Hi Yvonne,

Happy Valentine’s Day! (Full disclosure - Yvonne and I are partners in business and in life.)

Now, on to your post. Here’s another tidbit for anyone who thinks you were too hard on Ms. King (who seems to have taken her post down):

ALL publishers require authors to pay for their publishing services.

Repeat: ALL publishers require authors to pay for their publishing services.

Now, I can walk you through why my statement is true, but just go back to that old Fram oil filter commercial where the mechanic says, “Pay me now, or pay me later.”

Authors who delude themselves that they are getting a “deal” from a traditional publishing model are really pessimists who decide to bet against themselves. They take the measly $5,000 advance against the measlier 10% royalty and hope the publisher follows through and actually releases the book. Then, if it sells out the advance and becomes a moderate success, who wins?

Let’s say the book sells 5000 copies at an average selling price of $20 (we focus on nonfiction trade/professional books) for a total of $100,000. The author’s 10% royalty would be $10,000 (half already received as the advance).

If the same author had self-published and paid a quality author services provider $7,500 upfront, with a 30% royalty, and sold the same 5000 copies at $20 average selling price, she’d end up with $22,500 ($30,000 minus the upfront investment of $7,500).

The disparity gets much bigger the more copies you sell. And of course, since the production costs per book are higher in the POD model, the publisher makes a smaller share than in the “traditional” model.

In the end, the author in the example above would have paid the “traditional” publisher $12,500 in reduced royalty income for the service of publishing the book. “Pay me now, or pay me later.”

Tom

Interesting. My own book is self-published (and though not a bestseller has sold way, way more than that 150-300 average) and I can offer this from my experience: I published it in 2004, and I wish that I had known Yvonne and the other reputable and highly professional POD publishers then who I know now. I was able to get a nod from a “traditional publisher” then, but decided to self-publish instead because all things considered it really was a better business decision in my situation - and though I probably paid more for some things with mylimited knowledge, today I have no regrets about my decision. A huge determining factor for me was this: “you retain ALL rights to your work, forever. Your book never goes out of print.”

Since then I have entered the “authors network” somewhat and have heard many many of their stories, and I am very confident that every single one will tell you this: You better be prepared to be your own best publicist and marketer and work hard at learning to self-promote. Your agent and your publisher - whatever the model is - is carrying a number of titles to gain any kind of profit whatsoever, and if you aren’t a best-selling household name you are largely on your own.

oops… hit submit comment too soon…

I must say this about Yvonne: When she says she loves your book she will be one of the biggest evangelists you could hope for! I have repeatedly counted my blessings that my own book resonated with her, and purely from her love for the written word - not because she felt she could get future business from me. As an author herself, she has a lot of empathy and respect for other authors and publishers.

Thanks, Rosa. That’s what makes it worthwhile. To know that you know I do it for the authors, not for me. (not that I’m adverse to profit, mind you!)

Full disclosure: I am a first time author and WME Books is my POD Publisher.

I don’t know what it’s like at other POD Publishing places, nor do I know what it’s like at traditional publishing houses. What I do know is that I had a tremendous experience bringing my book to life with Yvonne at WME Books.

If all the POD Publishers were as integral, focused on their author’s success, and supportive in their marketing endeavors as WME Books, we’d all be choosing to self publish.

Yvonne here - My apologies to readers - the author of the blog post I am quoting from seems to have removed the post. Understand that it is not my intent to do more than take misinformation to task.

Please review and research your options before you choose a publishing method for your work. Consider your goals and do include POD as an option.

Beneaththecover.com purports to offer authors inside news and expert advice about the publishing industry when, in fact, it’s just a front for a bunch of vanity press and book promotion hucksters selling their wares. This point is driven home by this post, written by a vanity press publisher, that offers this outrageous falsehood:

In today’s emerging digital world, if you truly want to attract that big name publisher, use a professional POD firm to self-publish because the big name publishers are watching.

The best way to attract a publisher is to write a good book, not blow thousands of dollars having it printed in POD form by a vanity press. If anything, printing your book in POD is more likely to prevent a publisher from taking you or the book seriously.

DiVita is one of a pack of POD vanity press hucksters who prey on the gullibility, desperation, and ignorance of aspiring authors. She argues that vanity presses aren’t merely printers but real publishers because they pay more attention to their authors than real publishers do. What she neglects to mention is that vanity presses like hers make the vast majority of their money off their authors, not from booksales, and that all that attention they slather on their clients (not authors, ladies and gentlemen, clients) is to convince them to spend even more on their worthless services. She writes:

IF authors don’t sell enough books with their publisher, POD or otherwise, the author isn’t trying hard enough. I’ve worked with traditional publishers, and they require an extensive marketing plan from authors before they will consider publication. And research shows that books published by traditional publishers sell around 150-300, on average.

That’s right, blame the author for the fact that their POD vanity press books aren’t sold in stores and are unlikely to sell to anyone but the client… and then back it up with pointless “facts.”

I’ve had over two dozen books published by real publishers. No editor has ever asked me for an “extensive marketing plan” before considering my books.I’ve also asked a few published friends…and they have never been asked for marketing plans, either. But they are novelists, and perhaps they would be asked for one if they wrote non-fiction. So let’s give DiVita the benefit of the doubt and say publishers want marketing plans along with non-fiction book proposals. To which I say… So what? How is that a persuasive argument for going to vanity-press of a real publisher? You’ll need a marketing plan either way. The key difference is that a real publisher will pay you and a vanity press will ask for your credit card number.

I’ve scoured the web and I can’t find any “research” that backs up her outrageous claim that most books published by genuine publishers sell only 150-300 copies.

The closet statistic I could find to her numbers was a 2004 Bookscan study that tracked sales of 1.2 million books sold that year (it was not broken down by genre, like fiction or non-fiction, large publishers or small ones, etc.) According to their figures, the average book of any kind published in 2004 sold 500 copies. The study noted that only 25,000 titles sold more than 5,000 copies each, 500 sold more than 100,000 copies and only ten sold more than a million copies.

