Last week, we talked about FORCED MARRIAGE: When POD Publishers Take Your Money AND Your Rights.

This week, I’m going to discuss a disturbing trend among POD publishers. The list prices of some POD publishers’ books are going up – and fast. Some of these prices are so high that authors know potential readers will not buy their books. Authors should not spend hundreds to thousands to publish a book that will ultimately be priced beyond what the market will bear!

Here are just a few of the disturbing comments I’ve received from authors in recent weeks:

“Can you give me a better print deal than Lulu.com? It is essential for me to offer reasonable pricing to my lovely customers!”

“My current POD publisher suddenly raised all their prices up and as a result, all the numbers are completely weird on their storefront and don’t, in any way, match the figures on my website. This has been the case for sometime. I only just happened to notice it!!! I wondered why no one has bought any books for ages!!”

“Although I have developed a small, loyal readership, Publish America has decided without the authors’ consent to raise our book prices anywhere from $2 to $5 per book, in effect pricing our work way above any market standards. As my book is 166 pages I do not see ANY justification that a reader would want to pay over $27 for a soft cover novel. When I asked how they could justify the price hike, I was unceremoniously removed from the P.A. message boards. Many P.A. authors have been complaining and have now been removed as well, and offered the courtesy of paying P.A. $300 to break their contracts.”

I also found posts online about price these increases:

LULU

“Lulu just raised their prices on me…”

“This morning I have logged in (to Lulu) to order another batch of books and notice that my price per copy has risen from