Q –
My publisher hasn’t paid royalties to me in months and they have not honored most of the clauses in their contract with me. They are now ignoring my emails and even a certified letter I sent. I checked Google and there are many other authors with the exact same complaints. They seem to have disappeared (they don’t even answer the phone anymore) but their website is still functioning and it appears they’re still trying to get new authors to sign up!
I DO have my production files (I think). How can BookLocker help me get my book back on the market – and how fast can you do it?
A.D.
A –
Production files are the print-ready pdf files that your publisher uses for printing. There is one for the cover and one for the interior. Even if your publisher claimed all rights to your production files, it’s highly doubtful they will come after you for using them elsewhere, especially if they already owe you back royalties, and if they’ve been ignoring your emails and other correspondence. Non- or late-payment of royalties and ignoring authors are the top signs that a publisher is about to go out of business. They may even be willing to give you a written release (via email) of your ownership of your production files just to get you to “go away.” If you’re very lucky, their contract didn’t claim all rights to production files. Unfortunately, almost every publisher does claim ownership of those files. (BookLocker does NOT.)
How can BookLocker help?
YOUR INTERIOR PRODUCTION FILE
BookLocker would create a new copyright page, removing all mention of the previous publisher, and assign a BookLocker ISBN (or your ISBN if you have your own). We would convert that to a pdf file, and replace the copyright page in the original pdf with the new one.
COVER
BookLocker would replace your publisher’s barcode with one using the new ISBN. If your publisher had a logo on the back cover or spine, we would cover that with BookLocker’s logo (or yours, if you have one). We never force authors to use BookLocker’s name and/or logo on or in their books but, when a previous logo exists, if the background of the cover is not a solid color, the only way to “hide” the previous logo is to cover it with another one.
BookLocker can do all of this for only $78, which is the cost of our DIY program.
The only downside to all of this is that the author can’t make any edits/changes to the interior or cover file. If the author does have changes to make, additional charges at BookLocker would apply. Also, if you want to make changes, we would need a copy of the interior file as an MSWord or other word processing document. Text can’t easily be altered in pdf files because each page is like a photograph. That means text won’t flow from one page to the next during the editing process. Finally, adding text to a pdf file creates unembedded fonts. All fonts must be embedded for the printer to be able to print books from that file.
To sign up for BookLocker’s DIY program, use THIS LINK.
The process only takes 1-2 weeks.
To see the prices for our other publishing programs, CLICK HERE.
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