I asked around about ABP and I got some answers that are disturbing. One of them is worss then this one...

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Xlibris vs. Publish America vs. American Book Publishing
(A personal perspective by an experienced client)

As the author of several books, I have had the chance to experience several different non-traditional publishers first hand. My history with publishing and publishers is extensive, even though at this time I have only truly published four books. Nevertheless, my experience with publishers is far more ranging. I will not go into deep explanation of how this has come about, but know that over the past 15 years, I have researched, visited, and have been offered contracts by no less than 15 different publishing houses – i.e. E-publishing, Self-Publishing, Print-on-Demand, Vanity, and even some Traditional Publishing – and have first-hand knowledge of most types. Because of this, I feel confident in advising the pros and cons of most traditional, and non-traditional, publishers. Furthermore, I can offer ‘Expert’ opinion on three particular non-traditional publishers, as they are my current publishers. Xlibris published my first book, Publish America my second, and American Book Publishes three and four of my current titles. As I said, these are three non-traditional publishers, and are very different in their approach to publishing, and each offer benefits as well as limitations in various key areas. I will outline and compare each publisher regarding these areas, but you can take these comparisons and apply them to any non-traditional publisher offering services today.

1. Up Front Costs: There was a time that if you paid a publisher to publish your book, it was referred to as ‘Vanity Press’. However, these days with E-Publishing, Print-on-Demand, and Self Publishing, it is no longer uncommon to find non-traditional publishers requiring a fee to publish. Regardless of this, it is still nice to not have to pay to have a book published, so consider it a bonus to find a non-traditional publisher that is willing to take a book for no money up front. – Xlibris is fee-based publisher. They have fees for everything. Cover design, editing services, fonts, inside illustrations, you name it, they have a fee for it. -- Publish America does not require any fees to publish with them. In fact, I received an advance of $1 in signing my contract. $1 does not seem like much, but it does show that Publish America follows a more traditional publishing contract arrangement. -- American Book Publishing requires an upfront deposit that is refunded after a certain number of books are sold, but an upfront deposit is still an upfront fee, so I have to give the edge to Publish America in this area.

2. Acceptance/Submissions: One of my biggest complaints about the new publishing industry is the lack of quality and standards. Most all of these non-traditional publishers such as I-universe and Xlibris are nothing more than a glorified print service and would publish a compilation of your grocery lists - if you submitted it to them - and paid the fees of course. This does not help us as authors, or the industry as a whole. It also does not help the authors who have written quality books and published them with these publishers. By not pre-screening manuscripts, unpolished books - and just plain bad books - are being published that should have been sent back to the author for more consideration. (My first book is a prime example) It was a good book, but it was not a great book. I had submitted it to many publishers over the years, and each time it came back, I would revise and rewrite it. Each time, doing my best to make it better. This is quality control, and it challenges us as authors to write better. However, when I sent it to Xlibris it was accepted and published exactly the way I sent it to them, and because of this, it became just another mediocre, and unexciting book, that no one would buy. By accepting everything, these publishers fail authors and readers equally. – In contrast, both Publish America and American Book maintain a certain level of standard, and seem to not accept every manuscript that comes through their door. I feel that American Book is a bit more selective, but in either case, they are both seemingly working to keep the level of higher than most.

3. Contract (Rights): The Contract is the least important part of getting your book published until the day you are successful and you try to change it. The rights you keep and the rights you give up can mean the difference in having a movie deal, and not having a movie deal. It also will effect your over-seas distribution, merchandizing, and cross-media deals. In all fairness, I will not compare the publishers on contract, as book contracts will change from book to book and author to author. It is the way of publishing, and I only add this as a heads up for all new authors. “Get someone that knows contract law (Primarily literary contracts) to look at your deal.” It can save you headaches and heartaches later on. For the most part, contracts are the biggest issue, and bring the most complaints from professionals in the industry. I say again, “Don’t sign any contract until you have a good lawyer read it first.”

4. Editing Services: Oh sure, you spent the last umpteen months writing your book and making sure it was as perfect as you could ever hope it could be. Guess what? You have just begun. Editing for punctuation and editing for content are two very different things. In this area, the clear winner is American Book Publishing. The editing services that I received on my book were nothing short of amazing. I am not sure that I would have received this level of editing with Random House. (However, I am discovering that I was lucky enough to get a good editor) -- Publish America did the typical 1-2-3 run-through edit, after which I found over fifty errors that were missed. – Xlibris does not even bother with editing. They only setup the manuscript and then sent it to ‘you’ to look over for corrections. However, should you happen to find more than a certain numbers of errors or changes, you will be charged a fee for too many changes. They will then suggest that you have one of their editors edit it – for a fee of course. If you are a new author and not very proficient, this may be a major consideration for you. How well you are edited, will make or break you in reviews. The best advice I can give, if you do work with an editor is, “Don’t be afraid to ask for another editor if you feel the one your working with is not doing a good job.” I’m not saying that the editor is bad, It may be he/she is not a fan of the genre of your book, or perhaps your styles clash, point is, if it isn’t flowing, ask (nicely) to work with someone else. Of course, you have to find a publisher that actually assigns you an editor, which is next to impossible.

