. The answers to their questions are there somewhere, but rarely on the first page, and framed in a hundred different ways by a hundred different companies and bloggers.

And answers only seem to lead to more questions. How much should an editor cost? How do I protect my copyright? Is it worth paying for promotion? Where do I find good services that won’t rip me off?

It’s not just beginners who need assistance in choosing the best services. Self-publishing is a fast-changing sector and we are all constantly learning and improving. The services we need change over time. Whatever stage we’re at, we must source our assistance in an environment where some services are run by people who are knowledgeable, innovative, and fair, while others are clueless, greedy, and callous. Where the same service can cost $500 or $15,000, depending on where you shop. Where many of the worst services dominate the information stream and search engines online, trapping unwary authors with slick advertising and bait-and-switch tactics. And where there is more and more “choice” every day.

Even experienced indie authors can feel overwhelmed by this unregulated market that is so creative, innovative, and exciting and so idiosyncratic, unregulated, and increasingly fragmented.

Our aim in this, the second guidebook in the Publishing Guides for Indie Authors series, is to outline all your service options so you can put together the best possible team to support your writing, and sustain a profitable publishing enterprise.

THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY

The publishing industry today is made up of two sectors: self-publishing, where the writer of the book funds and oversees publication, with the assistance of self-publishing services, and third-party publishing, where individuals and companies license publishing rights from authors and undertake the tasks of publication on their behalf.

Third-party publishing is dominated by corporate publishing houses Penguin-Random House (PRH), Hachette Book Group (HBG), Harper Collins, and Macmillan, known as the “Big Four”, although the recent acquisition of Simon & Schuster by PRH is being contested. And a relative newcomer to the field is Amazon Publishing, a division of Amazon that offers a trade-publishing model, and not to be confused with Amazon’s self-publishing platforms, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX).

As well as these large corporations, there is also a vibrant independent publishing sector (“indie publishers”), third-party publishers with a variety of structures, sizes and business models. In third-party publishing, the publishing house and its business associates—editors, agents, librarians, booksellers, professional critics, other curators and gatekeepers—determine which authors succeed within their confines. The challenge for authors in this sector is breaking into this tight, hierarchical system, characterized by scarcity.

In the self-publishing sector, it’s the opposite. There, they must negotiate a loose, fragmented, unregulated publishing model, characterized by abundance. As they produce and promote their own books through their own websites, retail partners, social media, and other digital platforms, they face a confusing cornucopia of choice.

Thanks to digital tools and services, putting a book out is getting easier all the time. Publishing well, however, is more than book production, and means putting a book(s) through the seven processes outlined in the first book in this series: Creative Self-Publishing:

EditorialDesignProductionDistributionMarketingPromotionRights licensing

That is the job for every publisher, from individual author to Penguin-Random House. It’s a lot of work, employing very different skill sets, and as an author, you might think it’s all too much for you, or that you don’t have enough hours in your day, or that you can have only a limited reach. By using the right self-publishing services, however, you compound your time and energy.

The Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes once said: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” Good publishing tools and services are the indie author’s lever and fulcrum.

Publishers Don’t Ask for Payment

Before the internet unlocked literary doors, there was a simple divide in place. On the one hand, you had publishers and they paid you. On the other, you had vanity publishers and you paid them.

If you were taken on by the former, you were entitled to call yourself a published author and be proud that somebody besides your family and friends thought your book was worthwhile. If you were reaching for your wallet to hire the latter, you were thought to be vain and deluded. Even back then, though, there were determined and self-motivated authors who used self-publishing to break through to their readers. Writers like Jill Patton Walsh, whose self-published novel Knowledge of Angels was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, or Margaret Atwood whose self-published poetry book won the EJ Pratt Medal, or Wayne Dyer, whose put his self-published self-help guides in the back of his car and went from town to town across the United States, doing promotional talks, until they became bestsellers.

From classic self-publishers like Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Mark Twain to today’s JK Rowling, who self-publishes her e-books through her proprietary platform, Pottermore, there were always some enterprising writers who worked outside the third-party publishing system to reach readers directly. For most, though, paying for publication in the past was largely a vain effort, because book distribution was print based, through a tightly controlled supply chain. It was almost impossible for a writer with a garage full of books to break in.

