Subsidy Publishing: Proceed With Caution

Cautionary tales from The Book Designer on using some subsidy publishing services…

“It happened again today. In fact—and I know you’ll doubt me but it’s absolutely true—it happened twice in one day.

Two different stories with the same sad end.

In the first one, the author had gone to Outskirts Press, a subsidy publisher. She had the first book in a series, and wanted to brand the covers with her own art as a way of tying them together.

After getting resistance about using her artwork, the author insisted. When the books arrived, the artwork had been cut up and put back togther with completely irrelevant images that had nothing to do with the book. The resulting book cover, as you might guess, is a disaster.”