i4w2

Why ETHICAL?

We've heard many horror stories from people who have tried other publishing services and had a bad experience. They feel that they've been ripped-off and badly treated, and are left bitterly disappointed. So we decided to start our own service - and guarantee that no one will have a bad experience. Publishing a book should be a time of joy and celebration - and we want to share that with you!

More and more writers are coming to realise that traditional publishers only want "celebrity" books and self-publishing is the only real way forward. Our service combines the best of both worlds. It's like self-publishing, in that you are totally in control and you pay for the publishing and printing costs. But it's also like publishing in that you don't have to do any of the difficult or complicated bits yourself.

Here are some of the things that bad self-publishing companies do - and yes, these are real accounts from ideas4writers members:

1. "They took money from my bank account without my permission."

We don't do that. It's just plain wrong. We don't have access to your bank account anyway. We will tell you exactly what each charge is for, agree it with you, then send you instructions on how to pay it online, by post or by phone.

2. "They charged me for work they never carried out."

We don't do that. We only charge for what we do. We will agree each cost with you before going ahead.

3. "The book was shoddily produced and the layout was all over the place."

That's probably because they just bulk-pasted your book into a template and left it at that. We don't do that. We lay out each book by hand, maintaining full control over every word and hyphen, examining the way paragraphs flow from one page to the next, how text wraps around images, and so on. Of course it takes longer, but the result is a professional layout that you can be proud of.

The printing companies we use are well known in the book printing industry and print books for many well known publishers.

4. "They charge me a fortune if I want to buy books from them and sell them myself."

We don't do that. We charge you the actual printing cost + 35p per book.

5. "They set the price so high that no one will ever buy it."

We don't do that. You decide how much you want to sell it for. We will of course advise you on what a fair price would be, but the final choice is yours.

6. "If they sell any books at all, the royalties are so low that it costs them more to post the cheque to me than the cheque was actually worth."

We pay you the difference between the selling price and the cost of producing and selling each book. You will always know exactly what these costs are.

7. "They're just a faceless corporation - I don't know who I'm dealing with."

We're happy to tell you who we are and what each of us does - see our About Us page. You can even come and see us if you want to. Or we can come to you.

8. "I made my arrangements with their British office, but now I seem to be dealing with their American office and they only accept payment in dollars and don't understand the British market."

We don't have an American office. i4w2 is 100% British. But we are more than happy to post books to customers worldwide!

9. "Not only do they charge too much for their books, they then charge customers way too much for postage on top!"

We don't do that. If you choose to use our sales and distribution service we let you decide how much to charge customers for postage, packaging and handling. You can even offer them free postage if you want to.

10. "I only wanted to use some of their services, but they say it's everything or nothing at all."

We don't do that. If you want to do some of the work yourself and you can make a professional job of it, then go ahead. We won't charge you for that part. Each of our main services is available separately.

11. "All those hidden charges soon build up."

We don't have any hidden charges. Our full price list is here.

12. "They publish any old rubbish - I don't really want my book to be seen alongside those other books. Not that anyone would ever find mine amongst that lot anyway."

We don't do that. We will only publish books that we deem suitable and ready for publication. So in the first step towards publishing your book, you'll spend much of the time working with our editor, polishing your book to perfection. If you choose to have your book displayed on our website after it has been published then it will only be seen alongside other books that have been through the same rigorous process. Every book we produce will be at least as good as those produced by mainstream publishers.

Each book will be displayed on its own page, and all books will be carefully categorised so that anyone looking for your book will be able to find it easily.

13. "Everything had to be done their way. They just went ahead and produced the book without consulting me about anything. When I pointed out the problems with their design they said it was the way they always did it and it was too late to change anything."

We don't do that. You are in control. We check with you at every stage and send samples for you to approve before going ahead with the next stage. If you're unhappy about anything then just say so and we'll change it.

We guarantee to do a professional job that leaves you glowing with
pride and satisfaction - and definitely not ripped-off!

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