The Kindle Swindle - 3

Here's the question:

Totally on a whim I submitted my out-of-print first novel to an E-Publisher that specialises in backlists and out-of-print books. I got the following reply the next day:

"We are interested in republishing your work in eBook format. We offer 50% royalty on gross profit. We provide cover design, file conversion and upload to all the major eBook stores. We will promote your book in social media, however, it is important for the author to promote their own work. One of our authors is a social media expert for writers and is always willing to help out our authors with ideas and cross promotion. "

Is that a good offer or not?

I told them I would get back to them in due course. Actually, I have two other options I would consider before accepting that offer; one with my agency which is starting an E-publishing branch, and another with a small but up-and-coming print (and e-book) publisher.

So, how does that offer sound? What are the loopholes? What to watch out for? I'm new at this and basically never even considered the E-publishing routre until a few weeks ago

It was asked here....

A couple things to think about. I consider epublishing an intermediate step between commercial publishing and self-pub. You get a bigger piece of the pie with e-pubs, but it is a smaller pie. The pie is growing, but it's still less than what you would make with the Big Six (although not always and not for certain authors). 

I choose epub because of what I write. Epub is great for certain things and backlists are one of them. The first thing is to look at B&BC and see what others say about the company and contract. Are they up front about who works there and their industry experience? Do they have a good reputation? 

Amount of royalty is good. 50% is top of the industry as standards go. Also, look at the term of contract. Anything more than 2-3 years would make me nervous. I'd be willing to gamble a backlist book for that long, but if you aren't happy, you don't want to be locked in for 7 years.

Carefully read the contract and pay attention to things like reversion clauses. What happens if they suspend operations? What happens if they are in breach of the contract? WHat if you or they want to terminate the contract early? Is there a mechanism for doing so?

Play around on their website. Look at the covers. Is the website easy to use? DO the covers look professional? Now go to some third party sites and look for their books. Make sure that what you find on their websire is found on other sites. Buy a few of their books. Are they properly formatted or riddled with errors?