Ask The Expert

Recently Answered Questions:

“How DARE you refuse to publish my book?!?!”

At BookLocker.com, we reject numerous manuscripts each year. Our reputation is our most valuable asset and publishing books that are, forgive me, garbage, would harm that. While many of our competitors are running “author meat markets” (they don’t care what they put on the market as long as the author has money in his/her pocket), we don’t do business that way.

You don’t want your book published by an author meat market because you’ll be guilty by association. Many libraries and bookstores won’t buy books from publishers who put bad books on the market.

When I reject a manuscript, some authors come out swinging. In the exchange below, you can probably guess why I originally rejected the author’s manuscript. He then submitted his manuscript again, using a different name and email address. I’ve seen that trick a thousand times over the years. I’m not stupid.

FROM THE “AUTHOR”

Angela at last there is finance. Can u publish my books now? Should i introduce my financier to u?

MY RESPONSE

I’m sorry but we rejected your manuscript back in January of last year.

FINAL RESPONSE FROM THE “AUTHOR”

Angie u re a racist bcos u dont want poverty to be eradicated seeing that it will benefit blacks more and u hate my gut for criticising western world.u re enemy of urself,mankind and even d west.they will pay ur money.u re not a christian.ok

Whatever, dude. I did not respond. I’m far too busy to engage loonies.

Another author, with whom I’d spent a considerable amount of time corresponding, finally submitted his manuscript this week. It was chock full of misspelled words and punctuation errors. It was really, REALLY bad. I asked the author if he was planning to have his manuscript professionally edited. He gave me the same cockamamie story I’ve also heard too many times over the years.

“My misspellings and punctuation are ALL very purposeful.”

Uh huh. No, they’re not. You’re just upset that somebody noticed them.

He went on to say that his purpose was to: hover BELOW th’line of “standard” of “correctness”, to show the “uneducated” that it IS possible to achieve.

Yeah, right (yawn…). He then wrote that he didn’t want to damage my company’s reputation with his “art.”

And this: …no room at the Inn for unconventional. CONVENT!, Dress correct!, COMPLY!, OBEY!, Do This Correctly or Be Gone!!! Whew!

When I reject a manuscript, I am extremely professional and I apologize to the author. However, some just can’t resist coming back with several swings below the belt.

Again, just another day in the life of being a book publisher. Magazine publishers experience this from some freelance writers, too.

RELATED

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Angela is not only the publisher of WritersWeekly.com. She is President & CEO of BookLocker.com,
a self-publishing services company that has been in business since 1998. Ask her anything.

ASK ANGELA!

Book Awards: Worth the Cost?

Q –

Hi Angela,

I’m wondering what you might know about poetry awards and prizes, such as the Pulitzer Prize (I know, it’s like winning the lottery), the National Book Award (which can only be submitted for consideration by the publisher on behalf of the author), and others ones.

Oh, how I would love to bring recognition to my book.

I know you offer so much generous advice about how authors can promote their books, but I’m fixated on what I believe my book deserves – awarded recognition.

Really, any advice, assistance, opportunity you can offer would be wholeheartedly appreciated.

A –

I don’t keep a list of book awards organizations because I don’t recommend authors participate in those. They earn a LOT of money for the organizations, but usually cost a LOT of money for authors.

Even if you win an award (the best ones are, indeed, harder to win than the lottery), you aren’t likely to get much exposure. I mean, seriously, how many people read press releases put out by book awards companies? Not many.

Probably the biggest benefit is when an author wins an award, and can put the award emblem on their book cover. But, that takes paying to participate, and then possibly (but not likely) winning.

If you haven’t already done so, please check out:

90+ Days of Promoting Your Book Online!

~AND~

55 Dos and Don’t of Book Selling

Angela Hoy lives on a mountain in North Georgia. She is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, the President and CEO of BookLocker.com and AbuzzPress, and the author of 24 books.
ANGELA ON TWITTER
https://twitter.com/AngelaHoy
ANGELA ON FACEBOOK
https://www.facebook.com/angela.hoy.750
ANGELA ON LINKEDIN
https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-hoy-39071978/
Angela is the creator of the Original 24-Hour Short Story Contest!
https://24hourshortstorycontest.com/

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Angela is not only the publisher of WritersWeekly.com. She is President & CEO of BookLocker.com,
a self-publishing services company that has been in business since 1998. Ask her anything.

