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Old 09-24-2010, 10:39 PM   #11
altworld
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Join Date: Apr 2010
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LC_Cooper View Post
I'm quite content with my epublishing results for my novel, Legacy, via Smashwords (incl. its Distribution Channel via SM's Premium Catalog) and Kindle. I just completed arm-wrestling my way through CreateSpace's (CS) process (they got confused with my perfectly normal wraparound pdf). Though a "free" service on the front end, royalties outside of your own estore & Amazon suck even here in the USA. I had to pay the US$39.95 to improve my Amazon royalty and for access to the Expanded Distribution Channel (EDC). Just to earn a measley 84 cents/copy through the EDC, I had to price my book at US$9.99 (this is hardly a competitive price for a newbie author). I had also set up my account for EFT payments to optimize my royalty (over the check-payment option). Then, I had to pay US$10 to get my proof copy to me within 3 weeks. So, my up-front costs for Legacy are $50.

I'm not sold on Wordclay. It appears, to me, to be yet another vanity publisher, though packaged a little differently. Access to their distribution channels will cost you US$100 (more than twice the price CreateSpace charges). I choked on the US$700+ for "return insurance" - the fact that this option is even offered, suggests Wordclay is a vanity publisher and not POD. If you're not intrested in POD, then I'd suggest using iUniverse, where you'll pay US$900 - 4,500 to publish and promote your title. iUniverse had the highest overall ranking in a survey taken last year. Besides the main issue of insane up-front costs, problem with vanity publishers is it'll still take most of them 6-18 months to get your book out.

For my tastes and budget, I'm content, for now, with POD via CreateSpace. With my next novel, Cellar's Bridge, I'll stay with Smashwords, Kindle, and CreateSpace. With Legacy, I'll know whether or not CS EDC is worth the investment.

I believe you'll need to set your retail price stratospherically high to cover real and imaginary production costs and taxes, no matter who you go with, if you live outside the USA and want your books sold here. These are effective import barriers; financial and artificial tariffs preventing you from competing on a level playing field here in the USA.
Just a thought and this is working for me, are you ordering copies to sell direct yourself? I'm having success doing this and its paid for all my upfront costs and has helped me break even. Its also opened my eyes to other opportunities too.
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