Oh, dear. From GI's website:
We believe in the author. Why? Because, thriving in our Guerrilla midst, we have an army of authors. That's why we understand books are about an intimate relationship between your story and the reader. Therefore, we, as publisher, should have very little to do with it!
So
that's why GI doesn't provide editing!
With this development [of printing] came the necessity, due to the cost involved in being printed and distributed, of publishers. But along with this amazing development came a down side. The sad truth was that the majority or authors will never become published... meaning their stories will never be heard.
There's a good reason for this - 90% of the stuff submitted to publishers doesn't approach publishable quality.
Many of the best selling stories of our time, were passed up by publishing houses around the world many many times before someone decided that this book would be marketable.
It would be helpful to know which titles GI is referring to (what are the odds that
Gone With the Wind is one of them?) In any case, GI is missing the point - those books WERE eventually published, which is why they became bestsellers.
We say NO MORE to the tyranny of traditional publishing. NO MORE to publishing houses filled to the ceilings with manuscripts made from the blood sweat and tears of the unpublished author. Sorry to sound a little militant, but we're really passionate about this, especially when you consider the publishing game has fundamentally changed through the advent of technology.
Oh, ffs. Sorry to sound a little militant, but it doesn't matter if an unpublishable manuscript is heavily stained with the blood, sweat and tears of the writer - it's still unpublishable.
For the first time, ever in the history of our world, a story can now be spread, globally, quickly and with little cost. The power is now back with the story teller, the story and it's reader.
That's why we believe in you and your story...
No, GI doesn't believe in your story. I can see no indication that anyone at GI will actually read your story. There is no quality control and no editing - GI is merely handling chunks of text. Yes, thanks to digital technology anyone has the power to dump unedited slush into a file and on to Amazon, where it will languish unread because only the writer's friends and relations know it exists.
Because we believe if you write it, they should read it
If you write it, they should read it. And we believe they, the people, should decide if it's any good, not us.
Oh, come on - this is a blatant appeal to Special Little Snowflakedom.
Writer: "I went to all this trouble to write a book, therefore people SHOULD read it! And if they don't I'm going to hold my breath until I turn blue!"
Reader: "I just spent some of my hard-earned money on this GI book. It's full of typos, grammatical errors and plot holes. I won't risk buying another."
Seriously, what sort of writer would
want to be published by an outfit that openly admits its books may not be any good? The desperate and poorly-informed, that's who.
We're not here to judge or decide if your book is good enough to be exposed to the masses.
That's not a selling point, it's a honking great problem - for the author. If the masses turn up their collective nose at your labour of love, the only person who'll be out of pocket is
you.
We believe that a truly good book will always enjoy success.
Successful books tend to be ones that, having been sold to a publisher by an agent or picked out of the slush pile, have undergone quality control. They have also undergone a little thing called 'editing'. Very few of the submissions GI is likely to receive will be 'truly good'.
A book will find its intended audience.
Here's how GI will help your book find its intended audience:
Publishing with Guerrilla Independent gives you access to a huge range of marketing tools designed specifically for the publishing industry. Promote your labour of love digitally with blogs and author pages, via social media with book avatars and image galleries. Promote your books with postcards, posters, bookmarks and much much more.
Use our ever expanding Book Marketing Library to learn how to leverage the tools available to you, through our site and others that we respect, to get the attention your book deserves. There's a Web Marketing Guide, Social Media Guides, and guides for doing it old school by hitting the streets.
How many times have we heard this? As for 'doing it old school by hitting the streets'...ye gods. And I hope those guide books are part of the publishing package and don't have to be bought separately.
Once you hit the go button, we will have your book up on Apple and Amazon within 3 weeks. And if you're in even more of a rush, you can select the 'expedite' option and we'll cut that back to 2 weeks!
Wow - instant gratification in action, but I don't know why we're expected to be impressed. It's not as if GI has to spend time on editing, cover design, ARCs etc.
Traditionally publishers and retailers take 90% of the sales, and 90% of the profits from any additional rights that are sold.
Could this be because...oh, I dunno...because
real publishers take all the financial risk? And since when have retailers taken 90% of the profit?
So if your book is a smashing success and gets a movie deal, guess who owns those rights, your publisher, not you. But not with Guerrilla, you own your book, your copyright, your rights! You own it all. If it's a success you reap the rewards, not us.
We don't charge a royalty for publishing your book. We only charge a 7.5% admin fee on all purchased sold through our Guerrilla Independent account. This fee covers the costs of managing your book reports and transfer of funds.
http://www.guerrillaindependent.com/why
I'll leave this to the experts.