[Don Caldwell]

Nick --

An interesting concept. Do you know anyone who's tried them? Unbound is definitely a step up from what's called in the US a vanity press, but I see several weak points, especially for authors of specialty titles such as ourselves. First, potential readers must proactively seek out the site and make a contribution -- i.e., sponsor the book. How do we herd a global, thinly spread herd of buffs to the site? And the entire burden of marketing is left to the author, as tho he was self-published or has a garage full of books from a vanity press. It looks like Unbound is meant for unpublished authors with a large circle of friends. I've never had trouble finding legitimate publishers, who all do what they do very well -- they've always been my first choices, based on my evaluation of their product and the opinions of others. The problem has been their willingness to communicate with their authors once they have the signed contract and the MS. They don't respect their authors' opinions, and IMHO this is a universal problem.

--Don