AuthorHouse / WordClay / Words of Belief / Author Solutions, Inc.

But hey, they're giving away free gas cards if you've published with them and order books or a marketing package!

Rejecter is an idiot. AuthorHouse may be a self-publishing outfit, but they're pretty upfront about who they are and what they do. They don't parade like PA.

AH claims to be the largest POD house going. Maybe so. They recently bought iUniverse, a POD company which is highly regarded for its product. As for quality, the paper and cover stock is good. As with any POD outfit, what you send as the final MS is what is printed.
They are very expensive. As far as I know they are the only POD firm that offers a buy back feature for bookstores. A few years ago the cost buy-back option was $750, which of course the author pays. It maybe higher now. The trouble with that is bookstores rarely order POD books. There are several reasons for this but the stingy discounts they offer is the big one. Author House was offering around 35% which is about 10%-15% below the normal discount rate. The result is the author pays $750 for a feature that in all probability will never be needed or used. OUCH!

They have had their share of legal problems. But, again as far as I know, these have had to do with poor or non-existent editing. Not misrepresentation.
C

Last year I wanted to have a copy of my book in a "book form" just for my own personal use. I went ahead and had them publish a few copies for me. It cost $499 for 10 copies. I don't know how that relates to other vanity publishers. The process was simple. They were very up front about how their company works. One good thing about them--every time I called, a live person answered the phone and took the time to answer all of my questions. They were always polite and patient and never pushy about getting me to order more copies than I wanted.

Personally I don't think vanity publishing is such an evil thing if you have the extra money and you just want the books for yourself and maybe a copy for your parents or children. However, I would never consider this an alternative to a traditional publisher! They are two entirely different things!

Salem Ollivander said:

Last year I wanted to have a copy of my book in a "book form" just for my own personal use. I went ahead and had them publish a few copies for me. It cost $499 for 10 copies. I don't know how that relates to other vanity publishers.

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Next time, try lulu. Way cheaper.

Siddow is right. For future reference LuLu is a better way to go for what you wanted.
For those who, for what ever reason, choose a POD outfit to produce their books and have them listed on online catalogues, companies like Book Surge, iUniverse, et al are the way to go. It's not cheap. But then neither is the gratification factor.
C

Salem Ollivander said:

Last year I wanted to have a copy of my book in a "book form" just for my own personal use. I went ahead and had them publish a few copies for me. It cost $499 for 10 copies. I don't know how that relates to other vanity publishers. The process was simple. They were very up front about how their company works. One good thing about them--every time I called, a live person answered the phone and took the time to answer all of my questions. They were always polite and patient and never pushy about getting me to order more copies than I wanted.

Personally I don't think vanity publishing is such an evil thing if you have the extra money and you just want the books for yourself and maybe a copy for your parents or children. However, I would never consider this an alternative to a traditional publisher! They are two entirely different things!

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There's a story in the UK Press today (even in the respectable Daily Telegraph) about a 93-year-old first-time author called Lorna Page who has used the bulk of her £600,000 (a round million bucks) advance from Author House to buy a big house in Devon where she plans to let old folks from care homes live happily ever after at her expense -- if readers carry on buying her book in huge numbers.

So far, sadly, Mrs Page is the only resident. She must feel lonely in that $600,000 mansion she forked out for, so please buy her book, folks.

Heart warming to think that a vanity publisher (who Preditors and Editors unkindly warn is 'NOT RECOMMENDED') that otherwise charges authors for its dubious services should make an exception in this old dear's case and give her a cool mil up front, eh?

Maybe they can afford it, though. I mean, they have now opened a new UK headquarters in Milton Keynes. I'm sure it's sheer coincidence that the address is the same as that for the Lightning Source International POD printers they use.

How can you be so heartless as to criticise such a generous company as AuthorHouse AKA 1st books?


Cheers. Neil

The Telegraph story is here and you can find an AuthorHouse article and excerpt here for anyone who's interested. Can someone explain what's going on here? How (and why) did AuthorHouse, vanity publisher, stump up a substantial advance?

To be fair Parametric, it could well be that this is an author scam rather than AuthorHouse's promotional idea. I guess we'll have to wait to see if any of the UK press can get to the bottom of it tomorrow. It does seem they were hoodwinked by someone. Cheers. Neil

neilmarr said:

To be fair Parametric, it could well be that this is an author scam rather than AuthorHouse's promotional idea. I guess we'll have to wait to see if any of the UK press can get to the bottom of it tomorrow. It does seem they were hoodwinked by someone. Cheers. Neil

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Neil,

I take it you mean the author scamming the uk press and buying public rather than Authorhouse's own promotional department. Still seems strange that the Daily Telegraph did not approach Authorhouse directly to verify the story they were running. If Authorhouse are behind it then this is something which may seriously backfire on them.

