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[Pub svcs] Xlibris

scullars

Re: Xlibris buying phone lists?

Interestingly enough, I just got an email today from XLibris. I have never received one before, so I'm wondering whether they surfed Absolute Write and got my email from my profile.
 

Simran

Not only have they moved overseas but also they were horrible at editing even before that. I was able to land an editing job because an author sent his manuscript to Xlibris and they printed it without editing it first. Then, while the unedited editions were selling (much to his embarrassment), I stepped in and edited the novel for him. He resubmitted it to the company and they not only charged him for this but when they printed it out there were new mistakes that they had made in the process.

I have proofread this novel at least 5 times, as each time we resubmit with their mistakes highlighted, they only take out some of them. And they have the nerve to charge him every time!!!!!!! Finally after a year of going back and forth the newest edition is free of mistakes. Now the problem is ordering from them. They take anywhere from 6-8 weeks because they wait until they have enough orders before printing the books!

Is there anything we can do about this????????
 
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JerseyGirl1962

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Judi,

I'm not a lawyer, and hindsight is 20/20, but maybe your client could have saved some headaches by going with a decent POD outfit like lulu.com. They seem to be upstanding as far as POD companies go...

Which of course doesn't answer your question. Maybe your client can get out of the contract by showing it to a lawyer? That's the only suggestion I have.

What a way to run a railroad. :Headbang:

Euan,

A plasticized raving lunatic!! That made my morning! :Cheers:

~Nancy
 

victoriastrauss

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Judi_S said:
Not only have they moved overseas but also they were horrible at editing even before that. I was able to land an editing job because an author sent his manuscript to Xlibris and they printed it without editing it first. Then, while the unedited editions were selling (much to his embarrassment), I stepped in and edited the novel for him. He resubmitted it to the company and they not only charged him for this but when they printed it out there were new mistakes that they had made in the process.
Xlibris is pretty specific on its site that it doesn't provide editing. The book is set up as you send it. So if this author didn't realize that, he wasn't doing very careful research.

Most POD self-publishing companies send you a .pdf to proof before the book goes into production. That's the time to make corrections. If you make corrections after that--yes, you do get charged. This is usually spelled out in the contract.

Xlibris has its share of problems, and some of the information on its website can produce unrealistic expectations in inexperienced authors about the likelihood of success. Xlibris is also one of the more expensive of the POD self-publishing services. But it's not Xlibris's fault if authors expect services it clearly indicates it doesn't provide, or fail to read the fine print in their contracts. Sorry to sound unsympathetic--but Writer Beware gets so many "complaints" about this sort of thing, and I get a little tired sometimes of explaining the concept of personal responsibility.

- Victoria
 

Simran

JerseyGirl1962 said:
Judi,

I'm not a lawyer, and hindsight is 20/20, but maybe your client could have saved some headaches by going with a decent POD outfit like lulu.com. They seem to be upstanding as far as POD companies go...

Which of course doesn't answer your question. Maybe your client can get out of the contract by showing it to a lawyer? That's the only suggestion I have.

What a way to run a railroad. :Headbang:

Euan,

A plasticized raving lunatic!! That made my morning! :Cheers:

~Nancy

Thanks jerseygirl. The reason why he went to them was Random House didn't want to publish his book so they recommended Xlibris. At least he finally has a corrected edition. Hopefully sales will start picking up for him. It's a great novel. I hope someday Random House will kick themselves for not being the publishers when he makes it to the Oprah Show. :)
 
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Simran

victoriastrauss said:
Xlibris is pretty specific on its site that it doesn't provide editing. The book is set up as you send it. So if this author didn't realize that, he wasn't doing very careful research.

Most POD self-publishing companies send you a .pdf to proof before the book goes into production. That's the time to make corrections. If you make corrections after that--yes, you do get charged. This is usually spelled out in the contract.

Xlibris has its share of problems, and some of the information on its website can produce unrealistic expectations in inexperienced authors about the likelihood of success. Xlibris is also one of the more expensive of the POD self-publishing services. But it's not Xlibris's fault if authors expect services it clearly indicates it doesn't provide, or fail to read the fine print in their contracts. Sorry to sound unsympathetic--but Writer Beware gets so many "complaints" about this sort of thing, and I get a little tired sometimes of explaining the concept of personal responsibility.

