Is a contribution - based contract for book publishing

[NextInLine]

Not really an AIBU but am I right in thinking it's not really worth it?
I have written a couple of children's books for my own kids based on tales I was told as a child. My kids love them so I thought I'd send it off to a publisher, not really expecting anything but then again you never know.
Anyway, today I have been sent a letter that they want to offer me a contribution based contract. Am I right in thinking this maybe a scam or just not worth it?

So essentially they want you to pay them to publish your books? Sounds like vanity publishing.
Do you have an agent?

Absolute scam.

Your book is a product; publishing isn't a service they are providing to you!

Pretty much, or at least partially finance it.
I don't have an agent. I'm not actually a write or anything, I just make up stories for the kids and decided to one day type it up and email it off. I only sent it to this one publisher and I had not heard anything back for a few weeks so I was surprised when this arrived in the post today.
I'm getting the impression it will cost me more than I am likely to get back though.

Who have you sent them to? That's definitely vanity publishing. A publisher that sees a market for them would offer an advance plus royalties in exchange for a licence to publish (not an assignment of copyright). You might want to try literary agents rather than publishers as most don't look at unsolicited submissions. There are a number of agents that specialise in children's authors. The writers and artists yearbook is a good place to look and should be in your local library.

Look at it this way, if it wasn't going to cost you more than it would make in profit, why would they not pay for it themselves?

Google the name of the company, I expect you'll find lots of reviews from people who have paid a lot of money and hardly sold any books.

There are ways to self publish that don't cost you money upfront - print on demand, or Amazon's Kindle publishing, for example - but you need to do a huge amount of research to find out which are the reputable companies, and then you'll have to do a lot more work in preparing the ms for publication, and then more work in publicising your book if you want to sell any.

Just Google them - you'll find out all about them through the many disappointed people out there who fall for the letters saying they were impressed, they take on very few, it's still a huge commitment on their part etc etc. No genuine publisher asks for cash. If you have the money to do it, just go for straightforward self-publishing where you're in control.

Oh that's a spooky cross post MissLingoss!