ASK ANGELA!

“My publisher went out of business…and a different publisher then contacted me?”

Q –

Angela

I have a question. The publishing company for one of my books has gone out of business and I am told by (name removed) that they want to re-publish my book for $2100 dollars. What do you think about this?

H.G.

A –

Here are the warning signs from the email you received:

1. I’ve heard of bottom-feeder publishers crawling all over Amazon to find the names of authors, using Google to find those authors’ contact info., and then spamming them to Kingdom Come. Many also find the phone numbers of those authors online, and call them relentlessly with sales pitches, offering to publish a “better” edition of their book, and promising their book will be the next best seller. In the end, the author has basically the exact same book on the market under a different publisher’s name, but their wallet is a few thousand dollars lighter.

2. I have never heard of a publisher actually going after authors of defunct publishers in the same fashion. That’s a new one on me but it’s the same type of scam.

3. They spammed you. Any so-called publisher who is so desperate for new authors to scam that they use spam should always be avoided. They won’t be in business long.

4. I wouldn’t put it past some of these small, scammy publishers to purposely go out of business, start a new one under a new name (with different contact info.), and, through a “special deal,” convince the authors to pay the publishing fees all over again to the “new” publisher.

5. Do NOT pay $2,100 to publish a black and white interior book!!

You can find a far more reasonable deal RIGHT HERE.

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Angela is not only the publisher of WritersWeekly.com. She is President & CEO of BookLocker.com,
a self-publishing services company that has been in business since 1998. Ask her anything.

ASK ANGELA!

Can I translate and publish a book written by someone who died?

I have a book in French published in Canada, copyright 1997. The author died in 1998 in Louisiana. I know that 2 of his 4 siblings are deceased and have not been successful in finding any info on the other 2. I cannot find anything on the publisher. So, I assume the publisher has ceased operations. What do you advise if I would like to publish a translation?

C.F.

For some reason, many people assume that a deceased author’s work is up for grabs once they die, even if their heirs can’t be located, and if the publisher has gone out of business. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Would you walk into a deceased person’s home, and start taking things? No, you would not. You would know that the person’s assets belong to his or her heir(s).

His heirs own the rights to his book. You can’t republish it without permission, even if you translate it.

Please see:
Never, Ever Assume You Can Use a Deceased Person’s Work

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Angela is not only the publisher of WritersWeekly.com. She is President & CEO of BookLocker.com,
a self-publishing services company that has been in business since 1998. Ask her anything.

ASK ANGELA!

“How can I stop Amazon’s resellers from listing my book at such a high price?”

Q –

“Amazon has my book for sale from other companies and the price is way too high! That is not fair. The book cost too much money that way. What can I do about it? The book won’t sell at the inflated price.”

– G.

A –

Amazon is continuing to give its main buy buttons to third party sellers, and essentially hiding their direct sales listings (they’re not easy to find!) for those books…or removing those direct sales listings altogether.

I looked at your book online. Amazon has given the main buy button to Book Depository, which Amazon owns. Read more about this controversial practice, CLICK HERE.

Any Amazon customer who wants to pay a lower price can click on the “new” options (it’s a tiny font!) underneath the box that shows the price that Book Depository has it listed for.

If you complain to Amazon, you’ll be fighting a losing battle. And, you’ll waste a TON of time because you’re not going to win.

Amazon is legally entitled to allow third party sellers to use its website and those sellers (and Amazon) can charge any price they want for a product. That’s legal across all industries. Suppliers don’t get to choose what retailers charge for products as long as the suppliers are paid what they are contractually entitled to. You will still earn your regular royalty on those sales. The third party sellers get to pocket the extra profit. And, of course, Amazon gets a cut of that as well.

Amazon may be trying to get out of the business of direct book sales. Books are not expensive, and do not have a high profit point. Amazon has been laying off thousands of workers, and closing warehouses, and even recently took out an $8B loan (yes, billion). And, they are billions in debt.

Perhaps they’re moving more toward a middle-man business model. We’re seeing complaints daily now from authors whose books are listed at high prices by third party sellers on Amazon. Heck, Amazon could also be trying to force more Kindle ebook sales but I think even Amazon knows the hype of the Kindle was over years ago. Print book sales still FAR outpace ebook sales.