But lets pretend her figures are right. How is that an argument for going to a vanity press? Authors whose books only sold 500 copies in 2004 were still paid to be published. They earned money, though not as much as they’d hoped.

By comparison, most vanity press authors will lose money because they paid to be published. But don’t take my word for it, let’s look at the 2004 sales figures from iUniverse, the biggest name in self-publishing:

18,108: Total number of titles published

792,814: Number of copies printed

14: Number of titles sold through B&N’s bricks-and-mortar stores (nationally)

83: Number of titles that sold at least 500 copies

Out of 18,000 titles and nearly 800,000 copies printed, only 83 authors sold more than 500 copies. Good God. Think of all the money that authors lost …and how much iUniverse made. That’s the business that DiVita is in…and it’s a profitable one. For the printer, not the author.

So what is the truth about POD self-publishing companies? It’s obvious. Vanity presses are in the “author services business”, not the publishing business which, in a rare bit of candor, even DiVita concedes on her vanity press website:

Windsor Media Enterprises specializes in author services. We offer idea development, manuscript critiquing, editing, proofreading, formatting and cover design, for new and existing authors.

And for that, they charge you a price and that’s how they make their money. That is their business. And if your book, by some miracle, manages to sell a few copies, they make a little more.

A vanity press will tell you any lie they can to convince you that they are real publishers (when they are merely selling editing and printing services), that self-publishing is the route most successful authors take (it’s not), and that you have as much of a chance to sell books with them as you do going with a traditional publisher (you don’t).

Is Yvonne DiVita really someone qualified to give writers sound advice? Or is she someone with a clear conflict-of-interest hoping to coerce naive authors into buying her product? The answer is obvious, and it came right from the founders of Beneaththecover.com when they tried to solicit my brother Tod Goldberg into being one of their experts:

Beneath the Cover is a cooperative venture for building marketing platforms of everyone involved.

That’s what should be written on the masthead of their home page, not “Where book industry professionals who know almost everything go to discuss news, insights, and evolving industry issues.” And it should be stated in big print on each every piece of “advice” that they give.

How much did it cost you to be “published” by WME, Susan?

I’ll tell you what it cost me to publish MY first, non-fiction book UNSOLD TELEVISION PILOTS through a small publisher when I was just eighteen years old:

Zero. Zip. Nada. Not one penny.

And to date I have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties, sub-rights sales, TV options, and the producing & scripting fees for two network specials (on CBS & ABC) based on the book. (I also appeared on Entertainment Tonight, Charlie Rose Nightwatch, PM Magazine, etc. and my book got an on-air rave from Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show. It also led to articles in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the front page of the Wall Street Journal, among others).

I’ll tell you what it cost me to publish my non-fiction book SUCCESSFUL TELEVISION WRITING. Zero. Zip. Nada. I have made tens of thousands of dollars since then in advances and royalties.

I’ll tell you what it cost me to publish my two dozen novels. Zero. Zip. Nada.

I have been published by large publishers (Penguin/Putnam, St. Martin’s Press, John Wiley & Sons) and small ones (McFarland & Co., Five Star Mysteries). None of them ever asked me for a penny. Instead, they paid me.

*Real* publishers pay you, not the other way around. Real publishers promote your books and distribute it nationally to brick-and-mortar stores as well as listing it on Amazon, etc.

What POD vanity presses offer you is a printing service and, sometimes, editing as well, all at a price. They make their money off authors, not booksales.

Anyone who in the POD industry who tells you that POD printing is the path to success in traditional publishing is misleading you and lining their own pockets.

Lee

Lee,

You stay it cost you nothing to publish. Oh, really? Do you have an agent?

If so, then the publishing of your books is costing you $15,000-$20,000 on the back end for each of those “100s of thousands of dollars” you brag about.

Did you hire a proofreader before submitting your manuscript to an agent or “real” publisher, as almost every professional in the industry advises?

Same for a professional copyeditor?

Depending on how those professionals charged and the length of your manuscript, those would have run you another $1000-$5000.

Oh, and those prep costs are upfront, before you found out whether your work would be published.

If you’re claiming your first book got published by a “real” publisher without an agent and without any of those other prep costs, then congratulations, you won the lottery.

But if you’re running around claiming that every author who writes a worthy book will have that same experience, who’s the one misleading aspiring writers?

We’re very open about the services we provide and the investment that’s involved in our publishing model. With POD, as we practice it, that investment goes into quality editorial, design, and pre-press values, instead of printing thousands of books that may or may not sell.

Have you looked at any of our books? Susan’s wonderful new book, Discovering Your Inner Samurai? God Spare Life (the autobiography of the first black female orthopedic surgeon in the U.S)? Leadership: Thinking, Being, Doing (New and Revised Edition), by Lee Thayer? (Dr. Thayer has multiple previous books published by “real” publishers; he brought Leadership to us after he self-published the first edition at xLibris.)

We also don’t use the xLibris/Lulu model that accepts any book an author offers us. We don’t use a small number of design templates and we don’t charge extra for true editing.

Not that those simpler POD models are inherently wrong (as you seem to think about every approach but yours), but from the beginning we’ve limited ourselves to providing individual service, including full editorial, layout, and design. That commitment, sadly, means not all authors can afford us. But we’re very proud of the work we produce and the people who choose to work with us.

Returning to your back-end costs (yes, one could find a double entendre there), your “real” publishers paid you, what, a 5% royalty on the first book? Maybe, 1/2-1% on the sub-rights?

Sticking to the book royalties, if you’ve made $100,000 on the 5% royalty, you’d have made $600,000 on our 30% royalty system if you’d had the entrepreneurial stomach to self-publish.

That money went to your “real” publisher; that’s what they charge for their publishing services.

