BookSurge / On-Demand Publishing, LLC

Elwyn said:

It's interesting that the Editor in Chief at LBF Publishing self-published some of her works because, as she says, she knew normal publishers would want to change things that she didn't want changed.

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She knows this because several editors rang her, offered her a contract, and said "Oh, by the way, you'll have to change this-and-this-and-that", or because she's unusually adept at scrying?

Joseph-Beth has five or six locations across the US, according to their site. I would not spend hundreds of dollars to stock five books in one of their stores.

Well, I signed up one of my books on booksurge, just to get the experience. The total cost was $99. For that I got an ISBN number, 25% royalties on the retail price, a proof copy, 1-2 day fulfillment of orders, and, of course, Amazon!



To get that low price, I used the express package. I had to give them print ready pdf’s, but that was no problem, because I already had them. (I did have to tweak the cover pdf a bit, since their spec is a little unusual.)



To get a reasonable retail price, I played with the margins and chapter headings until I got it under 250 pages—250 is a price break point. So, for a 5.25 by 8 trade paperback, the retail price will be $14.99. That isn’t too bad, and considering the rapid delivery—none of that 2 week stuff—it shouldn’t carry the full stench of POD.

A Tale of Booksurge and A Children's Book

What do we know about Booksurge?

Tonight I met a woman who had just self-published her children's story through Booksurge. She was excited because it was available through Amazon and she had sold three copies already. On the other hand, the book is $18.99 for a 32 page children's story. She also said the words which made my ears prick up, "I need to sell a thousand more copies to recoup my investment." I didn't want to rain on her parade, because she seemed so excited about the fact that she was published, but am I scenting a rat? (Or perchance a skunk.)

Anybody else have any experiences with Booksurge? What should I tell her, if anything?

Here is a link to Booksurge's profile on the "Incomplete POD Guide".

http://booksandtales.com/pod/publisherviewer.php?publisher_id=15

These folks were recently bought out by Amazon I believe. Unfortunately, being a typical POD this likely affords your friend no tangible benefits as the discounts appear scanty, retail prices inflated and marketing support dubious. In order words, it's your typical POD outfit.

Mike

Booksurge is a vanity POD, and one of the more expensive ones at that.

James D. Macdonald said:

Booksurge is a vanity POD, and one of the more expensive ones at that.

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No, I'd say it's not one of the more expensive. Not necessarily, anyway. I published a book six weeks ago through Booksurge for $99. In two weeks it was on Amazon (250 pages for $14.99.)

victoriastrauss said:

...and also, apparently, one of the less desirable ones, with a dodgy reputation for quality and reliability. Maybe Amazon will change all that.

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Well, apparently not. I published a book with them in November, and it went up on Amazon a couple of weeks later. Okay, that was good, but after that they seemed to forget about it. They’d told me to sit back, they would take care of everything. They'd get me that ‘search within the book’ at Amazon; it’s automatic, they said. And now, three months later, still nothing. I write them and ask what’s going on. Oops, they say, please be patient. Give us three to five weeks!



All this time and no one can find my book, so what good is that? I'll be looking elsewhere next time.

Booksurge Server is Down

I think this merits being a new thread since the last time I could find Booksurge as a topic was Feb. 2005. If I've goofed up, I'm sure someone will let me know and have mercy on a newbie.

I started negotiating with Booksurge (for better or worse since I gather they're not altogether popular with their clients) towards the end of June. I got to the point where I had chosen all my options for cover design and interior template, etc. I was just about to upload my manuscript when their server went down on August 4 with the online message " We are currently performing maintenance on our servers."

I read somewhere in the news that they had experienced problems with someone hacking into their system, but when I emailed my contacts (3 of them) at booksurge, they were not forthcoming about the server. The best they would do is send me an email on August 8 that said: "Thank you for writing to BookSurge with your concerns. We are working to bring the BookSurge site back up as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience, and sincerely appreciate your business."

I have emailed back and forth a couple of times with my contract administrator but she is still tightlipped about what is going on with the server.

Does anyone out there in writer land know anything or has anyone heard anything about the problem with the Booksurge server. I'm concerned not only about the delay in giving them my manuscript and getting the book in print, but also because I've given them a pot load of money already and I'm nervous about its slipping away.

Thanks for any dope you may have,

Glynn

Hi Glynn, welcome to Absolute Write. :

I hope you get this resolved, and nothing too drastic is happening.

