Is this for real?

[miguelsanchez55]

I received this in an email. Have any of you ever heard of this person or company?

 

 

Dear Miguel,

 

My name is Mercedes and I work for Xlibris, a print-on-demand self-publishing company. If you don't mind, I wanted to take a moment to let you know how we can help you become a publishing success. If you are not interested, please let me know by clicking on the link at the bottom of this message.

 

Xlibris is partially owned by Random House Ventures, LLC, a subsidiary of Random House, the world's largest trade book publisher. Every day, we help authors just like you by offering flexible, inexpensive methods of editing, marketing, distributing, and selling books. To date, we have published over 8,000 titles, paid our authors more than $1 million in royalties, and paved the way for many of them to win contracts with traditional publishers such as St. Martin

[BillM]

I recieved one the other day, i thought it looked a bit shady so i deleted it

[dkstories]

While I don't know about this specific company (they claim to be a subsidary of Random House Publishing so you can run a google search on Random House for a phone number to call and ask if this company is real), I do know that self-publishing companies do exist. The key to working with them is that instead of the publisher paying YOU to print your work, you pay THEM to print and distribute.

 

Depending on how much you pay, you get some editing and limited number of books, as well as limited distribution services. That gives you some print exposure, but the majority of their published works don't make a whole hell of a lot of money and the author rarely breaks even. It takes an investment in your capital (money) to make it work, and success in the publishing world is often as much of an issue of marketing and distribution as it is actual writing ability.

 

If you're really interested in publishing, your best bet it is to develop a story for publishing, and research the different publishing companies that take unsolicited manuscripts. Follow their guidelines carefully and submit your manuscript exactly as to their specifications (most editors who reveiw them throw out those that don't comply immediately without ever looking at them).

 

I've never submitted a manuscript although I've thoughten about it a lot. I don't like rejection and that alone has kept me from trying. However, don't let it stop you! I've had links sitting on my destop for different publishers for a long time, but I've never actually taken the bull by the horns and printed out a manuscript. Try it if you want though!

 

(I even took a course at a community college one time about publishing works and still haven't submitted, even though the instructor told me to. Some of his expert advice included making sure your first 10 pages set up the main character(s) and their setting well enough to make them come alive for the reader/editor who is reveiwing your work. They get so many to read that if you can make them WANT to find out what happens in the first few pages, they'll read through the whole thing instead of setting it down and moving onto the next one.)

[Myr]

I got the same email the other day.

[Frankenfurter]

A quick Google search found this:

 

http://www1.xlibris.com/

 

And just in case you want to see more....

 

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Xlibris

 

Good on you all, actually!! It means you have GREAT stuff!

[BillM]

Wow! I thought it was some crappy hoax

[dkstories]

Based on some quick mathematics after looking over their package prices, it is possible to make a profit for your investment. You will not likely get rich, unless someone in the media picks up on your book, or a major publisher looks at it and goes 'wow'. However, it does get your foot in the door.

 

If you want to think about this process, it begins with the three packages. Let's say you pick the "Professional" package at $900. If you sell about 650 books at the the DIRECT sale rate, you break even. A little more than 1,500 books sold through distributors gives you the break even point (and more obviously a combination of the two is most likely). These figures are based on paperback sales at $5.99 per copy

 

If you use their editing services (something I would recommend), that adds a cost of approximately $5-$6 per 500 words. For the ENTIRE Mists of Fate book, that would have cost me $2,589.22 at the $5 rate. Hmm, maybe I wouldn't have used that editing service after all.

 

Based on the number of reader responces to Mists of Fate, if 25% of the readers of that story had purchased the story, my profit (without editing) would have been about $500. That's just based on visible costs. Invisible costs I'm not sure of yet. I think though that this gives you a good idea of the positives and negatives of this approach to publishing, if you have the starting capital to pursue this line.

[EricCase]

What messes with my head is they've published "over 8000" titles and paid "over $1 million" in royalties... if you divide a million $ among 8000 titles it works out to like 125 per story so if you take into account the whole 500-800 you pay for the services, it's easier to lose money on it than break even.

