Publishing through Outskirts Press is a lose-lose situation!

American Male Prostitute - A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

It is time to take another swing at the sharks in the publishing business. As part of some research for a new novel, American Male Prostitute, I had decided to work through a number of older issues of my favorite most useless magazine, Writer’s Digest.

In the following I am referring to the March/April 2009 issue, page 11, which contains a full-page advertisement by Outskirts Press. In the ad, Joseph De Sena, author of four children’s books, is quoted as follows: “I have published three children’s books with Outskirts Press and I can say without reservation that each experience has been a pleasure. The quality of each book was spectacular. I am writing my fourth children’s book and Outskirts Press will be handling all the publishing details. I couldn’t be happier.”

Good for him! However, let’s do a reality check. As of today I found four of his books on Amazon.com. Three of them come with a price tag of $19.95. His latest publication is priced at $27.95. Needless to say, but this kind of price range, in view of the competitive market, makes it almost impossible to sell the books, and it shows in the sales ranks.

Publishing with Outskirts Press, in my very personal opinion, is a lose-lose situation. Initially, you, the author, pay substantial fees to Outskirts Press to have your book published. Then you have no choice but to set a high sales price per book, which limits your chances for success substantially. In order to make any profit you need to set the sales price above printing costs plus the Outskirts Press sales fee. Let’s assume you spent about $1,000 with Outskirts Press (You can easily end up much higher than that). Let’s further assume your sales price includes a mere $2.00 profit for you, the author. In order to reach a return of investment you need to sell 500 copies. This may sound easy, but, yet again, it is impossible with a price tag of $19.95 for a children’s book.

Let’s have a detailed look at Mr. De Sena’s “The Love Bug And The Light Of Love”:
Pages: 64
Price: $19.95
Sales Rank: #3,127,942 in Books (as of October 19, 2009)

The sales rank indicates that Mr. De Sena sells in the neighborhood between 1 to 2 books per month – if that much – through Amazon.

64 pages in full color translates into printing of a little over $8.00. Again, let’s do some math: Let’s assume the printing costs are exactly $8.00. Also, let’s assume Outskirts Press grants a 55% resale discount to Amazon (A 55% discount is standard in the industry). This makes for a minimum sales price of $17.78 with no profit added. Going with Mr. De Sena’s $19.95 price tag, he makes a profit of $2.17 per book. In reality, the profit is closer to $2.00, since the print costs will be higher than $8.00.

It also struck me as strange that two of Mr. De Sena’s books come with a single customer 5-star-rating written by either Mr. De Sena himself, or his illustrator, Mr. Dennis Anfuso. (A word for Mr. De Sena: First, ask friends to write a review. Secondly, Amazon provides a blog service enabling authors writing about their books.)

All books, but one, show rankings above 2,000,000. His book “Little Sammy Sunshine And The Frightful Forest”, published in October 2008, has not sold a single copy through Amazon as of the writing of this article.

Let me say that I am well aware how difficult it is to market and sell a book, especially fiction and children’s literature. I also believe, judging by the books’ titles and the nice illustrations, that Mr. De Sena is a talented writer. Unfortunately, Mr. De Sena trusted Outskirts Press, and he has spent a substantial amount of money (I assume a minimum of $4,000, probably  more). The way it looks at this moment, he will never make any profit, and to emphasize it again, his only mistake was to trust Outskirts Press. For his sake I hope they gave him a break by appearing in their ad.

Shame on Outskirts Press to come up with a misleading advertisement like this, and shame on Writer’s Digest to cooperate with the sharks in the publishing business.

A tip for children’s literature authors: Do not self-publish!

Self-publishing involves Print-On-Demand (POD), which allows the print of small volumes. However, compared to the traditional offset-printing process, POD printing costs are higher. This is especially true for books with colored interior, and children’s literature is usually colored. The POD printing costs for children’s literature will automatically push you outside a competitive range in a market where children’s books are priced significantly lower. The traditional offset-printing process, however, demands a print-run of several thousands of books before it becomes profitable, and this can only be accomplished by going through an established publisher.

Outskirts Press is a Vanity Publisher!

Per definition, a Vanity Publisher is a publishing house that publishes books at the author’s expense. A Vanity Publisher does not have any interest in the success of the authors they represent. Their main income comes from the multitude of aspiring authors who choose to publish through Outskirts Press.

Be aware, there are a ton of sharks out there, Outskirts Press being one of the worst, prying on the vast number of wannabe-authors who will never have a chance to sell their work, but are nevertheless naive enough to spend their money with useless services. It is a shame that a magazine such as Writer’s Digest is in business to support these dubious businesses.

There are other, more trustful sources for self-publishing. Just to name one: Check out CreateSpace.com, a service provided by Amazon.com. Also, look at Booklocker.com, a small publishing  business out of Maine.