Ace of Swords Publishing

[K. Q. Watson]

AOS Publishing | Canadian Publisher in Montreal | Fiction, Non-Fiction & Poetry

AOS Publishing publishes quality Canadian content for the 21st century. Based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, AOS Publishes Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry. Browse our artist page to get to know our authors!

www.aospublishing.com

Beware.

I submitted some time ago, and got a request for a full, but in the email, they said the wrong title. When I asked the publisher about it, he said he must have missed the name.

They are a self-admitted "hybrid" publisher and the author is expected to provide 2-5k to assist with the publishing of their book while AoS focuses on promotion.

 

[Maryn]

That doesn't sound hybrid to me. (Admittedly, I don't know the full cost of publishing a physical book.) My gut says the author is paying the full cost of production. The line about how their editors can work with you implies edits are not necessarily covered by what you pay to publish.

The prices seem high to me--the first book I looked at is $23.99 for a paperback and its ranking in sales at Amazon in the US is well over three million, over 500,000 in Canada, meaning very few copies have sold in the two years since it came out.

The second book I looked at is $24.99 and only came out yesterday, so its sales are zero. Number three costs $19.99 and is on Amazon, no sales ranking in Canada. In the US, it's past nine million, meaning almost no copies have sold in the two years since it came out.

The second book has a pretty high star rating, but several of those five-star ratings are from people who only appear to review books from this publisher and give them all five stars. I fear this is a part of a promotion effort: you give my book a great rating and I'll do the same for you--completely unethical and easy enough to see happening.

I went back to look at the ratings from the first book, too. Same thing with reviewers hitting all the AOS books. The other ratings are from people who have not reviewed any other books--friends and family, I imagine.

If it were me, I would not consider this press. You can probably do just as well self-publishing, using that money to buy edits and cover art.

 

[Chris P]

Hmmm. A landing page aimed at authors and not readers/customers. Not a good start in my book. It's clear who they want money from.

If I were to guess, I'd say half of the cost of publication comes from the up-front the author provides, and anything else is covered by the author getting friends to buy or eve buying their own high-priced books. I have no proof AoS is doing this, but from reading hundreds of Bewares threads and my own experience with these types of publishers that's my best. If an author can make this model work for them, more power.