- Victoria

thanks Victoria. I can understand where you're coming from. Unfortunately, from my understanding, Xlibris sold him a package that included editing. And even if his manuscript had been free of the few mistakes, they really did him in by making 99 mistakes of their own! Then the author service rep had the nerve to write and tell him that "the correction team seems to have misplaced the corrections" that he submitted.
 

aadams73

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Markallen said:
Xlibris has fired 35 people who worked in Philadelphia fielding phone calls. Those jobs were outsourced to a call center in the Philipines.

Oh geez! I refuse to do business with anyone--just on principal--who outsources jobs. I've always found Indian people to be warm and friendly but I refuse to deal with them in terms of customer support.
 

James D. Macdonald

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The Missing Posts

James D. Macdonald said:

Woo hoo!

Travis Tea, author of the acclaimed Atlanta Nights, just got this letter from Xlibris sent to the email address on Travis's homepage!




Dear Travis,

My name is Tracey Rosengrave, Marketing Manager for Xlibris Corporation, a Print-On-Demand Self-Publishing company. We are sending you this email because we have either learned about your passion for writing or we have had the pleasure of coming across some of your work. If you are interested in self-publishing, I’ve included a brief description of who we are below.

I do send out follow up messages, so if you are not interested in our company or services please click here and I will send no further correspondence. I completely understand how annoying unwanted email messages can be; if this is the case here, my sincerest apologies.

For those who would like more information…

Xlibris is partially owned by Random House Ventures, the world’s largest trade book publisher. We have published over 14,000 titles and paid out over $1.6 million in royalties. Everyday we help authors by offering flexible, inexpensive methods of publishing, editing, marketing, distributing and selling books both in trade and full color. I understand that each author has different requirements. And that is why we offer packages that are tailored to your individual needs. At Xlibris we believe in autho

If you would like to find out more about us, visit our website www.xlibris.com or email us at [email protected]. Or better yet call us at 1-888-795-4274 -- we are open 24/7. Be sure to ask your publishing consultant for a free publishing kit and book sample when you call. You can also order a publishing kit online by clicking here.

I thank you very much for your time and look forward to hearing from you.


Sincerest Regards,


Tracey Rosengrave
Marketing Manager
Xlibris Corporation


The letter included one of those little e-mail code bugs that's designed to show if the letter's been read, how often, if it's been forwarded, and so on.

XThe NavigatorX said:


I can't imagine they'd have too much success with people who'd already discovered Lulu.

James D. Macdonald said:

The truncated sentence Quote:
At Xlibris we believe in autho
is verbatim from the letter.

Gracious -- I'm half-tempted to give them a call and ask how much they'd be willing to pay me to reprint Atlanta Nights.

Oh -- $1.6 million, divided by 14,000 titles, works out to $114 per title. Boy, where do I go to sign up?

PattiTheWicked said:

Oddly, I got that same email today from the same person. Mine didn't have the "autho" part, though, it had an actual sentence there.

Sadly, this means I'm in the same ranks as Travis Tea. 'Scuse me while I go slash my wrists.


James D. Macdonald said:

Quote:
Originally Posted by PattiTheWicked
Mine didn't have the "autho" part, though, it had an actual sentence there.



I'm dying to know: What's the rest of the paragraph?

PattiTheWicked said:



Quote:
Originally Posted by James D. Macdonald
I'm dying to know: What's the rest of the paragraph?



"And that is why we offer packages that are tailored to your individual needs. At Xlibris we believe in author control. "

Apparently control doesn't reach as far as we thought though, since I never signed up to be on their mailing list in the first place.

James D. Macdonald said:

Well, they've outsourced their production to the Phillipines, and they've outsourced their acquisitions to a Spam Haus.

I wonder what's left?

On the good side, they didn't say that their books would be available from sea to shining sea.

PeeDee said:

Er. Apparently, that control doesn't even reach to the complete end of that sentence.
smile.gif

Dawno said:

I got the email as well and let Google know I considered it spam. (It was in my inbox)

Maryn said:

I feel so left out and overlooked--I didn't get the email!

Maryn, sobbing uncontrollably (and just wishing she had that ol' Xlibris 'author control'!)