Another time, if you just add your post to the existing thread it magically shoots to the top, and everyone can see it. This keeps all the pertinent information in one place and makes it easier to look up information.

I can get to the website okay. Is there a specific part of the site that still isn't working? And did they give you any idea when you would be able to upload your manuscript?

Hi Glynn,

Are you referring to the Booksurge site or globalbookpublisher.com? I too have a few books that were previously published with them and haven't been able to access the globalbookpublisher.com site for nearly two weeks. I'll give my rep a call tomorrow and see if she'll tell me anything and report back to you on when we may be able to access our accounts.

Judith

Here is an e-mail from Booksurge:

Dear BookSurge Customer:

I am writing to let you know that we have learned that an
unauthorized
individual may have gained access to files on a BookSurge server
which
contained credit card and other account information from some
BookSurge
customers.

We have no indication that your credit card or other account
information
was compromised, but we wanted to notify you of this event out
of an
abundance of caution.

I'd like to reassure you that we take the protection of data
very
seriously and are committed to providing a safe and secure
environment
for our customers and authors. We are taking additional
security measures
to help prevent such an incident from happening again.

I apologize for any inconvenience this incident may cause you.
If you have any questions, please contact us by sending an email
to
[email protected].

Sincerely,

Andrew Roskill
Managing Director
BookSurge

Booksurge Website on 8-16-06

judithmoose said:

Hi Glynn,

Are you referring to the Booksurge site or globalbookpublisher.com? I too have a few books that were previously published with them and haven't been able to access the globalbookpublisher.com site for nearly two weeks. I'll give my rep a call tomorrow and see if she'll tell me anything and report back to you on when we may be able to access our accounts.

Judith

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I'm referring to "booksurge.com." the site apears to be back up, but not to the extent that I can get past the "home" page. It's all information and no access to upload my manuscript. I've written them again asking for more information. I'll post what they reply

Booksurge Website is back on line

Wheeoow! I just received an email from my account manager at Booksurge telling me that their server was back on line. Halelluia, etc. I checked and it is in fact back. I had to reset my password for them, but I was able to log on. I'll be uploading my manuscript tomorrow. I took the opportunity during the downtime to make some last minute changes to the book. I'll see if I can find the right thread--having to do with novel writing and explain what I mean there. In the meantime, thanks to everyone out there who had their fingers crossed on my behalf.

BOOK SURGE

Dear Everyone,

I received this email today as a "Special Opportunity" with the headline, Was it your goal to be published in 2006? I believe Beware is in order. If it smells like a duck and quacks like a duck and walks like a duck...


A Special Offer for You!
Hi Sherry,
Was your goal to publish your book in 2006? If so, I thought you'd like to know that we're offering an additional 20% off our already discounted publishing package, The Expert, through September 30. Normally, $5,799, The Expert is now available to you at the incredible price of $4,640.
Designed specifically for professionals with expertise to share or wisdom to impart, this publishing package contains all the elements you need for success as an authorpreneur. You'll receive:

• Author's Advantage Publishing Program for Black and White Interior Books
• Up to 3 Rounds of Comprehensive Copy Editing
• Signature Cover Design
• Advanced Marketing Copy
• Promotional Copy by a New York Times Bestselling Author
• BookSurge Publicity Kit
• One month of Buy X, Get Y Advertising on Amazon.com
• Press Release Creation and Targeted Distribution Service

I got it, too. But I was on their mailing list--I asked questions back in March or Paril. I took myself off the list this afternoon.

Booksurge is too damned expensive compared ot other services if you WANT to self-pub.

Regards,
Scott

There were several threads on Booksurge in the Index. I've consolidated them.

- Victoria

...the incredible price of $4,640.

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Darned right that's incredible. It's incredible that anyone would think that paying to get published is a good idea.

Now if they were offering $4,640 I might consider writing something for them....

Gadzooks, I don't know how I lived life or endured sunshine before Book Surge came along.....what an opportunity for me to part with money I don't have.

This thread should be linked, I think, if not moved by a mod.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52810

SherryTex said:

A Special Offer for You!

Hi Sherry,
Was your goal to publish your book in 2006? If so, I thought you'd like to know that we're offering an additional 20% off our already discounted publishing package, The Expert, through September 30. Normally, $5,799, The Expert is now available to you at the incredible price of $4,640.

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Also, and this is just a huge pet peeve of mine, I hate it when vanity companies tell people they can "publish your book", when what they're really doing is just "printing your manuscript".

