I Forgot to Mention… I Do Not Enjoy AuthorHouse “Publishing”

I must be asking for it.. or rather I put myself up to it.  I wrote a little post on AuthorHouse a few days ago and I have to admit that I have not expected the emails I have received….

The email that caught my eye was one written by one of my regular readers.  Now, I will not mention who they are, but a long time ago they did publish with AuthorHouse and they wanted to share the experience with the rest of you.  The points that they wanted to make were threefold:

1) They worked not on the editing, in fact, AuthorHouse editors probably did not even spellcheck.  When this person received proofs of their work, they themselves found errors in the editing.  The kicker?  It cost them (not AuthorHouse!) to re-edit the work that was “edited.”  The recommendation?  Do not use editing through AuthorHouse.

2) They were bombarded with emails, for many many sales for all the “packages” that AuthorHouse offers.  They pointed out that when they would email the “customer representative”  with whom they were assigned to to ask questions or report problems, they would get the “did you see our packages?” or would you upgrade to a better package?”  The recommendation:  Know this in advance.  This way you are prepared to say no.  AuthorHouse, and IUniverse and all the other vanity presses want one thing, and that is money.

3) While for the most part, the books were published well.  There were generally no mistakes, (based upon comparing the proofs to the final copy) there was still some “publishing problems”  If a book was not published well, then they would spend a lot of time dealing with the company, for a return and then exchange.  Publishing they said was the easiest part of the process.  The recommendation?  Going somewhere else, where they will have a bit more control.

Now, that one emailer has spoken about this, what experiences did you have with a vanity press?  What would your recommendations be?