Abela Publishing

thehairymob said:

Has anyone ever heard of Abela Publishing?

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This?

Looks interesting for those in the U.K.

--Ken

Our Promise to you, if you sell more than 30,000 books, We will refund your total initial outlay.

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????

Talk about raising the bar!

They know very few self published authors sell this number of books. Here in the states, I think 150-200 is the average sales for self published book going the POD route.

The part about reprinting "old, rare, and out of print" books is giving me a headache, so many flags are going up and so many bells are going off. That's such a grey, sticky area, I hope they know what they're doing.

IMHO if you have to request a quote to find out what the fees are, they're too high.

Our Promise to you, if you sell more than 30,000 books, We will refund your total initial outlay.

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Gah! If you sell more than 30,000 books, I'll cook you a lobster dinner and mow your front lawn.

BenPanced said:

The part about reprinting "old, rare, and out of print" books is giving me a headache, so many flags are going up and so many bells are going off. That's such a grey, sticky area, I hope they know what they're doing.

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My take on it is that they republish public domain books to be sold as fundraisers. Lots of folks (from individual micro-publishers to the biggest of the big publishers) republish public domain books. I rather like the idea, myself, and have one in progress (a now-quaint century-old tome on English usage).

The rest of it, though, is sounding pretty dicey -- exploitive subsidy/vanity publisher, apparently.

--Ken

veinglory said:

IMHO if you have to request a quote to find out what the fees are, they're too high.

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Yesterday I requested a quote for a 110,000-word manuscript, to be printed in trade paperback with no promotion and no editing. Received a reply today. The basic cost is $180, which covers an ISBN, printing and online listing. What surprised me was this part:

Based on your wordcount the estimated cost of the book will be £3.90 or about CAD$5.85
This is worked out at 350 words per page = 315 pages plus a few leader and end pages means it should come in around 320 pages.

The final pagecount will depend on the eventual layout - it could increase or decrease.

The base cost is worked out at £0.01 per page plus £0.70 for the cover.
Therefore 320 x £0.01 = £3.20 + £0.70 = £3.90
From this base cost we work out the Wholesale and retail prices. But leave this until we know what the final page count will be.

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$5.85 for a trade paperback?

Queen of Swords said:

Yesterday I requested a quote for a 110,000-word manuscript, to be printed in trade paperback with no promotion and no editing. Received a reply today. The basic cost is $180, which covers an ISBN, printing and online listing. What surprised me was this part:

$5.85 for a trade paperback?

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That's the cost for production, not what they'd be charging customers. If they doubled it, that's pretty much normal for a paperback in the UK.

As a printer, they don't actually look that unreasonable. I don't have much to compare them with, but that certainly works out cheap compared with some of the vanity publishers I've seen on here (and even stands up quite nicely against lulu). After the initial fee, do they take a cut of each book, or do you have to order a bunch to sell on yourself?

nkkingston said:

That's the cost for production, not what they'd be charging customers. If they doubled it, that's pretty much normal for a paperback in the UK.

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Oh, that's right. The email even specifies that it's the base cost. Silly me.

The email also included what percent discount the author would get when buying copies in bulk.

I had a quick look at their site, despite the fact you cannot assess their costing line, pressing a few buttons on the left side of the page.

I came up with this in the Printing section and it put me off right away.

I quote:

"However, part of establishing a zero stock model, means you will have to buy 100 books up front. Buy you will need approximately 100 books for promotions and giveaways etc. This will be included in your quote." Error isn't mine, by the way.

Most of us are on fixed incomes or budgeting carefully. I like to look at the whole business model and make informed decisions.

It's the 'Hidden costs' which turn up after the contract is signed which concerns me. A lot of companies are open about their costs, often providing a neatly boxed module you can access and play around with.

Elisabeth Bruce said:

Most of us are on fixed incomes or budgeting carefully. I like to look at the whole business model and make informed decisions.

It's the 'Hidden costs' which turn up after the contract is signed which concerns me. A lot of companies are open about their costs, often providing a neatly boxed module you can access and play around with.

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When it comes to paid-publishing options - never a truer word spoken.