1. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    40 Day Publishing

    Discussion in 'Self-Publishing' started by Catriona Grace, Aug 4, 2022.

    I'm pursuing traditional publishing, but a member of a local writers group regularly plugs this company for people wishing to self-publish. She does some kind of work for the company, so is obviously not without bias, though I think she is an honest person. On the website, https://www.40daypublishing.com/home52385373
    there is no list of services offered and certainly no list of prices. All that it offers, along with a few client reviews, is

    We help new & established authors to quickly and EASILY publish their books without having to learn a bunch of tech, without the hassle of hiring multiple contractors and without having to take a 2nd mortgage on their house.

    Anyone know anything about this company or the people who run it?
     
  2. Rad Scribbler

    Rad Scribbler Faber est suae quisque fortunae Contributor

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    I've just had a quick look over the 'home page' and they give a list of clients whom they've helped.

    You could possibly try and approach these authors and ask them about the service offered.

    Maybe some of the authors might be on LinkedIn and could be tracked down via this route.
     
  3. NigeTheHat

    NigeTheHat Contributor Contributor

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    I'm biased against anyone who uses Clickfunnels for their website (unfairly, CF are the big dog in the market my company's in), but they look like they provide a walkthrough on the technical side of getting yourself self-pubbed. Probably useful if you're confused about the process, but unlikely to do much for anyone who already knows what they're doing.

    Doesn't look like they do any of it, it's more about showing you how.
     
  4. Earp

    Earp Contributor Contributor

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    The site owners seem to exist, as do the writers offering testimonials (can we still say, 'testimonials', considering the root of the word?). There's nothing wrong with paying someone to help you do something you don't think you can do yourself. I'd be more inclined to trust them if there was pricing information on the site.
     
  5. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    This is exactly my reaction: why aren't prices published up front? Why must potential clients arrange for a meeting with the owners in order to get basic financial information?

    The person who told me about the organization self-published with their guidance before going to work for them. As noted, there is nothing wrong with professional hand-holding, and my acquaintance strikes me as an honest woman, but the site isn't nearly as informative as it should be and that alone is enough to make me leery.

    Since I'm not interested in self-publishing on Amazon or similar venues, this is a matter of curiosity. That curiosity is not strong enough to track down clients who haven't already posted reviews. It is strong enough to ask if anyone has had any experience with the business. Many thanks for the input!
     
  6. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    It smells like a vanity to me ... the amazon thing is a red flag ... no one person understands the amazon algorythm, including people who work at amazon.. so there is no magic bullet to go from 20 sales a month to 600... aside from advertising where the margins are such that paying someone else to do it isn't viable unless you're a massive success

    Also anyone can publish their books quickly and easily without paying anyone anything - its not hard to access all the info you need for free - the hard part is selling them. (and you do need to pay cover designers, editors and so on but its not second mortgage territory - exaggerating the costs is also a redflag)

    also the testimony about how self publishhing was so expensive because they couldn't find a reasonable printer etc is BS - you can use print on demand, and no one sticks boxes of books themselves unless they are a huge name author doing autographed copies... exaggerating the difficulties, another red flag

    i'm deeply sceptical about the sales some of the books posted achieve given the covers shown - another redflag for vanity... your typical vanity spends very little on editing covers etc because they don't care about sales, they make their money charging authors

    for a season for example has a whole store kindle rank of 305,978.. that doesn't scream best seller

    Quail crossings has an even worse rank 1,000,762 ... and its been out since 2012... thats the one that supposedly sells 600 copies a month and hit #1 all store - if it sells 600 copies a month, how come it only has 900 or so reviews in 12 years ? and its last review was 5 years ago ?

    and lastly the whole website is shonky as hell, the photos aren't professional, the animated buttons are naff, if they can't market themselves effectively why would anyone trust them to market any one else
     
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2022
    Catriona Grace, Earp and Set2Stun like this.
  7. Set2Stun

    Set2Stun Rejection Collector Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    Agree with all the red flags mentioned above. The "free training" sounds like it's going to be akin to a timeshare seminar. The lack of prices and specific services is of course sketchy, as mentioned by others. That could suggest that they might base the prize of the grift on what they believe the mark is willing/able to spend.

    I'm from up north and I'm not religious, so maybe this isn't something I would normally come across? But it bears mentioning, and I'll try to be delicate about it. The fact that 2/6 testimonials stated that their collaboration with these people was due to divine intervention, and a third mentioning church.. rubs me the wrong way. In both their bios they mention volunteering at church. Just gives me televangelist vibes. "Hey, we're good people, just like you. So you can trust us. Giving us money is just like paying us to volunteer at church."

    Their FAQ section is largely suspect in their running down of traditional publishing, but the last question was quite revealing in that they are already making excuses if you don't succeed:
    "Do you like to blame people for your lack of success? Or do you realize that your success is wholly dependent upon you?"

    I'd suggest staying far, far away.
    If you've decided to go the self-publishing route, you're better off using Google, or better yet, by discussing the process with successful self-publishers right here on the forum.
     
  8. SapereAude

    SapereAude Contributor Contributor

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    I just submitted a throw-away e-mail address so I could partake of their introductory "training" seminar. The principals of this company are a husband and wife, and the training video is a capture of a live stream they did several years ago, sitting in front of their home computers in what is obviously their home (definitely not an office setting, and IMHO not even a home office -- just "home").

    The TL;DR version of the training:

    The three "essential" things you need are (drumroll, please):
    1. A good cover
    2. A formatted interior (one for print, one for e-books)
    3. Metadata
    The first two you can do yourself, or hire it done through Fiverr. The metadata you have to do yourself.

    Next -- the three platforms to reach 90% of the world:
    1. Amazon KDP
    2. IngramSpark
    3. Smashwords (which, I believe, has been absorbed by Draft2Digital)
    They tell you that for e-books they use Amazon KDP because you can earn 70% on your sales -- but then they talk about using Smashwords to reach other distribution channels for e-books. And, of course, you don't get the 70% royalty from Amazon unless you give Amazon an exclusive.

    My take-away is that all these people do is hold your hand and walk you through doing your own self-publishing through Amazon, IngramSpark (for print), and Smashwords (Draft2Digital). Maybe they perform some or all of the tasks necessary to turn your manuscript into finished form that's ready to upload. I didn't get that far into it. The video is 45 minutes long and I bailed out at 18 minutes.

    There's a discussion thread on this site somewhere from several months ago in which I had some questions about self-publishing platforms, and Big soft moose had a lot of useful information to share in that discussion.

    I have to say that, based on watching just under half of their video, my impression of them and their web site is that I want nothing to do with them.
     
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2022
    TJ Waters likes this.
  9. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    Many thanks to all above for contributing thoughts and research. SapereAude, extra thanks for going above and beyond in actually doing what I'd only thought of doing.

    It all pretty much confirms my suspicions. I'm emphatically not interested in self-publishing novels on Amazon, etc., and I already have resources for self-publishing texts for classes I teach, so this was a matter of curiosity more than anything else.

    There are a large number of folks out there in publishing land who charge substantial fees for handholding and/or dispensing advice to writers. Through an online conference I attended, I got a free hour video consultation with one of the same. Much of the information I got was valuable, so I looked into her professional offerings. Perhaps I am naïve, but $200-400 an hour for consultations seems excessive. Package deals were every bit as expensive. I smiled, said a polite no thank you, and sent subsequent emails to spam.
     

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