So your book actually cost you half a million dollars in lost opportunity costs. If you don’t think that’s a real cost, check with any competent investor.

(You might say, oh but it wouldn’t have sold so many if you self-published. Your book? What happened to your claim that all you need to do is write a “good” book to have it immediately recognized and snapped up?)

Lee, you really do live in lottery-land if you actually believe that all a writer needs to do is write a good book and a major publisher will offer him/her a deal. You don’t do authors any favor by spreading such nonsense.

And you don’t do yourself any credit with your dogmatic, reactionary attitudes toward new publishing models.

Join us in the new millenium, huh?

Tom

Lee - I totally agree, I could print a book on my own and it would cost me nothing if I did all the work. What I paid for and got wasn’t just the book, I became part of Yvonne’s network of friends and that has been the ultimate gift of business and pleasure.

People write books for different reasons. I wrote mine to go on the record about women making the decisions in consumer products and how they think about a friendly exchange. I wanted my voice heard and the book was a starting point. My blog continued the conversation.

Yvonne believes that everyone deserves to be published. Big publishing houses don’t, I went that route the first time.

Time to let this one go, Lee. By the way, what do you drive? I’m guessing it’s not the cheapest car on the block, and you lost $4000 the moment you drove it off the lot. Why did you do that? For that matter why don’t you take public transporation and save yourself more money.

It’s all about choices. I’m happy Yvonne provided me an option and inspired me to get book one behind me, 230 blog posts later, I’m still talking.

Well Yvonne!

You certainly stirred the pot - as evidenced by the comments at Lee Goldberg’s blog. (And I just posted a comment in response to his response to my first comment…if you follow that I couldn’t let it pass - people can say many things about me - but “naive” isn’t one of them.)

Two things:

1. I seriously doubt he would say such things to your (or my) face. (posting om somebody’s blog is easy - it’s just you, your monitor and your keyboard.)

2. I think Goldberg - along with some of the other commenters on his post - are spewing their frustration regarding the changes in publishing. Instead of learning and adapting - they’re attacking. Just as most newspapers are whining, kicking…and dissing bloggers.

I’d love to think that all I had to do is write a good book and publishers would flock (as Goldberg implies.) But then how do we account for the absolute dreck that gets published by “legitimate” publishers?

Funny, little ole’ me making big ole’ him so angry. I’m working on a response, Mary. Name calling isn’t part of my repertoire, however, so I think I’ll just stick to the facts. Stay tuned.

Tom,

You wrote: “You say it cost you nothing to publish. Oh, really? Do you have an agent? If so, then the publishing of your books is costing you $15,000-$20,000 on the back end for each of those “100s of thousands of dollars” you brag about.”

I didn’t pay him anything out of my own pocket, Tom. He got a percentage of what I earned from the deals he found and negotiated for me. He got paid by the publisher and so did I. I didn’t pay him.

There is a HUGE difference between giving an agent 15% of the $15,000 advance that a publisher is PAYING ME to publish my book than to PAY a vanity press $5000 up front out of my pocket to publish my book that will probably never earn back my investment.

In the agent scenario, I am MAKING MONEY. In the vanity press scenario, I AM LOSING IT. The agent gets paid when I get paid. I am not taking ANY financial risk.

You wrote: “Did you hire a proofreader before submitting your manuscript to an agent or “real” publisher, as almost every professional in the industry advises? Same for a professional copyeditor?”

You should cancel your subscription to Writers Digest, they are miss-leading you. I have never, ever, hired a proofreader for any of my books. Why? Because I have this newfangled software called Microsoft Word that has a spell-check and a grammar check. And my agent also reads the book. And the publishers, the ones who PAY YOU, also have a team of copyeditors and proofreaders.

My Microsoft Word came bundled with my computer, so what have I spent on proofreaders and copyeditors?

Nothing.

I don’t know of any authors who hire professional proofreaders to read their books before they submit them. Because most writers I know can write.

You wrote: “Depending on how those professionals charged and the length of your manuscript, those would have run you another $1000-$5000.”

Only if you have been suckered by the horde of vultures who prey on the gullibility and desperation of aspiring authors. The vanity press industry thrives on the ignorance and credit card limits of their clientele.

You wrote: “Oh, and those prep costs are upfront, before you found out whether your work would be published.”

The only “prep costs” an author might have are:

+ Time spent writing the book
+ ink cartridges for a printer
+ reams of printer paper to print out drafts
+ travel, book purchases, etc. associated with researching the subject matter of the book.
+ phone bills (calling your agent and/or editor and/or looking for one, a broadband connection for surfing the web)
+ stamps and envelopes (for sending your manuscript to agents and editors)
+ coffee, Diet Coke, and large quantities of junk food (to keep the creativity flowing)

Tom wrote: “Returning to your back-end costs (yes, one could find a double entendre there), your “real” publishers paid you, what, a 5% royalty on the first book? Maybe, 1/2-1% on the sub-rights?”

I got a 12% royalty on my first book and split the sub-rights, if memory serves, 50/50 with the publisher. I owned 100% of the TV & Film rights. The publisher earned — and deserved — every penny they made from the sale of the book because they took the initial financial risk of publishing and distribution (my book wasn’t POD, by the way, it was a hardcover…so the publisher actually did more than create a PDF file). The book was also unagented, I made the sale by sending the manuscript to the publisher myself. (The subsequent TV options, producing deals, and script fees arising from the book were agented)

So there goes your silly “back end” costs argument for blowing your cash with a vanity press.

Whether you want to believe it or not, most vanity press books don’t sell anywhere near what even a poorly performing, traditionally-published book does.

It would have been foolish and costly to have gone the vanity press route with my first book instead of signing with a real publisher…I never would have made the money that I did nor had the national exposure that I received.

Lee

Mary,

You wrote: “What I paid for and got wasn’t just the book, I became part of Yvonne’s network of friends and that has been the ultimate gift of business and pleasure.”

