I'm of two minds about paying prices for services like this. One side is that if someone wants to pay to have things done for them, fine. It's their money. But I think they need to educate themselves and then decide what they want to do, and how much they want to spend. And they need to be realistic about how it actually goes when selling books. For the majority of authors, they'll sell few to no copies, never be successful, never recoup those costs.
On the other hand, I think it's still possible to write, produce and market books with close to zero costs, provided you have a computer, Word or something like it, and access to the Internet. I don't think most people can or should do it, but it's possible. Again, it comes down to knowledge and acceptance that you aren't likely to be that easy, quick success story you hear about.
The vast majority of people I see around the web that want to be writers have no clue. They don't know how to write, meaning how to tell stories. Sure, they can put together sentences, kind of get the story down, but they fill forums with basic questions, expecting to get the skills in a short reply. They've often spent years "world building", which to me means they daydream a lot. They typically have nothing beyond a story where they're basically the main character and there are vague ideas of plot.
Anyway, it's early, and I'm rambling. :P
