Your choice of self-publishing company is critical to your success. By making the right call, you’ll give yourself a very good chance at success. However, the wrong call may cause you to waste time and effort. Needless to say, choosing the right company is a question of finding the right balance between cost and benefit.
In this article, we are going to take a look at five things you need to avoid when choosing your self-publishing company. If you find any of these characteristics in them, you may want to find another alternative.
1. They Keep Your Royalties
Self-publishing companies will take a cut of your book sales. This means that they will take a percentage of the sale price when sold over their platform. This is a natural part of the business. However, no self-publishing company, under any circumstances, get a cut of your sales away from their platform. If they try to get a cut of your overall sales, even on your own website, then you need to give them the heave-ho.
2. They Make Unrealistic Demands
Any reputable self-publishing company will allow you to post as much, or as little, content as you see fit. If you publish one book a year, that’s fine. If you publish a new book every day, that’s fine, too. The aim here is to ensure that you don’t get trapped in a game of unrealistic expectations. For example, if a self-publishing company asks you to meet a specific monthly sales quota in order for them to pay out, then you need to forget about them.
3. They Keep Your Rights
This is the biggest red flag of them all. Any time a company asks you to fork over your rights to them, you need to turn around and run. No company should ever ask you to do this. If they do, they are most likely scammers. So, take care of your book rights. Don’t sign anything over to them. You are the proprietor of your intellectual property.
4. They Retain Control Over Content
All content decisions are yours. A self-publishing company should not have any say on the topic of your book. The only way a self-publishing company could decline to publish your material is it contained some type of offensive content that went against all morals. Otherwise, there should be no reason for a self-publishing company to have any say in your creative decisions.
5. They Have a Large Number of Complaints
Part of your due diligence is to check out customer reviews. If you find that there is a large number of complaints, then it might be best for you to pass. You need to pay attention to the actual complaints. If you find complaints revolving around a specific issue, then you might consider how important that issue is. However, if complaints are widespread, then take a pass.
Please note that there are several self-publishing options out there. If you’d like to learn more about them, please check out the other posts in this series.