In the interest of fair disclosure, I used Booksurge to print my first novel in 2004. I sent them camera-ready pdf files, so I think I only paid about $200 in set up fees (this was before they went to Global Book Publishing and merged with Amazon's marketplace thingie). I bought a box of 100 books and sold all but twelve of them through various sources. While I would never do this again -- because I know a lot more now about writing than I did three years ago -- I can honestly say that the books they printed for me were all good quality. I've read reports of their books falling apart, having shoddy covers or upside down pages, but none of this was the case with mine.

Would I use Booksurge again? Nope, because I want to spent time writing, not marketing. Was it a terrible experience? Not in the least.

My Ongoing experience with Booksurge

James D. Macdonald said:

Darned right that's incredible. It's incredible that anyone would think that paying to get published is a good idea.

Now if they were offering $4,640 I might consider writing something for them....

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I agree entirely that $4,640 is an incredible price to get a book published (i.e. "printed,") but I didn't pay Booksurge anywhere near that and I'm amazed that they think they can get much action by quoting a price like that. Such a huge price is a "package" of more stuff than anyone--unless you're Donald Trump--could afford. But you can cut out a lot of unnecessary stuff and come up with your own package, and I'd surely cut out the "publicity package" which is a huge number of calling cards, book markers, and postcards that I doubt if I'll ever use. When I had chosen the services I wanted from them, I asked them for a discount on that, which they readily gave me. I really don't want to tell you how much I paid, but it was certainly nowhere near $4,640.

Now, am I satisfied? Yes. When I decided to self-publish my novel "Arise Beloved" (http://www.arisebeloved.com) I didn't have a clue about how to go about it. I won't go into all the reasons I made that decision to self-publish in spite of the fact that common wisdom says self-publishing is a suicide mission for a book. I've talked about that before on one of these threads--I don't remember which one.)

I was totally ignorant about getting a manuscript into print and I realized pretty quickly that trying to get up to speed on how to do it for the first time was going to be a tough, uphill slog. Based on my past experience with learning something new, I figured it would be a pretty expensive one when I discovered here at Absolute Write all the pit falls and misadventures that I'd probably make. That's when I decided to go with Booksurge. The result is that I do have a nice book (although I'm now working with a designer for a new cover--the template I used from Booksurge is pretty lame, which was part of my learning process--but I can get the cover changed at Booksurge for a standard $50.00 correction fee.) The books, if expensive, are well done and I'm not ashamed to offer them for review and I've gotten a modest amount of sales at Amazon.com--part of the package that Booksurge offers without me having to learn how to do it and to get it done.

Drawbacks? Sure. First is the author's cost for copies. It's steep unless you order around 1000 copies and the economics of sending and selling copies is such that I can order them myself from booksurge one at a time to send out for review--which is what I'm concentrating on now rather than trying to get them to bookstores, etc. at this point. I pay the full cover price ($27.99) but that includes packaging and shipping, which costs me a bunch when I try to buy author's copies ($418 for 22) then go through the labor of packaging and shipping. I get a royalty of $7.00 per retail sale (which is less that I might have gotten by going another route) but considering the fact that I don't have to deal with packaging and shipping costs gives me just about as much return as buying and shipping them at the author's cost. I know that if I had known as much as I do now about getting a book from manuscript to book, I wouldn't have used Booksurge, but I didn't and without that knowledge, God only knows how much I'd have spent in the learning process, and probably not have ended up with a well-done book. Besides which, as someone has already said, I had rather spend my time writing. I just don't have the patience or skills to handle everything from keyboard to book.

Will I use Booksurge for my next book? No. But for what I got when I needed it, it was worth what I paid. Since my book is fiction, it would be a tough sell to make a success of the project, even if I had gotten an agent and a mainline publisher, who may or may not have put much effort into marketing it anyway. By going the route I'm on, I still have control and I think a better chance in the long run by keeping the "getting noticed" business in my own hands.

James D. Macdonald is absolutely right in most of what he says, but he's an expert now and probably got there over a long period of time, and undoubtedly has more skill and expertise than I'll ever have. If I were he, I'd be able to do what he does, but I'm not James. D. Macdonald, and I do have a book I'm not ashamed of, and I satisfied with where I am.

Thanks for listening.

Glynn Compton Harper

Glynn did you do any POD copies with book surge or where they all preprinted copies?

Getting copies for review is an interesting point that's worth thinking about.