If you believe that was worth what you paid, that’s great. But I am assuming you could still be part of her network of friends without having to pay for it.

You wrote: “2. I think Goldberg - along with some of the other commenters on his post - are spewing their frustration regarding the changes in publishing. Instead of learning and adapting - they’re attacking. Just as most newspapers are whining, kicking…and dissing bloggers.”

I have nothing against print-on-demand technology. What I am opposed to are authors being taken advantage of by the false claims of vanity presses. I am opposed to writers being conned into thinking that paying to be published is the path to success, and that you have the same shot at success today with a POD book as you do with a traditionally published one. It’s misrepresentation and its designed to seperate you from your money.

Think about it, Mary. What do I possibly have to fear from POD? What do I have to gain from criticizing vanity presses and people who give biased “advice?”

Here is my position — that the “advice” and “news” offered by beneaththecover.com is actually aimed at steering people to the marketing and self-publishing services of their so-called experts. In Yvonne’s case, she’s hyping her vanity press, so when she advises writers about the wonders of self-publishing, she’s a really trying to sell her product. It’s a sales pitch masquerading as advice and news…which, in my opinion, is an attempt to fool aspiring writers for personal gain.

I also believe that it’s a mistake for authors to pay to be published (because 9 times out of ten, they are simply throwing their money away), and that it’s miss-representation for any vanity press to claim to be a “publisher.”

Unlike Yvonne, who gives biased “advice” to sell people on her vanity press, I am merely sharing my opinion.

Lee

Mary wrote: “Lee - I totally agree, I could print a book on my own and it would cost me nothing if I did all the work.”

What work!? The same work would be involved whether you went to a vanity press or not.

What extra work do I have to do when I am PAID to be published that I am spared by PAYING someone to publish me?

Lee

Rosa,

You wrote: “You better be prepared to be your own best publicist and marketer and work hard at learning to self-promote. Your agent and your publisher - whatever the model is - is carrying a number of titles to gain any kind of profit whatsoever, and if you aren’t a best-selling household name you are largely on your own.”

I agree 100%.

Lee

Lee and Jan, etal:

Reading your posts I’m reminded of myself watching SOTU speeches and campaign debates.

I like your passion and your outspoken, blunt, direct, in the moment style. It’s clear your passionate about your success as an author and the means you’ve used to achieve that success. I admire your success.

I’m not an expert in book publishing of any means. I hope to be in the future and achieve even a bit of your success.

But one thing I am an expert on is the target of your commentary: Yvonne Divita. I’ve know her for 3-4-5 years now. I’ve met with her, worked with her in several settings, shared blog content and ideas and disagreed with her. If she was a guy, I’d say she’s a “stand up guy”. She’s one of the people you can trust, whose friendship and partnership you’d value as one that expands your world in a positive way, one whose email you value and you reach to reply to it quickly because it always adds to your day. Working in the blogging community together with her over these years I’ve found I’m only one of many who feel the same way based on their experiences in work and friendship with her. Many have had more experience working with her than I and their commitment and respect for her is even greater. And were it not this way, her community of readers and clients and friends would not be as large nor would they stand silently over the years if she had some of the qualities, any of the qualities you’ve assigned to her in your passion for your vocation.

I hope you follow her success and get to know her over the months and years.

Regards,

Zane Safrit
CEO
Conference Calls Unlimited
877-227-0611, ext. 12

Lee,

You haven’t had the courage to answer one of my questions: Have you looked at any of our books?

Do you have the slightest personal knowledge to support your attacks on the value or quality of what we do, let alone the honesty and integrity of our business?

Quite a number of the wonderful people we work with and for — and count as friends — have offered you their personal knowledge that your accusations are false, as well as unfounded.

Tom

Lee, What’s next? Are you going to take on those who teach others to blog, too? That’s free, anyone can do it. How about a University? Everyone has access to books, who needs teachers? Let it go Lee, take that anger and go stop Global Warming instead.

I just posted the following comment on Lee Goldberg’s site, lets see if he posts and responds to this post:

Lee,

I will do my best to show you that you don’t even half of the facts. The
problem with this is that it has required me to spend several hours reading,
and rereading your several posts and comments, and then researching the
facts, as they are publicly available.

It irritates me—I shouldn’t have to do this because you shouldn’t be
giving such erroneous, knee-jerk reactions to people and things.

I expect that you will fully publish and respond to this post, as I didn’t
waste several hours of my day to for you to lipstick my comments.

But before I get into the details of my research, let me first commend you
— you have a unique way of generating traffic to your site.

It’s worked — by picking fights with sites with greater traffic than your
own, you have successfully generated more traffic to your own site.

Bravo, I commend you for a great marketing ploy.

But what’s really interesting to me is that, if, as you claim,
beneaththecover.com is of no consequence, that you would pay attention to
them at all.

If anything, your “rants” (as some have called them) simply bring attention
(and publicity) to a site, and its contributors that you would prefer not to
be promoted. But the mere fact that you’re addressing it at all is helping
to promote their site and their cause.

Which is why, if you’re being honest, your only reason for criticizing and
harassing contributors to beneaththecover.com is to create traffic to your
own site.

From what I can tell, the purpose of beneaththecover.com is to create
conversations around book industry issues. Your willingness to dive head
long into a discussion about POD and self-publishing is only furthering
their cause.

So, do you intend to help them accomplish their goals, by engaging in
conversation? If so, to what end? You accuse beneaththecover.com of existing
for purely marketing reasons. Are you not doing the same by engaging them,
and their followers in discussion?

Let’s examine the facts that you have misrepresented—Beneaththecover.com,
by my count, has 19 contributors and a half dozen guest contributors.

Of those 19 contributors, 1 contributor, Yvonne Divita, specializes in
self-publishing. 1 set of contributors — the Greenleaf Group — is a
“co-publisher,” a hybrid of traditional publishers (able to generate
distribution akin to any New York publisher) but paid for at the expense of
the authors (which you may call a “vanity press” if you insist, but for an
entrepreneur or business owner is a perfect model, in fact, according to
their website they had 2 New York Times best-sellers in 2007—how many POD
or supposed “vanity presses” can claim that?).