Even if an author’s book page gets “fixed,” and if Amazon.com shows up as the primary seller, authors often find a third party seller having the main buy button once again just a few days later. And, around and around they go. Amazon’s database is going to keep changing that book page and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

Pestering your publisher to get the listing fixed won’t work. Contacting Ingram won’t work. Contacting Amazon directly will only generate a form response that, you guessed it, blames “the publisher,” saying they gave Amazon the wrong price. That’s a lie. It’s not your publisher. It’s all Amazon and their third party sellers.

If you continue to complain, you’ll be beating your head against a wall because, again, Amazon can do whatever it wants with its own website. And, expect to keep receiving form responses from low-paid Amazon employees who are experts at copying and pasting those form responses.

Amazon’s site is database driven. No human is looking at your book page, nor will they change it to your liking. If you think Amazon cares about your book, you, your publisher, or anything that is important to you, you’re living in La La Land. Amazon’s main concern is their own bottom line. If they can make more money selling fewer books through third party sellers than they do warehousing and selling books directly, that’s what they’re going to do.

Yes, it’s frustrating. I recommend sending your potential readers links to BarnesandNoble.com, BooksAMillions.com, your own website, your publisher’s website, or anywhere else your book can be purchased. Leave the link for Amazon OUT of your marketing materials. Sure, some people will go there automatically. But, when more and more people realize they can purchase books far cheaper at BarnesandNoble, they’ll start shopping there for their reading needs. I do!

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Angela is not only the publisher of WritersWeekly.com. She is President & CEO of BookLocker.com,
a self-publishing services company that has been in business since 1998. Ask her anything.

ASK ANGELA!

OUCH!! COMPLAINTS about Friesen Press / FriesenPress.com

We compete directly with Friesen Press. And, while we reject many manuscripts each year, we would never refer an author to Friesen Press.

Q –

Angela. Thought I’d share … and see what you think of these guys (Friesen Press). Their ad just showed up on my FB page but I thought you might like to know what one of the other guys are doing.

Cheers and thanks for all your hard work.

Linda

A –

I only did a few minutes of research, and found PLENTY of complaints about Friesen Press / FriesenPress.com online.

QUOTES FROM COMPLAINTS ABOUT FRIESEN PRESS ON COMPLAINTSBOARD.COM:

“I honestly wish I had found these complaints before I gave my heart and soul to this company last year to publish my children’s book.”
“I have recently had the same issues with Friesen as outlined in the complaints above. I am seriously considering legal action through the US Federal Court system and would appreciate hearing from anyone who found their practices deceptive and/or totally dishonest.”
“Had the worst experience as well with this company…”
“Shame on Freisenpress.”
“Four thumbs down.”
“My experience with Friesen Press was almost identical to what is being described in this article.”
“A couple of years ago I hired Friesen to assist me with the finishing end and distribution of my book. It was a huge mistake.”
“Friesen Press has the worst editing team…not in a level of grade 6.”
” I would definitely not recommend this publisher.”
“Throughout their whole process they were totally incompetent especially the professional editor (who introduced so many errors that it took me 3 months to correct) and the professional designers who made a mess of the job.”

QUOTES FROM COMPLAINTS ABOUT FRIESEN PRESS ON DEFAULTERS.COM:

“I met my physician yesterday, because I was thinking to take legal action against FriesenPress, but the doctor suggested as I have high blood pressure, this type of action will not be good for me.”
“The same sort of unbelievable events happened over and over again.”
“Stay away from them and share this info.”
“After my experience of 3 months, checking online reviews, I found a host
of complaints that were totally believable and wish I had read those before putting my money down.”

THIS AUTHOR PAID WAAAAAY TOO MUCH MONEY!

“Their base fee was $3000, and a edit I needed costed another $1000. These fees, on top of insurance for the book and other charges rounded up to a total bill of about $7000.”

AND

“I have only received one of the two royalty checks I was supposed to get. The first check got to me late and the second one hasn’t appeared at all. I call and email the company and do not get responses. They claim to have reissued these checks to me several times, but they have no tracking number for them, and they have yet to reach me.”

The Alliance of Independent Authors gives Friesen Press a “MIXED” rating, saying, “their pricing and customer service still generate sporadic complaints.”

From Reddit: “I ordered $600 of my books for a conference. Purolator never delivered them to my residence as I never received confirmation of an attempt. My books were damaged in transit according to Purolator. Friesen Press authorized the books destruction. Now Friesen Press will not send me new books or refund me my $600. I have two more books to publish …. Not using Friesen Press again.”