Ivonia said:

Hmm, I got that email too, and it was essentially word for word what Uncle Jim posted here (I didn't really check it over though, once I saw "Print on demand", I knew that was enough to delete it).

I'm wondering how they got my email in the first place, hmm...

underthecity said:

Well, that's weird. I too got the same email from Xlibris. The email went to my OLD old email address that is still active in just a couple of places: eBay and Writers.net. I'm wondering, for those others who have received the email, are you active on WN? I know Jim is (but not as Travis Tea, of course). If so, that could be where Xlibris harvested the emails. I don't have my OLD old email registered at AW.

Just a thought.

I'm considering sending Xlibris a very sarcastic response.

allen

PattiTheWicked said:


I'm not registered on Writers Net, and my Ebay address is different than the one they sent it to.

Wonder if it has anything to do with those black helicopters that keep appearing over my house?

PixelFish said:

I'm not registered at Writers.net nor do I have an eBay account, but I got that Xlibris spam, same as everyone else.

(Odd, though, how hearing or reading the words, "We understand you like to write," or variants thereof, make me react. My heart leaps and something inside goes, "Why, yes! Yes, I do like to write." And then I realise it's a scam and there's an odd subsiding feeling.)
 

Jaws

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Heck, my e-mail address specifically attacks outfits like XLibris and I still got the spam!

As an aside, XLibris (et al., as this also includes our good friends at PA) demonstrate two corollaries to the Law of Large Numbers. The Law of Large Numbers tells us that for a sufficiently large sample of instances, even a startling unlikely event has a reasonable chance of happening, so long as it is not literally impossible. For example, if one flips a coin enough times, there's a decent chance that somewhere in there one can find fifty heads in a row.

Corollaries:
1. Psychologically, the existence of that one run of fifty heads causes people to neglect the sample size. If I've done the math correctly, to have a 3% probability of finding fifty heads in a row when flipping a fair coin, one would need to flip the coin 1.75 trillion times, or thereabouts. If I'm off, it's only by one order of magnitude or so; so I think we can safely say one billion. That's a sample size of one billion to get a rationalizable chance of fifty to line up.

2. Usually, the large numbers are so large that even people who know the math won't do it.
 

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That does sound a bit shady. I once published through them. I never got paid any royalties, although my book was selling. I told them I wanted out of my contract so I could go elsewhere for publication of my book, which they agreed to. They told me my contract was cancelled, but there was one copy in the system that they had no control over. Someone here in my town bought the book and brought it to me to autograph. There's still new copies of it being sold, meaning Xlibris is still printing up copies and pocketing the money.

Now when I self publish, I go through Lulu - it's free and your book is available within minutes, and you can edit and unpublish your book through them at anytime.
 

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Judi_S said:
Not only have they moved overseas but also they were horrible at editing even before that. I was able to land an editing job because an author sent his manuscript to Xlibris and they printed it without editing it first. Then, while the unedited editions were selling (much to his embarrassment), I stepped in and edited the novel for him. He resubmitted it to the company and they not only charged him for this but when they printed it out there were new mistakes that they had made in the process.

I have proofread this novel at least 5 times, as each time we resubmit with their mistakes highlighted, they only take out some of them. And they have the nerve to charge him every time!!!!!!! Finally after a year of going back and forth the newest edition is free of mistakes. Now the problem is ordering from them. They take anywhere from 6-8 weeks because they wait until they have enough orders before printing the books!

Is there anything we can do about this????????

When I published with Xlibris, I worked hard to make sure my manuscript was free of mistakes before I submitted it to them. My mom and sister, as well as several other people I know ordered copies. To my embarrassment, my sister brought me her copy and she had marked all the mistakes in it. There were ten mistakes at least on each page that were not in my orriginal manuscript I had submitted to them. The orriginal manuscript was free of mistakes while the printed book was full of them.

When I contacted them about this, I was told that I had to purchase an editing bundle. Each bundle only covered so many edits and I would have had to buy enough editing bundles to cover every edit that needed to be made. It was more than I could afford and I didn't feel I should have to pay money just to correct their mistakes, so I didn't pay it. I stopped proting the book. I wasn't even getting paid royalties for the copies that did sell. I'm happy to say I'm out of the contract I had with them.