Thats 2 out of 19 contributors that could potentially be construed as POD or
self-publishing experts.

Let’s look at marketing and PR service contributors. By my count, there are
three Publicists/PR firms on the site. Rick Frishman has one of the oldest
and largest PR firms in the book industry, PTA (Planned Television Arts);
the fact that you don’t recognize his name is irrelevant, though it does
show that you are not very conversant with heavyweights in the book
industry. And the lesser known but successful Annie Jennings. Third, you
have Nessie Hartsock who does PR specializing in blog and online PR.
Nettie’s background and list of credentials is incredible — you want to be
critical of her because she contributes educational articles to a site, and
the only payment she expects in return is hoping to get a client?

It’s interesting that you haven’t attacked either Rick, Annie, or Nettie –
is it because you know that they are established experts and you don’t wish
to pick fights with someone you know would knock your block off?

Let’s look at marketing — there’s the site’s founder, Michael Drew, who,
according to his bio, formerly was a publisher, and in his current business
is responsible for helping 36 authors become New York Times best-sellers. So
he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about (though, let’s take your
position at face value that the site only exists to get him clients — I
would ask you, so what? Is it wrong for a business owner or consultant to
use education to get more clients? The authors he’s worked with appear to
have been published by New York publishers, so he’s apparently not targeting
self- published or POD authors).

Then there’s Jim Barnes. He’s the editor of Independent Publisher, one of
the largest trade publications for small and independent publishers. I
suppose you would discount him because he doesn’t discuss industry news
about New York publishers but, rather, focuses on small and independent
publishers. Did you know that he runs the IPPY awards at BEA? The IPPY
awards is one of THE largest book award ceremonies and everybody, including
New York publishers, attend. In fairness, Independent Publisher is owned by
the self-publishing company the Jenkin’s Group, and they clearly use their
publication to help promote their services. Again, I’d ask you, so what? Kim
Dushinski is a co-owner of Marketability (which has been in business for
more then 10 years), a Colorado firm that specializes in educating authors
and “directing” authors to other industry experts.

Out of the 19 contributors, 6 are involved in PR or marketing and 2 are
involved in self-publishing. At this point, less than 1/2 of the
contributors on the site have anything to do with self-publishing, POD, or
marketing and PR. On its face, your assertion that the point of this site is
just to generate clients for PR/Marketing firms or POD or self-publishing
vanity press is, at best, inaccurate, and, at worst, intentionally
misleading.

At this point, more then half of the contributors have nothing to do with
vanity publishing or marketing.

So, what do the rest of the contributors do? What is their purpose? This,
to me, is where beneaththecover.com gets impressive.

In your comment on beneaththecover, you said there were no published
authors. Wrong, hotshot! Just goes to show that you didn’t take the time
to read the bios of ANYBODY on beneaththecover.

First, though, let’s look at journalists—beneaththecover.com has three
journalists, including a pulitzer-nominated business investigative
journalist, Dean Rotbart.

First, there’s Evan VanZelfden, whose claim to fame is writing about the
video game industry. Why he chose to write on beneaththecover.com is beyond
me, but I can’t see what he possibly has to benefit from writing on this
site. Then we have Dean Rotbart, an investigative business journalist for
the Wall Street Journal who was nominated (albeit in the 1980’s) for the
pulitzer for an investigative piece he did. I suppose you could argue that
Dean’s reason for contributing is that he offers consulting advice to
business owners about how to get media (though this seem like a stretch
because everyone knows that a publicist is only as good as his/her contacts
and Dean’s contacts in the media for business owners won’t easily translate
to PR for book authors).

Finally, there’s Andrew Grabois, a book industry insider for 20 years. Until
the summer of 2007, he was the journalist and research on staff for R.K.
Bowker, the company that issues ISBN’s. Andrew doesn’t own his own
consulting firm, and has no products or services to sell, Lee, so what is
Andrew’s reason for writing for the site? The mere fact that Andrew is a
contributor to beneaththecover.com adds huge credibility to
beneaththecover.com within the book industry. The fact that you may or may
not know who he is, is irrelevant (except, of course, that it shows you
don’t know or recognize important people in the book industry), as you are
merely an author, not a publisher or a publishing industry insider.

Then, we have two agents (albeit I don’t recognize their names), one of
which is formerly a publisher at major New York houses in Judy Katz and Paul
McCarthy ( Paul is a former New York publisher). I suppose you could claim
they are looking for clients, but as we both know, it’s tougher to get an
agent than it is to get a publisher, and I truly doubt that they are
trolling for clients (again, having agents on this site only boosts its
credibility).

Let’s move on to authors.

There’s Bryan Eisenberg, Roy H. Williams, Ivan Misner, and Bill Stephens.

Bryan Eisenberg, along with his brother Jeffrey Eisenberg, is the New York
Times bestselling author of two books, Call to Action originally published
by a tiny publisher in Austin, Texas, owned by Roy H. Williams (I can’t
confirm this, but it may just be a self-published book) called Wizard
Academy Press. Their second book, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark, was
published by Thomas Nelson, the 5th largest publisher in the US and a
Christian publisher (apparently they made a big enough splash with Call to
Action to justify a major publisher picking them up). As far as I can tell
from their business site futurenowinc.com, they offer a high-end,
super-expensive website service that they call Persuasion Architecture
(which I could barely understand), and it appears corporations spend
hundreds of thousands of dollars for. I don’t see any reasonable
applications to authors, and unless they’re developing some less expensive
products or services specifically for authors, I don’t see any reason for
them to contribute to beneaththecover.com, except that they believe they
have something valuable to impart to authors and publishers. Future Now Inc.
also has one of the top business blogs in the market place today with
grokdotcom.com, so apparently they care enough about authors hearing their
message that they not only write on their blog, but on beneaththecover.com,
as well.