RELATED

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Angela is not only the publisher of WritersWeekly.com. She is President & CEO of BookLocker.com,
a self-publishing services company that has been in business since 1998. Ask her anything.

ASK ANGELA!

Make Sure Your Marketing is Targeted at the Right Audience

“VIRTUAL” BOOK INVENTORIES ARE MISLEADING AUTHORS AND READERS – “AbeBooks.com shows 182 copies of my book for sale but I haven’t been paid for those sales!”

Q –

Angela,

My friend got online and checked out his book. On AbeBooks.com, he found a listing of stores for distribution of his book. Most of this was in England. All total he found more than one hundred copies that were out there offered to the public for purchase. Can you check this out?

Thank you,
T.

A –

Abe Books allows “independent sellers” to “sell” books on their website. If you search for your book’s ISBN on their website, and if you don’t know what’s really going on, you’ll likely be shocked and confused by what you see, and may even accuse your publisher or the distributor of stealing your royalties.

I looked up the ISBN of the book mentioned above on AbeBooks.com. This is what I saw:

GreatBookPrices – 5 copies (Incidentally, their name is deceptive. The author’s book has a list price of only $17.95 so avoid this seller!)

Book Depository International (owned by Amazon): 10 copies

GreatBookPrices – 5 copies (Yes, a duplicate listing from the one previously mentioned above.)

Welcome Back Books – 20 copies

Global Bookshop – 20 copies

International bookstore – 10 copies

PBShop.store US – 15 copies

THE SAINT BOOKSTORE – 20 copies (Not sure how you can call your company “Saint” when you are misleading customers about your inventory.)

Ria Christie Collections – 20 copies

Chiron Media – 10 copies

GreaBookPricesUK – 5 copies (Their third listing!)

GreatBookPricesUK – 5 copies (Their fourth listing! If that doesn’t tell you this is all fake, I don’t know what will.)

Chiron Media – 20 copies (Yes, a duplicate listing for this outfit, too.)

AHA-BUCH GmbH – 1 copy

moluna – 20 copies

Those quantities are NOT book sales. The books haven’t even been printed! Any firm that has an Ingram account (the distributor) can offer books for sale. If someone orders a copy from one of those firms, only then will they order a copy from Ingram. The copies you see online are what the industry calls “virtual inventory.” Those copies do not yet exist.

All total, AbeBooks.com has 182 non-existent copies of this book for sale. How do I know they don’t exist? Easy. They’re all listed as “new” and I have access to the sales information for this book. This book has sold 30 COPIES.

If one of the resellers above had obtained a copy of one of the 30 books that have been printed, it would be listed as “used.” (Or, they could lie, and say the book is new if they are really slimy.) And, of course, since there are 182 copies for sale, when only 30 copies have been printed, the numbers are completely fake.

Those resellers can type whatever number they want into the box when selling books on AbeBooks.com. I call that fraud.

Don’t trust the fake (“virtual”) inventory numbers on AbeBooks. AND, don’t order books from AbeBooks. The prices are WAY too high!!! When a bookstore or a third party retailer prices a book too high, they keep the rest of the money. The author does NOT get anything extra. Your best bet is to order from the publisher directly, from BarnesandNoble.com, or from Amazon. But, keep in mind that Amazon often inflates the prices of books as well, as do their third party sellers.

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Angela is not only the publisher of WritersWeekly.com. She is President & CEO of BookLocker.com,
a self-publishing services company that has been in business since 1998. Ask her anything.

ASK ANGELA!

LIBEL ENTRAPMENT: Is Someone TRYING to Get You Sued?

I occasionally hear from authors, writers, and journalists who receive odd and occasionally anonymous emails about the topic that author, writer, or journalist covers on a regular basis. Often, they ask me to help them research the situation, or ask me if I think the information is legit. I, too, receive these types of communications on a regular basis. Do I trust them? It depends…

I received the following email last week:

Scam alert: (Name removed) acting as (company name removed) has been contacting conventions and authors in (location removed) area posing as a “promoter” or “social media manager” to attempt to get free admission/goods. He has no experience as a promoter and fewer than 1000 followers (in some cases, fewer than 100) on most of his social media accounts, and a reputation for harassing female guests (his ex-wife, an author, has a restraining order against him). He has also taken over client social media accounts to “help promote them” and refused to give the accounts back to the owners once they fire him. Buyer beware.

