Authors, Writers, Publishers, and Book Readers

Pre-paid book publishers

Hey everyone, I am just wondering, is it normal to have a book publisher charge you for the full price before they begin to print your books. We had some books done and they said we had to completely pay up front. Of course, we now know this was a very bad idea for us. Lots of problems!!!! But, I was just wondering if anyone out there has had to do this? Is this normal? Is this standard policy in the self published book industry?

Thanks for your comments

0 members like this

Comment by Stephen Lawrence Brayton on December 28, 2012 at 7:45pm: I don't pay full price to buy my books from the publisher. I pay about half price. Why are you paying full price? There's no profit in that for you. The publisher isn't going to turn around and pay you royalties from the books you buy.

You might also check out authorauthor.com. If you're book is listed with Ingram, you might be eligible to buy your books even cheaper and still get them counted for royalty purposes.

Comment by Pat Culler on December 29, 2012 at 6:41am: The publisher we used required full payment to print the books. We were charge so much per book, it wasn't the selling price of the book. So, whatever the book publisher wanted for the job, he wanted the whole thing up front. I am just wondering if this is normal with book publishers. We had a lot of trouble doing it this way.

Comment by Stanley S. Thornton on January 7, 2013 at 7:13am: Yes, publishers usually ask you to pay in full for book orders. They have to pay their book printers up front, so they want their money up front.