Roy H. Williams also has two New York Times best-sellers, Secret Formulas of
the Wizard of Ads and its sequel, Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads. This
book was published by some tiny publisher in Austin, Texas, called Bard
Press (sounds like it should be publishing plays and fictional literature,
not business titles). Roy owns an advertising agency called Williams
marketing and a non-profit educational organization called Wizard Academy.
From all I can tell, Roy’s business is helping small and medium-size retail
businesses with their advertising campaigns. He is known as the king of
radio advertising. It appears his passion is writing and communication,
which is why it appears he launched this non-profit Wizard Academy. From
what I can tell, his only benefit for contributing to beneaththecover.com is
promoting his ideas on communication and writing (how many authors and
wannabe authors own small-to-medium-sized retail businesses, not many, and
it would be a waste of his or anyone’s time to hope to get clients from the
site). The only conclusion I can come to is that he is passionate about
what he does.

Ivan Misner owns BNI (Business Network International), a business networking
organization whose goal is generating sales leads for its members. Ivan is
also the New York Times best-selling author of Masters of Networking (a Bard
Press Book), Masters of Success, and Masters of Sales (both published by
Entrepreneur Press), and Truth or Delusion by Thomas Nelson. It also appears
that members of BNI contribute to beneaththecover.com. I suppose you could
argue that both Ivan and his BNI members who contribute to the site are
contributing as a way to generate members to their various chapters. The
problem with that assumption is that selling books, POD or traditionally, is
not very profitable, and, according to their own site, is highly regimented
(they charge for membership, and if you don’t generate leads for members of
your chapter they kick you out).

Thus far, these three authors account for 8 New York Times best-sellers.
Sounds like they have more credibility than you do, Lee (how many New York
Times best-sellers do you have?).

Then you add in Bill Stephens, who has one of the top 10 blogs on Publishers
Market place (which is well-read and accepted by book industry
professionals). He is a world-renowned food and wine columnist, and his
novel Horizons Past is currently being considered for adaptation by a major
Hollywood studio. No, he’s not a New York Times best-seller, but, like you,
Lee, he makes his living as a full-time writer. In your earlier post about
beneaththecover.com, you mentioned that no writers were contributing —
what about Bill?

These are the facts, Lee. Anybody who goes to beneaththecover.com and reads
the bios can confirm them. Gee, I think maybe even YOU could confirm them
– that is, if you were honest enough to do so.

So, out of all of these contributors you pick on Yvonne? Why, because she is
one of the lesser known contributors with a smaller business than the other
contributors? Less likely to sue you? Less likely to destroy you in the
blogosphere?

You pick on Drew because he invited you to contribute to his site?

Clearly you didn’t do any research into the site—you simply had a
knee-jerk reaction and dismissed it out of hand. As my detailed analysis of
the contributors to beneaththecover.com demonstrates, you would be so lucky
to have your name considered along most of the contributors on the site.

As for the Association of Author’s Representative’s Canon of Ethics, first
off, who are they? Who runs them? Who died and made them king? Are they an
association sanctioned and run by the New York Publishers, or by the US
government? Or, are they “old school” agents, who created a system, 25+
years ago before the digital revolution? I don’t know, I’m asking you. But
my real point is, your setting up phony straw men. That is to say, you’re
looking for other industry insiders to support your position. You’re being
intellectually dishonest. Instead of having an open intellectual
conversation, you’re making accusations without any substance and picking
fights.

It is clear to anyone who reads your blog that you are a successful fiction
writer who makes his living writing. You tout this as your proof that POD
publishers are incorrect. You point out your success as an author who was
published at the age of 18. After further research, I discovered your first
book was published in 1990, 18 years ago. To tout this example as living
proof that POD doesn’t work is ludicrous. According to R.K. Bowker, in 1990
there were 90,250 books published, one of which was yours. In 2007 roughly
296,000 books were published. Essentially, there were 3 times as many books
published last year than when your book was published. According to R.K.
Bowker in 1990, roughly 2,000,000,000 books were sold. In 2007, roughly
2,000,000,000 books were sold (exact estimates won’t be available until BISG
releases the data at Book Expo in June in LA). In both 1990 and in 2007,
roughly 80% of all sales were backlist titles. Which means that newly
published books both in 1990 and 2007 accounted for the sale of 100,000,000.
In 1990, that’s an average of 1,108 copies sold per new book published, but
in 2007 that’s an average of 338 books sold per book published.

Furthermore, the average retail bookstore only carries 100,000 titles, and,
the distribution of those titles reflect actual sales numbers, 80% are
backlist titles, 20% are new titles. In 1990, of the 90,250 books published
20,000 books had significant retail distribution. This didn’t change in
2007, but what did change are the number of books that had little to no
distribution. In 1990, 70,250 books had little to no distribution, and in
2007, 276,000 books had little to no distribution.

Additionally, any New York publisher will tell you that for every one book
they publish, they turn down something like 100 manuscripts. Certainly there
is duplication between publishers, but if you take the number of books
published multiplied by the number of rejections by New York publishers, the
number of “wanna be” authors, each year, is a staggering 29 million authors.

I bring this up to point out that the number of people writing in today’s
market place is more than three times what it was when you were first
published. The fact that you attempted to be published and successfully were
published in 1990 is no small feat, but it pails in comparison with the
daunting task of any current first-time author.

You have already broken into the industry, they have not.

What advice would you have for the 29 million wannabe authors out there who
can’t possibly get published by a traditional publisher?

Would you tell them to give up?

As you yourself point out, POD exists to serve very specific needs (you kept
your first book in print through IUniverse).

While there are disreputable POD publishers out there, you’re simply writing
off the entire POD industry for a few bad apples?

