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Thanks so much Cynique. Your words are as good as my morning coffee. I am not discouraged. I am usually the one that is put into the fire in order to help others. I am out of a lot of money that I could be definitely using so much better right now. But such is life--live and learn I always say. I do intend to spread the word about Archway Publishing to anyone who will listen. I don't have a set plan of action on them as yet because I have to concentrate on keeping my foot on the pedal to get my other publications off the ground. Currently, I am taking some online, professional development courses at Gotham Writers' Workshop. As a lifelong learner, I am already enjoying this experience. I am determined to get my work into the hands of our challenged youths. Thanks for your vote of confidence. I so appreciate you all for being such a delightful audience for my three part posts. As you can see, I absolutely love to write. I have more to come. Stay tuned.

Thanks for sharing your mermaid adventure with us, Shirley! I have heard nothing but negative things about these vanity publishers. My friend, who could trace her lineage back to Thomas Jefferson's black descendants, decided to write a book about her search and this is the route she went. The book was was about 80 pages long and had a few old photographs in it. The vanity publisher she settled on soaked her for a lot of money for extras and proofreading and priced her book at $17.98, a price she wasn't happy with. Another friend's son was in an automobile accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. He decided to write a book about his battle with depression; This was also a short book and he, too, went with a vanity publisher who gouged him. His book was also $17.98 and he ended up stuck with a lot of unsold copies he had been convinced to order. I hesitated to discourage these people when they embarked on their publishing ventures because i didn't want to deflate their enthusiasm and come across as a spoil sport because these vanity publishers do, indeed, play on the vanity of their perspective clients, making them think that their books have been "accepted" for publication when, in fact, the companies never reject anyone who has the money to pay their exorbitant prices. After I retired, I decided to write my first book and self publish it. This was back in 1992, the days before such conveniences as simply e-mailing pdf files off to editors. I bought a little Canon desk top word processor and with the instructions from the book printer I contacted, followed his guidelines and typed up the book in what was referred to as "camera ready", a format which meant the recommended 5x8 dimensions, the headers, footers, margins and font would be reproduced just as I had typed it. I next became a publishing company of one, complete with a logo I created, I also designed my own cover, a xeroxed copy of which accompanied the hard copy manuscript I shipped off to the printer. I was quite pleased with the final perfect bound product. I started out with a short run of 100 units and the total price for all of this was around $1,000, payable in installments. It took me about 2 years to unload all the copies of the 120-page novel @ $5.00 each, selling them to friends and at all kind of little generic venues, placing a few of them in small black book stores and local libraries. But it was fun because I obviously wasn't profit-driven and this was one of the most fulfilling projects I'd ever undertaken because I did everything myself, including the proof reading and revisions, not to mention figuring out how to use a word processor.The last book I wrote I went with LuLu, one of the companies Chris recommended in his helpful video, and I was pretty satisfied with their professional services. Sorry your experience was different from mine but as you say, you learned your lesson.. Still, your dream did come into fruition and young black girls everywhere will benefit from your vision. That makes it all worthwhile.

What you said at the end. Why are people surprised? If the market is shaped by a certain reader, that is the reader that will be catered too. BUTTTTT I think this is just an article to inspire discussion because people read what they like and what they are interested in. It just so happens that there are more old white women reading.

I hope I am commenting on what I think I read. Rather tired right now. While I certainly realize what is happening. After scanning this, I am totally exhausted and could find myself utterly and completely discouraged. I said it once, I will say it again. I am not going to do it. I am going to write from my heart and soul about those things that impact me, my kind, and my community --be it women, black women, challenged youths, etc. Maybe I will never get published the traditional route, but as I have learned there are other avenues. I am sick of trying to play by their rules. Where is all the fairness? Where are the black publishers, editors, agents, etc.? We need our own to publish and promote our own. What a stupid question I just asked!!! Yes, people read what they are interested in and reject everything else most likely. That's why many of our people are still experiencing identity crisis. I AM NOT A WHITE WOMAN!!! I can't write from the white experience. I can write about it. There is definitely a difference. Thanks for allowing me to vent .