And paying for publication carried a stigma. If an author hadn’t succeeded in finding a publisher who’d invest in their work, that assumption was that their work wasn’t good enough. That this assumption was wrong in countless cases has now been proven by the new self-publishing technologies. Manuscripts once relegated to rejection are now finding engaged readers and avid fans through self-publishing.

While the old distinction—a publisher pays you, a self-publishing service is paid by you—remains largely true today, the invention of digital publishing tools at the start of the 21st century changed everything. Varied business models and new approaches emerged, including companies attempting to straddle the line between both sectors, offering a traditional publishing framework (curation and some services), but charging the author upfront to offset the cost of production, rather than a percentage later.

SELF-PUBLISHING SERVICES

The self-publishing services sector is comprised of three service types: independent services, assisted services, and vanity services.

Independent Self-Publishing Services

For those authors who want to maximize their control and their return on investment. Individual companies and freelancers hired by independent, self-publishing “indie” authors, who upload their own books directly to self-publishing distributors and operate as the creative director of their book publishing and author business. Such services include individual, local freelance designers and editors and huge, global companies like Amazon KDP and Apple Books.

Assisted Self-Publishing Services

For those authors who want more support or who value time more than money.Companies and sole traders that bundle the seven processes of publishing into packages. Some offer “hybrid publishing” arrangements that adopt some of the practices of trade publishing, including curation and physical bookstore distribution. Assisted publishing is also referred to as subsidy publishing or joint publishing, and other names. There are legitimate hybrid publishers but the term has become popular among companies that wish to put a new, innovative face on an age-old activity: overcharging writers for book production while not engaging with the most challenging parts of the publishing process: marketing, promotion and rights licensing.

Authors shopping in this sector need to exercise caution as vanity presses often use this more acceptable term to cover up shoddy operations. (See Chapter 14 for more.)

Adding to the complexity is the confusion between hybrid publishers and hybrid authors. The latter term is used by some to describe authors who publish some of their books themselves and some with third-party publishers. At ALLi we think the term “indie author” is a less-confusing description as managing submissions to, or approaches from, publishers and other rights buyers is part of being an independent, empowered author-publisher, the creative director of your books and your publishing business.

Vanity Services, Unqualified Services

To be avoided.Today, the term “vanity publisher” or “vanity press” is generally used to describe self-publishing services that deliberately exploit authors’ publishing ambitions and engage in ineffective, sub-standard, misleading or, in the worst cases, outright deceptive practices with the intention to extract as much money as possible from the author.

To add even more murk to the mix, some corporate publishers, including Penguin-Random House and Simon and Schuster, have aligned with some of the worst vanity services in an attempt to cash in on the self-publishing boom.

No wonder authors are confused and chary.

CHOOSING A SERVICE

Choosing the best self-publishing service for you means by arming yourself with good information and being clear-sighted about what you want from a service, and also what a service can actually do for you. Your service needs will change as you become a more experienced publisher.

Whether you’re just starting out, or already have a book or two behind you, publishing is a complex skill set. If somebody is making success sound easy, beware.

Before making a hire, ask yourself why you are attracted to the particular form of assistance you’re considering. Maybe you want a service that will take away all the tasks you don’t want to do, leaving you free to “just write”. That’s an understandable desire, but is that actually what you’ll get? (Spoiler alert: there is no such service.)

Even the biggest publishing houses expect their authors to engage in book marketing and may or may not supplement those efforts. Few published authors get a decent marketing budget these days. Similarly, a self-publishing service that promises a “soup-to-nuts” service will expect you to contribute time and energy as well as money.

Choosing the best services for your next title requires a two-pronged approach. The first prong is protection. The second is proactivity.

1. The Protective Approach

Take a protective approach first, particularly if you’re a new and eager author, to save you from falling victim to a bad actor.

There are many ways an unscrupulous operator can leave you worse off than they found you, and not all are financial. Vanity presses will try to mystify you with jargon and offer bloated service packages to crowbar as much money from you as possible. The worst will also try to inveigle you into signing away your publishing rights.

