Eirelander Publishing

Is it worth it to publish with Eirelander?

Please don't think I'm being rude, I'm just trying to understand.

Let's say the book makes $100 gross the first month in e-book. . .
Eirelander gets $60. The author's take is $34 and the agent's take is $6.

So for their cut ($60 this month, plus whatever else it sells for the term of the contract), they provide the author with a cover and some proofreading.

Is 40% a good deal for artwork?

If he sold $100 gross every month for a year, the numbers go up to:
$720 Eirelander, $408 author and $72 agent for the year.

It seems to me if the client is a major promoter, he could have gone to Lulu or Createspace and gotten more money for himself.

And if my math skills are off, I apologize. I was doing this quickly.

The problem with going e/POD, or self-publishing, is that the author has to be extremely agressive in promoting his/her book. We know a few who are doing just that and making some money. One author (not our client) self-published in China. She paid $3 per book for 1000 hard copies (with color photos), including shipping to the U.S. With great effort, she sold out at between $10 and $20 per copy. Just signed a contract for a movie (to be made in China). But she's one in a million.

For many authors, just being published, any way at all, is satisfying. We may not understand that attitude, but it's what some authors want. Authors, big or small, have to promote their books. If an author or agent wants to make money, it won't happen, unless it's a fluke, and the book gets that movie offer.

The big problem, we've learned, is that if an author doesn't want to self-publish, and relies on an agent to prepare an e/POD book, that agent will probably have to write it off as a loss, since the author probably won't do much to promote the book. With few exceptions, that's the case.

Being an aggressive promoter is always good. But promotion plus good packaging and distribution by a trusted brand means more sales than when these things are absent. Not that I am sure how an author without the time to write a query letter and synopsis is going to find time to aggressively promote.

I was with Eirelander. I went because of a recommendation of a friend who knew Lee. I ended up paying for my own cover because the one provided was horrid and they didn't get it. I've since pulled and gotten my rights back on my book. I'm glad some people are happy with them but it was not for me and as such I will take my book elsewhere. Oh, and from when I was with them they were not sending out to reviewers at all. Unfortunately I was not aware of this until after the deadline where most review sites will take books. It may have changed by now but that is how it was. Also they do not pay royalties monthly but quarterly. The editing of my books was fine but my editor also ended up leaving the company after mine was done. Take it for what it's worth. If anyone has further specific questions feel free to PM me.

Eirelander Press?

Anyone have any information about them? Here's the link:
http://www.eirelander-publishing.com

There's a thread here. I'm sure a mod will be along to whisk the thread away shortly...

Ok, thanks, I didn't see this thread. Sorry for the misplaced thread!

One of my caregivers is reading a book to me that is published by them. It's a YA adventure and I look forward to it every day. Can't see well enough to comment on the cover, but it "reads" really well. Don't care if it's selling or not. I'm hearing it and am glad to have it. My daughter is an editor. She's reading it, too, and says it's very good.

W/JS

misunderstood information

Yikes. Yuck.

Stay away from that mess.

Wait, they are charging *money* for edits and cover? How much?

That would be in direct contradiction to this statement on their web site:

Rest assured authors who would like to submit to Eirelander Publishing that there is never a charge for editing or cover art, but understand that being e-published does not mean un-edited.

Click to expand...

Awkward sentence construction aside, that tells me they're not charging. You say they are, sammyig?

OK- to put a long story short. There was a huge misunderstanding. They are not charging fees unless the author terminates the contract within a 6 month period. So, they are not charging fees. The misunderstanding has been completely cleared up.

Thanks for the clarification.

Does anyone know where Eirelander's head office is? I can't seem to find where they are based. Are we to assume they are in Ireland?

PP

Peppermint Patti said:

Does anyone know where Eirelander's head office is? I can't seem to find where they are based. Are we to assume they are in Ireland?

PP

Click to expand...

Going from the spelling on the website, I'd think it was US based. Flavor instead of flavour for example. I think they just wanted to use the nice Celtic layout, LOL!

They are based in Texas.

