Do Publishers Fleece Writers?

Lazarus Sauti from The Standard, “Zimbabwe’s leading Sunday Newspaper”, says that self publishing offers authors a much larger royalty and total control over their work. It also offers easy formatting and book design, he says, for a relatively low price:

Writers, like musicians are being ripped off by publishers.

To avoid being fleeced by publishing houses, writers should decide to self-publish. Self-publishing, the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of any established third-party publisher, offers the author a much larger royalty. Self-publishing costs are relatively inexpensive, sometimes free and it is great if an author only wants to sell a few copies of his/her work on the sidelines.

Self-publishing also offers fast, easy formatting, book design and other services to the author for a relatively low price. It offers immediate clout to the author because he has a book in hand to sell.

Regular or traditional publishers normally do not do much for new authors, so it makes self-publishing more attractive because all promotion is done by the author. The author, to add on, has total control over the appearance of his work.