SINGER NATALIE COLE HAD A BOOK ENTITLED LOVE BROUGHT ME BACK/2009 NATALIE COLE NEEDED A KIDNEY TRANSPLANT,WHILE HER SISTER WAS DYING.NATALIE WAS BY HER DYING SISTER;S SIDE WHEN SHE GOT A CA,LL , A KIDNEY WAS AVAILABLE./A WOMAN WHO LOSS HER SISTER, NATALIE WAS GETTING THE WOMAN;S SISTER KIDNEY.NATALIE AND THE WOMAN WERE CLOSE AFTER THE TRANSPLANT/ NATALIE SAID GOD 'S GRACE HELP HER TELL THE STORY. NATALIE BOOK ABOUT LOSS AND RECOVERY ,SHE WAS ON A OLD INTERVIEW SHOWN ON TAVIS SMILEY LAST MONDAY NIGHT.IT WAS INTERESTING/ALL TAVIS SMILEY GUEST ARE NOT....../NATALIE COULD SING, MY OPINION BEING ABLE TO SING NOW, NOT THAT IMPORTANT..../

Hi Troy, it is done. I am looking forward to this. Please link my book directly to my website per our discussion. That's www.readtoachieve2.com. Thanks so much for all that you do!!!!

Re-post “Why didn’t you make the mermaids White?” he said. “You would sell more books if they were white.” These words still echo in my head. Everything had seemingly come together. At the onset of my dream to bring Shimmer, StarFire, and SeaStar to life, my research directed me to Archway Publishing’s Author Solutions, a division of Simon and Schuster. I went online completely ignorant of what it would take to become a published author. I did know, however, that as a first time, no name, writer, I didn’t stand a chance of getting a literary agent to even think about considering my work. Self-Publishing was my only option if ever I wanted my three mermaids to swim into existence. Archway Publishing offered five packages for getting published. I choose the ILLUSTRATOR Package for $3,999.00 that included everything I needed to get started. The packages ranged from $1,599.00 to $8,499.00. In addition to this package that included only eight color illustrations, I added another four illustrations at $399.00 each so that I would have adequate representation of my characters. You see, I truly believe that Black mermaids should be a part of our mighty oceans. I paid the price for their inclusion. At first, everything was going along well. The timeline toward publication was on point. I paid an additional $250.00 to have my narrative edited. While the editing was taking place, the artwork got started. With only a few revisions here and there, Shimmer, StarFire, and SeaStar were born into literary bliss. They were perfectly suited for their ocean environment. I loved them—their voices, actions and attitudes, expressions, and more importantly, their beautiful brown skin. My young mermaids were complete in every way that I could imagine, except one—the price of integration. During production, Archway told me that they would set the price for my book and that I would not have any input in negotiating a change to lower it. I could request to raise it, but I could not go lower. They told me that the price would be based on color and the number of pages. Honestly, I had no idea that this 60 page children’s fantasy would come back with a price tag of $31.99 for the hardcover and $23.99 for the soft cover. After the book’s completion, I was very concerned at first, but my Book Consultant, along with others that I spoke with, convinced me that all the beautiful color and the great narrative would move my book with no problem. I went along with what they said because the eProofs looked great. The colors were vivid and the mermaid sisters were performing just as I had envisioned. On the day that I received my author’s copies, the color, or lack thereof, was the first thing that caught my attention. The wonderfully vivid colors in the eProofs were not there. The teal blues were teal greens. The color in the soft cover version was a bit richer than the color in the hardcover book. To my misfortune this is where all the back and forth heated discussions began. Everyone on my team at Archway seemed to resent my disappointment with the finished product. To them, my complaints were totally unwarranted. To add fuel to the fire, the book’s title was not on the spine. Now I am wondering if the color of my mermaids’ skin had anything to do with the high costs and the diluted color. Needless to say, the only solution was that I pay more money to send my work back to the illustrators. And on top of that, there was no guarantee that they could improve the colors. In fact, there was a risk of distorting the colors to the point of making my dark-skinned mermaids darker--blacker. I was given the option of having another run at printing to see if the printer could at least get the quality to that of the soft cover print. I was also offered thirty additional free copies to see how my reading audience would respond to the look of my book. I hesitantly took Archway up on their compromise and when the thirty books arrived, the colors were a little more representative of what I’d originally specified. I still could not get the title on the spine. Supposedly, I did not have the maximum page count for this feature. All of my sampled audience enjoyed their books and when asked about the color, they all said that they liked it. What they did not like was the price of the book. There was no way that they would pay such a high price for a children’s book. I was devastated. My first book with my beautiful brown-skinned mermaids was priced for abject failure. However, despite many back and forth arguments about the pricing, Archway Publishing insisted that the book was priced according to industry standards and they could not do anything about lowering the price without drastically altering the book at my expense. Eventually, I did go about trying to market my book without any help from Archway Publishing. I even got Barnes and Noble to purchase a few and put them on display in the local store. The books did not move. My husband ended up purchasing the books in an effort to support me. I did sell four books to faithful friends, along with another five to family members. I purchased an additional twenty-five copies at a 20% author’s discount just so that I could have them on hand to sell or give as gifts. My author’s contract with Archway Publishing will be ending in February 2016. I intend to pull The Hunt for the Magic Pearl from them and do a revision so that I can lower the price. It is a great book that encourages young girls in beautiful darker skin tones to be brave, adventurous, smart, and beautiful. The themes speak to family relationships, loss, and determination. And as Kirkus has stated in their review, “…With it glossary and several paged of mermaid-related information, this book is classroom-room ready, as well as a worthy bedtime tale… “They concluded that The Hunt for the Magic Pearl is “A fun, exciting underwater romp.” The purpose for this Three-Part Post is so that I may share with you how difficult it was for me to be writer of diversity and how difficult it was to be a first time independently-published author. The sharks are definitely alive and well. Please don’t get caught up! My book is available to you on my website, www.readtoachieve2.com at less than 50% of the original price. I would love for you to purchase The Hunt for the Magic Pearl as a gift for a middle grade child—especially a young girl who is not sure of who she is. Please share my story with others who might appreciate knowing about Archway Publishing. Support diversity in Children’s Literature. Please visit my website, www.readtoachieve2.com to purchase The Hunt for the Magic Pearl today.