I think they purposely fill the books with mistakes to make money off their authors. I got a letter from Xlibris not long ago offering to give me a discount if I would publish another book with them. I ripped it up and threw it in the trash.
 

tony

Ripped Off By POD Publisher

My book was self published in Ireland in 1994 and reproduced in 2004 by Xlibris, Philadelphia - a POD publisher. All seemed ok initially but after paying them $1,360 they got careless and began giving misinformation and I had been messed about by at least twelve different staff members. Information about media contacts they had agreed to dispatch was ignored and it was five months later when they decided to informed me about it. Around the same time they had also agreed to a free offer for a newswire campaign. The staff member who had agreed to this left the company and the rest of the staff washed their hands of the issue. One of the contacts was very interested and said that if they were not able to help they knew who to get it to. I was very disappointed with this frauding POD Publisher that I requested a refund of the money I had paid. The manager apologised in a telephone conversation and offered to pay compensation for the manner in which I had been treated. He accepted that I had been misled by two staff members. He later changed his mind about the offer. I was wondering if there was a legal person who would send them a letter in the hope they might reconsider the offer. I don’t have a working income and am not able to pay for the services of a solicitor. I am deaf and finding communication difficult except of course by email. I hope you can help me.Thank You,tony
 
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Julie Worth

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You leave me wondering if your book was even comprehensible, because your posting sure isn't. Something about wanting your money back because of this messing...?
 

Julie Worth

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Chacounne said:
Uh, Julie, remember the prime rule of this board: Respect your fellow writer, no matter where they are in their journey.

Just my two cents,
Chac

Sorry, tony. I’d been reading one of the threads about the 20 worst agents, and I was in that kind of mood.

 

tony

Chacounne said:
Welcome to the Water Cooler, Tony,

There's lots of expertise here, but I'm not sure if anyone can help you with your particular problem.

Using the search function here, I did find this URL, but I don't know much more about them:

http://www.landoltlawoffice.com/FAQ2.html

Best Wishes,
Chac

Thanks so much Chacounne. The link info was very helpful. I am awaiting a reply from it.
 

Capt Dink

wilson said:
While xlibris have good quality, their books carry the highest prices around.
Who would pay $18 to $30 bucks for a paperback? And by an unknown author?
Something to think about. :\

They ask a high price ($18-$30) for your book because they make more money from you when you buy your own books! They probably don't expect any sales beyond what you buy.
 

Gillhoughly

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"We have published over 14,000 titles and paid out over $1.6 million in royalties."

Average that out: each writer made a whopping 114.28 on their book--over a period of how many years they've been in business???

And that's DOWN from the previous average of 125.00 mentioned earlier in this post. :e2hammer:

A few years back I got a trolling snail-mail letter from these clowns. They'd gotten my address from a writing magazine I'd subscribed to--when I specifically asked NOT to have my address given or sold to any mailing list.

It seems that Xlibris heard that I was very close to being published!!! (I'd sold some 20 novels to major print houses by then.)

They presented me with an Exciting Offer. Exciting, but not new--I pay them money (the "basic package" was from 500.00- 1,500.00), they publish my book.

They will "respect" (translated: not edit) my MS, unless I would like to use their shiny new editing service which worked out to be 1.00 for every hundred words.

Gosh, and my other publishers do that for FREE.

Hmm, tough choice: should you drop four figures on Xlibris so they can put a bad cover with your name on it up on their website or should you GET four figures from a publisher who will put a copy in the bookstores, libraries, and Amazon, etc. The cover might still be bad, but at least you know they checked the spelling and grammar.

Crunch the numbers: how many copies will you have to sell to make back the money you gave Xlibris?

Are you willing to stand in a parking lot on odd Saturdays selling them from from your trunk? (I've seen it!)

Or would you rather be home putting that energy into writing the next book?

I know how tempting it is to go for instant publishing gratification, but stick it out and keep working to get with a print house who will pay you for your work. It took me 3-4 years and tons of rewrites before I got in the door, but it was SO worth it. When people asked, "Where can I get your book?" I was able name the bookstore down the street, not hand them a web address to look up.

"The money flows to the writer, the money flows to the writer...."
 
