A reader from last month’s “Ask Ron” column states, “I don’t believe that it was fair of you, in last month’s article, to talk about the average number of books per author sold by 1st Books (77 per title). The average Amway dealer only makes $69 per month and there are some Amway dealers who are millionaires. “

A reader from last month’s “Ask Ron” column states, “I don’t believe that it was fair of you, in last month’s article, to talk about the average number of books per author sold by 1st Books (77 per title). The average Amway dealer only makes $69 per month and there are some Amway dealers who are millionaires. ”

I know that this isn’t exactly a question but I couldn’t have dreamed up a better example to illustrate exactly what is wrong with vanity presses like 1st Books.

First off, I received dozens of emails thanking me for last month’s article about one of the many Vanity(Subsidy) Presses found on the Internet. (Click here for 1st Books article) . The positive response was so great that I decided to write a whole book on the vanity press subject titled Book Scam – Navigating the Self-Publishing Minefield . I hope to have it finished in the spring of this year. There are far too many “wolves in sheep’s clothing” lurking in the Yellow Pages, in major writers’ magazines and of course the Internet. My new year’s resolution for 2004 and beyond is to expose these companies for what they are and not stop until the last one has either filed for bankruptcy or changed their deceptive practices which yearly waste untold millions of dollars worth of writers’ hard earned money. I’ll keep you posted on the books progress. In the meantime, if you have a vanity press horror story you would like me to share with others, please email me at ron@rjcom.com .

Now back to the “Amway” comparison. First I need to explain that the writer of this complaint described himself as an “Ex” Amway dealer and a “soon to be” customer of 1 st Books. I asked him to write me back in six months and tell me how he was doing as a “current” 1st Books customer.

Going back twenty years or so, I swear I must have had a tattoo on my forehead saying “Tell me about Amway”. On a half dozen occasions, people would approach me with the same line. “How would you like to start your own business?” “What kind of business?”, I would always reply. “I can’t tell you right now, you need to come with me to a meeting which will explain it”, was the reply. One day I finally said “yes” to one of these invitations.

When I got to the “meeting” there were probably a couple hundred people in attendance. As the meeting was about to start a person pulled up in front of the place in a Rolls Royce and came inside. It turns out that he was the main speaker. A Southern Baptist tent revival has nothing over one of these Amway presentations. The speaker explained how he used to be a bum but now he’s a millionaire and doesn’t have to work another day in his life because everyone else is doing the work. He was just sitting back and collecting checks. “This can be you”. You don’t have to actually sell anything. You just get others to sell and you receive the commissions. All you needed to do was buy a “starter kit” with a few boxes of soap and other products. Sound familiar? Well, not to raise the ire of the thousands of Amway loyalists, it just doesn’t work like that. Yes there are successful dealers but I can almost guarantee you that the overwhelming majority is far from successful. (You know that $69 average). They are not successful because they started in the business based on a misconception. I can also guarantee you that the successful Amway dealers, work very, very hard. It just doesn’t “magically happen”. The main difference between the Amway approach and the Vanity Press approach is that once reality sets in, you can actually use the Amway products.

The vanity presses use the same type of approach. They make it all sound so easy. After all, Edgar Allen Poe started that way, didn’t he? The bottom line is, like most other things in life, successful publishing takes a lot of dedication and hard work coupled with a little luck. Forget about those full page color ads in the various writing magazines that make it look so easy. It’s not. If you are one of those writers who “Just want to write” and sit back and have someone else do the hard work of marketing…. Save your money. It’s not going to happen. Keep writing but forget about self-publishing. Remember, writing is a love, publishing is a business.

If you think you are ready to accept the self-publishing challenge, order a copy of “Publishing Basics- A Guide for the Small Press and Independent Self-Publisher” at www.BooksJustBooks.com . It’s an easy read that will help give you a clear picture of what lies ahead.

If you have a question pertaining to the publishing production process, please feel free to contact me at ron@rjcom.com .

Need a cover designed or complete book layout? Try www.BudgetBookDesign.com . – Only $250 for original cover design. Complete text layout from $250.

If you have a question pertaining to the publishing production process, please feel free to contact me at ron@rjcom.com.

Ron Pramschufer

Ron Pramschufer has been in or around the printing and publishing industry for over 35 years. His experience, including working in the pressroom, bindery, production office and estimating department helped give him a firm foundation to build on when he entered sales and management. He was partners in a small press publishing company in Annapolis, MD in the late seventies and co-invented and marketed two controversial political board games which sold over 100,000 copies in the early eighties. Moving from his home state of Maryland to New York City after his game experience, Ron sold printing services to, primarily, small to mid-sized book publishers for over a decade before founding RJ Communications with an old friend. Ron recognized the potential of the Internet very early as a powerful communications tool. In 1997 he started one of the first printer related websites, www.rjcom.com, which caters to the professional print buyer. This evolved into www.BooksJustBooks.com and more recently www.selfpublishing.com which target the print buying novice, primarily self-publishers. All three sites are still operating successfully and SelfPublishing.com was named as one of Writers Digest’s, 101 Best websites for writers for 2006. Educating the novice print buyer has been a top priority from day one. To help address this issue, Ron co-authored the popular title Publishing Basics- a Guide for the Small Press and Independent Self-Publisher, now in its Third Edition, as well as Publishing Basics for Children’s Books, in its Second Edition. He is the organizer of the monthly Publishing Basics Newsletter where he writes a sometimes controversial Ask Ron column which addresses various aspects of the publishing process. On the same note, he started the Publishing Basics Radio PodCast in 2005 and serves as the show’s host. A wide variety of topics are covered including a very popular series titled, The Truth Behind POD Publishing, where he conducts interviews with a select group of industry insiders. Since its inception, RJ Communications has helped thousands of customers print over 105 million books. Ron is married and has three children. His daughter, Stephanie, teaches second grade and recently self-published her first children’s book in the Oliver the Clownfish series. Matthew, his oldest son, owns a website design business and Erik, the youngest, is enjoying high school.

Website - More Posts