Sounds pretty juicy, huh? I did some googling and I couldn’t find any mention of any of the allegations against this person or his company. I wrote to the person who emailed me to ask for more information but I did not receive a response. I was not surprised. The problem is some in the industry, not knowing the legal ramifications, might post the allegations online. It reminded me of a story I read just last night:

University of Idaho professor sues TikToker who accused her of killing 4 students

A TikTok personality, Ashley Guillard, has allegedly posted several videos accusing a female professor at the college the murder victims attended of being involved in their murder.

From the article: Guillard posted a video Friday responding to the lawsuit, saying, “I am not stopping,” and questioning why Scofield needed three lawyers to sue her “if she’s so innocent.”

The fact that she complained about “three lawyers” was the first hint that Guillard is an idiot. How many law firms don’t have at least three attorneys? Not many! Also, while she apparently has shared no proof, she says she’s “not stopping.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of someone on social media who clearly does not understand the ramifications of posting unproven allegations online. Guillard clearly doesn’t realize that, if she loses in court, she’s going to be paying damages for the rest of her life to the victim.

I’ve received thousands of pretty outlandish allegations from “anonymous” sources over the years about people and companies. I always, ALWAYS research them before publishing anything. In most cases, there is nothing to publish. And, if you think that some competitor won’t send you false allegations about someone, hoping you’ll publish them, think again. There are truly horrible people in this world who will do anything to put you out of business.

Think about this. The person who contacts you may be in cahoots with the person the false allegations are about. If the person you libel sues and wins, they may very well have a secret contract to share the winnings with the person who sent you the false allegations.

Writer beware!

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Angela is not only the publisher of WritersWeekly.com. She is President & CEO of BookLocker.com,
a self-publishing services company that has been in business since 1998. Ask her anything.

ASK ANGELA!

“Why are so many books out of stock at Amazon now?”

Q –

Angela,

I noticed both of my books are now out of stock at Amazon. I don’t understand. Did they sell out? I don’t see any sales in my publisher’s account for my books.

C.D.

A –

Amazon is in the process of closing warehouses, and laying off thousands of employees. Many assume that having a “print on demand” book means your book will never be out of stock. Amazon used to have “virtual inventory” numbers in their system but they don’t appear to be doing that anymore. Years ago, if Amazon’s site said they had copies on stock, that may not have been the case.

If your book is distributed by Ingram, the largest book distributor, Amazon can order copies. If you book is listed as out of stock, people can still order your book. If they do, Amazon will simply order a copy from Ingram. And, in many cases, Ingram will ship that book directly to Amazon’s customer, even using an Amazon return address label.

As Amazon continues to close warehouses and lay off employees due to the economy, authors and publishers can expect more listing problems. And, if you do contact Amazon about a listing problem on your book’s page, you will likely get a canned answer from an employee overseas that will not help you at all. And, they will often blame your publisher for the error and that is almost always NOT TRUE. It seems that Amazon’s employees habitually send out canned responses in an attempt to get rid of complainers.

Even books Amazon has published through Amazon KDP have had problems. And, those authors have reported that Amazon KDP’s customer service is awful.

Worse, Amazon KDP has been randomly terminating authors. Many report it’s been done for no reason (or that Amazon has not shared the reason).

This is just another lesson on why authors and publishers should never put all their eggs in one basket. If you rely on just one retailer (even the largest) to sell your books, you’re in for a world of trouble when things start going downhill.

At BookLocker.com, our authors’ books are always available at our website, as well as BarnesandNoble.com, BooksAMillion, Walmart.com, Target.com, Chapters/Indigo, and numerous other retailers across the globe. Our ebooks are available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Apple, Kobo (Canada’s largest ebook retailer), Overdrive (which sells to multi-thousands of libaries and schools), Google Play, and, of course, BookLocker.com.

I also recommend authors always keep copies on hand that they can sell to people directly.

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Angela is not only the publisher of WritersWeekly.com. She is President & CEO of BookLocker.com,
a self-publishing services company that has been in business since 1998. Ask her anything.

ASK ANGELA!

Ask The Expert Archives

Recently Answered Questions:

Share this:

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Share this:

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Share this:

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Share this:

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Share this:

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Share this:

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Make Sure Your Marketing is Targeted at the Right Audience

Share this:

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Share this:

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Share this:

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Share this: