I published my novel with ABPG back in 2004 (though I signed the contract in 2001). The contract I signed was likely less restrictive than the next-generation variants. I had the pleasure of speaking directly with C.Lee Nunn on the phone.
This is my take. A case can be made that I used ABPG as much as they used me. Under the terms of the contract I signed, they could not coerce me to buy 500 copies of my book. I did not have any problem with what was at the time a $450 start-up fee. After all, we pay fees to banks, universities, and even our landlords (e.g., amenities fee). ABPG took my manuscript and turned it into a high-end product I can be proud of. My novel looked as good as any other in a bookstore. I am not distressed that the book is not distributed to bookstores, because no one is going to stumble upon it among so many volumes anyway and people are just as content in the era of e-procurement to purchase it from Amazon or Barnes&Noble.com. The point is that I had my novel in hand and no shortage of e-tailers to which to refer prospective consumers. And I enjoyed the experience of designing a web site to promote the novel and the various issues associated with it.
That being said, I did not collect royalty checks because I did not fulfill my end of the contract regarding the purchase of my own book. However, I did not publish my first novel with the goal of profit in mind. I did it to learn about the end-to-end process of publishing and to gain recognition for the ideas for which the novel served as a vehicle. For me, this experience was tantamount to putting the first man in orbit. There are so many other riches to be gained.
I never considered ABPG a vanity press. I have seen vanity presses. Authors pay upwards of $10,000 for what amounts to a box of books (printed on poor quality paper). The ABPG experience was nothing of the kind. It's a good business model for first time authors and for people who otherwise would frankly never find a publisher regardless of the intrinsic value of their work. (I can pen a whole essay advancing the case that the creme does not rise to the top in this industry).
I suspect in the end ABPG put a warning ON ME. My book was five times the size of the average novel and even though it has been described by those who read the mostly scripted dialogue as one of the more tense and thrilling novels and a work of major social import, I suspect there were not many people out there willing to pay $40 to read a 900-page novel (smaller print on larger size paper). This is also the fault of ABPG, which could have steered me in the right direction. My assigned editor was superb from the standpoint of editing sentences to give them more clarity and impact, but she was not disposed to make suggestions on content.
Now I was recently informed that the rights to my book reverted back to me now that the book is out of print. I am eager to implement my plan to improve the book's clarity and impact by reducing it to 10-25% of its current size for submission to a publisher with more established relationships to the community of reviewers. This was one area in which ABPG was lacking. I was responsible for reaching out to reviewers, and I would have to pay out of pocket for a copy of the book I shipped them. Most importantly, the list forwarded me by ABPG was out of date. Less than 10% of the contact information for reviewers was current.
I don't regret my experience. When you're young, you're impatient. You want to see your vision translated into a product you can hold in your hand and present at parties. I had perhaps one of the greatest stories to tell, a PhD that qualifies me to tell it, and something unique to teach people. What I didn't have is what someone needs to land a publisher: contacts. It's easier for an undrafted free agent to make a final NFL roster than it is for an unagented author, hypothetically with the greatest manuscript ever written in hand, to land a publisher. In addition to being talented (though I wonder how much of a requirement talent is these days), you have to be some combination of lucky and connected. I was neither. Finding an acquisitions editor from a reputable company willing to even review the first chapter of my manuscript seemed out of reach. While you're laboring for 1-10 years to find a readable incarnation of your vision or story, the publishers you hope will read it are out offering ghostwriters to celebrities whose minds authorship had probably never crossed. I realized a ghostwritten biography of Spencer Pratt was more likely than seeing my own name in print.
For people like me, ABPG offers a workable compromise. I experienced authorship. I spoke at libraries and universities (though never a bookstore). I controlled my image in a promotional web site through which my ideas enjoyed a regular intercourse with the world. I had the power to direct people to where they could buy my book. And in the end, I would come to own my book again 10 years later with a chance to correct all the mistakes I made as a fledgling author (and all the mistakes made by ABPG). I am eager to tie the release of this remastered work with a new novel I had been working on the past 2-3 years.