I don't mind Chris at all. It's cool. I love how Troy just broke down how Google Ads work. In everything I've written I don't promote Google Ads as a means of advertising for us small guys and Troy just explained in a very simple way why. Although I said it's good, you definitely have to have a very strong grasp on how to write the ad and how to target your audience. It's not easy. It is better than Facebook ads, but you can almost take what Troy wrote and insert Facebook and change the wording a bit and you get the same result when advertising. You're up against a big market and the only real path I see is exactly what you are doing here by being part of a community. Community is the only way for us small people to compete. It's all that we have. My only other solution is using this board to blog, and also using your own website to blog. The more searchable content you have the more people who are likely to visit your site on a daily basis.

OMG Chris, I hope you don't mind me calling you Chris. The video is fantastic!!! Of course, it is a little late for me as I have researched and discovered all of what you shared the hard the way. But there is so much more that I know I can learn from your experiences. As for Archway Publishing, I have contacted one attorney. He did not get back to me yet, and I haven't had time to stay on it. But you've just hit the nail on the head. I am not going to rest until I expose them in one way or another. My contract ends with them in February. My new Book Consultant is still calling me to try to get me to buy books from them. However, every time I mention lowering the price of the book, all calls suddenly stop. They really think me to be a fool. I know that people are still being victimized and I just want to get to them before they are too deep into Vanity Publishing. From the packages offered, you see that it could have been a lot more expensive. In addition to the package price, they wanted to order to 1,000 books after publication. Had I done that, can you imagine where I would be right now trying to sell my expensive mermaids. Anyway, all is well with me. I have learned an expensive lesson. God has a way of making me an example so that I can help others. Please incorporate this information as you see fit. I am so glad that I have gotten to know you. I think we will have so much to share. Thanks for all that you do to help others.

Damn!!!!!! I didn't want to hit the like button because this was foul. It happens so much that I'm not surprised, but I've never seen it happen at this cost. I wouldn't buy another book from them. I would consider suing them, but the expenses on that could get pretty big. Your only possible recourse is to pitch it to a class action lawyer and find other parties who have been robbed like this. I just did a video on this, but hearing your story I need to go back and clarify and stress the problem with vanity publishing even more. I'm sorry to hear about this and I hope that moving forward we all can help each other to avoid pitfalls. Here is the video, but I definitely didn't go into enough detail here:

I was having trouble posting it for some reason. I am going to try again. I had to go to start my course. I'm back now to fix it Hello Everyone, I tried to post again without success. I don't know what is happening. Well, I will post it here. Troy if you could move it, to where it is supposed to be, that would be great. This is when technology in its finest drives me crazy. Part Three: Diversity is Not Racism—The Difficult Road through Publication for Three Mermaid Sisters “Why didn’t you make the mermaids White?” he said. “You would sell more books if they were white.” These words still echo in my head. Everything had seemingly come together. At the onset of my dream to bring Shimmer, StarFire, and SeaStar to life, my research directed me to Archway Publishing’s Author Solutions, a division of Simon and Schuster. I went online completely ignorant of what it would take to become a published author. I did know, however, that as a first time, no name, writer, I didn’t stand a chance of getting a literary agent to even think about considering my work. Self-Publishing was my only option if ever I wanted my three mermaids to swim into existence. Archway Publishing offered five packages for getting published. I choose the ILLUSTRATOR Package for $3,999.00 that included everything I needed to get started. The packages ranged from $1,599.00 to $8,499.00. In addition to this package that included only eight color illustrations, I added another four illustrations at $399.00 each so that I would have adequate representation of my characters. You see, I truly believe that Black mermaids should be a part of our mighty oceans. I paid the price for their inclusion. At first, everything was going along well. The timeline toward publication was on point. I paid an additional $250.00 to have my narrative edited. While the editing was taking place, the artwork got started. With only a few revisions here and there, Shimmer, StarFire, and SeaStar were born into literary bliss. They were perfectly suited for their ocean environment. I loved them—their voices, actions and attitudes, expressions, and more importantly, their beautiful brown skin. My young mermaids were complete in every way that I could imagine, except one—the price of integration. During production, Archway told me that they would set the price for my book and that I would not have any input in negotiating a change to lower it. I could request to raise it, but I could not go lower. They told me that the price would be based on color and the number of pages. Honestly, I had no idea that this 60 page children’s fantasy would come back with a price tag of $31.99 for the hardcover and $23.99 for the soft cover. After the book’s completion, I was very concerned at first, but my Book Consultant, along with others that I spoke with, convinced me that all the beautiful color and the great narrative would move my book with no problem. I went along with what they said because the eProofs looked great. The colors were vivid and the mermaid sisters were performing just as I had envisioned. On the day that I received my author’s copies, the color, or lack thereof, was the first thing that caught my attention. The wonderfully vivid colors in the eProofs were not there. The teal blues were teal greens. The color in the soft cover version was a bit richer than the color in the hardcover book. To my misfortune this is where all the back and forth heated discussions began. Everyone on my team at Archway seemed to resent my disappointment with the finished product. To them, my complaints were totally unwarranted. To add fuel to the fire, the book’s title was not on the spine. Now I am wondering if the color of my mermaids’ skin had anything to do with the high costs and the diluted color. Needless to say, the only solution was that I pay more money to send my work back to the illustrators. And on top of that, there was no guarantee that they could improve the colors. In fact, there was a risk of distorting the colors to the point of making my dark-skinned mermaids darker--blacker. I was given the option of having another run at printing to see if the printer could at least get the quality to that of the soft cover print. I was also offered thirty additional free copies to see how my reading audience would respond to the look of my book. I hesitantly took Archway up on their compromise and when the thirty books arrived, the colors were a little more representative of what I’d originally specified. I still could not get the title on the spine. Supposedly, I did not have the maximum page count for this feature. All of my sampled audience enjoyed their books and when asked about the color, they all said that they liked it. What they did not like was the price of the book. There was no way that they would pay such a high price for a children’s book. I was devastated. My first book with my beautiful brown-skinned mermaids was priced for abject failure. However, despite many back and forth arguments about the pricing, Archway Publishing insisted that the book was priced according to industry standards and they could not do anything about lowering the price without drastically altering the book at my expense. Eventually, I did go about trying to market my book without any help from Archway Publishing. I even got Barnes and Noble to purchase a few and put them on display in the local store. The books did not move. My husband ended up purchasing the books in an effort to support me. I did sell four books to faithful friends, along with another five to family members. I purchased an additional twenty-five copies at a 20% author’s discount just so that I could have them on hand to sell or give as gifts. My author’s contract with Archway Publishing will be ending in February 2016. I intend to pull The Hunt for the Magic Pearl from them and do a revision so that I can lower the price. It is a great book that encourages young girls in beautiful darker skin tones to be brave, adventurous, smart, and beautiful. The themes speak to family relationships, loss, and determination. And as Kirkus has stated in their review, “…With it glossary and several paged of mermaid-related information, this book is classroom-room ready, as well as a worthy bedtime tale… “They concluded that The Hunt for the Magic Pearl is “A fun, exciting underwater romp.” The purpose for this Three-Part Post is so that I may share with you how difficult it was for me to be writer of diversity and how difficult it was to be a first time independently-published author. The sharks are definitely alive and well. Please don’t get caught up! My book is available to you on my website, www.readtoachieve2.com at less than 50% of the original price. I would love for you to purchase The Hunt for the Magic Pearl as a gift for a middle grade child—especially a young girl who is not sure of who she is. Please share my story with others who might appreciate knowing a little something about Archway Publishing. Support diversity in Children’s Literature. Please visit my website, www.readtoachieve2.com to purchase The Hunt for the Magic Pearl today.

Continued from Part One In order to give life and purpose to the three faceless mermaids that hang on my wall, I had to first give them names. Shimmer, StarFire, and SeaStar came to life in my literary vision. I could see them at long last and they were beautiful, brown-skinned,orphaned, mermaid sisters. They reached out to me every time I passed their stilled images on the wall. I had to tell their story. The voice that continually awakened me up in the middle of the night, beckoned me to write a book. Always three and four o’clock in the morning, I could be found in my dimly lit bedroom frantically writing. The question that plagued my thoughts was this: What were my mermaids doing out there in the vastness of the mighty ocean? Of course, they were hunting. But, hunting for what? Well, in my mind, since they weren’t supposed to be there in the first place, they were hunting for magic. Why magic? Because, magic had to be found in order to protect them. Protect them from what? They needed protection from predators. What kind of predators? The Great White Sharks, of course. So, where would this magic come from? And why would they need protection? So many questions popped into my mind. I often looked into the vastness of their blank faces for the answers. Now, that I had the beginning of the plot for my fantasy, I still needed to see the three mermaids on the pages of the book that I’d titled The Hunt for the Magic Pearl. With pencils and paint brushes in hand, I set out to give my half human, half fish their faces—beautiful brown faces. However, each time, I contemplated making them African-American, something inside of me cautioned against it. I had to keep telling myself that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Why shouldn’t they look like me in skin color, hair texture, and body build--strong hips and thighs? Why at my age and cultural experience was I having trouble with my own skin color and reflection? Could I, me, still be subconsciously brainwashed in some way--influenced by a horrible history that should be relived only in my past? I know that I loved me and I also knew that I wouldn't change one single thing about who I am--especially my skin color... My struggle served to let me know what our children are still experiencing in terms of acceptance of their African-American features and identity. This realization also warned me that there is not nearly enough diversity in our children's literature. I was in a battle to resist my warped concept of beauty. Despite my unfounded reluctance, I did it. I drew samples and painted them to have brown skin. But I still did not like these images as much as I liked them with White skin. I forced myself to move ahead with illustrations and had my illustrator to produce exactly what I was visualizing. My three mermaid sisters came to life at long last on the pages of my book. They are beautiful renditions of myself. I am pleasantly pleased that they are very much a part of the audience that I seek to reach and teach. I am still drawing and painting my mermaids--turning them from blank, penciled images on white sheets of paper to strong, dark, powerful princesses that protect the Kingdom of Merland. Please see Part Three for the conclusion of this story. Part Three: Diversity is Not Racism—The Difficult Road through Publication for Three Mermaid Sisters “Why didn’t you make the mermaids White?” he said. “You would sell more books if they were white.” These words still echo in my head. Support diversity in Children’s Literature. Please visit my website, www.readtoachieve2.com to purchase The Hunt for the Magic Pearl today.