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Simran

tarra74 said:
When I published with Xlibris, I worked hard to make sure my manuscript was free of mistakes before I submitted it to them. My mom and sister, as well as several other people I know ordered copies. To my embarrassment, my sister brought me her copy and she had marked all the mistakes in it. There were ten mistakes at least on each page that were not in my orriginal manuscript I had submitted to them. The orriginal manuscript was free of mistakes while the printed book was full of them.

When I contacted them about this, I was told that I had to purchase an editing bundle. Each bundle only covered so many edits and I would have had to buy enough editing bundles to cover every edit that needed to be made. It was more than I could afford and I didn't feel I should have to pay money just to correct their mistakes, so I didn't pay it. I stopped proting the book. I wasn't even getting paid royalties for the copies that did sell. I'm happy to say I'm out of the contract I had with them.

I think they purposely fill the books with mistakes to make money off their authors. I got a letter from Xlibris not long ago offering to give me a discount if I would publish another book with them. I ripped it up and threw it in the trash.

Sorry that you had to go this too Tarra. :( I think you're right, it does seem that they purposely fill the books with mistakes, just so they can charge you to fix them. :rant:
 

JennaGlatzer

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I dearly hope Xlibris will regret sending me junk mail. Here's a bit of analysis on their latest.

I'm skipping to the "Why Should You Self-Publish?" section.

Six good reasons to self-publish:
1. Time
Traditional publishing takes too long, most work on an 18-month production cycle: Choose to self-publish, and your book could be ready for the market within three months.

Aside from the fact that whoever wrote this letter doesn't have a clue how to use commas or colons, there's also the other issue-- it's designed to appeal to the impatient. Publishing is not an industry for the impatient.

There's a good reason why real publishing takes "too long." Three months is NOT enough time to publish a book (with rare exceptions, when a publisher needs to publish something timely and puts a book on a fast-track schedule).

A person who is self-publishing for the first time needs to understand that there are many steps involved-- necessary steps, not optional steps. The book needs to be written and self-edited, then a content editor needs to work on it, then a copyeditor. While this is happening, a cover artist should be working on the cover and a publicist should be working on a press kit. Then a typesetter will work on the book's layout, and a proofreader will go over it once it's in galley format to make sure the formatting is all correct and that there are no stray typos or other errors.

Trade magazines such as Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, etc. want to see galleys months in advance of publication. Of course, you're not likely to get any trade reviews if you print your book with Xlibris, but trade reviews are highly important if you want to make sales to bookstores and libraries. Buyers for these markets read the trade magazines to figure out which books to stock. They also want to see the publisher's catalogue, which your book should be in well before its release date. This gives the stores time to order and stock the book; if you wait until after the book comes out to try to sell it, you're dead in the water.

Other things a real publisher may do during those "18 months" (which, in my experience, is typically no more than 12 months): have the book indexed, solicit cover blurbs, have a copywriter write jacket copy, send excerpts to magazines, set up a media tour and/or book signings, bring the book to book expos...

In short, real publishers aren't just dragging their heels. They plan releases on a particular schedule for a reason. They know when certain books are likely to sell best (so they plan release dates accordingly), and they want sufficient time to do a good job, rather than rushing to print just because an author is excited.

2. Your book-the way you want it
A book is a reflection of the author. Self-publishing gives you complete control on the direction of your book. The decisions are exclusively yours and not limited by third parties with intentions and interests different from your own.

If your interest is in selling lots of books, then those "third parties" (real publishers) have the exact same intention and interest.

This part of the Xlibris letter is designed to make it seem like real publishing is "author vs. publisher" in an adversarial relationship, where the author has to fight with the mean, mean people who want to ruin his or her work. Please.

It's true that publishing is a collaborative business, and that compromises will need to be made, and that sometimes you won't get exactly the font or cover art or subtitle you want. But you will get a several-thousand-dollar investment from the publisher, who hires professionals to help determine how to sell as many copies of your book as possible. If you're the type of person who would rather go it alone than allow an editor to change one word of your precious manuscript, go right ahead and self-publish. And bless your heart.

3. Retain all rights
As a self-publisher, you own all rights to your book. If you use a traditional publisher, they will own all rights. If they lose interest in your book, you will not be able to print additional copies unless you purchase those rights back.

Okay, now they're outright lying. Did they hire PublishAmerica's PR person to write this deceitful letter?

