Choosing Self Publishing Company http://www.writeandpublishyourbook.com Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:19:24 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.writeandpublishyourbook.com/publishing/self-publishing/choosing-self-publishing-company/#josc496 I found this to be a very helpful, informative article on self-publishing. i also like that the author disclosed that he is a partner in one of the book publishing companies. can\'t tell you how many \'reviews\' i\'ve read of a company only to dig deeper and find the author is the owner of, or connected with the company in question and is actually just self-promoting. that\'s my 2 cents on it! (now worth @ 1.3 cents with inflation, lol) Lin Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:40:43 +0100 http://www.writeandpublishyourbook.com/publishing/self-publishing/choosing-self-publishing-company/#josc1355 I have had a nightmare experience publishing a book with Dog Ear. If you are thinking about working with Dog Ear, you should read these comments. I like the Dog Ear business model. I believed its promises. I made a huge mistake in deciding to publish my book with Dog Ear. These are not sour grapes. I didn\'t write a bad book. In fact, it has been ranked in the top 1% of all books sold by Amazon for much of the past week. It has received nothing but rave reviews. I will tell you the good things first. The cover of the book is absolutely beautiful, and the book is well made. But I will also tell you that I wrote every word that appears on the back cover of the book. I selected and presented the photo that was to be used on the front cover. What Dog Ear did extremely well was to take my ideas and my words and build a beautiful book But let me tell you, in my experience, the promises that Dog Ear makes on its web site, and in its phone calls, and in its emails, have not been true at all. In my experience, Ray Robinson and his staff, as a rule, did not respond to emails. I was told by Ray when he wanted my money to expect a publication time of 8-12 weeks. I paid for the top level of services offered by Dog Ear, and I submitted everything that was required within the first week after sending in the manuscript. After 8 weeks I had heard nothing from Dog Ear, so I sent an email to Ray to inquire about the status. I received no response. I sent another email to Matt, and received no response. After a couple of weeks I got more insistent in my efforts to learn the status and I finally heard from Ray. He was all apologetic to me. Your book got off the usual track of how we handle books, he said. But I will get it back on track. Empty words. Weeks went by with no activity and no further word. This story kept playing out in unbelievable ways. One day many weeks later Ray finally responded to an email from me, saying he would get back to me that day with a status update. That was months ago now, and he has still never gotten back to me. I have never heard from him again at all, and I have sent him email after email. I was always professional and courteous, but my emails were just ignored. Matt stepped in and made the same promises that Ray had made to me. He promised me that he would ensure that publication of my book got back on track. More empty promises. I begged for updates on my books publication status. It had been around 5 months at this point, so it was long past the promised time for publishing the book. Finally, without telling me, Dog Ear published my book. I learned about it when a friend told me it was selling on Amazon. It showed a publication date of November 24. This was about two weeks after its listed publication date. By the time I knew the book had been published, it already had a 5 star review. Where is the website for the book that I paid for many months ago, I kept asking? Where are the marketing materials that I paid for so that I could set up book signing events? Why can\'t people read inside the book on Amazon, or buy a Kindle version of the book? Where is the press release that I paid for? I paid for all of this. Where is it? Weeks went by with no responses at all. Then I was promised that the website would be up \"next week.\" Three weeks later, after I begged and begged, there was finally a website for the book. A website that was totally embarassing to me. There was no author\'s blog like we had discussed. It didn\'t look like a professionally designed website as promised. I wasn\'t surprised, because a few days before that Dog Ear had sent a draft press release to me. It was so poorly written that I couldn\'t believe it. Whoever wrote it couldn\'t have read the book, I was convinced. Not only that, but the name of the book wasn\'t even given correctly. Because Dog Ear was ignoring my pleas about the importance of the first three months after publicaion of a book, I paid a PR company to write a professional press release. I used part of that press release to rewrite the pitiful press release that Dog Ear had sent to me. Now I have hired a company to build a website that will actually sell books. I have a book that has received nothing except rave reviews, period. Not from family and friends, but from total strangers. Does anyone at Dog Ear even recognize this fact? I promise you that they have acted like they couldn\'t care less. They took a book that everyone has found to be inspirational, and classified it as just a general book of its type. I really believed the Dog Ear story when I signed on with them. I have shared with you what happened after that fateful decision. I hope you have a better experience when you publish your book. DogEar Published Author Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:40:17 +0100 http://www.writeandpublishyourbook.com/publishing/self-publishing/choosing-self-publishing-company/#josc1356 But let me tell you, in my experience, the promises that Dog Ear makes on its web site, and in its phone calls, and in its emails, have not been true at all. In my experience, Ray Robinson and his staff, as a rule, did not respond to emails. I was told by Ray when he wanted my money to expect a publication time of 8-12 weeks. I paid for the top level of services offered by Dog Ear, and I submitted everything that was required within the first week after sending in the manuscript. After 8 weeks I had heard nothing from Dog Ear, so I sent an email to Ray to inquire about the status. I received no response. I sent another email to Matt, and received no response. After a couple of weeks I got more insistent in my efforts to learn the status and I finally heard from Ray. He was all apologetic to me. Your book got off the usual track of how we handle books, he said. But I will get it back on track. Empty words. Weeks went by with no activity and no further word. This story kept playing out in unbelievable ways. One day many weeks later Ray finally responded to an email from me, saying he would get back to me that day with a status update. That was months ago now, and he has still never gotten back to me. I have never heard from him again at all, and I have sent him email after email. I was always professional and courteous, but my emails were just ignored. Matt stepped in and made the same promises that Ray had made to me. He promised me that he would ensure that publication of my book got back on track. More empty promises. I begged for updates on my books publication status. It had been around 5 months at this point, so it was long past the promised time for publishing the book. Finally, without telling me, Dog Ear published my book. I learned about it when a friend told me it was selling on Amazon. It showed a publication date of November 24. This was about two weeks after its listed publication date. By the time I knew the book had been published, it already had a 5 star review. Where is the website for the book that I paid for many months ago, I kept asking? Where are the marketing materials that I paid for so that I could set up book signing events? Why can\'t people read inside the book on Amazon, or buy a Kindle version of the book? Where is the press release that I paid for? I paid for all of this. Where is it? Weeks went by with no responses at all. Then I was promised that the website would be up \"next week.\" Three weeks later, after I begged and begged, there was finally a website for the book. A website that was totally embarassing to me. There was no author\'s blog like we had discussed. It didn\'t look like a professionally designed website as promised. I wasn\'t surprised, because a few days before that Dog Ear had sent a draft press release to me. It was so poorly written that I couldn\'t believe it. Whoever wrote it couldn\'t have read the book, I was convinced. Not only that, but the name of the book wasn\'t even given correctly. Because Dog Ear was ignoring my pleas about the importance of the first three months after publicaion of a book, I paid a PR company to write a professional press release. I used part of that press release to rewrite the pitiful press release that Dog Ear had sent to me. Now I have hired a company to build a website that will actually sell books. I have a book that has received nothing except rave reviews, period. Not from family and friends, but from total strangers. Does anyone at Dog Ear even recognize this fact? I promise you that they have acted like they couldn\'t care less. They took a book that everyone has found to be inspirational, and classified it as just a general book of its type. DogEar Published Author Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:42:01 +0100 http://www.writeandpublishyourbook.com/publishing/self-publishing/choosing-self-publishing-company/#josc1357 Your book got off the usual track of how we handle books, he said. But I will get it back on track. Empty words. Weeks went by with no activity and no further word. This story kept playing out in unbelievable ways. One day many weeks later Ray finally responded to an email from me, saying he would get back to me that day with a status update. That was months ago now, and he has still never gotten back to me. I have never heard from him again at all, and I have sent him email after email. I was always professional and courteous, but my emails were just ignored. Matt stepped in and made the same promises that Ray had made to me. He promised me that he would ensure that publication of my book got back on track. More empty promises. I begged for updates on my books publication status. It had been around 5 months at this point, so it was long past the promised time for publishing the book. Finally, without telling me, Dog Ear published my book. I learned about it when a friend told me it was selling on Amazon. It showed a publication date of November 24. This was about two weeks after its listed publication date. By the time I knew the book had been published, it already had a 5 star review. Where is the website for the book that I paid for many months ago, I kept asking? Where are the marketing materials that I paid for so that I could set up book signing events? Why can\'t people read inside the book on Amazon, or buy a Kindle version of the book? Where is the press release that I paid for? I paid for all of this. Where is it? Weeks went by with no responses at all. Then I was promised that the website would be up \"next week.