Published on April 22, 2009
Last week, I told you the road was clear and that we could get to our land in Western Maine. Despite having a terrible cold, with a cough I can’t seem to shake (no, it’s not Pertussis), we drove to our land on Saturday. It was a perfectly beautiful Spring day! The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the trees on the mountain, while still pretty bare, had tiny buds that you had to squint to see. The stream was gurgling from the recent snow melt and Max and Mason tossed in one pebble after another.
Published on April 22, 2009
There are lots of snakes in the Print on Demand (POD) industry. While most companies charge too much, way too much, there are a few that offer good services at reasonable prices. Some of those even offer reasonable customer service!
This week, we are consolidating the entire list from Part I, Part II, and Part III.
But, first, I need to rant. Being a POD publisher myself, I hear from authors who have been ripped off by other POD publishers on almost a daily basis. Some of their stories make me sick. From elderly authors who were convinced to give more and more and more of their retirement money to the POD publisher (who knew all along that person’s memoirs would likely never sell more than a few copies to family members), to authors who paid thousands when they could have paid hundreds to a better POD publisher, to authors who were forced to pay hundreds to fix the POD publisher’s own mistakes, to authors who gave up rights to their current and future books to a company that pretended to be a “traditional publisher” but who was just another form of vanity publisher, preying on authors and hoping they would buy more and more and more books.
Published on April 22, 2009
Angela is on Spring Break with her children and hubby this week (meaning she’s working part-time). Letters to the Editor will return next week.
Published on April 22, 2009
Until recently I have always been a staunch proponent of free enterprise, laissez-faire capitalism and Atlas Shrugged. But that’s coming to an end.
Published on April 22, 2009
Success comes about in the strangest of ways sometimes. Since I first started submitting my writings in 2005, I’ve racked my brain, trying to write the perfect query letter, and concocted outrageously-creative subject lines, hoping to capture the attention of anyone who might be on the other end of my e-mail, desperately trying to draw them in with my title and keep a hold of them until the end of my query. In my mind, once I stole their attention, they’d respond with that good news e-mail we all want to receive. That’s what we writers strive for, right? Right.
Published on April 15, 2009
As I wrote a few weeks ago, we’re going to spend our free time this summer building on our land in Western Maine instead of taking long RV trips. Richard learned from our neighbors there this morning that our road is clear of snow and ice now so we can drive out anytime we want!
Published on April 15, 2009
There are lots of snakes in the Print on Demand (POD) industry. While most companies charge too much, way too much, there are a few that offer good services at reasonable prices. Some of those even offer reasonable customer service! We are currently compiling a list of “Best Practices” for the POD industry and we’d love to have you share your ideas with us!
In Parts I and II, we discussed things a POD publisher should and should not do. Here’s a breakdown…
Published on April 15, 2009
Re: Book Reviewing Authors Furious With Amazon – But I’m Not
Authors and publishers work too hard putting out professional products to have the effort undermined by any jerk that figures out how to post on Amazon.
If somebody doesn’t like a book, they should properly read something else.
Or, if they believe their criticism is of a professional level at least equal to that of the author and publisher, they should seek out a legitimate, professional publishing venue for that criticism, i.e. a newspaper, a magazine, et cetera, so that their work is first vetted by professionals and presented in a professional forum and format, NOT IN ALL CAPS an nut w/ intt shrthand n gremmar n spillin’ gooooofs.
To let any jerk or moron post negative things about a book on Amazon is akin to letting a disturbed person stand outside a competent doctor’s office door saying, “This doctor is a quack.”
Scott
~~~~~
Hi Angela,
How appropriate that I received your newsletter regarding Amazon and the book reviews.
Just last week, someone “reviewed” my latest release, Said the Spider to the Fly, and posted it at Amazon. It’s obvious while reading his comments that he never read the book. He simply lashed out at me, the author, claiming I had “tired plot lines”. That would be fine if I really believed he felt that way, but he never made one comment about the plot, or even named one character. He DID say about the pricing being so cheap because the quality of the story was cheap. Uh, the author has no control over Amazon’s pricing.
But the reviewer, Gary W., didn’t leave any links to other books. The only other thing he’s reviewed there? A Nintendo game.
Thanks for letting me share. 🙂
Lula / Miss Mae
~~~~~
ANGELA CHIMES IN…
I never bother to check my books’ Amazon reviews because they can be so distorted. But, because of this article, I decided to do so. My book, QUERY LETTERS THAT WORKED! Real queries that landed $2K+ writing, would have had all 5-star reviews if not for the numbskull who gave the book 3 stars because it was written for magazine writers, not book authors. My other book, BOOK PROPOSALS THAT WORKED! Real Book Proposals That Landed $10K – $100K Publishing Contracts, is for book authors. Giving a book a lower rating because it “should be” for a different audience (meaning it should be an entirely different book) is ridiculous. It’s like criticizing an eating-disorder book because it wasn’t written for alcoholics.
Published on April 15, 2009
Recently, I heard an amazing story of how God used my novel, Blind Sight, to turn someone’s life around. After hearing this story, even if I never sell another book, I’ll feel fulfilled as a writer.
Published on April 15, 2009
Copyrights & Trademarks
“I found an image online that I want to use on my book cover but I can’t find out who owns it. Isn’t everything on the Internet royalty free?”
