Can you really publish for free?

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Some of the websites for self-publishing companies tout “free” publishing programs. What you get for free is hot air. If you want real books, you pay real money.



CreateSpace, Lulu, Wordclay, UniBook and others who advertise free publishing will not charge you to upload your book’s files. They assume you will do all of the design, editing and promotional work yourself or hire others to do it.



How can they publish a book for free?



They can’t. They’re lying.

 

 

Their publishing is free as long as you don’t expect any books to be produced. Every book they print, or distribute as an e-book, is paid for. Their notion of publishing does not include the final product -- a book.



CreateSpace is an Amazon subsidiary that lets you “Self-Publish a Book-Free.” The only free things I saw on its website are “free tools to prepare your content for publication” and an ISBN that identifies CreateSpace (not you) as the publisher.

You don’t have to pay a penny to upload your book’s files into the CreateSpace computer and make it available for printing when orders are received. HOWEVER, each time a book is printed, you do pay a fee, and you have to order at least one book.



If you want CreateSpace to do more of the work in designing, producing, promoting and distributing your books, you can pay up to $4,999 for a publishing package.



Lulu says it is “the only publisher that offers you all that it does for free.” The company has run online ads touting “Publish Your Book—Free,” “Free publishing,” and “Free Self Publishing.” Its website promises, “free book publishing,” but the publishing is free only if you don’t want any books to be printed!



A 250-pager with decent paper will cost $9.50 in quantities up to 24. Shipping is additional. That doesn’t seem like free.



If you want Lulu to do more of the work in producing, promoting and distributing your books, and to send you a batch of books, you can pay up to $4,499 for a package. Wordclay says, “You can sign up and start publishing your book for free. There is no cost to register with our Web site and create your account. There is no cost to use our publishing wizard to turn your work into a published book . . . . We have additional goods and services that you can also purchase through our Services Store, but again, there is no obligation. The basic publishing experience of getting your man¬uscript into a finished book is entirely free.” Here, too, the “free” publishing doesn’t actually include printing any books.



UniBook advertises “Free Self Publishing.” It says, “Getting your book self-published is easy. All you need to do is take a few minutes to upload your files and choose your publishing options—that’s it. Your book is instantly available for purchase worldwide in the UniBook online bookstore.” UniBook apparently has no mechanism for getting your books into stores or online booksellers. On a 300-page paperback selling for $18.95 you’ll get a royalty of about three bucks, which must be paid to you through PayPal.



Many pay-to-publish companies, particularly the divisions of colossus Author Solutions, advertise "free" books that their authors will receive as part of their publishing packages.