If you publish with a real publisher, the copyright is still yours. Specific rights belong to the book publisher for the period of time the book is in print. (Such as the right to print the hardcover book in English in your country. You negotiate who will control the other rights; for example, sometimes you'll keep foreign rights to sell on your own or with your agent's help, and sometimes the publisher is in a better position than you are to exploit those rights-- in which case, they make the sales and keep a portion of the money, and you get to sit back and get checks.) Your contract should have an "out of print" clause that defines when the book is no longer being sold, and at that point, all rights should revert to you-- free of charge. You can then self-publish, take it to a new publisher, put it up on your website... whatever you like.

4. Testing the market
Because your book may fill a niche that has not been met, you can test the market by self-publishing. Find out how well your book will sell, and how successful it will be.

What spectacularly bad advice. Publishing with Xlibris does not give you an idea of how well your book would actually sell if you had sold it to a real publisher. All it tells most of its authors is how many copies they can sell to their poor Aunt Edna and Uncle George.

Publishers are not eager to buy the rights to books that have already been published-- even if it was self-published and sold only 10 copies to your buddies, it is "used goods." You've used up your first publishing rights and made it appear that your book is a terrific flop.

Very few self-published books are picked up by larger presses. Note that Random House, which Xlibris boasts is their "strategic partner" (it even says so on their letterhead), has never picked up an Xlibris manuscript. Never.

In other words, if you decide to "test" the market this way, chances are excellent that your book will never go beyond "testing." It's a double-edged sword: sell few books and it'll look like your book has no market, sell too many and real publisher will think you've already used up your market. They want to be the first to bring your book to print. Don't be impatient. Work on that book until it's publishable by a real publisher.

5. A limited market
Your book may appeal to a limited market (intricacies of microscopic vascular plants, for example) and therefore not be of interest to a large publishing house.

True. What about small publishing houses? What about university presses? Think of them before you'd give your manuscript to Xlibris. And then think of conventional self-publishing (where you actually hire an editor and a cover artist, get quotes from printers, etc.), which carries a greater financial risk but has better odds of success.

6. Legacy
Each of us has a unique life story to tell, complete with ordinary incidents, moments of brilliance, tragedy and humor. Your book is an expression of yourself and a great legacy to leave behind.

And there you have one of the few legitimate reasons to self-publish through a vanity POD publisher. If your REAL, TRUE, SWEAR TO ZEUS intention is simply to have a book you can hand to your grandkids and cousins and neighbors, any POD publisher is probably fine for you. If you have any secret desire to see your book on bookstore shelves, or have strangers read your book, hold out for a real publisher.

--
More on this later. I promised my husband I'd watch a movie with him 20 minutes ago...
 

JennaGlatzer

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OK, back for a few more comments.

We offer a professional copyediting package...

That's sad. This sales letter is full of mistakes that no competent copyeditor would let slip by. Why would you trust this company to copyedit your work if they don't copyedit their own promotional material?

For example: extra spaces in between words for no reason, and capitalized words that shouldn't be capitalized ("Marketing Services," "Exclusive Offer," etc.).

Become a Published Author For Only $299

Allow me to remind you of Yog's Law: Money flows toward the writer.

Dress it up any way you like, but this is vanity publishing and its sales are nearly always disappointing to the authors. Vanity-published books sell an average of 75 copies. Is that what you want for your book?
 

Popeyesays

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Enjoy the baby while she's still a baby--the days will flash by. My younger daughter graduates from high school Sunday--top 2%, an amazing musician and receiving scholarships to make her ride almost free. As a young woman she's a joy, but occasionally the urge to cuddle that baby just one more time is simply overwhelming.

Regards,
Scott
 

HapiSofi

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Guys, this is weird. We have more than one person reporting the repeated introduction of new errors into XLibris books. This violates two basic rules of production:
1. The easiest thing to do with a text is nothing at all.

2. Unless you're talking about random cosmic rays interacting with computer systems, there's no such thing as spontaneously generated errors.
Typos drive authors crazy. They're strongly motivated to do whatever it takes to fix the errors. XLibris is the only entity that can fix them, and they charge the author for doing so.

Isn't anyone else here wondering whether XLibris has made typos a profit center?