The issue you’re not addressing is the barrier to entry — by your logic,
any author who fails to find a traditional publisher shouldn’t be published
and should just give up.

In reality, in today’s market place, publishers are looking for author
platforms first, and the authors writing ability second. You’re a proven
writer (and your screen writer friends have an existing platform, so their
situations are not indicative of the industry as a whole) who has proven
yourself, publishers already know that your books will sell.

What about the author who doesn’t have a platform, or doesn’t have a proven
track record, and who isn’t attractive to publishers?

Lee, your welcome to sit up on your high horse and judge authors, and POD
and self publishing firms, but, your judgement is based on your own pride
and not on the realities of the market place.

So, either you really don’t know what the hell you’re talking about —
which goes hand-in-hand with the fact that you certainly misrepresented the
contributors and the purpose on beneaththecover, as I’ve shown above, here,
is so — or your an elitist who would tell wannabe authors to not even
attempt to get published. In either case, you just lost any credibility on
this matter.

Matt Knox

Good morning, Matt. What a pleasure to wake up to your point-by-point dismantling of Lee Goldberg’s rants, along with whatever shred of crediblity he had left.

One point, however, needs further demolition work: his accusations of dishonesty against Yvonne and her business — starting with his assertions that she engaged in “a raging conflict-of-interest” and ethical violations of the AAR Canons of Ethics.

You and others have pointed out that the AAR doesn’t really apply to the small amount of agent work we do. But Lee’s accusations are false and libelous and require correction. I attempted to post the following on his blog last night, but he seems to have declined to publish it:

“Lee, Just to be really clear, as you dig yourself deeper, your chosen excerpts from the AAR Canons and your earlier statements that Yvonne (snd thus WME) are guilty of ‘a raging conflict-of-interest’ are claims of fact that in acting as Shel’s [Holtz] agent on two deals with different publishers:
- we have represented both buyer and seller in the same transaction (Canon 5);
- that we have received a secret profit in those transactions (Canon 6); and
- that we charged Shel reading or evaluation fees in connection with those transactions (Canon 8).
“Those claims are false and you could not have any reasonable basis for believing them to be true.
“More to follow. Tom”

Both of the deals where we acted as Shel’s agent involved books solicited by major publishers. The first, How to do Everyting with Podcasting (McGraw-Hill 2007), came when an editor asked Yvonne if she had any other book ideas similar to Jeremy Wright’s Blog Marketing (Yvonne served as technical editor on that one). Yvonne suggested that podcasting was the next logical step, connected with Shel and his co-podcaster, Neville Hobson, (For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report), and became their agent. Coming at it from that end, we felt obligated to shop the idea around and got 2-3 contract offers, from which Shel and Neville chose McGraw-Hill.

The second deal came directly through Shel being asked about writing a book on business/media transparency. But since the majors won’t deal with an un-agented author, Shel asked us to fill that role again. The deal got done and he’s working on the manuscript with co-author John Havens, of BlogTalkRadio (check out their blog about the book, www.transparencybook.com).

In neither case did Yvonne or WME commit any of the ethical violations Lee accused us of. His accusations of business dishonesty are false and constitute libel per se.

We’re wondering if he has any capacity at all to recognize and admit when he’s wrong and then act to correct it.

On to the “more to follow”:

Lee, here are a couple more examples of the false, malicious, and libelous statements you’ve been making about Yvonne and her business.

In your main post on your blog and initial comment here, you label Beneath the Cover as a “scam” and offer Yvonne and her business as your example. The word scam is defined and commonly understood as being “a fraudulent business scheme” (American Heritage Dictionary). Thus, you have accused Yvonne and WME of fraud in our business dealings.

Such accusations are false, malicious, and libelous. You had no reasonalbe basis for believing them to be true.

As several commenters have pointed out to you (people with first-hand knowledge of Yvonne and our business), we have never misled anyone about the nature of our publishing model, the investment involved, or the services we perform.

You can form an opinion about whether our publishing model is the best (or worst), though I don’t know how you could do this credibly without considering the individual needs and publishing goals of a specific author.

But claiming that Yvonne’s business is a “scam” is a statement of fact about the honesty of the business and, applied to Yvonne or WME, it is absolutely false, malicious, and libel per se.

Once again, do you have the integrity to admit you are wrong and post the correction prominently, everywhere you’ve published and republished it?

One more example of your false accusations and then on to some things you may need to consider worrying about.

In your main post on your blog and initial comment here, you accuse Yvonne of telling “an outrageous lie” when she notes that self-publishing with a “professional POD firm” is a way to get noticed by a “big name publisher.”

Again, you may have an opinion about whether self-publishing is the best route, or whether hiring a professional POD firm like ours to produce a better quality book is worth the money. (Speaking of which, for the third time, have you ever actually looked at the quality of the books we produce, either in terms of our authors’ writing or the books themselves?)

But self-publishing has proven the ONLY route to getting picked up by a “real” publisher for the likes of John Grisham, James Redfield, Richard Paul Evans, and many, many others. I doubt you can be unaware of that fact, which makes your false accusation that Yvonne was “lying” all the more malicious.

Are you capable of admiting your error, Lee?

Doubtful. I really enjoyed Matt’s list of the industry heavy-weights who write here and how he pointed out your lack of courage to take on any or all of them.

Roy Williams provides, through Wizard Academy, services to “improve the results of advertisers, architects, artists, authors, businesspeople, educators, entrepreneurs, inventors, journalists, ministers, musicians, salespeople and speech writers.” When he’s helping authors, since he’s not a major publisher, are you saying he’s engaged in a scam? Not your style to take on someone like Roy, is it?

No. You pick on Yvonne. You cast out false and libelous accusations.

So here’s what you ought to do, Lee: Take it back. Publicly. Prominently.

I suggest that what you’ve done on your blog is prohibited by your TypePad Terms of Service:

7. Content and Conduct Rules and Obligations
…
You agree that you will not:
(a) upload, post, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that is … abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory … libelous … hateful … or otherwise objectionable ….

