It seems like an unusual model for publishing, but I think it is somewhat hasty to assume that because it is unusual it is also a scam. If you don't plan on making money from your story in any other way, taking a significant up-front fee to allow someone to publish it might be a good choice. If his intent was to "steal" your story and publish it for profit, he could easily have done that already.
First, is a Kindle books or Kindle-business is well-raised that times and very profitable as mobile applications or internet communicators devices. Those sales of books, publishing business, at Kindle stores, is very profitable and has no limits of profits especially when it has no limits at rights, at your copyrights. It looks like the buyer wants to buy some copyrights to buy it in mass, when the author is just a "literature monkey" and just feeds the content. It's not a "scam" in the straight meaning, but it's dirty methods of business, ugly and dirty methods of sales. The only one and right decision is to refuse it.
i'm having a hard time figuring out what you're trying to say, vsevolod... in re that, 'buy the rights' does not refer to the author's copyright... it only means the publisher wants to buy the some aspect of the author's 'publishing rights'... could be 'first north american' or 'first serial' or 'reprint' or any of several other publishing rights an author will sell/assign to a publisher... but the copyright is always retained by the author...
Of course, copyright belongs to author, it is. But we're talking about "buying rights". Why should he buy his rights, not only publish his book? To make it more complicated. "Man, I've published your book, I have an exceptional right for it, I wrote your copyright, I wrote your name, what's the problems?". What if some screenwriting will be based on the author's book? It's not a book with copyright, it's a screenplay, all rights belong to publisher so.
Don't confuse acquiring license with buying rights. Rights are not that easy to pass from one person to another, because the laws are written to prevent unscrupulous parties from siezing rights through trickery. Most transactions, including tthose in publisjhing, consist of the owner of rights granting license to some quantity withing certain restrictions. For example, when you publish a short story in a magazine, you grant permission for them to print and distribute your story within some time frame, for your mutual benefit. As part of that contract, you agree that they have exclusive license to that story from the time of the contract to some specified future date. However, you have not released any of your rights under copyright law to them. They, for example, cannot turn around and license a third party to publish the story after their run is complete.
You see, this is Russia, and here people who publish "meta links books" never ask for license or any rights, they buy all books in fact, not buy the product with followed rights. It's a one-time deal. People who exactly buy any rights or licenses but not ask for permission to use of existed book tend to use the author's authorship and get some profit, doesn't matters is it in Russia or America, doesn't matters which country buyer of rights citizen is. As I got it buyer tends to buy the right to publish author's book at Kindle store, where the profit of buyer will be between 35% and 70% of sales. It means that author of his own book can't sale his own book with 100% royalty after giving his rights. Doesn't looks like a clearly lawfull offer but looks like a scam a bit.
if that's one of the restrictions in the contract, then it's not a scam, because the author has agreed to all the terms of that contract of his/her own free will... which is why you must be very careful before signing any contract...
I think right now the deal is that they get the publishing rights for 3 years, while I keep copyrights... instead of me just selling him the rights. This was something I insisted on because I wanted to be able to write stories with the same characters and didn't want to get sued because I no longer had the rights for them. I think the deal is we just split the profit 50/50 after the initial cost has been paid for. I asked more about the costs and got this back: Because I realize that an easy way to scam more money from me is to charge extra for stuff and pocket the extra money for himself. So that's something I need to make sure is legit. One of the recent emails he sent was one about acquiring copyrights for my story. Mamm said that I didn't need the officially get rights to the story because I automatically had them. I'm not really expecting anything big from this venture, but if anything this is going to be a learning experience one way or the other. I plan on consulting with an attorney once I have the contract to make sure there isn't anything I'm missing so that I don't get completely screwed.
...that's as i said, ak... all they're suggesting is that you register the existing copyrights... traditional [paying] publishers do that for you, with the copyright still remaining in your name, but this guy doesn't include that service, so you'd have to do it on your own... ...you should also ask who pays for the isbn... they should be including that in their price... ...the cost per book is significant... especially since there's little chance you can recoup it from sales... what price are they putting on the books and how/where will they be sold?... ...i strongly suggest that before you sign anything or fork over any money to this guy, you compare the cost of his 'service' with what it would cost you to publish the books yourself with lulu, or amazon...
