When I started this blog, I wanted to use it mainly as a way to promote my books and other projects, as well as sharing some of my activism. I never wanted to use it as personal diary where I air out my own personal dirty laundry, and spread my business to the webiverse. But sometimes....you get taken there.....
I'm working on my latest literary project (basically, my third book), which I was hoping to publish soon. The plan was originally to publish this project before the summer was out; that quite obviously didn't happen. I wasn't able to gather the money that I needed to publish this project. I've come out of pocket before when I published my first two works, and I was in the process of doing so again for this one. I wasn't able to get the funds together to publish the book until after the summer ended, practically starting this fall. This book was to be different from the first two; it was to be a memoir based on some Facebook Notes that I had written a few years ago.
The project initially went off smoothly. I decided to stay with my second publisher to do my third book, considering the ease and painlessness in which I was able to publish my last book with them. I logged in to my account, paid the fee for the Publishing Package that I wanted, and uploaded my files to their site. All was smooth sailing at this point, until it came time to deal with my book cover...
I designed my cover myself. I have some graphic arts skills, and that has helped me in the past. As it is, I designed the cover for my first two books. Being independently self-published, that helps you out a lot; that's less money out of your pocket to get someone to do some of these tasks for you. ESPECIALLY dealing with these P.O.D companies, they will charge you an arm and a leg extra to get tasks like these done, aside from paying the Pub Package fee. Considering that this is my THIRD book, I already know the games that they'll try to play with you to get you to cough up more money, and already did all the work.
End result...? Book #3 is on hold INDEFINITELY!!! These motherfuckers have PISSED ME OFF!!!! They keep telling me that the image size for my cover is the wrong size (which is absolute BULLSHIT). The program that I used to design my book cover in the first place LETS YOU create files in the size needed (300 DPI or 'dots per inch'). The publisher kept telling me that the file size is too small, and kept trying to get me to upgrade my package. NO...FUCKING...WAY!!!
For all of the print-on-demand publishers out there....STOP trying to ruin peoples dreams with your greed! Investing in your publishing packages is economically draining enough, DON'T try to cheat people by squeezing more money out of them for a service they don't need. People have scrapped, scrimped, and saved to see their dreams of being a published author come to reality; stop doing this trifling ass shit to get more money out of them!
On the real, stupid shit like this is why my FIRST publisher lost the ability to publish my SECOND book. People have a choice, and I made mine; you're NOT the only game in town. I'm just mad that I didn't get my money back from my first publisher; they made a bullshit ass claim that they had already created my proofs (which was a bold faced LIE). I should have sued the shit out of them, but didn't feel like shelling out the money for a lawyer. Now my SECOND publisher is doing the same shit!
Listen, if an author makes a decision to stick with you for a next project, you should be going out of your way to please them....NOT try to squeeze more money out of them. I'm not some fucking new jack just trying to get put on; we obviously have a past together, and that should have been respected.
Instead of wasting my money paying these assholes for their publishing packages, what I SHOULD be doing is pooling my money together to purchase THE EQUIPMENT that THEY use, and print the book out MYSELF!!! COMPLETELY self-publishing your project is also a risk, but its getting to the point where that'll be the ONLY way you can get your literary project out without getting ripped off by these companies.
I just needed to get this off my chest. I'll keep you guys updated on how it turns out.
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