By writing a book, you have automatically created intellectual property rights, for example:

audiobook rightsTV & film rightsboard game rightsmerchandising rights

The most significant advantage in being a self-publishing, independent author is that you keep these rights when you self-publish your books and can go on to license them…unless you sign a contract that hands them to another.

A discussion on this topic could fill a whole other book—and does! See How Authors Sell Publishing Rights (Book 6 in this series) for a detailed examination of the issues surrounding rights licensing. You don’t need that in-depth knowledge until you come to that stage, which is the final stage in the publishing process. All that’s important earlier on is to know these rights exist, and not to surrender them unknowingly.

Control of your book production, control of your metadata, control of your book’s positioning, marketing and promotion online and off are all rights that are not to be given up lightly, whether to a trade-publisher or a self-publishing service.

Some service or publishing contracts limit your opportunities and control. Some have clauses that sneakily grab your rights. Some include non-compete clauses that prohibit you from publishing anything in the future without their permission. Many of these companies pose as publishers and use flattery, bait-and-switch tactics, and anything that will pull you into their orbit.

This isn’t meant to scare you but to encourage you to look at all author service and publishing contracts with protection in mind first, and check terms and conditions carefully.

Don’t start out thinking the only way you can see your book published is by handing over a truckload of cash, or your publishing rights, to a third-party. Get help if needed. (ALLi will check any contract for any member). Armed with knowledge, you will be able to weigh risk and benefit, and won’t be susceptible to persuasion tactics.

The best service providers don’t want to take control of your work. They give you the tools, information, or labor you need to operate and the freedom to use them as you choose. They make money when you make money, or they add clear and significant value to one or more publishing process.

These are the people you want to work with.

2. The Proactive Approach

Once you’ve identified that a service poses no threat, that you are not being overcharged, that there is no rights grab, that the service you’re considering has industry approval and happy customers, you can begin to engage more proactively.

A proactive approach analyses a service company or publisher with your personal publishing goals and intentions in mind. It seeks the service that will maximize your revenue and optimise your overall success, as you define it, at this time.

In making proactive decisions, you are doing much more than simply choosing a service; you are adopting a method and a process and creating collaborations that may become lifetime partnerships.

On your first outing as a self-publisher the big choice you’re faced with is whether to take the independent route—directly hiring editors, designers, virtual assistants, and marketing services and directly uploading finished book files to one online retailers and distributors—or to hire an assisted service, that provides a package of tools across the seven processes of publishing.

The independent option is most likely to give a commercial return on the author’s investment of time and money, but juggling multiple service providers can create additional overhead, research, billing, and coordination. Time-strapped authors may instead choose to purchase a full-service publishing package from a single vendor for the convenience, or smaller bundles of related services.

These packages tend to have a higher price tag, and the author usually pays a premium for the convenience of one-stop shopping and more personalized service.

Contrary to the opinion of some authors, not all assisted services that charge higher-end fees are a waste of money, or dishonest, or vanity services by definition. As with any other purchase you might make, it’s not a question of price, but of value for money.

You are the expert on what you need, at this point in time. When assessing the service, the questions to ask are: What are you paying for? Does it have real tangible value in terms of helping you to produce a great book or reach more readers? You must understand the value being offered and the values of the service company and its offers.

If having a reputable company hold your hand through the process is appealing to you and will make things easier to negotiate for you (especially first time out and if you can afford it), then it may make sense in your circumstances. Just remember that it is in the package end of the self-publishing market that we find most of the rogue providers.

The independent option is the one taken by most successful ALLi members. It means making choices that maximize your creative and commercial advantage, drawing together online tools and collaborators to supplement your own competencies and self-taught skills to prepare, produce and promote your books.

Nobody starts off knowing how to do all this. It’s a skill that’s learned by doing, and first time out, it takes you on a steep learning curve, which is why some people like to break themselves in gently by starting with the support of an assisted service.

