I always enjoy reading your weekly newsletter. (How you manage to come up with topics each week is, to me, miraculous.)
My confusion comes when I look at the list of jobs available, and you indicate various ones as a “blind ad.”
What is the significance of such a designation to us readers? Proceed with caution?
1976 – Our nation celebrated its bi-centennial anniversary. My town held a writing competition. Students from several area high schools wrote short essays called “Bi-centennial Minutes”. I participated because I had to…it was a required assignment in my English class. A few weeks later, a reporter and a photographer from the local newspaper walked into my school and interviewed me – because I had won the competition!
A month ago, I wrote that we were considering becoming snowbirds, traveling to Florida in the winter. We are now seriously considering relocating to Florida and then RVing to the Northeast during the hot summer months. Why? Maine is absolutely gorgeous and we love it here. Unfortunately, the income taxes are ridiculous. Add in Maine’s death tax (which can destroy a small family business), and the fact that Frank is graduating from high school next month, and it sure seems all signs are telling us to become backwards snowbirds…
It’s disgusting but it’s true. Some POD publishers will do anything to make it financially and logistically impossible for you to switch to another POD publisher if you are unhappy with their services in the future. We call this a “forced marriage.” One way they might do this is to include verbiage, buried in the middle of their contract (or multiple contracts as some POD publishers offer different contracts for each service), that states they own all rights to the materials you have paid them to create…
Angela,
Even at a $30 dollar book price for Xlibris, I never got more than $3 a book. Since it cost $1200 CAD (Canadian dollar was very low when I went into Xlibris and within a week I lost $200 when the Canadian dollar jumped to the U.S. dollar), it is more likely 600 books (required to break even, not just 394 as quoted in the article).
George
PUBLISHER’S RESPONSE:
Using today’s currency conversion, the CAD equivalent of Xlibris’ U.S. setup fees ($1972) would be $1879 CAD. Assuming $3 royalties (10%, which is woefully low but perhaps the author above was permitted to choose his own royalty) on a $30 list price, an author would have to sell around 626 copies to break even. The number quoted in the article was 394.
Because of the convoluted information given on some POD publishers’ websites, I gave each publisher the benefit of the doubt and the best possible scenario. BookLocker.com still came out on top.
PUBLISHER – # of copies needed to sell to break even on setup fees
Booklocker – 93
CreateSpace – 178
iUniverse – 223-278
AuthorHouse – 323
Trafford – 339
Xlibris – 394
Lulu – 574
With all of the new publishing formats available, what’s the rule with ISBNs and ebooks, apps, audio guides, etc. Do you need a new ISBN for each format? For instance, if I have a print version of my book available on Amazon, do I need to buy a new ISBN for an ebook that I might create to sell through Amazon, too?
Born in 1947, I grew up in apartheid South Africa. At the age of five, my parents divorced and a writer was born. Skin color – even a fair complexion in a Muslim family – separated people in those days. My brother and sister bonded and I was left out. I was a loner and found solace in reading books and scribbling things down in a diary. The diary was comforting. It was a place to retreat when no one listened…
M’s surgery was last Wednesday. He is recovering comfortably at our home. The first thing the surgeon (M’s new orthopedist) said after the surgery was, “I sure wish I’d seen him two months ago. I could have done more for him.”
Letters will return next week.
An editor or client will likely ask for your fee someday. It’s a heady moment, but keep your wits about you. You don’t want to mess this up, especially if the project will take awhile, or represents a stepping stone to more work.
