WARNING: There are SHARKS in these Book Publishing Waters!!!

I highly doubt if I will ever earning a living with my books.  Luckily for me, I have no wild dreams of pushing JKR aside.  That being said, I earn a living freelancing and providing services for others.

I have a new client who wants me to help her publish an ebook on Amazon.com.  I told her that it was free to do and she could most likely do it herself with a little effort, but she'd rather pay me to do it.  So, I was straight with her.  I always try to come straight.  Now, the reason for this post.

This client has a friend who she said excitedly: "He has a BOOK PUBLISHER!"  Clearly, she's very envious about this.

I looked at her for a moment or two, then asked: "How much is he paying them?"

She replied, "Oh he's paying them a lot.  He just found out he has to give them three thousand dollars more."

Do you hear that?  It's the "Dum dum" theme music from the movie "Jaws."

I told her, "He doesn't have a book PUBLISHER, he has a book PRODUCER."

My "hopeful next Stephen King" friends with manuscripts, if you come across someone who says they want to publish your book and they ask you for ONE DIME, they are not book publishers. They are book producers.  They make books for money.  Lots of money.  You are paying them to make a book for you.  I don't care how persuasive they are, all the wonderful promises about what they'll do for you in promotions, etc., you are PAYING for everything that they do.  The moment the money runs out, they do too.

Real publishers don't charge you anything.  They believe your book will sell, will invest money to produce and promote it, then recoup their costs, a profit, and give you a portion, known as a royalty.  In some cases, if you are very lucky, they will give you a cash advance.  It isn't a gift, they intend to get that back too in sales.  After they get it back, then you start receiving royalties.

My client's friend is being ripped off even as he believes he's being "published."  The book producer has ties with someone famous "in the church circles" and of course the friend feels some prestige being associated with that name.  More than likely that famous person is getting his cut of that money too.  Religious affiliations have little to do with business, and just because someone is a famous televangelist, doesn't mean he won't pick your pockets.  Actually, they're very good at it.

He would have been much better off independently producing his book himself.  He could have started with free ebook distribution on Amazon.com, and if he wanted paperback books, he could have gone with Createspace, which is print on demand.  If he was skilled enough, he could put the book together himself and have it published free, or he could pay about $400 to have it perfectly designed and ready for sale.  If he wanted promotion, he could hire someone JUST for that.

What I'm saying here, is if you are looking for a publisher, make sure it is a REAL publisher.  The moment a fee is mentioned, go to the shallow part of the pool.  There are sharks in these book publishing waters, and they don't want blood, they want green.