There appears to be quite a number of titles listed on amazon by a 'Lorna Page' , but the Lorna Page in the Daily Telegraph seems to be a different one. In the report, she claims that this is her first book.

By any standards, a £310,000 advance would even be exceptional for a first time thriller author from a large commercial publishers.

BBC TV Spotlight Interview:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7553576.stm

I note that in the BBC interview, Mick, there is no mention of an advance and that the author 'hopes' her royaties will make her altruistic dreams a reality. Fat chance.

I also note that her smart children are living with her and that they appear to have an eye on the lucrative private nursing home business by planning more properties if he book sells enough copies to finance the idea.

Smell a rat? And, for once, that rat may not be a POD publisher. Neil

93 year old author

In the articles in a couple of newspapers I read this morning, the author is reported as saying "the book has sold quite nicely" and there is quite a clear implication that she bought the house with the profits from the book... I looked it up here because that sounded so extremely unlikely.
It still sounds unlikely now...

I've emailed the Telegraph to ask them to either clarify the facts or investigate further. I included a link to this thread, and hope that they pay attention. Fingers crossed.

I have also emailed a number of the reporting sources, thisislondon.com, Daily Telegraph etc, and requested them to clarify the situation.

It's well known in the UK that August is known as the Silly Season for the media because with politicians and other newsworthy people all sunning themselves - not to mention the better journos - those left behind have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for stories which, when analysed, just don't add up.

Somebody is either totally deluded or pulling a fast one. It also shows how little most people know about vanity publishing. It would be funny if AuthorHouse wasn't part of the mix. I smell a very stinky fish.

The only advance that I can think of that was ever paid by AuthorHouse was to Amy Fisher, and I think it was on the order of $35,000.

According to Amazon UK, the book was published July 12, which I think means that she wouldn't even have gotten a royalty payment yet (I think AH pays monthly). It's got a low sales ranking, but I'll bet that's because of the news stories. It would have been interesting to see what it was a couple of days ago.

Could this be a clever publicity stunt to push sales? Or has this woman really bought a house on the expectation of big profits from a self-pubbed book? Either way, there's a lot of delusion and confusion here.

- Victoria

Something is real screwy here. Does Authorhouse have a website with a "news" section. I'm up and away!

Tri

Well, there's no 'up in lights' about it on the Authorhouse site. It ranks #12 in popularity there, and has very low numbers on U.K. Amazon--766 or something. Still means absolutely nothing. Most debut novels hit real low numbers when they come out and then slide up into the millions. Ask me, I know.

This might be the delusions of a sweet little granny. Could be a publicity stunt by AH.

What is the advance in American currency? Can anyone supply that?

Tri

I wonder if the entire thing isn't just sloppy journalism. If you listen to the BBC Spotlight clip that accompanies this article, it says nothing at all about Ms. Page using the proceeds from her book to buy the house--it just says that she has published her debut novel, and hopes her royalties will enable her to buy "other properties." I wonder if the papers picked up the story from the BBC, and made a leap of logic.

- Victoria

victoriastrauss said:

I wonder if the entire thing isn't just sloppy journalism. If you listen to the BBC Spotlight clip that accompanies this article, it says nothing at all about Ms. Page using the proceeds from her book to buy the house--it just says that she has published her debut novel, and hopes her royalties will enable her to buy "other properties." I wonder if the papers picked up the story from the BBC, and made a leap of logic.

- Victoria

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You're right, Victoria. In fact, here's a direct quote from the BBC news page:

She hopes the book's royalties will pay enough so her friends do not have to move into nursing homes, something she dreads.

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It says nothing about who published it and how much she's getting.

Just did a blog post, which goes into more detail about how I think the newspapers cocked it up, and why I think the reportage is inaccurate.

- Victoria

Well, I'm hoping that the silver lining in the cloud of bad reporting is that the lady does actually make some money from her book. (And then, the cloud to that silver lining is that other people will assume that you can make money writing for AuthorHouse.)

Quite right, IceCreamEmpress. That's what worries me, too.

On this http://www.mmdnewswire.com/first-novel-at-93-3667.html it says the lady is available for interview. Mind you, you have to email someone to get to her. Anyone want to find out?