You are the best judge of your needs but as a general rule, ALLi recommends the independent option of keeping as much control as possible, hiring freelance assistance for editorial and design, and uploading books directly to self-publishing platforms like Amazon, IngramSpark, and Apple. Hiring services on an à la carte basis rather than as a package of bundled services makes it easier to assess quality, value, and performance. It also eliminates the common problem of “package bloat”, using low-value, high-markup services to pad the perceived value (and cost) of a package. (See Chapters 13 and 14).

HOW TO READ THIS BOOK

If you are less certain about your choices, or if you have never self-published before, you might want to read all the way through this book to get an overview.

At ALLi we recommend a “just in time” instead of a “just in case” approach to acquiring self-publishing knowledge. You do best when you seek out the information you need as you need it, rather than trying to learn everything up front and in advance.

So, one way to approach this book is to go to the section which refers to the stage you are at in your author journey. If you are looking for an editor or a marketing service, jump in at Chapter 4 or 8. If you haven’t made up your mind whether you want to hire a full-service company or individual freelancers, read Part IV “Assisted Self-Publishing” first.

In this book, we talk about services that are doing a good job and why you might avoid others. We share the experience of the Watchdog Desk at the Alliance of Independent Authors and other community activists. Importantly, in an industry where things are changing so rapidly, we also set the context within which your choices are made and show you how to appraise any service, large or small, à la carte or package yourself. And answer the question whether it’s right for you, right now.

* * *

HOW ALLI CAN HELP

Assisted Publishing

The name ALLi is pronounced “ally” (al-eye), as that’s what our alliance of independent authors aims to be: the self-publisher’s ally, with individual members (“i”) working for the larger all. Our community provides something like the ancient craft system of apprenticeship for authors, but with many masters—all of whom have "been there, done that" and are happy to pay forward what other authors have given to them. And all of whom are still learning and growing themselves.

ALLi is a global organization with thousands of members and advisors all over the world. Our mission is to foster excellence and ethics in self-publishing, and our work is fourfold:

We advise, providing best-practice information and education through our Self-Publishing Advice Center, which offers a daily blog, weekly live streams and podcasts, and a bookstore of self-publishing guidebooks.We campaign for the advancement of indie authors in the publishing and literary sectors (bookstores, libraries, literary events, prizes, grants, awards and other author organizations) globally, encouraging the provision of publishing and business skills for authors and furthering the indie author cause.We serve our members through various member tools and resources including author forums, contract advice, sample agreements, contacts and networking, literary agency representation, and a member care desk.We monitor the self-publishing sector through our Watchdog Desk, alerting authors to bad actors and predatory players and running an approved partner program.

The information in this book is based on the work of this hardworking Watchdog Desk, headed up by John Doppler, author of this book, supported by co-director Philip Lynch, news editor Dan Holloway, and other community watchdogs—two of whom, Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware® and David Gaughran, have contributed essays to the Introduction in the pages ahead.

The ALLi Watchdog Desk, alongside others, helps our members and the wider indie community to navigate what Victoria Strauss in her introduction calls the “shark-infested waters” of the self-publishing sector. Its work is core to ALLi’s mission of ethics and excellence in self-publishing.

It helps authors learn about the dangers and guides them toward the world-leading services with whom they can publish most cost-effectively, without ever giving up their publishing rights.

Partner Members, Directory, and Database

What should you look out for when trying to compare one service with another in a landscape where they don’t all offer the same thing? How do you compare an apple with an orange with a cabbage?

We’ve done our best. In this book, and in the daily work of our Watchdog Desk, offerings are categorized, prices examined, payment structures broken down, terms and conditions trawled, phone calls made, small print scrutinized, and claims checked against the experience of real-life authors--members of ALLi, who have actually used these services.

Our aim goes beyond highlighting bad actors in the marketplace. Members are also guided toward good self-publishing services that have been vetted and approved. These companies and freelancers who are willing to sign up to our Code of Standards (see Chapter 21) and guarantee to offer good services, creative solutions, and decent business practices and pricing to authors.

Existing partners range from huge companies like Amazon KDP, IngramSpark, and Apple Books to family businesses and individual freelancers. Many of these small enterprises are writers themselves (dual membership ensures they benefit from both author and partner privileges) or otherwise embedded in the writing and publishing community.

