From: slider@anashram.com

### - self-publishing is cool, as it allows anyone with something to
publish to go right ahead and publish (and then be damned? heh) without
having to come up with a more traditional publishing house to do it all
for them! these last being notoriously fussy and finicky about choosing
just exactly 'what' they publish as they sure as hell they don't wanna get involved in summat that's ultimately gonna lose money for them; so before self-publishing came along these fuckers literally ruled the roost in
whatever gots circulated and what didn't, based solely on what 'they'
thought would and, aught to, sell...

perforce everything then falls to the self-publisher to do for themselves
what a professional publishing house otherwise does in terms of
distribution, advertising and translating into other languages etc, this
last being by far the more expensive at around 5 to 10,000 a throw, there
being at least 15 standard languages that books typically get translated
into so the costs can thus easily soar to 10's of 1000's, if not 100's of 1000's depending on just how 'many' languages you wanna go for and at what quality of translation!

so what can a poor boy do? he wondered heh... nada apparently, unless
one's books started selling by the truckload to ever finance such a
venture that is...

so anyway, was looking at amazon.cn (china) and wondering why my book
isn't listed on there like it is in japan and india say? the answer
apparently being part of the deals amazon offers (or restricts one to
depending on how ya look at it) whereby china doesn't come into the
picture unless one agrees to let amazon sell your book to it's 'prime' readership who pay monthly subscriptions to read things for free, the
author being paid royalties by the page @ just less than .04 cents per,
which prolly works out far better for amazon than it does for its authors
who then might receive only only 70c a fully copy compared to $6.10 for a
copy sold, the 'catch' being that amazon then only pay 'half' the
royalties they otherwise would on items actually sold (35% instead of
70%!) but you will, however, be listed on amazon.cn! (so they's basically holdin' authors to ransom really as to whether or not you can break into
the chinese market; you can but at quite a cost: 50% of your royalties!
and is not the only beastly-swizz they're involved in with their authors i
can tell ya!)

added to which is the fact that it's an english book and not even in
chinese??

screw that i thought... it's a hopeless task! forget about it!

and then i gots to wondering just how much it might cost to have a chinese translation made which i could then market myself via amazon.cn, and was
again looking into all this when i came across some articles on google
about companies who translate authors books into chinese for a cut of the royalties? and found a site purporting to do just that; they'll take any
book, translate it into chinese, market it exclusively in china for 5
years while giving the author 30% of the sales price on both paperbacks & ebooks...

i mean, 30% ain't bad! especially considering amazon would only pay 35%
and they wouldn't even translate it?? sign me up! plus, 'after' 5 years,
they then contractually lose all translation property rights which then goes/falls exclusively back to the author to do with as he pleases!

seems like a good deal to moi! they translate + market my book, in china,
for 5 years paying me 30% on all sales, after which i then become the
proud owner of a tried & tested translated chinese version of my book that would otherwise cost me around $8,000 to produce!

so what about 'other' languages i though? could they be other agencies
doing something similar for the dozens of other popular languages too??

damn right there is! lol, of course there is! and the first one i found
offers to do exactly the same deal on umteen fuckin' languages! whoo-hoo!
the feedback online suggesting that they do what they say they do etc, and again, after 5 years all intellectual translation rights falls/reverts
back to the author for keeps!

so then, and if it all works out, in around 5 or 6 years time (and
providing am still alive lol) i should just about end up with my book translated into maybe a dozen or more different languages, including
chinese, and it won't have cost me fuck all! AND will have likely even
sold a few copies in all those languages by then too! not to mention all
those different countries being exposed to my book in their own language
as well in the meantime! cool!

ask and you shall receive eh? happy days! :)

(is vinny self-publishing? if so there's a few tips i could supply re amazon/createspace of what 'not' to do/entertain via them if he goes that
way; one of which imho actually borders on fraud on amazon's part...)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)