5. Cover Design: In this area I have to give American Book the edge again. I was asked to suggest some covers that I felt would best reflect the content of my book, and was given five options. From these, I found one that blew my socks off. Now I will admit that it is not typical that you find the perfect cover out of the gate, but in contrast - Publish America gave me one choice and one choice only. I had to really make some noise just to get them to adjust the cover into something that fit my book better. Even then, they only offered small changes. -- Xlibris will do any cover that you want, as long as you pay for it. If you don’t want to pay, they have pre-selected cover designs that you can choose from, or you can have one custom designed - for a fee. (Are you beginning to see a pattern here?) I had an artist do my cover and submitted it to Xlibris’s according to their guidelines. That way I did get a great cover without any extra fees, but still had to pay he artist. If you have a particular idea of how the cover art should look, this may be something to consider.

6. Distribution: Distribution is the lifeline to your book’s success. If you cannot put your book in the hands of readers that want it, it will not matter who publishes your work. Ingram is the big name needed for large bookstores, Baker and Taylor for libraries and small Mom-n-Pop shops. Both are equally important, with the online booksellers (i.e. Amazon, B&N, and Buy.com) the least important, but still necessary. In this area, Xlibris, Publish America and American Book Publishing are equal. There are some variations, but in overall performance, I have seen no big differences. What you have to realize though, is that unless you publish with some type of traditional publisher, there is no distribution. If you want books in bookstores, you have to do the work. There is no non-traditional publishers - that I know of - that have the kind of distribution that will get your books placed in a large number of bookstores around the country. Also, if you do use a non-traditional publisher, it is very unlikely that you can even get large chains such as Barnes & Noble, Boarders, or others to even consider your books. Why? Because they are too expensive, there is no return policy, and 7 out of 10 times, the books are not quality. What this leaves you with is direct marketing your book to the public. You can do it, but it is a lot of work, (Trust me, I know)

7. Marketing/Publicity: So you wrote a book and got it published – Big deal. How many people know that you published a book? Who is at the bookstore counter asking for it? Marketing and Publicity is how the world knows you wrote something. In most cases, you are on your own. And please understand this - even in major publishing houses they leave most of the marketing and publicity of unknown author’s books on the shoulders of the authors. If you think that once your book is published the work is over, think again. The day your book is released, your work really begins. Everything up until then was cake. Xlibris offers services. (Big surprise) You can buy promotional packages that print cards and bookmarks and announcements. They have many little publicity options, and you can get what you can afford. -- Publish America does not excel in this area either. They will send out cards and a cover letter to a list of people (that you supply them) telling about your new book and how to order it. That’s it - the rest is up to you. – American Book Publishing goes a bit further, but not much. They will assign you a personal publicist that will help you get on the right track and give you advice on what to do next. However, don’t think that this means your job is easier; this is just someone to help you along the way. Nevertheless, if you are a new author and have no idea how to market a book, this is a big advantage over the competition and I must give a big win to American Book in this area.

8. Author Discounts: Book signings, book shows, speaking events, and at many other events, you will need to bring your own books - lots of your books. This is because, your published non-traditional and your publisher does not offer a return policy, so the bookstore is only going to order a very few copies to keep on hand. How deep your discount is from the publisher is how much money you will make (I hope that everyone understands this) so, of course, more is better. Without getting into too much detail here, I am just going to say that these prices change everyday, so you just have to ask questions and get answers in writing.

9. Short Runs: In regards to price, the short run is your best friend. Short runs get your book off the Print-on-Demand machine that is rather pricey to operate, and onto the press, that is half the cost to operate. The tradeoff here is that you have to buy all the copies off the short run press upfront. Both publishers offer short runs, however, Publish America is rather reluctant to talk about it until they see a certain number of your books sold. Xlibris is a Print-on-Demand only publisher. They do not offer short runs in house, but I think they can set it up. The price they set is the price you get, and they will not negotiate on this point.

10. Royalties: Of course, the money. Again, between Publish America and American Book, they are somewhat close, but I cannot compare this area in great-detail, as it is not fair. Contracts change and although I can tell you what ‘I’ got, that may not be what you will get. I will only say this: Xlibris offers much higher royalties than either American Book or Publish America, and if you look, you will find other publishers offering the same high rates. However, you should also remember, more is sometimes less. If a publisher is offering too much, it may mean they don’t sell much and are trying to compensate for lack of sales. I have always said: “I would rather have ten cents on the dollar of something everyone is talking about, than 90 cents of something no one has heard of.”

