We recevied this from Paul, one of our Izzard Ink authors. He wanted to share his experience as you consider signing with a regional book publisher.
I thought you would like to see why I like Izzard Ink Publishing.
I had a relationship with my first publisher that went back to 2005.
They really pumped me up when I first came in and said what a great thing it was that I finished a book. They said they would publish it if I would agree to promote it with book signings. I agreed. For a year I spent all my gas and time to travel more than 4,300 miles up and down Utah to attend more than 95 book signings all over the Wasatch Front, including St. George and Cedar City, at my own expense. This was, they said, a great risk for them, so keep going, the bookstores love it.
When I was no longer able to go do all those book signings and to personally push my own books (which I could have done without that publisher), they simply didn’t try to sell it and left me for dead. I was left to the forces of nature with a fang in my jugular via a binding contract that I was foolish enough to sign without an “out” should things not work out.
But when a couple of my books took off after my many book signings, they were now more than happy to use that money to go advertise… but without me on the road there was nothing. So they let them die without any effort to promote sales.
As I sadly discovered, they took advantage of my vanity to be a published author. They drew me in with “best seller” visions but left it up to me to do all the marketing that I most certainly DIDN’T want to do. They said “that’s how all author’s promote their books.” In the end, they showed me that they were not interested in building authors, but instead were interested in using them up. When I stopped making money for them, they threw me away.
I made them hundreds of thousands of dollars while they made me thousands. All they did was print my books for a price that I could have put on my very own credit card. When a few sold they were happy to use that money I helped them get to finally go out and advertise. I felt like the entire success of my books rested on my willingness to go out and beat the bushes for sales. And for that, they took 88% of the profit and told me how well my book was doing.
12% gross profit! Never again.
~ Paul, A Happy Izzard Ink Author
