It's a moot point, Traveller, if you've gone ahead and self-published it. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.

Naomi,
I think that Traveller is asking for advice and hasn't acted yet

Apologies, I should have said ...if you go ahead...

<Added>

..and self-publish it, you can't put the genie back in the bottle.


<Added>

The 'genie' being first rights, in case it's still not clear. As others have said, only do it to a manuscript you have no other use for. If you still have hopes of it being published by the traditional route, then don't do it.

But can't I just cancel the contract and deny all existence of it if things don't work out? I find the clause dealing with the wordprocessing not necessarily leaving chapters when you intend very very worrying! Heh, I wonder what the chances of one of these 5000 novels getting anywhere. Then again, 60% royalties might be worth taking the risk eh? And with no agent cut.

You know what, I just might go ahead and do it. See what happens. But it is different for me, because the novel I have written is very personal and my medium is more scripts so I'm not really pushing it. If it really is all a disaster and you still want to go ahead, I guess you could always change the title do a few re writes and get it out there again. My curiousity is geting the better of me and for me, there's nothing to lose. Let me know what you decide.

Jx

Then again, 60% royalties might be worth taking the risk eh? And with no agent cut.

60% royalties is after costs, not 60% of the cover price. So if it costs them, say, £5 to print it plus admin. costs, less retailer's discount, and it's priced at £7.50 (plus postage), that might give you 60% of £1.50 = 85p. Now if you've opted for the ISBN package - £40 - that's around 50 books you need to sell before you see any profit....50 copies = calling in all your favours from freinds and family.
The rest of your niche market is amongst YWO memebers - because they are the ones who will know where to look for it, and how many of those do you think are going to buy it?
Forget Agents, forget publishers, forget the general public, your market will be composed of Freinds & family & YWO. If you want to keep it listed on Amazon and other online sales sites (it's not going to get into bookshops), they intend to levy an annual charge of £15, so that's another 20-odd books you'll need to sell to see any royalties.

- NaomiM

<Added>

...the following year.

How Publishing Really Works has just blogged about the royalty arrangments, pointing out, among other things, that you don't get royalties on books you buy yourself from them, so any direct selling you do doesn't add to them.

More here:

http://howpublishingreallyworks.blogspot.com/2008/10/youwriteons-free-publishing-offer-who.html

Emma

<Added>

Even more alarming, since you're buying books at full price, any bookshop or other shop you might try to sell them in to will expect a discount on that full price, so you'll actually be making a loss on every single book you sell by that route...

This scheme is a con - I think it's foolish to use it. Apparently they're not affiliated with the Arts Council either which is very disingenous! Surely the Arts Council needs to know that You write on is using their name to legitimise the vanity press services they're offering. I can't believe I considered using this service. Shows how easy it is to dupe writers craving publication, I suppose.

Yes, I think the negatives to outweigh any positives. However, it did spurn me on to do another rewrite and I'm grateful for that as the MS is in a much better shape.