Virtual Bookworm

Virtual Bookworm is lower priced than many other POD publishers, and their books sell for reasonable prices. However, to make the retail price reasonable, the company has to take the money from somewhere.  In this case, the money comes out of the distributor discount. The usual distributor discount is 55%, but Virtual Bookworm only offers 35% to Ingram and Baker & Taylor. This means that while the retail price is competitive, the amount of money a bookseller could actually make on the book is too low to make it worthwhile to buy it.  Virtual Bookworm is aware of this and allows the author to raise the distributor discount, with the understanding that this will also raise the retail price. Whether or not this is explained to the author, we don't know.

Royalties are based on net publisher receipts, which leaves a lot of leeway, but they seem to be fair. Their author discounts, however, offer only a 30% discount except on the first order, which provides for a 50% discount.

They screen manuscripts, possibly based on the topic (they're not interested in new age or religious material) and they offer proofreading (also known as copy editing), however this is not required.

Their contract is exclusive, unlike those of most POD publishers, and requires 90 days if you want to get out of it. For some, exclusivity may seem to be an advantage, but others will feel that it's not. 

In Summary:

              On the plus side:

-Royalties are fair

-Screen manuscripts

               On the negative side:

-Low discounts to distributors and booksellers

-Author's discounts are low

-Takes 90 days to get out of the contract

CCC