I find that rather misleading. Especially when you have to guess where they are. This could make a difference with payments in the UK with the pound and the Euro. I can't use PayPal because I have a foreign address and a UK bank account. My personal payment situation is complicated. I have spoken with PayPal and they told me I can't use their services with a foreign address and a UK account. So having someone in Texas isn't worth it by the time I get bank payments taken off. If it was Ireland then it would be easier. They could just pay me through my bank account. But the US publishers prefer PayPal and don't want to send money through any other means. It costs.

PP

Couldn't you get a paypal card and withdraw the money directly?

No to register I need to have an address in the country I live in and be paid in that currency. I'm not allowed to have an English paypal account with the European address, the money has to be paid into the same currency as the address. As I said it's complicated.

Paypal have sent me a mail telling me I can't have an account unless I am paid in Euros. I have to be paid in GBP due to my tax allowances and UK income. As I said it's complicated. So for me a US publisher I can't do it, I would lose money in the banking ether.

Peppermint Patti said:

Does anyone know where Eirelander's head office is? I can't seem to find where they are based. Are we to assume they are in Ireland?

PP

Click to expand...

I feel a little misled too. I assumed it was based in Ireland.

I do not recommend Eirelander Publishing. I've had personal experience with them under a different pen name, back in 2010 - 2011.

At first everything was fine. I did a few levels of editing, the first level was for a "redundancy check" IIRC. After it was finished, I never heard from them again until a year later. Seriously. And my ebook was due to be released about six months before that.

While the previous editor was good and knew a lot of stuff, she did make a couple of mistakes with grammar; unless that was the epub's particular "house" style.

When the new editor (and owner of EP) finally got hold of me, she rushed out the ebook not long afterward, complete with horrible cover (I make better covers than that within fifteen minutes). When I read the inside content, it looked like she'd published the unedited and unrevised version, because I distinctly remember the edited version read so much better than this one.

Anyhow, I made a total of - $20 royalty over the lifetime of the ebook. Could've been because of the bad cover. Could've been because of the poor editing/writing.

I only know that the ebook sold about 24 copies at first, for a 5,000 word story, overpriced @ $4.99. Royalties? A grand spanking total of $12. If I'd just done it myself and sold the same ebook on Kindle at that price, I could've made around $42. However, I'm glad to have made the owner a little richer. *sarcasm* Not that I'm really bitter about it; I'm just glad I learned a lesson. Now I'm smarter, more wary and a lot less naive.

To compare, for my first self-published ebook--for .99--under a new pen name, I've made $122 + in the space of 7 weeks, for an ebook of the same length and genre, and have sold nearly 350 copies so far. And it took 4 days to write/edit/revise/format and publish, instead of a year (normally it does take me longer to write/edit/revise; I was esp. efficient at the time I pubbed this ebook). I also plan to release another 3 ebooks within 3 months (1 novel, 1 novella and 1 novelette; all finished but need polished).

So glad I'd learned my lesson about bad publishers, that way I won't give any more of my books away---for free. I work too damn hard to receive virtual peanuts in return just to make someone else more $$.

Furthermore, if I ever ran my own epublishing company, I'd never, ever gyp my writers in such a way. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night, knowing I pocketed at least $30 while one of my authors received $12 for something they'd written. It's pathetic IMHO. Not to mention spending a moment to create an embarrassingly bad cover (for free), then slapping it on the author's work. I'd never do that either. I'd ensure the author's book had a better cover than my own.

I do have a "start-up micro epub. company", BUT it's not live nor open for submissions (and it states as much on the 'Submissions' page), and possibly never will be live. I'd never go "live" until I knew for a fact I had a hired staff of industry professionals (actual pro editors, artists, etc.), and I knew what I was doing. I'd never jeopardize any author's First Rights of Publication just because I wanted to get richer and "play" the game of publisher.

So, again, currently I don't run my own pub. company because I do not know what the hell I'm doing. I just use the name for my ebooks, and have designed a site simply because it's the kind of thing I like to do.

Again, this is only my opinion. My opinion based on my own experience with Eirelander. Your experience could be better, or you might have had a better experience with this publisher.

Personally, my experience was horrible.