\" Three weeks later, after I begged and begged, there was finally a website for the book. A website that was totally embarassing to me. There was no author\'s blog like we had discussed. It didn\'t look like a professionally designed website as promised. I wasn\'t surprised, because a few days before that Dog Ear had sent a draft press release to me. It was so poorly written that I couldn\'t believe it. Whoever wrote it couldn\'t have read the book, I was convinced. Not only that, but the name of the book wasn\'t even given correctly. Because Dog Ear was ignoring my pleas about the importance of the first three months after publicaion of a book, I paid a PR company to write a professional press release. I used part of that press release to rewrite the pitiful press release that Dog Ear had sent to me. Now I have hired a company to build a website that will actually sell books. I have a book that has received nothing except rave reviews, period. Not from family and friends, but from total strangers. Does anyone at Dog Ear even recognize this fact? I promise you that they have acted like they couldn\'t care less. They took a book that everyone has found to be inspirational, and classified it as just a general book of its type. DogEar Published Author Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:43:00 +0100 http://www.writeandpublishyourbook.com/publishing/self-publishing/choosing-self-publishing-company/#josc1358 Finally, without telling me, Dog Ear published my book. I learned about it when a friend told me it was selling on Amazon. It showed a publication date of November 24. This was about two weeks after its listed publication date. By the time I knew the book had been published, it already had a 5 star review. Where is the website for the book that I paid for many months ago, I kept asking? Where are the marketing materials that I paid for so that I could set up book signing events? Why can\'t people read inside the book on Amazon, or buy a Kindle version of the book? Where is the press release that I paid for? I paid for all of this. Where is it? Weeks went by with no responses at all. Then I was promised that the website would be up \"next week.\" Three weeks later, after I begged and begged, there was finally a website for the book. A website that was totally embarassing to me. There was no author\'s blog like we had discussed. It didn\'t look like a professionally designed website as promised. I wasn\'t surprised, because a few days before that Dog Ear had sent a draft press release to me. It was so poorly written that I couldn\'t believe it. Whoever wrote it couldn\'t have read the book, I was convinced. Not only that, but the name of the book wasn\'t even given correctly. Because Dog Ear was ignoring my pleas about the importance of the first three months after publicaion of a book, I paid a PR company to write a professional press release. I used part of that press release to rewrite the pitiful press release that Dog Ear had sent to me. Now I have hired a company to build a website that will actually sell books. I have a book that has received nothing except rave reviews, period. Not from family and friends, but from total strangers. Does anyone at Dog Ear even recognize this fact? I promise you that they have acted like they couldn\'t care less. They took a book that everyone has found to be inspirational, and classified it as just a general book of its type. DogEar Published Author Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:45:37 +0100 http://www.writeandpublishyourbook.com/publishing/self-publishing/choosing-self-publishing-company/#josc1359 There was no author\'s blog like we had discussed. It didn\'t look like a professionally designed website as promised. I wasn\'t surprised, because a few days before that Dog Ear had sent a draft press release to me. It was so poorly written that I couldn\'t believe it. Whoever wrote it couldn\'t have read the book, I was convinced. Not only that, but the name of the book wasn\'t even given correctly. Because Dog Ear was ignoring my pleas about the importance of the first three months after publicaion of a book, I paid a PR company to write a professional press release. I used part of that press release to rewrite the pitiful press release that Dog Ear had sent to me. Now I have hired a company to build a website that will actually sell books. I have a book that has received nothing except rave reviews, period. Not from family and friends, but from total strangers. Does anyone at Dog Ear even recognize this fact? I promise you that they have acted like they couldn\'t care less. They took a book that everyone has found to be inspirational, and classified it as just a general book of its type. DogEar Published Author Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:47:57 +0100 http://www.writeandpublishyourbook.com/publishing/self-publishing/choosing-self-publishing-company/#josc1360 I have a book that has received nothing except rave reviews, period. Not from family and friends, but from total strangers. Does anyone at Dog Ear even recognize this fact? I promise you that they have acted like they couldn\'t care less. They took a book that everyone has found to be inspirational, and classified it as just a general book of its type. The bottom line is that I made a mistake by publishing my book with Dog Ear. I hope you have a better experience when you publish your book. DogEar Published Author Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:49:47 +0100