Shadowfire Press

Hope things work out with that, Michael re: payal.

I had an erotica short story at smashwords and allromance and at the moment it's allowed, but may get culled sometime, as it was a dub-con story about a pleasure slave. It's a case of wait and see.

Take care,
Annette

Eriador117 said:

Hope things work out with that, Michael re: payal.

I had an erotica short story at smashwords and allromance and at the moment it's allowed, but may get culled sometime, as it was a dub-con story about a pleasure slave. It's a case of wait and see.

Take care,
Annette

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All the best of luck to you, Annette. The tidal wave is still sweeping things out to sea, but hopefully someone will step into the mess and offer a reasonable service publishers and distributors can use for payment processing.

micahel_b, does Shadowfire take short story and novella submissions from authors you aren't previously published with? I know you all are currently not taking any submissions, but I was just curious. I know some places don't take them from writers they aren't published with.

Silver-Midnight said:

micahel_b, does Shadowfire take short story and novella submissions from authors you aren't previously published with? I know you all are currently not taking any submissions, but I was just curious. I know some places don't take them from writers they aren't published with.

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Bottom word count for authors not yet published with us is 5000 words.

Do you sell on Amazon now?

michael_b said:

Bottom word count for authors not yet published with us is 5000 words.

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Thanks.

This may sound like a silly question, but do you all sell a lot of interracial books?

Silver-Midnight said:

Thanks.

This may sound like a silly question, but do you all sell a lot of interracial books?

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We've only ever had a couple of interracial books. I can clearly state our readership prefers paranormals over pure contemporaries which have never sold well with us.

brainstorm77 said:

Do you sell on Amazon now?

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No and at this time we have no plans to sell on their site. I'm hearing far too many reports from other publishers of sales numbers that don't match payouts, returns on ebooks up to 30 days after purchase and books authors/publishers have worked hard to create being given away for free.

michael_b said:

Just letting everyone know we are currently closed to submissions due entirely to the current kerfluffle with Paypal. While they haven't flagged our account, it's probably only a matter of time.

We'll reopen to submissions when we can find another payment processing service that doesn't lump us in with porn sites.

If you are unfamiliar with the tidal wave running through the erotic romance/erotica publishers and distributors take a trip here for some good blog commentary by another publisher/author.

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Good luck with your search. Unfortunately WePay is just as bad, if not worse, for speech limitations. Google Checkout maybe?

horrorshowjack said:

Good luck with your search. Unfortunately WePay is just as bad, if not worse, for speech limitations. Google Checkout maybe?

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Google Check out is also a wash. The credit card companies are apparently behind the sudden censorship. But hey, they're willing to do our processing for a $5000 up front fee and 14-24% of each transaction.

For those who read the terms of service, limits on some or all erotic material are obviously included in all major online transaction services. This is evidenced by the arbitrary and sporadic banning of users, especially those creating homosexual content, going back to at least 2007.

michael_b said:

No and at this time we have no plans to sell on their site. I'm hearing far too many reports from other publishers of sales numbers that don't match payouts, returns on ebooks up to 30 days after purchase and books authors/publishers have worked hard to create being given away for free.

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Michael, have you considered contacting Constellation for e-book distribution? One of the terms of their agreement with Amazon is that they accept no returns. But yeah, they bag 51% as well. I will say that our e-book sales have drastically risen since signing with them as part of our distribution package with Consortium. It was that or hire someone to run the e-books mess ourselves, and I'd rather swallow a rusty razor blade than do that.

I think Teddypig mentioned an alternative payment method on his site recently... CCbills or something like that?

veinglory said:

For those who read the terms of service, limits on some or all erotic material are obviously included in all major online transaction services. This is evidenced by the arbitrary and sporadic banning of users, especially those creating homosexual content, going back to at least 2007.

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Square one, for use with mobile devices, has taken this even further to include 'occult material' so they're also restricting religious materials if you happen to be pagan.

priceless1 said:

Michael, have you considered contacting Constellation for e-book distribution?

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Thanks for the info but they're not something I'd find useful. They are primarily geared to print publishers who don't know how, or don't want to handle creating, ebooks themselves. They also use DRM which I am totally against.

Sheryl Nantus said:

I think Teddypig mentioned an alternative payment method on his site recently... CCbills or something like that?

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I'll pass their information on to my web development team. CCBills' payment modules need to be compatible with our site software.

Did notice they have some rather steep fees for accepting Visa--it's Visa imposing these fees--so I'm not sure if this is a viable option or not.

I noticed now that Excessica (erotic publisher) is using Zen Cart instead of paypal, but I don't know what their terms regarding erotic content is.

Link:
http://www.zen-cart.com/

Take care,
Annette

Eriador117 said:

I noticed now that Excessica (erotic publisher) is using Zen Cart instead of paypal, but I don't know what their terms regarding erotic content is.

Link:
http://www.zen-cart.com/

Take care,
Annette

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Zen Cart provides shopping software only, they do not actually process payments. We have Zen cart and their Paypal module. The other available modules they offer for other processors charge large monthly fees, which is why we didn't use them in the first place.

Not out of business, just on hiatus since the shopping cart we had suffered a total meltdown when our hosting service upgraded their servers. I need to recode a new cart from scratch and that's not easy for me since I'm not a professional programmer.

Our books are still available through All Romance eBooks.

Since Em Veinglory brought this up on the EREC, authors were released when their contracts expired. Gwen's were all at the end of their term with two exceptions. Since her other books were all out of contract I didn't see any point in retaining the other pair of titles as they were both sequels. Shadowfire Press is still in existence, but at the moment I'm working a full-time job to help support my mother and know that means I don't have the time to devote to the press--which is the major reason the cart isn't done.

I chose to take this route, releasing authors who were all out of time on their contracts when I did so, rather than leaving them in limbo as so many presses have done. When SFP reopens it will be as a venue for myself and my writing partner, Auburnimp with opportunities for other authors by invitation only.

Thanks for the update, Michael.

Filigree said:

Thanks for the update, Michael.

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You're welcome!

Happy Holidays everyone!