We are pleased to connect our Author and Partner Members and do that in a number of ways:

Authors can search for Partners in a searchable database in the ALLi Member Zone.Partners can also advertise in the directory and member magazine, contribute to our blog, podcast, and online conference, offer discounts and deals to authors, sponsor events, and contribute advice in our closed forum.And we publish a directory of our Partner Member services (updated quarterly).

The Watchdog Desk at ALLi also maintains two ratings lists for the wider community: one of self-publishing services beyond our Partner Member list, and one of awards and contests. These pages are alphabetical listings of companies that can be found at the links below.

To look up a self-publishing service, see: SelfPublishingAdvice.org/ratingsTo look up an author award or contest, see: SelfPublishingAdvice.org/awards

The experience of our members and advisors is woven into everything you’ll read in this book (and everything we do). Before we start, we’d like to say a huge thank you to them all.

With their assistance, you can work your way through the maze of services and find the services that are right for you—not just now, but as your indie author business expands.

All information in this book is up-to-date at time of publication, but do bear in mind that the self-publishing sector is always changing. Members’ questions are answered directly in our member forum and through our Helpdesk.

If you have further questions don’t hesitate to contact us, any time, at: AllianceIndependentAuthors.org/contact

ALLi’s real strength is our membership. When you join ALLi, you’re not just joining an organization, but a movement. A chaotic, kaleidoscopic, liberating, exciting, and self-organizing movement that is transforming publishing.

As a self-publisher, you are part of a great flowering of creative expression in the literary arts. Whether you’re just starting out, or you’re an experienced authorpreneur, ALLi aims to be with you every step of the way. You can find out more here: AllianceIndependentAuthors.org.

AUTHOR ACTIVISM

Keeping on top of the rapidly changing self-publishing sector is no easy task. ALLi relies on information and alerts from many community activists and representatives, such as Ethan and Ezra Ellenberg of the Ellenberg Agency, author Giacomo (Jim) Giammatteo, ALLi’s Outreach Manager Michael la Ronn of Author Level Up, and Enterprise Advisor Joanna Penn of TheCreativePenn.

Other regular contributors include Mick Rooney of The Independent Publishing Magazine, Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard, and two authors who have dedicated much time and attention over the years to help keep unsuspecting authors out of the hands of poor services and direct them toward reputable ones, David Gaughran and Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware®. Before we get into the book proper, we begin with an essay from each of these two that exemplify the issues around protection and proactivity that are core to this book.

* * *

PROTECTION: WRITER BEWARE®

BY VICTORIA STRAUSS

If you've completed a book and want to publish it, you might think it makes sense to turn to Google or other search engine. You are not alone. "How to publish a book” is a popular internet search phrase.

This is not a great idea.

While such searches turn up some good resources, a lot of what you'll see on the first couple of pages (which is as far as most people look) is useless or worse. The internet is an invaluable resource. But it's also a tsunami of misinformation and a shark pit of scammers and opportunists.

Yes, there are sharks out there in the literary waters. The writer who wants to publish or self-publish a book needs to know that literary deceptions abound, from fee-charging literary agents to dishonest editors to deceptive vanity publishers to fake contests.

“Publishers” offering a contract that requires you to pay for publication are not publishers. Such companies are variously known as vanity, subsidy, joint-venture, co-op, or partner publishers.

Often, you’re told that what you’re paying is only a portion of the cost, with the publisher kicking in the rest or providing additional services of substantial value. In reality, most pay-to-publish ventures charge inflated prices that not only cover the whole cost of production but generate fat profits for the service.

Most insidious are the websites that purport to match you with appropriate publishers in exchange for information about yourself and your book. The true purpose of these sites isn't to provide helpful guidance to writers—it’s to generate leads for author services companies and vanity publishers, which either pay for listings or buy the information gathered through the forms writers fill out.

Another trap: listings for faux consumer guides where overpriced author services companies pay for advertising, and misleading "Top 10" lists which are really just a bunch of pay-per-click affiliate links. (There's a reason why so many of these sites list the same companies.)

