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Worldwalker · 10-28-2010, 08:08 PM

For one thing, the fact that she (via said vanity press) is selling it as an ebook as well as POD. As I said above, nine bucks for a PDF. That's half again the price of a professionally-published, DRM-free epub at Baen. Twice or three times the price of other indie books at Smashwords.

For another, ebooks seem to be the new target for the vanity presses. It's a great deal for them. In this case the base price of a book is over $300, and that's if you provide your own cover and make no changes; it's easy to double or triple that. Her breakeven point would be (at minimum costs) 50 books, at which point the vanity press has collected over $450 from her ... for a book they've done nothing to or for except turn from a DOC into a PDF, stick an ISBN on, and provide sale space for. No editing, no proofreading, no nothing. If she bought a template cover and one revision, that would be $700 to earn back, or 90 books, and the vanity press would have pulled in nearly a grand without doing anything, or at least without doing anything that requires more than the services of a minimum-wage high school intern. Nice money if you can get it.

Any further questions?

10-28-2010, 08:08 PM	#7
Worldwalker Curmudgeon Posts: 3,085 Karma: 722357 Join Date: Feb 2010 Device: PRS-505	For one thing, the fact that she (via said vanity press) is selling it as an ebook as well as POD. As I said above, nine bucks for a PDF. That's half again the price of a professionally-published, DRM-free epub at Baen. Twice or three times the price of other indie books at Smashwords. For another, ebooks seem to be the new target for the vanity presses. It's a great deal for them. In this case the base price of a book is over $300, and that's if you provide your own cover and make no changes; it's easy to double or triple that. Her breakeven point would be (at minimum costs) 50 books, at which point the vanity press has collected over $450 from her ... for a book they've done nothing to or for except turn from a DOC into a PDF, stick an ISBN on, and provide sale space for. No editing, no proofreading, no nothing. If she bought a template cover and one revision, that would be $700 to earn back, or 90 books, and the vanity press would have pulled in nearly a grand without doing anything, or at least without doing anything that requires more than the services of a minimum-wage high school intern. Nice money if you can get it. Any further questions?