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For Authors
In reading your article on the Authors Home page, ""Do You Write the Right Stuff?", I get the feeling you prefer non-fiction manuscripts. Is this true?
Some publishers charge nothing to publish one's book in print. Why should I pay you?
Do you screen manuscripts? Why can't I use color images with POD?
Are you a 'Vanity Press'?
What do you do to keep people from giving away copies of an electronic book?
In reading your article, "Do You Write the Right Stuff?", on the Authors Home page, I get the feeling you prefer non-fiction manuscripts. Is this true?
We are happy to accept well-written fiction as well as non-fiction manuscripts. The point is this: we want to make sure you're aware that in today's world, non-fiction and how-tos are likely to remain the best sellers indefinitely. Check out the shelf space in any large book store. You'll see for yourself. More shelf space is given non-fiction and how-tos. Whatever you decide, keep writing!
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Some publishers charge nothing to publish one's book in print. Why should I pay you?
If we didn't charge a fee, we'd have to buy your book. Then it would no longer be yours, but ours. And you'd have no further say in its future. We ask no rights of any kind to your book. This leaves you free to sell your book to anyone else at any time.
And we encourage you to continue the agent/offline publisher game. Because this is where the bucks are, and where reputations are made.
We make certain nothing in our deal detracts in any way with your efforts to hit the big time.
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Do you screen manuscripts?
Yes. We demand professionally written prose that is first rate in all respects. This includes error-free copy. If yours is not, do the editing before sending it to us.
Any book we offer our customers must be good. By continuing to meet their expectations, they come to trust us. They return repeatedly to grab another title. Maybe yours.
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Why can't I use color images with POD?
Excepting the 4-color cover, content is always black on white. This is true with offline presses as well. For example, you won't find colored images in pocket books on newstands. To print in color requires at least an offset press. And it will require four runs to get all the colors printed correctly. A very expensive process. One POD ignores. In fact even black & white images are tricky.
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Are you a Vanity Press?
This label popped up years back, long before the Web
even existed, when small presses began asking for
fees from authors, or took on a title without paying an advance. All who talked of such operations needed a label to distinguish between such houses and the majors. 'Vanity Press' was invented to make this distinction. And this label is applied even harder on the Web.
So whether you pay or don't pay, whether the publisher does the cover or you do it, whether you edit or the publisher does, none of these matter. You are 'guilty' of the grand sin of turning to a 'Vanity Press' when your work is published on the Web.
While we can't change this, we do offer a twist; we ask only your permission to sell the version of your book that we produce for you. This leaves you free to continue to pound away at the major houses. You need not even mention us, or that your work is available on the Web. For you retain ALL rights to your work.
Further, since you paid the up front costs, we'll take down your pages upon your request. Thus there's no need to be concerned about legal hassles with a major house.
We want what's best for you and do all possible to make it happen.
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What do you do to keep people from
giving away copies of an electronic book?
There is nothing that can be done to prevent this, unless you want to get into
some complex password protection schemes that lock a book to a single computer.
This creates lots of problems, as a customer may have a legitimate reason for loading your book on another computer. As in preparing to go on vacation, maybe. Since the invention of copy machines, now found in most libraries, it has become impossible to prevent copies of one's work from being distributed. Rather than being concerned about something beyond your control, write another good tale. You
may have generated some new fans in all this, folks who'll buy your next story.
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