Interesting...had an inbox from somebody I deleted last night and it turns out theyre friends of some of the people who worked for my last publishers! Just for the record, as most will already know, I withdrew the last book from the publishers as they were a nightmare: Despite having proof read it several times, it was published with a spelling error on the back cover and for some reason they had completely messed up the UK and US discography Id compiled. I notified them of this but was ignored! It was released in October 2010 - promotion didnt start until the January - why? They told me as it was nearly Christmas nobody will have the money for the book!!! LOL! They actually expected me to swallow that lol. All orders were taking weeks to deliver to the customer - that side was nothing to do with me, but as many were coming from facebook friends so I would always respond as I felt it was my responsibility given that it was my book they were paying for. All they did was get free advertising on the net in terms of promotion - the rest was down to me. And they got a huge chunk of the royalties, while I got a very measly percentage - and I mean VERY SMALL. Do I sound the bad guy here? It wasnt cutting my nose off to spite my face, but after talking to an author who had similar problems who now self-publishes and says has never looked back, I decided it was time to do the same as whatever they were doing (the publisher) I could do the same myself. Plus I felt the book could do with more depth, and expand on the information, so I relished the opportunity to revise it all - which Ive done (in editing stage now). And also before I finish my long-winded story, it took them nearly FOUR YEARS before it was published, yet was constantly told your book is a priority LOL. Inbetween all of that were a lot of battles and rude emails exchanged between us, with me never having done a book before was so niaeve and scared of blowing it for myself that I just kept quiet despite some of the patronising - and sometimes NASTY - emails I was receiving from them- basically an attitude of HOW DARE I QUESTION THEM - YOURE NOTHING, BE GRATEFUL AND SHUT UP. Im really not joking - my poor friends had to listen to me banging on for nearly four years on a daily basis as I was stressed out all the time. The dream had escalated into a nightmare. SO, not that I needed to explain myself, just this is for the record so people know why I withdrew from the last publishers! I had a heck of a job getting it withdrawn - they were threatning me with legal action etc, but after pointing out to them that THEY had broken all agreements in the contract I signed at the beginning they didnt have a leg to stand on. They even tried to tell me that the title of the book Diana Queen Of Motown belonged to THEM! Oh, and the best one was that they were going to write to Diana Rosss PR company to notify them that Ive withdrawn the book - to which I replied Thank you for the offer, but no need, I shall correspond with them myself, but thanks anyway. And that was the end of that story! Lol. I will say that I was taught a very valuable lesson from it all...I was giddy, enthusiastic and very niaeve when I first started doing the book, and lapped up all the flattery and compliments from the publishers at the beginning about what wonderful plans they had for the book.....Always do your homework before you sign a contract!!! Still, all not lost: the reviews were nice, I managed to get my foot on the ladder and with the new publisher I am thoroughly enjoying every minute of it. Happy days :) x
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 08:03:40 +0000
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