I am sorry to say, but it all sounds very amateurish and haphazard. I would not be surprised if it was one of those scams where you end up with a bill because "they didn't cover the costs", or something like that. There are so many scams, you can't predict them all, but I'd steer well clear of this if I was you.
What's ISBN? I think that's what I would ask the attorney I plan on seeing. It doesn't seem like there is an obvious scam to any of this because I'm covering a lot of my bases, it's probably just an unfair deal if anything.
Again, keep in mind that self-published books make very little money. There's a very good chance that you won't recoup your copyright registration fees, attorney's bill, and cost of ISBN if you're the one paying for that. In that case, you would have paid money to give away your first publication rights and to lose control of your books for three years. No, I don't see how the publishers profit (I'm guessing that they will pay themselves the $400 to do the cover and proofing, etc., themselves, but that still doesn't do them any good without some sales), but if you've lost money, does it really help that your lost money didn't end up in their pockets? (Hmm. Is it possible to profit from registering an ISBN? If they ask you to pay for that, that could be where they get your money.)
It's not profitable with ISBN and with copyright.gov/eco but it may be legal steps in the scam. ISBN is an identifier of your book as I got it, it means if I'll ask the book with your ISBN somewhere in Tijuana librarians can help me, in ideal.
Yeah, I realize that I'm probably not going to make any money off of this. I'm not really desperate for money, at this point I'm just going through this for the experience. That's why I insisted that I keep the rights to the stories because I probably wouldn't make money off of them and didn't want to get sued if I continued the series.
you wouldn't have any legal problem continuing the series unless there was a clause in your contract with them that gave them exclusive rights or right of first refusal to future books in the series... but i still don't see what benefit there would be to you to pay them so much money to put your book into print, when you can get it done for much less with lulu, amazon, et al...
They asked you to pay at least $30. In Russia it all calls self-publishing. You call to the publishing house, pay $120 for ISBN and cost of another thousand of your books in paper. You can also open the store at Amazon and pay $0.99 per month, it's $11.88 at year.
So, this is a scam, "give us your rights, we'll sale your book. pay for your book and we will try to sale it". But sounds like "we'll promote your book series, people will read it, maybe even in paper".
probably not a 'scam' since they tell you what it will cost and why, don't pretend to be a traditional press... but it's certainly not something i'd recommend, since one can get a book out in e-form or even print without paying anywhere near that much up front...
I think the term "misleading" might be more appropriate. A vanity press is a vanity press. You give them money, they give you books that won't sell. It's pretty cut and dry. It only ever rises to scam level when the contract takes rights they have no business taking or there are hidden clauses that end up costing you more money. It is misleading for a vanity press to promote itself as a vehicle for "self-publishing." If you self-publish, you do so under your own imprint, with a cover you choose. You pick the level of editing you want and you go out and hire the editor of your choice. You can evaluate credentials and pick a really good editor, if you're willing to pay for the service. You also have complete control over your marketing efforts. When vanity presses advertise as "self-publishers" it's kind of like a company saying "Want to be self-employed? Come into our office and work for us, and we'll pay you as an independent contractor so that you can be self-employed." Thing is, vanity presses are notorious for doing a bad job at editing and cover design even when you pay them thousands of dollars. They also don't really do much by way of marketing. If you publish with Xlibris, it can cost you $4k for a fairly basic package. If you publish with CreateSpace, you can hire an editor of your choosing and get a really nice cover for about $1,200 (assuming a book of around 45,000 words). You'll have more control over the quality of the services being provided along the way and, as a result, the quality of the finished product. In either case you will need to do some serious marketing on your own to sell any copies. So, I would just self-publish and at least get to keep the royalties. With vanity press, you typically give away 50% of the royalties even AFTER you cut them a big fat check.
