Publishing!

Philips experiences at publishing

My first book published was by Grosvenor House Publishing Ltd, what a bunch of idiots these people turned out to be! However they were in fact my second attempt at publishing Utterly Ridiculous, the first lot were Booksurge before they were owned by Amazon. At least with Booksurge they did make me a full refund due to the cock-ups they had made, unlike Grosvenor House Publishing who I am still fighting to this day.

So Utterly Ridiculous was first published: 12 Jun 2006 by Grosvenor House Publishing Ltd a self publishing company. I paid hundreds of pounds to these people and had a book produced that was utter rubbish to say the least. The package included proofreading which they clearly didn’t do, and its look was cheap and nasty, go to their website and there is a lovely picture of G.P. Taylor standing with Kim Cross and Jason Kosbab looking a nice big happy family saying how he’s joined them and is part of the company. However I have e-mails from G.P. Taylor stating he is not a director of the company! In fact I found the man to be a bit of a moron, but that’s just my opinion. This was just the tip of the iceberg of the lies and bad service this company provided, I could go on and on and I have a stack of e-mails from them all that I will be putting on this site to back this statement up and hopefully save others from being conned out of their hard earnt money.

So I then came across a man who’s information and service is more valuable than anything else his name is Jonathon Clifford and his website is http://www.vanitypublishing.info And I would recommend any budding writer to visit his site and read it before they take another step towards publishing a book, and that includes Defiant Publishers, the man is amazing and he has done all this as a free service, so please consider making a donation to his cause and link his site to yours.

When searching for agents and publishers in order to get my writing career started, I was told the best move I could make was to buy a copy of the writers and artist year book, well my advice to you is don’t, it’s a complete and utter waste of money and will be little use to you unless you are already famous, in which it will be right up your street! If you really want to read it and get information from it go to the library and save yourself a fortune. I found the contacts in it to be stuck up snobs who are little use to the likes of Mr nobody and self published authors. I e-mailed many like you doing trying to get my book published and would you believe one actually wrote back to me by e-mail saying how dare I contact them in this manor and to write to them and ask for permission to send them something, as I didn’t follow the right protocol. Well if you don’t want to be e-mailed then don’t list your e-mail address that’s what I say! The other thing I found utterly stupid is many replied to me saying “Sorry were are not taking on any more clients for the next three years as fully booked.” To which my reply was “Why the bloody hell are you advertising in the writers and artists year book?” My opinion is it’s a book for the snobs of the industry, and is more of a who’s who in the industry.

I was then put onto Self Publishing Magazine which was a great help to me and introduced me to my Proof reader Valerie Ball who I think is amazing and still use today. If receiving copies of Self Publishing Magazine please keep in mind this is produced by at self publishing company Troubador/matador http://www.troubador.co.uk .

I found Troubador very nice and friendly and got my first proper publishing deal from them at no cost to myself on my Poetry book Therapy, I then went on to have Utterly Ridiculous and KEZ done by them, has this been a smooth and stress free experience …….no! These people are a good company and I have recommended them to other authors in the past. However when it comes to royalty cheques I haven’t come across one publisher who has been honest with me yet apart from Pnuema Springs http://www.pnuemasprings.co.uk Who gave me my last publishing deal on Eternal Wish and I who I do get a cheque from!

One of the biggest problems with publishing is once you have signed your name to a contract the publishers have control of your book sales and you have to be totally reliant on them to be honest and pay you what you are due, but whose to say how many books have been sold and where because they don’t tell you! Take Utterly Ridiculous, this is probably my best selling book so far I have and continue to sell hundreds of copies and I sign every copy so that I know where they have come from, however there are many unsigned copies out there which I have never been paid for which could only have come from the publishers, those that the publishers do admit to and say they will pay me for end up giving me around thirteen pence a copy…..yes you heard me right 13p! The publishers then probably won’t write you out a cheque unless it’s over £15.00 so you have to wait a long time unless your sale are up in the thousands and regularly selling.

You will all ways make the most money selling books yourself from your own website after ordering them from your publisher you can probably make two or three pounds!

We are hoping to give the publishing industry a huge kick up the arse by doing things differently.
Firstly we are going to guarantee our authors a pound a copy on sales done through us, obviously this does not cover books you are ordering to sell on yourself as these will be sold to you at a trade price anyway.
Secondly we will be listing where every single copy has gone and you will be paid for every single copy we send out, any free copies again we will tell you where they have gone so you can keep control of your sales,
Like I do with my books I would even advise authors to sign all copies and if necessary number them when selling them themselves, this means when a book appears on Amazon as used or second-hand you can call the seller and check where it has come from (I do this all the time) which is how I know I have been ripped off in the past.

Thirdly as mentioned getting authors to sign and number as many copies as possible so between us we can keep total control of sale.

These are just three simple steps we are doing to change what has been the “norm,” for so long. I am changing all my own books as and when I can, to Defiant Publishers and for the first time in five years start to make some money!