Oh they are. Once you were published with them they constantly would try to upsell you with their "marketing packages" and other services. My plan is to just get whatever back royalties they say I'm owed then cancel the book with them. I have the right to republish after that. I'm so glad we have other choices and am waiting for a truly decentralized publishing option. Amazon is 2/3rds of the way there but still take a large chunk of royalties. Thank you! We had so much fun producing that book. The artist worked so hard on it!
I get people asking me that all the time too! I usually keep 4-5 copies of each of my titles around for face-to-face sales but will only send books directly to people occasionally. I usually tell them they can order from Amazon. I'm doing a new thing that I'll be writing about in a week or so. I have nice cedar cigar boxes with my Venmo QR code on them and will be placing my books titles in them in a few different local businesses. I'm going to try the "pay as you wish" pricing with these to see how it goes. I love to experiment like this.
I think we're living in such a time of transition but don't think we'll be able to see the big picture of it all until we're through it. I see, everywhere around the world, there's a major disconnect between the leadership decisions and the will of the average person. When there's this major of a disconnect between the two substantive societal change is never far behind. I still have hope!