Probably the same goes for Amazon. I’m guessing your publishers and producers require you to “represent and warrant” that nothing you write for them is libelous. I wonder if they might be concerned by your malicious accusations and, at the least, reckless disregard for the truth.

On your blog, you go on about the AAR Canons of Ethics and someone suggested that the POD industry could benefit from adopting some (a good suggestion, by the way). Does your profession have a code? Does it say anything about libel? About checking facts before you accuse someone of dishonesty? Do you care?

Time to step up, Lee. Be a big boy and admit you are wrong about Yvonne and have no basis for your accusations about her or her business. Is it in you?

Tom

Hey, Lee, you stick with your antiquated thinking. And I’ll bet you believe the only way a musician should get his music distributed is through a contract with an RIAA label. And YouTube should never have any success because they’re not professionally produced videos that people are uploading there.

The world is changing, Lee; it’s why Blurb.com is doing gangbuster business. But you stick with Andrew Keen and Harlan Ellison and all the other Luddites who think things should never change, especially those things that have worked for them. It appears to work for you.

I hope that this exchange has been a learning experience for aspiring authors. I hope that something good comes out of it.

There’s just one thing that bothers me - this comment:

“In Yvonne’s case, she’s hyping her vanity press, so when she advises writers about the wonders of self-publishing, she’s a really trying to sell her product. It’s a sales pitch masquerading as advice and news…which, in my opinion, is an attempt to fool aspiring writers for personal gain.”

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But I’m curious,Lee - how did you gain this omnipotent access to Yvonne’s head and heart? How do you know her intent is to “fool” writers.

I’ve known Yvonne for three years and always found her to be upstanding, honest, and willing to go to bat for people and causes she believes in.

I have zero desire to argue with anyone. But I know Yvonne would go to bat for me - which is why I’m going to bat for her.

I’ve posted my last comment on Lee Goldberg’s blog rant, partly because there was one especially nasty exchange with his brother Tod that needed to be addressed. Because so much of the discussion has been cross-posted here, I’m going to add to it (with apologies to those of you who must be tired of it by now):

“Okay!

“Now I think we got enough denials, retractions, corrections, and revisions of everyone’s accusations against Yvonne and WME that we can just agree to disagree about our “beliefs” and “opinions” and get on with the real work of publishing, whatever role you play in the industry.

“Lee, Tod, and many of your readers despise self-publishing in general and those of us who work to make it a real option for many authors in particular.

“We and our authors find it a useful, valuable way for them, among other benefits, to get published, keep ownership and creative control of their books, get to market a lot faster than most “real” publishers can, and earn a much bigger share of book sales (and no, we are not going there with you, it’s none of your ___ business).

“Tod, however, is a special case:

“Aside from your inability to even acknowledge, let alone apoligize for, your classless attack on the work of an autistic teenager, your response did prove two things about you.

“First, you have not the faintest, foggy notion of what it takes to scan original artwork and process the digital files for placement in InDesign, nor of the layout and design work that goes into turning text into a book.

“Your flippant remark that it’s worth $25 makes it clear you envision sliding a piece of paper through your desktop all-in-one phone/fax/printer/copier/scanner and then pasting the resulting file into one of those un-proofread, un-edited (but carefully spell- and grammar-checked by the infallible software in Word) manuscripts that Lee apparently spews out.

“If you have any interest in understanding what those parts of publishing are all about, I recommend Marshall Lee, Bookmaking (3d ed. 2004) (see chs. 2, 6-8). An even closer, more hands-on examination of the process can be found in Dr. Douglas Holleley’s beautiful book, Digital Book Design and Publishing (2001) (written from a Mac/Quark viewpoint, but easy to translate to InDesign).

“Second, you seem unable to focus on or respond to more than one sentence at a time. You pull out the brief, grossly oversimplified sentence about what we did for the author of Darryl’s Daring Deed (obviously not in our publishing niche) and generalize as if that’s how we handle all our books.

“I know it’s beyond your ability, but you’d benefit from just one day with Lee Thayer (we’re on our third book for him). But only if you could let go of the notion that you know everything, as he does not lightly suffer folks like that.

“If you could ever get to the place he starts (”it’s what you learn after you know everything that matters”), he’d then be able to walk you through this inescapable logic about humans:

” ‘Everything we thought we knew will eventually be proven wrong.’

“So I’ll sign off and get back to work and let you Royals get back to your emotional and intellectual in-breeding.”

Tom

I posted this comment last night on Lee’s blog.

His response was hillarious. You really must read it.

As promised my comment:

Steve,

By the time I got around to writing my blasted post, I was both tired and
irritated about Lee’s prior posts.

That led to me paraphrasing and being directionally correct in my writing,
but inaccurate in my word choices.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Yes, you are correct, Drew’s bio does indicate that he “played a key role
in.” And, yes his job is in marketing books—so what? Do you have a problem
with an author marketing a book? The fact that Michael worked for various
publishers as marketing director somehow negates his role working for a
publisher (which Lee hasn’t, and I’m guessing you haven’t either)? My guess
is that Michael knows a hell of a lot more about publishing and the
publishing industry than anyone commenting on this site (I’m going to email
him and urge him to comment, I’m surprised that he hasn’t).

Again, I ask you, what’s wrong with anyone being a book marketer or book
promoter?

You are correct about Lee using his own book to “prove” that first-time
authors can get paid to publish with traditional publishers, but he is using
that as an example with the purpose of trying to devalue POD or
self-publishing.

In reality, as I pointed out in my original post, Lee’s first book is not a
good example of what other authors can expect.

Your post failed to address my valid points and focused only on
“inaccuracies.” Why don’t you try addressing the rest of my valid points?
Not up to that? Doesn’t fit your real purposes?

As for Lee (and your contention) that Drew’s purpose in the site is to
generate leads, f