Self-publishing is certainly an option for authors out there today. There are a ton of opportunities from companies that allow you to work through their platforms to authors simply doing it all on their own and creating their own companies. These options really started to rise after 2008 with the recession as publishers started cutting back on who they were signing and the number of authors they signed. Today, companies are offering authors the moon (or at least they are claiming this).
One company I saw made the claim, "Have you written a book and want it published? We can make sure you make a profit immediately through our program." Really? I don't know one publisher, editor, or agent out there who can make that promise, simply because we cannot control who spends the money to buy your book. Needless to say, self-publishing is not for everyone.
In an article that popped up last week from THE GUARDIAN that sort of went viral on social media started to warn of some other sides of this business. This focused on the number of scams out there really taking advantage of authors.
This article did highlight a lot of big name authors who were getting nailed on scams involving plagiarism and "book-stuffing" but I think there is a bigger picture here, and one that should seriously considered by new authors out there. Please understand, this article really focused on trying to shoulder the blame on specific programs and authors intentionally taking advantage of they system to ramp up sales. While these are certainly issues that do need to be addressed, I think there is another side of this that is being overlooked and it is also something I have been screaming about over here on the blog for sometime.
Authors, in today's publishing world, are simply not educated. They have gone out, written a book, and are immediately diving into the professional side of publishing without a clue of what they need to do to be successful, or for that matter, things they need to do to protect themselves from scams such as this.
As an author, it is up to you to not just write the books, but to also know how your books are being marketed, who is having access to your books and to watch everything going on with your career. While the article makes a comment from Amazon about a warning to the scammers, "“you are responsible for ensuring that no tactics used to promote your book manipulate the Kindle publishing service”, and that any manipulation “may” result in “termination of your account and loss of royalties”." this is also a warning that authors who CHOOSE to put their books out there unprotected need to be aware of. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE.
Many of my authors spend time regularly scanning the online bookstores to see new releases and where their names and titles show up. Like the article noted, every now and then, some scammer slips through the cracks. As soon as we discover situations such as this, we launch into a full attack, contact the publishers and within 48 hours or so, the problem is solved. Why? Because we were responsible to pay attention to this, but on an even bigger level, we had publishers with knowledgeable legal teams trained for such a situation.
When you read the article, you will notice that the high named authors out there ALSO were people who had been around the business for a while and were trained professionals. They still had the legal teams from their publishers there to help out.
I am not in any way saying people should not try this on their own. What I am saying, and trying to do so loudly, is to make sure you are smart. Make sure you are trained. Make sure you are educated. Bad people are out there, but if you are clued out to the business of publishing, you will be the next target!
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