- Joined
- Feb 13, 2017
Melinda admitted earlier in the thread that she'd paid her vanity publisher at least 800 dollars. The real number is much higher, my research on her publisher shows as much. The lowest number I've seen to publish a book was 1600 dollars, and that author only received three copies of their book. The highest number I've seen is 18 thousand. I've seen Melinda's book and read the first few pages (I plan on buying a kindle copy, haven't gotten to it yet) and it's pretty bare-bones and basic. Melinda didn't pay much for editing and layout, or if she did that was just another way they jacked up the price without actually doing much work.
It's available to order from the publisher's website , amazon, target, and a few other online retailers. There's zero advertising, zero real support from the publisher. It shows up if you search for the exact name, Juvenescence Outdoors: A Pocket Guide for Caretakers, but if you just search "juvenescence" you come up with a zillion hits for anti-aging research, some legit, some pure woo. Google books has a preview, if you're interested.
The way Dorrance works is, they soak the author for as much as they can pre-publishing. You must pay a deposit of at least 500 dollars, with additional costs able to be paid in installments. They charge for every single service they give you, other than extremely basic mechanical editing. Proof-reading, layout help, actual editing, book-binding choices, they charge as much as they think they can get away with for all of these services.
So what happens when the book is actually finished, submitted, and all money owed to the publisher is paid? Well, that depends on the individual contract. Dorrance sets the price (always high) and lists the book for sale on several online retail services. The book is not physically sent to brick-and-mortar retailers. Dorrance prints however many copies they are obligated to by the contract (as few as possible), sends the author the copies they are entitled to, and pretty much ignores the book thereafter.
So what if Melinda wants more copies of the book, to attempt to sell herself at swap-meets and flea markets? Glad you asked. Dorrance has a deal where authors can buy copies of their own book at half of the listed price. What a steal! Until you realize that the listed price is 22 dollars, so Melinda would be paying 11 dollars per book. If Melinda orders 10 copies to sell, it's going to cost her over a hundred bucks. I'd love to know how many copies Melinda has bought to try to sell herself. I'd also love to know just how many people are actually going to spend 11-22 dollars to read an 84-page bare-bones book about how nice it is to have your children play outside.
What about royalties? Dorrance Publishing is completely opaque about royalties. Their BBB page page is full of complaints from authors about Dorrance's poor communication about numbers of books sold and amounts of royalties owed. It's important here to also note that royalties will not be paid on any books sold unless the number of books sold reaches a certain threshold. Melinda's book will never reach that threshold, whatever it happens to be. Melinda, in fact, will never see one thin dime of profit from her book. Any money she makes from the book must be weighed against the money Melinda has paid to publish her book in the first place. I don't know what the exact number is that Melinda has paid, but it's definitely four figures.
That money could have been used to make her life and her children's lives more comfortable and secure. Instead she spent that money, including at least some of her stimulus payments, on ego glorification. So she could say, "I'm a published author!" Well, congratulations. You're a published author. How has it made your life or your children's lives better?
Melinda is absolutely the kind of person who would pay hundreds of dollars to take an IQ test just to be certified a 'genius'. Guess what, Melinda, geniuses don't fall for every kind of scam, woo nonsense, and religious 'secret' knowledge peddler that comes along.
