Hello, I am a fledgling author and I'd be grateful for any feedback on Pegasus as a publisher. They turned down my first book but have offered to publish my second book. They want a contribution from me of £2300. For this they offer royalties of 25% on book sales 50% on e book sales.
If anyone has experience good or bad I'd like to hear from you. Many thanks Suzanne
As an extension to the original question, it pays to be very careful with any publisher, bad-listed or not. I know of two excellent writers - one on their first book, one much published - who have been let down by a total lack of editing by the people who undertook to produce their books and who insisted that they would edit in-house. The excuse of 'oh dear, we published the wrong pdf' is, apart from being totally unprofessional, of no use at all when your book is out there and drawing criticism for its typos and other errors over which you had no control.
Writers are not guaranteed to be grammar-savvy or to see spelling mistakes - that's what they rely on their publishers' editors for, and it should be part of the package.
The only way to rectify that kind of mess-up after the fact is to trash the print run and republish, which the companies concerned are not keen to do as it costs them money - and make no mistake, all publishers are looking to their own bottom line first.
So whoever you go for, make sure that it's in the contract that they will fully edit the book. Then when you get a proof copy, read it three times - that's really important - to pick up on anything that's been missed. Never sign off on it until you are sure that it's as good as it can be, because it's too late once it's been printed. There will always be something that slips by, even then, but you'll have done your best. You can correct an e-book after the fact, because it doesn't have an ISBN. That is assigned to a print book and is specific to that book as it appears in the final printed version, however many mistakes there are.
Lorraine
@ Jeremy Gavins:
I don't know which sites you visited or what they were offering. But there's a big difference - for example - between offering a complete and competent editing job on your ms. and offering to publish it as is without making any changes, feeding your vanity by telling you that your book is wonderful. I'm not sure of the going rate for a thorough editing job (I offer to do one at 200 words for £1 [£400 for an 80,000-word novel], but then, I'm a beginner, hoping to build up a CV), but it could well be £1,000+.
One would suppose that if W&As recommend a service, it's because that service is reputable. Pegasus, apparently, isn't.
Vanity publishers make ALL their money from the fees that hopeful authors pay them. I doubt that a single author has ever recouped that initial outlay through royalties on sales, because vanity publishers put no (or next to no) effort into publicising your book. Why should they pay for a publicity campaign when THEY've already made a profit? And many of them work on a "print on demand" system, so that even if YOU want copies to give as presents to friends, you've got to pay for them yourself.
As a tiny publisher, let me give you an example: To print (actually print) 50 copies of a picture book for children, each copy costs me nearly 10€. That doesn't include distribution. Bookstores take 30% of the list price, so to make 78c profit on a book that cost me 9€72 to print, I have to price it at 15€... and deliver it on foot to the bookstore.
If I could be SURE of being able to sell 1,000 copies (but I can never be sure), I could get them printed at less than 3€ each. (We're talking hardbacks here, which picture books for 3-6es really need to be.) Less than one third of the price/copy for the smaller print run. And I could afford to sell them @ 9 or 10€ and make a much bigger profit from each. How much would a single copy cost me to print? I have no idea, because I've never asked.
And because I can't be SURE of selling them, not only would I be risking more money at the printers, but I'd have to rent storage space... more debts.
I don't know the technology of print on demand. Perhaps each copy works out cheaper than my deal with a normal printing firm.
Of course, paying £1,000+ for a really good editing job doesn't guarantee that your book will sell, either... or even that an agent will accept you as a client.
I've just recently turned down a £400 editing job (80,000-word ms) because I didn't think the book would sell. Some of the plot just didn't ring true. It needed (IMHO) a complete rewrite, far beyond the duties of an editor. The advice I gave (on what needed rewriting), I gave for free (after hours of reading through the whole thing), and I hope to see the book in print some day... much improved. (Perhaps I'll get a mention on the acknowledgements page.)
You stump up the cash upfront. The figures look okay if you sell by the bucket-load, but they cannot guarantee any sales at all. They've already made their money and they have no incentive at all to spend any of it on you. What do they offer in the way of publicity, editing, cover, proof-reading and so forth, for that £2k? Sorry to be disheartening, but if they thought they would sell lots of your books they wouldn't charge you that upfront.
They are on the 'writers beware' list:
http://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/thumbs-down-publishers/
Lorraine