not really... if it's spelled out in the contract, then it's just a case of caveat emptor [buyer beware] and isn't a scam... a clause can't be 'hidden'... if it's a clause, then it's in there and can be read... again, it's the writers' responsibility to make sure they don't miss it... it only becomes a scam when the company says one thing and does something else... or doesn't deliver all it promises in that contract... or when it advertises there's no cost, then later on, after you're hooked, tells you this or that has to be paid for... actually, self-publishing is just one variation of 'vanity publishing'... others are 'subsidy' publishing, where you and the company share the cost, and pod outfits where you may not have to pay much upfront, but have to buy the books from them and sell them on your own... aside from listing the book on amazon and its ilk, 'self-publishing' firms don't do any promoting and don't offer distribution to bookstores, as the 'paying' presses do... anything that isn't 'traditional publishing' [= the publisher pays you, not v/v] falls under the 'vanity' umbrella, since it's only the writers' desire to have their mss turned into books regardless of the writing quality or commercial value of the book that makes them willing to pay whatever it costs to do it... versus having their mss considered good enough that the publisher will go to the expense of paying an advance [in some cases] and risking the significant amounts of money it takes to turn mss into books, promote, distribute and sell them... all methods of turning a ms into a book [e-version or print] other than 'traditional' publishing require the writer to pay a fee to have that done and/or pay to buy the books in order to sell them on their own and/or to pay for what it costs to promote, distribute and sell them... and that's all driven only by the 'vanity' of the writer, not the quality of the writing, as it is with paying presses... the fact that garbage will sometimes be published by traditional publishers and even become bestsellers doesn't change the fact that someone at that publishing house thought it would sell, regardless of how badly it was written, or how stupid the content might be... it's more a fault of the book-buying public, than of the publishers, who are in business to make money, not merely aid in the creation of 'great literature'...
You may note that I said in my post that "misleading" is a more accurate term than "scam." with regards to your "caveat emptor" point, that is largely irrelevant. If I run a timeshare seminar and give away free cruises if you attend, you're correct that it is up to the consumer to be aware of all terms and conditions and know what they are getting into. But the doesn't really diminish my ethical (not legal) culpability. My seminar can be "a scam" or "misleading" even if functioning according to the letter of the law. If sleaziness was illegal, we wouldn't hae enough jails to hold them all. I understand your point and disagree with a a key component of it. Self publishers do not pay a fee to publish. They pay for publication and act as their own publisher. There is a huge difference. I can say "I built my own house" when I hire a general contractor to physically build my house. I might also physically build my own house, outsourcing any service I, myself, cannot handle (so, I frame the house but hire an electrician to do the electrical work). The end result may be the same, and you can, technically, argue that they are both incarnations of "building your own house" but in actuality, they are miles apart. Another key difference is that self published books have been picked up by reputable publishers after a successful run. An xlibris, tate publishing or PA imprint, however, will get your book thrown into the trash without a second glance. Self publishers effectively form their own publishing company. They hire editors and artists and set their own distribution. People who publish with a vanity press are at the mercy of their publishers and their staff. S, even if you treat self publishing as a mere subset of vanity publishing, the potential outcome is completely different. This, coupled with the fact that the approach and level of control are vastly different is the reason I, and many others, break it out into a very separate category. Besides, a form of self publishing involves posting work on the Internet for free. You COULD argue that this is vanity publishing. I argue that it is simply telling a story. The term "vanity publishing" is old and originally referred to publishing houses which would sell you a mess of your own book, published solely because you had the cash. You would end up with a garage full of unsellable books. These were undeniably published due to the authors "vanity" and could serve little other purpose than being something pretty on the bookshelf or as a vain hostess gift. POD, Kindle Direct and various other distribution methods allow your book to sell right alongside the new releases from St Martin's Press. The times have changed. Now you can publish and people may actually buy and read what you wrote. You can self publish a book simply because you have a great story that is too short to be picked up by a notable publisher. Your own vanity may have nothing to do with it. Maybe "vanity publishing" is no longer a good phrase to use. Perhaps it is more accurate to say either "self published" or "subsidy published." Maybe the age of the term "vanity publishing" has ended. But I do agree that the reason reputable publishers are churning out crap is simply because there is a market for it. But if you consider how many famous authors and artists died with under appreciated work which we now revere, it doesn't sound like times have changed that much. But, I have never purchased a book because of reviews or because of the publisher. Every single book on my shelf was recommended to me by someone I know (with the notable exception of books I was introduced to in high school and college).
There are a ton of really good answers here for you. My question is, did you Google their website? And did you look around for reviews? Chances are if they're legitemate, they'll have other people talking about them somewhere. Do your research!
