I want to begin by saying, I am going to withhold names in this article in order to protect the guilty. I cannot stress enough that you should be very, very careful about "reputable" sites and companies offering you the moon, with bait and switch techniques that can really cost unwary authors thecash in their wallet.
I was recommended a company by a colleague I trust as a potential service provider I could work with. The first warning sign was that my colleague had never actually used their services- they just thought the guy was nice and his concept solid. So I put on my journalism pants, and decided to talk to the CEO of XYZ company.
Here is the break down of what they provide.
1. The claim to be a literary agent. They are not licensed and they don't actually perform the duties of a traditional literary agent.
2. They offer a "crowd funding" site for authors. The way it works is this- an author asks their friends and family to buy pre-sale copies of their upcoming book. If the number of books reaches a certain level, then the company "pitches" their book idea to a certain level of "publishers". (I know I am using a lot of quotes, but there is a lot of terms they use that are suspect and up to their interpretation). The author must create the query, synopsis and proposal on their own which they post on the site.
The bottom level are self publishing companies
Second - Hybrid publishers
Third- Small publishers
Fourth- A few traditional business book publishers
3. It is up to the author to bring in the buyers of the book. The idea is if the author has a certain number of pre-sales, then a publisher will be interested in signing with them.
4. They charge 30-35% commission on those pre-sales. Yes that is not a misprint. They are not a publisher or a printer. They just feel that the use of their site is worth a third of an author's pre-sales. This does not account for what the publisher is going to charge the author to publish and print the book. This is off the top.
5. They take a 15% commission if the book is published. This was confusing because they said they did this in an early interview and then recanted this statement later.
6. None of the information I have provided so far is on their website. They want the author to pitch their book and then they make the offer.
7. They claim to work with high end publishers, but when asked which of their clients were picked up by those publishers, they would not respond.
8. They claim that a number of best selling authors have dumped their previous publishers to use their platform. When they say best seller- they mean Amazon Bestseller. There were a couple of authors that had been previously published, but as of this article, they either had not met their quota, or they were not picked up by a new publisher and had less than 200 presales. This is problematic for me as most publishers would have a 'first right to refuse' clause in their contract. The one conclusion I came to was that their previous sales did not warrant a new contract, or they were not interested in their new book.
Facts
- Agents usually only charge 15% on royalties.
- Established Crowd Funding sites such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter only charge 5-8% commission, and nothing thereafter.
I had further concerns about the companies offerings:
1. A number of the "small" presses are actually well documented vanity presses. Their response?
"Yes,
we have vanity publishers on the site as options but that doesn't mean we
suggest authors use them."
I could stop my article right here with that quote.
2. Why are they located in Asia and marketing to US market with US publishers?
3. In one of the campaigns to sell books I noticed that they were actually selling coaching packages and even a workshop in South America for $2400 (they counted that as 20 books). The way they stated they dealt with the money was that they gave it to the publisher for the pre-sales, or if the author decided to self publish, they would give them the difference minus their commission. I asked exactly how they were paying the authors for coaching packages, which they were counting as books and there was no response. I guess I could bake my readers a cake and call it 10 books worth of presales. Yeah, my cheesecake is that good!
4. Why are they charging twice what a literary agent would charge. Their response was, "...there
is more value for authors because they take home more on a publishing deal through
us." Not sure how that is true.
5. I asked them why they charged 6 times more than what Indiegogo and Kickstarter charge. Their response was, "If
authors don't want a publisher, they go use Kickstarter to raise funds." Again not close to true.
Conclusion
As a writer and ghostwriter, I get offers from companies constantly touting a book in a weekend, or a book in a tupperware bin, or just give us your IP and we will make you a best seller at 2:00 AM in the Turkish Language classics category on Amazon.
I tell my clients, and now you my readers the same thing. Books are hard to write. They are even harder to get published no matter how you choose to do it. There is no short cut to success. There is no best seller formula except what I already stated- hard work. Throw in frustration, rejection, rewriting, rejection, lather, rinse repeat.
There are legitimate companies that are assisting authors along the way. They are wonderful and help people realize their dreams. My advice is to ask questions. Tons of questions. If it does not feel right cut bait. If they cannot give you verifiable answers- thank them and leave. If they cannot give you real people that have had success with them to talk to, then keep looking.
I will offer ANYONE reading this- if you have questions about a company- email me, and we can talk about it. If I don't have an answer I will work to find it. I will do this for free for you. I want people with great book ideas to have a chance to change the world of as many people as they can reach, without someone reaching in their pocket and stripping their wallet.