Be skeptical in general of any resource that claims to list the Top Anything—at best, this will be subjective and incomplete—or that presents itself as a consumer resource (unless you can verify that it is, in fact, a consumer resource).

That's why they want your phone number and mailing address, and why many of them ask how much you're willing to pay for publication. If you go through the process of filling out the forms, you'll either be promised direct contact from "interested publishers" (read: relentless phone solicitations from author services companies) or given a list of "personalized" recommendations (all of which are pay-to-play).

Many of these sites neglect to say who sponsors them and have anonymized domain registrations. Some can be traced back to lead generation or affiliate marketing companies, but figuring out their provenance can be difficult.

Unless they're owned by the granddaddy of author services companies, Author Solutions.

Author Solutions is by far the largest sponsor of fake publisher matching sites, all designed to steer writers into the clutches of AS's many “imprints.” AS does identify itself in tiny print at the bottom of the sites or in the sites' privacy policies. But these mild disclosures can easily be missed by eager writers, who in any case may not be familiar with AS's reputation for high prices, aggressive solicitation, poor customer service, and junk marketing. (And seriously, who reads privacy policies?)

Writer Beware® Organization

Writer Beware® was founded in 1998 by myself and fellow author and Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) member Ann Crispin (A.C. Crispin), who has since sadly passed away. Like the ALLi Watchdog Desk, Writer Beware’s® mission has always been to track, expose, and raise awareness of scams and other questionable activities in and around the publishing industry

Around the time I first went online, in the mid ‘90s, several major scams were just beginning to implode, in part through writers’ discussion of their experiences on the internet. I was at first fascinated, and then horrified, by this fraudulent shadow-industry. Here was a whole slimy publishing underworld that I’d had no idea existed.

Writer Beware® is entirely staffed by volunteers. We’re sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, with additional support from the Mystery Writers of America. Although SFWA and MWA are US-based organizations of professional genre fiction authors, Writer Beware’s® efforts aren’t limited by genre, country, or publication history.

ALLi and Writer Beware® have tracked the amazing growth of self-publishing schemes and scams over the past few years. Self-publishers face a wide array of dangers, from “editing services” that do little more than run manuscripts through spelling and grammar checks, to overpriced designers and artists and formatting services, to bogus publicists who charge a premium for junk-mail “marketing,” to predatory self-publishing services that advertise themselves misleadingly and engage in relentless upselling.

Lack of competence is also a big problem. There are skilled providers for every step of the self-publishing process, but there are also many people offering services—often for a lot of money—that they aren’t qualified to deliver. These people may not be scammers; in fact, they may have the best of intentions. But goodwill is not a substitute for experience. For most writers, the difference between a scammer and an amateur is negligible: either way, they wind up with a smaller bank account and an inferior product.

The good news is that you can protect yourself, with a little information and a healthy dose of caution.

WHEN YOU SHOULD BE CAUTIOUS

If a Literary Agent Requires an Upfront Fee

Reputable literary agents derive their income from commissions on the sale of literary properties and not from upfront fees. Asking for money upfront violates the basic premise of the author-agent relationship: a shared financial interest in the sale of the author’s manuscript. An agent who profits only when the author does is highly motivated not just to place a manuscript with a paying publisher, but to obtain the best possible deal. An agent who makes money right off the bat has already made a profit, diminishing the incentive to submit to legitimate publishers.

There are three kinds of upfront fees you may encounter. The first is the reading fee: a request for money just to read your manuscript. It’s not hard to imagine how this practice can be abused, which is why most professional agents’ associations prohibit it for their members. No reputable agent charges reading fees—in fact, they’re so discredited that very few fraudulent agents charge them either.

The second kind of upfront fee is the evaluation fee. Agents who charge evaluation fees promise not to just read your manuscript, but to provide a critique. But evaluation fees are as easy to abuse as reading fees, which is why they too are proscribed by most agents’ associations.

The third (and by far the most common) kind of upfront fee is the “marketing” or “submission” or “administrative” or “handling” or “retainer” fee—supposedly, a share of the expense of marketing a manuscript.