I hope this has given you some food-for-thought. I will add one statement here regarding the above. I do not know what your contract looks like, I do not know what your publisher has offered you, but from my personal experience, this is what I know. I hope that you find success in whatever you do, but even if you do something wrong, it is important that you do ‘something’. Trying and failing miserably, will still gain you more in the end than sitting at home waiting for something to happen.

In the grand scheme of things, the traditional publisher is still king, and there is no beating their powerful distribution and marketing. I tell everyone to exhaust every possible avenue of traditional publishing before you breakdown and settle for second-best. Even if you do publish with a non-traditional, go back and try the traditional publisher again next time.
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Thats what the guy had to say. It all seems to ring true from all the homework I have done. If all that is offerd is to edit my book, make a cover, and put it on just three mizrubul sites to seel it, then why bother with them? If I have to do all the publisity myself then what good are they? As for editing I have plenty of people around who are more then willing to point out my mistakes I can do great art myself and my brother can as well. I'm thinkning I should just offer the book on CD with art and all. Sure I wont be selling books but the normal book sellers wont take the books from ABP. They dont do print on dimand.

Anyways I would love to hear some openions.
Thanks
~Angel~

Life is funny... glad my 100 or so years here is just a spit in the ocian.
God Bless
~Angel~

One thing is for sure, you have to market yourself all the time when it comes to making a buck. Sometimes it's an easy thing and sometimes, obviously, it isn't. Even with a PR assistant you should still take some initiative to spread the word yourself. I think you should stick with the traditional publishing approach myself, but I don't know all the problems you've encountered and how much research you've done. I'm sure it's a frustrating thing, but be encouraged in this: if something isn't hard to do, it probably is hardly worth doing.
You've obviously managed to overcome the obstacles to this point; don't give up because of one more obstacle. Press harder to overcome!

God Bless,
Matt

If I do it myself it will be on cd and in sevral diffrent formats. I will probably put it in HTML so that it can be navigated with eas. My dad has been talking to me about e-book creators too. It would be like having a book on your cpu that you can flip the pages and all with. Eather way it would be on a cd with a lot of art.

My brother did up a lot of anime stuff and I have a lot of scetches and graphic work ive done. So it wouldnt just be the book and thats it. It would be the book with art in it and backgrounds for your cpu. Maybe I will put that 1000 something peaces of art I have on it for free. They cover nearly ten years worth of my life and artistic growth.

I was thinking of selling the cds for around 5 dollors. I think it would be worth it. You get background art, character art, a large story, time lines, back history of the world, glossory, I think I could even find more things to put on it that would be related to the book. All around thats worth well more then $5.

I will need to get a small group of people together to do quality asurence. They would read the book and check for gramatical errors and also spelling errors. They would also keep me in check. You know make sure that I give the reader all the info they need and that im not slacking off. Keeping an eye on all that myself is imposibul. Im way to busy creating the world.

Heh another idea I was thinking about was getting some people together to convert the book into a game. I will be building a folowing for the book. Im sure they would want a game as well if they could get their hands on it.

All things to think about. Volentears anyone? :P
~Angel~

I'm glad you are thinking twice, considering that information. It's a lot of money if they don't do a lot of marketing.

Besides an e-book on CD, I think you could consider a cheaper alternative publisher (Publish America or one of the publish-anything POD guys) to still make a book. You'd have to do the marketing either way, so why not have a real book as well as the e-book? If you could find one with a reasonable cost.

It would be the same situation as a CD--still have to promote and maybe get editing yourself--but with the publisher, the advantage would be a real book that people can relax and read anywhere--the couch or bed or whatever--and being on Amazon.com, which might not get you sales out of thin air, but probably it would still come in handy along with your own promotion.

Curry

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It's not seeing is believing, it's believing and then seeing.
http://www.twoguyssoftware.ca

I'd hang on to your money and keep looking around. You'll get a great book
from them - but that's about it.

The books are priced at almost double the industry standard, are
non-returnable and have to be paid for in advance - something else they
probably didn't mention.

I wrote a guideline about the publishing process, entitled "Manuscripts
Wanted" Questions you should ask the publisher before you sign.

It's at http://www.marysfield.com/articles6.html

You're a smart one, Angel. I think that you'll be a very successful author.

Merry Christmas!

Vic

(Azariah...what a cool name)
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I recently got that from one of their authors. As for Amarican Publishing its worss then the one I just got the contract from. There are also cheeper ways to get a book printed. I may get that done as well. Im also thinking about just starting my own publishing company. All you do is build a reputation. Who knows

Thanks for all the replies
~Angel~