As for my personal shortcomings, I don't have the strongest publishing background - but that's because I'm just the bottom-rung errand boy in more of a learning position than anything else. Everyone's got to start somewhere, right?
This is true. However, I'd still like to know what background the various staff DO have.
The guys actually running this joint were formerly at a publishing house, but broke off and wanted to provide a service sans the shortcomings of their former affiliates.
Which publishing house? How long were they there for? What position did they hold - I mean, there's a big difference between the CEO and the guy who opens the mail.
And I'm not sure what 'shortcomings' you are talking about. I'm nto entirely sure that having quality control is a short coming - at the end of the day, some books are just bad.
I'm really new, and I'm picking up things as I go. So please don't let my apparent lack of expertise be the marker for their aptitude (hi Shaldna).
I'm not trying to be catty here, but if you don't actually know what you are talking about, are you sure you are the best person to be the representing the company in public? These forums come up high in searches, in fact when I google
Guerrilla Independent , the third listing is this thread. An open display of ignorance and lack of experience is not going to instil confidence in authors. PR is everything.
I'm aware that you guys know your stuff and actually care about writing on the whole, hence why I'm here, asking openly. I'll take the flak, but the point is to adapt this service into something people like the lovely folk here would genuinely find viable.
Well, I have no real issue with the services, but you don't offer anything that a writer can't do for themselves, for free, in a day. I don't see how that justifies taking a payment, let alone an on going payment from an author.
Right, so for the main and immediate points (and thank you so much guys, this really gives some perspective):
-Rhetoric needs to be toned down. The flashy hyperbole is totally unnecessary.
Hell yes. The less extremist sounding the better if you want to sell a professional service. And bear in mind that in publishing your written word is judged far more harshly than in any other business.
-Editing should be available.
GOOD editing should be available. And that's going to cost. And I'm not talking about getting some college kid in to do it, you're going to need someone with years of experience and a good track record, and that's not going to be cheap.
Personally I think that you folks need SOME sort of quality control, vanity press or not. After all, if I, as a reader, read a book published by you guys and it's badly written, the punctuation, spelling and grammar are bad. If that's represenative of the books you are putting out, then I as a reader, probably won't read another one.
-Justify costs with services and upscaled interfaces.
Yes.
Just one point though:
While I understand that you guys are talented authors with business-like minds, is the idea of GI being a publishing services provider (like Torgo mentioned) really so terrible?
No. So long as you are open and upfront about what you do, don't make promises you can't keep, and don't sell the author a dream that you know isn't going to happen. Treat it as a professional business. If you are going to offer services then they need to be professional services provided at a high standard and you need to be upfront about the costs and exactly what you are offering.
Also, don't market yourself as a publisher if you aren't.
And don't attack other aspects of the publishing industry - that's not cool. So don't go along the route that others have gone along by making out that trade publishing is the devil and that folks like you are liberating books and authors or other such shite. Just be honest and professional and it will stand you well.
Some folks may just want to see their words printed and bound, for personal or small-scale use - like Auntie Maureen writing up her memoirs for the family to have a read through, for example.
But that's not publishing, that's printing.
Yeah, figured the tacit animosity was there for a reason! So if it were to be a comprehensive service that actually gets the job done (with the revamp from all the input), would you ever consider it worth using?
Probably not. You're prices are too high for what the author is getting. I'm unsure of the experience or competancy level, and to be honest if there's no editing etc going on of the other books you publish then I wouldn't want my name and my books associated with that.
Quite seriously, what does Guerrilla Independent offer that Smashwords or Kindle Direct Publishing does not?
Auntie Maureen already has Lulu if she wants a few copies of her memoirs for the family to have a read through.
The difference being that Lulu, Smashwords, and KDP, are faster and less expensive.
To note for those who aren't aware - KDP, for example, does not cost you anything to upload and create your book, CreateSpace (Amazon's self publishing print option) also does not cost anything to upload or create a book and has free downloadable templates to help you easily format the inside of your book. It offers a huge, free range of customisable covers. You can set your own price and the breakdown of the royalty and cost sytem is easily explained. The only cost to publish your book? About $6 to order a proof copy. After that it'll be available for folks to buy.
So, how does what you're doing compare with that? I'm not being snarky, I'm asking a legitimate question, something that you folks will need to work out and address. Because if we are asking it, others will ask it too,.
Another thing - if there's absolutely no policing of the submissions, how do you know you aren't enabling the publication of plagiarized work, fanfic, libel, child pornography and God know what else? I suspect that the only reason we don't often hear about such cases is that the vast majority of vanity/self-pubbed books are lucky to sell around 75 copies, mostly to people the author knows personally.
Good point.