Quote:
Originally Posted by theducks
Hitch
I looked at you publish rate chart a while back.
You can't apply for a building permit (that is just the application fee, not the work to be done, permit fees) in my town for what your basic charge is  pittance. The lowest paid city worker make high 5 figures with full bennies. |
Oh, yeah, Ducky, I know. But it's not really any different at any of the other conversion houses. Some of the scamsters out there call what they do "publishing" and charge an arm and a leg, but...with folks thinking that they can "just upload a Word file" to Amazon or NookPress, and presto-chang-o, an ebook emerges (or ditto Calibre), it's not easy to maintain a decent pricing structure. We have a very low basic fee for "clean" Word files, but seriously, we don't see a handful of those a year, either. And our quoted prices, once we've seen the book, is almost always higher. (I have an "Abbott and Costello->Niagara Falls!" reaction to BROKEN PARAGRAPHS!, LOL).
You take all those factors, and then stir in the so-called "Smashwords converters," who charge $50 for "formatting" a Word file (don't get me started) and it's not an easy racket in which to earn a decent living. ;-) In hindsight, I tend to occasionally wish I would have considered apps, not books, but...hey, it's better than starving to death, right? It's the overhead that's absolutely killer. The bookmaking is one thing; the overhead is just...an abattoir.
Hitch