When it sounds too good to be true...

[SusanJillParker]

A publisher contacted me yesterday, Alex, from Powerful Film and Books.

He said he was impressed with my erotica and wanted to publish me on Amazon Kindle, something that I can do myself, if I wanted.

Nonetheless, I told him I'm interested. I wanted to see what he had to offer. Only, I told him, in 2007, I published two e-Books with Erotic Excursions/LuLu and had to pull them because they could not properly account for sales and royalties.

I asked him, if he was from Erotic Excursions/LuLu. I never heard from him again. Perhaps, he was. Perhaps, he wasn't but was from a publisher, who does exactly what Erotic Excursions/LuLu did to me.

It's sad that there are people who prey on us for what we do. I remember being excited, in 2007, that I was going to be a published author. Only, it was obvious to me that I was being cheated and scammed, while these bastards take our hard work to steal our money.

It's not bad enough that our stories are routinely stolen from this site and sold to Amazon/Kindle and there's nothing we can do about it, except to complain to Amazon, if and when we discover our stolen work.

I want to publish again, but for an honest publisher to earn an honest dollar. Can anyone recommend a publisher and, perhaps, give me an introduction?

 

[sr71plt]

Go to the distribution sites that provide a list of offerings by publisher (like Fictionwise and Allromanebooks, for example). Look on the category listings for e-books in the categories in which you write. Trace back to the publishers. Check out the publisher sites (history and sales figures from Amazon and B&N, etc.) and their author lists. Even check with a few of the authors directly when you can find their e-mail addresses. There are a whole lot of e-book publishers who have been out there for a decade or more now and know what they are doing and are doing it well.

Don't expect close accounting and exercise of the right to visit them on site and go through their books. There are so many hands in the distribution till that you (or even they) are not going to catch up with every single sold unit. Try to live with the concept that anything you make is more than you would have made by not publishing the works. Accounting has been notoriously "loose" across the publishing industry forever. The least amount of effort in any publishing house is put into accounting unit sales and royalties owed--and this has been done on purpose. If you can't live with this, self-publish (and you still won't get good figures from the distributors) and also do all of the grunt work yourself.

 

[talismania]

What Pilot said. Also, check out Absolute Write Water Cooler, a forum for writers that's been around forever. There's a section specifically for checking out publishers and agents, called Bewares, Recommendations and Background Check. Great for searches and, if you have zeroed in on a publisher or two and want more info, just post your question and other writers who have knowledge of that publisher will chime in. Great resource.

If you want transparency in your dealings, don't publish. You will never know exact sales figures. It's been lo, many years, and I still don't know how many copies of my paperback novels were sold. Heck, even the publisher may not know, what with returns, distributor shell games, and bookseller antics. It's too crazy to figure out. The best bet for a writer is to write good books, gain more clout, and negotiate better contracts.

 

[SusanJillParker]

Thank you both for your help. You've given me some good information and advice and I plan on following it.

 

[lance gt]

Thank you both for your help. You've given me some good information and advice and I plan on following it.

FYI SJP, that message is a scam. There is no such site.

 

[SusanJillParker]

FYI SJP, that message is a scam. There is no such site.

Thanks

 

[SusanJillParker]

FYI SJP, that message is a scam. There is no such site.

Actually, I just Googled them, www.powerfulfilmandbooks.com and they have a web site.

The link is below.

http://www.powerfulfilmsandbooks.com/

Well, the publisher contacted me again and after I Googled their website, they look legit to me, unless anyone has had negative experience with them.

So, now I have to go through to see which stories I want to publish. They want stories in the 30,000-50,000 range and I have a bunch that I can rewrite to satisfy that high of a word count.

Wish me luck.

 

[lovecraft68]

A publisher contacted me yesterday, Alex, from Powerful Film and Books.

He said he was impressed with my erotica and wanted to publish me on Amazon Kindle, something that I can do myself, if I wanted.

Nonetheless, I told him I'm interested. I wanted to see what he had to offer. Only, I told him, in 2007, I published two e-Books with Erotic Excursions/LuLu and had to pull them because they could not properly account for sales and royalties.

I asked him, if he was from Erotic Excursions/LuLu. I never heard from him again. Perhaps, he was. Perhaps, he wasn't but was from a publisher, who does exactly what Erotic Excursions/LuLu did to me.

It's sad that there are people who prey on us for what we do. I remember being excited, in 2007, that I was going to be a published author. Only, it was obvious to me that I was being cheated and scammed, while these bastards take our hard work to steal our money.

It's not bad enough that our stories are routinely stolen from this site and sold to Amazon/Kindle and there's nothing we can do about it, except to complain to Amazon, if and when we discover our stolen work.

I want to publish again, but for an honest publisher to earn an honest dollar. Can anyone recommend a publisher and, perhaps, give me an introduction?

Lancegt and I got the same one yesterday. I posted it on the "anti-scouries thread" they just went up and down the story entries and contacted everyone it seems.