Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Do you really want to go with a Self-Publisher?

This is a great post from our Director of Production at Tate Publishing. He discusses POD or Print-On-Demand publishers and what you get with them. Check out his blog: Is Your Publisher "Print-On Demand?"

Print on Demand or self-publishers are very tricky to figure out. This is why we have created a situation at Tate Publishing that if your book is accepted for publication, you don't have to worry about anything. You will have the best service, production, distribution and marketing and more products to release to the marketplace than you could get from anywhere else. I personally hate how self-publishers will tell you that you can publish a book for next to nothing!!! Then when you decide you want layout, cover design, editing, and marketing you realize that this "you can publish for nothing" publisher has turned into a $10,000 dollar expense. In addition, please don't ever publish a book without professional assistance, it is the only way to guarantee your product can even have a chance.

This time last year several of my executive staff and I visited a large self-publisher in North Carolina, LULU Press, I was shocked to see that they don't even have one editor on staff. Now, they claim to be a do-it-yourself publisher, but editors should just be part of a publishers core staff.

Tate Publishing offers the best in the industry and we would never leave our authors to go it alone, it just isn't right. Here is my post about why Tate is so different! Finally, we would never offer a choose your package style of publishing, an author should not have to decide what they need, an author should have confidence that their publisher will take care of them and their book will be beautiful in the end and be supported from beginning to bookstore! That is our desire and that is the environment we have created. Tate Publishing has the highest sales volumes out of any publisher because of our selectivity and the professionalism behind the finished product. I thank God everyday that we have such great authors in our family. Once again, check out Dave's post, I think you will like it!

Ryan Tate

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Mr. Tate,

I published with a popular self-publisher (Xlibris) about a year ago and I definitely got in over my head. I wish I had seen this post when I was choosing back then or had heard of Tate Publishing. I have spent over $13,000 and my starting package was supposed to only be $999 at a self-publisher!!! Authors need to view their books as a business, make decisions and spend your money where you will actually have a chance. The self-publishing product not being returnable killed my chances FYI!

Appreciate the post,

John D