Time for a flog.
CyPress Publications Website:
CyPress Publications strives to publish books that make a positive difference in our world, whether it's introducing children to homelessness and what they can do prevent it, or encouraging them not only to dream, but also to work to make their dreams come true.
I actually misread this at first as being an aim to introduce children to homelessness as in make them homeless. Then I read it as it's probably intended.
CyPress Publications Website:
If you would like to consider publishing with us, please browse through our current titles to see if your manuscript would be a good fit
The fact that this is on the publisher's front page is not a good sign because it shows who the target audience is - i.e. authors rather than book purchasers.
CyPress Publications Website:
Editing: Our 16-plus years of editorial experience--in fiction and nonfiction, poetry, graduate theses, etc.--ensure that your published manuscript will be grammatically correct.
Editing is more than grammar. A good editor can make sure that the pacing works, that your novel is coherent in terms of plot and character (e.g. time lines, characterisation) and a host of other things.
Additionally, there's no information on who these editors are, what their exact qualifications are or how they are allocated.
CyPress Publications Website:
Proofreading: Every manuscript is carefully proofread to ensure accuracy with your original manuscript.
That's a bit worrying if there are typographical, grammatical or other mistakes in the original manuscript.
CyPress Publications Website:
Design: Each book is unique. And each book is designed to best portray its unique character.
Personally the covers for the books on the site don't grab me. Some of them definitely resemble poorly put together clip art and some of the drawings are poor.
CyPress Publications Website:
ISBN: If your book qualifies, we can provide the International Standard Book Number, enabling your book to be distributed to libraries and sold in national bookstores.
If this publisher is serious about selling books to the public then they need to be giving books ISBNs as a matter of course. There shouldn't be a qualification requirement and there definitely shouldn't be a charge to the author.
CyPress Publications Website:
Printing: We can arrange for final printing on your behalf, or provide you with electronic files suitable for you to take to the printer of your choice. Best of all, technology now allows you to avoid one of the greatest costs of self-publishing through print-on-demand. You no longer have to commit to 5,000 copies of your book in order to reduce the unit costs. You can now print as many or as few copies as you desire.
And you can do all this on Lulu for no up front cost.
CyPress Publications Website:
Library of Congress & Copyright: We can register your copyright with the Copyright Office and, if your book qualifies, we can register your book with the Library of Congress.
Again, a publisher should be doing this as a matter of course without charging authors for it.
CyPress Publications Website:
E-Books: Once your manuscript is prepared for publication, you can choose traditional book publishing or have your book published as an electronic book, suitable for publishing on the Internet or for selling over the Internet, either via e-mail or a website. Or you can choose to have your book published in both formats, to be sold separately or as a package. We can also publish your book on CD-ROM.
I'd want to make sure that they're not grabbing all rights regardless of which 'option' you take. I also have to say that I'm not aware of anyone who does CD-ROM books anymore - in fact, I just came back from a conference where an editor from Random House described CD-ROM books as obsolete.
CyPress Publications Website:
Author's Website: Once your book is published, we'll prepare appropriate pages on our website to showcase your book. We'll provide not only a page for your Author Bio, but also a separate page for your book's press kit and a page for any other samples of your writing that you'd like to present to your adoring fans.
If no one knows about CyPress Publications, then how are they going to find the author pages? To me, this sounds like an attempt to use authors to drive more people to the publisher's site so that they can get more customers for their publishing services.
CyPress Publications Website:
Listing on Amazon.com and BN.com: Subject to their individual policies, we'll list your book on Amazon.com and BN.com.
Whoopdy do.
This is pretty much bare minimum stuff. Realistically, they should be looking at getting books into stores if they're serious about selling their authors' work.
CyPress Publications Website:
Since 1995, CyPress Publications has been providing complete, independent publishing services to writers.
For a company that's been around since 1995, why is it that the earliest book published on its Our Publications Page (
http://www.cypresspublications.com/index.php/Publications/) dates from 2004?
CyPress Publications Website:
We provide the editing, typesetting, proofreading, design, and illustrations; and the ISBN, Bar Code, Library of Congress and Copyright registrations--all on an as-needed basis. You write the book. We produce it for you at a reasonable cost. You pay only for the services you need.
A commercial publisher does all this as a matter of course and pays you for the manuscript.
At least CyPress is being honest about being a pay to play outfit, but it would be better if they actually included details of the prices up front on its website.
The point to be made though is that if you pay to play, then you need to think about how you're going to make that money back. The cover prices of books on that site are, IMO, high ($12.95 for a 150 page book plus a $4.50 shipping and handling charge). Unless you're getting a good discount on that book so that you can buy them and sell on at a higher amount, then you're going to find it difficult to sell them (as any PA author). Of course, if you buy your own books the chances are you won't get royalties on them, which means you're stuck with having to sell them to get cash back.
There's no information on royalty payments and unless you're allowed to keep the lion's share (i.e. 50% plus) you'll have to sell many more copies than you're realistically going to just to break even.
MM