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| Summer in Frinton-on-Sea, England |
At the present time, I am totally frustrated and completely demoralised. I was so proud when I submitted my third book for publishing; I truly believed it was the best book I had written so far. I had worked really hard on it, proofreading it thoroughly, and making sure that it was formatted perfectly.
I forwarded my completed work, together with a submission form and all the other information required, to my Check-in Co-ordinator on 20 July 2013. It is now 6 September, and I still have not received the final galley (proof). The novel has been backwards and forwards so many times that I have lost count.
Supposedly, the advantage of self-publishing is that the author is able to have a book printed in exactly the format they want with the content meeting their requirements. I have already learnt from my previous experiences, if you want your book laid out to your requirements when you self-publish, you have to fight tooth and nail in order to achieve it, and now I have discovered that you even have a struggle to ensure the content is included as you planned in order to ensure the novel is complete.
The first problem was that the information provided on requirements on the submission form was totally ignored – I only asked for the cover to be laid out in a consistent format when compared with my previous two books so that when they appeared on the shelf together it was obvious that they were part of a set.
When I submitted the book it was in a pdf format which meant that no layout changes were necessary, and that there would be no problem with proofreading the final copy as it would not be possible for the content to be changed as problems in this respect had occurred with my first book.
The first proof (with an incorrect cover layout) were received on 30 July, and I sent in the revisions on 31 July. As far as I was concerned, the book should now have been perfect. I received what I believed to be the final galley proof on 31 July, checked it thoroughly and confirmed my approval on 1 August.
It was at this point that the ‘rules’ changed. For the first time, in my experience, my book was assigned to Content Evaluators.
I would add that I am not against content evaluation per se. In fact, if carried out correctly it might ensure that certain books were improved prior to publication as the problem with self-publishing is that the content can be so poorly written that it is virtually unreadable.
But, as I have discovered, this was not the purpose of Content Evaluation in this instance. It was purely to protect the publishers from the litigation culture that is endemic in the USA these days.
Previously the only requirement was that the content should not be libellous, and even then, the publishers’ terms and conditions stated that they took no responsibility whatsoever for the content – it was totally the responsibility of the author. However, now my publishers are setting their own rules as to how many words/sentences can be used in quotations. Previously, the fair use rule was (as with all copyrighted material) that providing you quoted the originator’s details, the date, and used less than 10% of the original work, it was acceptable. And the quotes I used to enable my fictional accounts to relate to actual events fulfilled this requirement. However, not in the eyes of my American publishers who even at one stage suggested I spend an additional £450 in order to obtain an American copyright when I already have a UK one, which covers 165 countries, including the USA.
I am sorry to ‘witter on', but I had to get everything off my chest. Also, needless to say, I will not be using the services of these publishers in the future.
However, I am still hopeful that my book ‘A Ticket to Cusco’ will be available shortly.