 

I've read a lot about publishing books and a friend of mine's actually written a few novels that you can find on book shelves here & there and the best way I've seen is by writing something good and sending it to a publishing agent. A good agent won't charge you up-front fees to put your books out (though some my charge a reading fee which is basically just to recoup the costs of the time they have to sit reading some of the stuff people send them AND to deter people who aren't serious). If they think your work is good enough THEY will send it to publishers for you at no cost to you (though you may have to provide hard copies of the text which you would generally have prepared by some printer - you can get it done at any place even like office depot). Then if the work is picked up by a publisher they take a cut (usually in the area of 10-15%). This is what they do for a living, and if you're seriously considering having work published, find one who will do a free reading.

 

Anyone who charges you a bunch of money up front isn't someone who will help you break into the big-time. If you want to publish and have your stuff in the local bookstore because you know the manager, or have a few hundred friends who want a copy then go for it ;-) otherwise you need an agent because most big publishers do not read manuscripts sent from authors. They depend on the agents to show them the talent the same way most apparel companies don't hold open calls for anyone interested in being a model - they contact agents who supply the fresh faces. like mine LMBO

 

Seriously though yeah

 

Eric

[miguelsanchez55]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the feedback. and Eric, you're something else dude.

 

Take care,

Mike :sword:

[EricCase]

I used to wanna publish some of my stuff (not the nifty type stuff, just a buncha poems I wrote and a couple short stories and things like that) so I looked into it a bit, then my friend AJ who took over writing Nastradia as an epic adventure novel has done lotsss of research on publishing. Now he's backburnered Nastradia and he's writing some weird growing up story thing. It's REALLY good so far but I'm not sure where he's going with it lol

Anyways yeah agents are the best way to go cause they know the publishing companies and the publishers know them. They'll also banter to get you the most money because the more you get the more they get aand they'll try to get it published by the biggest company possible because as dkstories said, half of the success or failure of a novel is its marketing. Bigger publishers want returns on their investment so they will usually put more into marketing the book than a smaller company can. Anyways.... I'm boring

[miguelsanchez55]

Hey Eric, Who said you're boring? You're cool dude.

 

Take care,

Mike :sword:

[Forloyn]

a rep of theres must be lerking around here and spamed all the members, I too got the same email.

 

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 Wed, 31 Mar 2004 07:58:52 -0800

From:     Mercedes Bournias <xlibriscom@prq0.com>

To:        <FW_Viper@hotmail.com>

Subject: A Note on Publishing Your Writing

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 09:58:50 -0600

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Dear Author,

 

My name is Mercedes and I work for Xlibris, a print-on-demand self-publishing company. If you don't mind, I wanted to take a moment to let you know how we can help you become a publishing success. If you are not interested, please let me know by clicking on the link at the bottom of this message.

 

Xlibris is partially owned by Random House Ventures, LLC, a subsidiary of Random House, the world's largest trade book publisher. Every day, we help authors just like you by offering flexible, inexpensive methods of editing, marketing, distributing, and selling books. To date, we have published over 10,000 titles, paid our authors more than $1,000,000 in royalties, and paved the way for many of them to win contracts with traditional publishers such as St. Martin

[Forloyn]

however if "Random House" is interested in printing my work they can contact me day or night with a contract offer and a check. I'm not paying them a damn dime however!

[BillM]

hahaha You tell 'em Forloyn

[miguelsanchez55]

That sounds VERY good to me too. But I don't see that happening any time soon.

 

Take care,

Mike :sword:

[EricCase]

I got that email too so I think they're emailing everyone on either here or maybe on Nifty lol I think this is my 90th post too =-O how time flies hehe I'm ALSO member #200 which makes me specialer than everyone else LMBO

[miguelsanchez55]

Hey Eric,

Specialer? What dictionary did you find that word in? hehe But you're still slow.

 

Take care,

Mike :sword:

[Bill W]

Hey, it's a mass mailing. I got mine too. Seeing it only costs them a little time to write the email and there is no charge to send it, they can hit a large 'potential market' for their services. After all, they make their money, whether you do or not.

[miguelsanchez55]

Thanks Bill. BTW, I love Book 7 and England is great.

 

Take care,

Mike :sword: