I say scam as these publishers, and I use that word lightly, show where their heart is by the amount of effort they are willing to put into the project. How is it doing you any favors to have someone tell you that your work is not worth putting money into?
So they do not put a ton of money, as it is a test market thing, an mud sling and so the cover suffers, the editing if there even is any and the conversion. I know of one such publisher on Facebook and they do not even pay their authors as it is about a year old and so far no one is wise to the scam. They put out a few titles a week with the worst covers on the market not to mention most are stolen artwork from movies or video games. This bomb is ticking and when it goes off the mess will hurt the indie market in a huge way as yet again one more mark is set against anyone outside of the Big 6.
What should you do?
First, look at the publisher... do they put out good work or is it a hack job? Do they help market and is there a submission process or do they just take on anyone who will pay? Even if the publisher will do it for free that is the worst kind... run my friends RUN!
There are a ton of small presses like StoneHouse that try to do a New York job and will take on the authors it believes in... look for one like that and if all you want is to go E, well, do it yourself so when these scam publishers go under you will not be among the dead.
