Tate Publishing

IceCreamEmpress said:

Aren't you jealous now, san_remo_ave? Look at you, being published by Harlequin, which has no staff at all!

Oh, whoops, I meant "upstream of 300 employees in Canada alone."

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*hangs head in shame*

I know. It's awful to have only imaginary editors and line editors and art department personnel....

San_Remo, bet you get imaginary royalty checks as well. Sad, sis. Just sad.

And to think! You could have paid four thousand dollars! Bet you wish you'd gone with Tate now!

I note that by differentiating between advances and pay-to-publish, "Dr" Tate admits that the latter are not a worthwhile investment even for his company.

Does he actually say that to prospective clients? "Dear author, this work isn't good enough to merit payment, but if you throw money at me, I'll print it anyway and maybe you can shill it enough to get your money back. No promises, though."

We have one of the best and most talented staff in the industry

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But he doesn't mention what they are Best and Talented at and what industry does he refer? Maybe I'm nit-picking but wouldn't you just say straight out that you have professional Editors etc..?

Shrouded said:

But he doesn't mention what they are Best and Talented at and what industry does he refer? Maybe I'm nit-picking but wouldn't you just say straight out that you have professional Editors etc..?

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The sentence could be read to mean that they have ONE "best and most talented" individual on the staff. That might be the custodian, or perhaps the designer of marketing solicitations (directed toward authors).

--Ken

Tate Publishing Free(?) Contract

I am so glad I stumbled across AbsoluteWrite while I was gathering information about Tate Publishing on I-net. The site is terrific! What a mine of information, friendly support & advice!
Anyway, I receieved a contract from Tate's Aquisition Editor. The contract claims to be absolutely free, at no cost to me. Recently, I self-published a 32-page e-book on Kindle. It is a children's mystery "Stories By Doofus" with cats and a dog being superb pet detectives. A funny book with a lot of action and all this good stuff. So now Tate Publishing is offering me a FREE Contract. Supposedly, since I am a published author, all they want is to publish my book on paper, pay for everything including distribution, marketing, etc.I know it is too good to be true. "Beware of Greeks..." and so on. Has anybody had such expereince with this company? Thank you for any help!

BlueRussian said:

I am so glad I stumbled across AbsoluteWrite while I was gathering information about Tate Publishing on I-net. The site is terrific! What a mine of information, friendly support & advice!
Anyway, I receieved a contract from Tate's Aquisition Editor. The contract claims to be absolutely free, at no cost to me. Recently, I self-published a 32-page e-book on Kindle. It is a children's mystery "Stories By Doofus" with cats and a dog being superb pet detectives. A funny book with a lot of action and all this good stuff. So now Tate Publishing is offering me a FREE Contract. Supposedly, since I am a published author, all they want is to publish my book on paper, pay for everything including distribution, marketing, etc.I know it is too good to be true. "Beware of Greeks..." and so on. Has anybody had such expereince with this company? Thank you for any help!

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Short answer: run screaming in the other direction. They won't do anything more than you did for yourself by self-publishing, except that they'll own rights to your book.

Long answer: Looks like a mod has already merged your post in with the existing Tate thread. Definitely take a look at it before signing anything.

Also, take a look at the "How real publishing works" sticky thread at the top of this forum, which warns about operations like Tate.

Welcome to AW!

BlueRussian:
So now Tate Publishing is offering me a FREE Contract.

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I don't recall anyone coming to this Thread before to say that they were offered a contract that didn't require any payment from the author. Without seeing the terms of the contract it's difficult to give you any concrete advice one way or another.

However, speaking generally, the issues you need to be wary about/ask questions about are as follows:

- what distribution is there? Who does Tate have deals with to actually place books into stores? What sort of sales do they envisage your books making? What price will your book be sold at?

- What marketing and promotion will Tate actually do for the book? How many review copies will they send out (and do you have to pay for them)? Who do they send review copies to? What types of publication have reviewed other Tate books?

- What royalty rate are they offering you? How many copies do you think you'll have to sell to turn that into a meaningful sum?

Basically, what you need to decide is whether Tate is offering you anything more than you can do for yourself. Experiences reported on this thread differ - some people reported a lot of sales (although less than the 5,000 they needed to make to earn back their "investment") but some people didn't.

MM

Welcome!!

Glad you found your way here!

The first thing to set off any author's alarm bell is the fact that a publisher contacts you out of the blue based on a self-published story.

If you were promoting it anywhere, the vanity operations have search bots in place for key words like writer and writing and publishing and they check to see if you're an easy mark. My Facebook page even sports ads for known scam operations because of links I have in place. Grrr.

More often than not you'll wind up with a crap contract that requires you pay for *something* in the process of getting published for "free."

Tate's thing is calling it a "promotional" fee or something like that. It essentially means you send them 4,000.00 in easy payments and "Dr" Dick Tate goes shopping. They supposedly promote your book.

Don't hold your breath.

It sounds like you're doing just fine as a D-I-Y writer and more power to you!

Please hang out on AW, check all the may threads here and make lots of friends. No need to go it alone!

Thank you, everyone, who hurried with friendly replies and suggestions re: Tate Publishing free contract. I intend to take it to the lawyer so he could look through it and see if there is a catch or two. What puzzled me, though, that the lady from Tate was complimenting me on my book, the plot and the characters. However, she hasn't even read the whole story. It could be that at the end of the book one of my adorable characters might turn into a lunatic and mutilate another character with whom he hobnobbed in the first chapter. Then what? Would they still publish my book?

BlueRussian said:

Thank you, everyone, who hurried with friendly replies and suggestions re: Tate Publishing free contract. I intend to take it to the lawyer so he could look through it and see if there is a catch or two. What puzzled me, though, that the lady from Tate was complimenting me on my book, the plot and the characters. However, she hasn't even read the whole story. It could be that at the end of the book one of my adorable characters might turn into a lunatic and mutilate another character with whom he hobnobbed in the first chapter. Then what? Would they still publish my book?

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Unless the lawyer knows literary contracts they may not be as much help as you hope. Though they certainly may find any major issues. SFWA has a model contract on their site, that you can compare to.

As to a character turning into a monster, as long as it's believable within the plot, it isn't necessarily a problem.

Momento Mori said:

Basically, what you need to decide is whether Tate is offering you anything more than you can do for yourself.

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And whether or not they are offering you anything more than a commercial publisher could and would do for you if they picked up your self-published title for republication.

Because if you're interested in having your self-published title republished, you might want to see if there are commercial publishers who might be interested before going with Tate. (You'd probably need to have at least 2,000 sales before a commercial publisher might be interested, so don't know if that's applicable to your book.)

While an agent or editor saying, "I like this so far and want to read more," may be normal, offering to publish based only on reading a partial is not. That's not positive feedback, it's flattery.

Remember that your manuscript has value in and of itself. If a company offers to do something for "free," but wants the rights to print your manuscript, they are still taking something of value from you, even if it's not your cash.

BlueRussian said:

Tate Publishing free contract. I intend to take it to the lawyer so he could look through it and see if there is a catch or two.

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As stated, unless the lawyer is familiar with literary contracts, you're wasting your money on her services.

Most lawyers will only look at the royalty rate--which will probably be 8%. That's usually followed by a line that says the royalty increases to 10% after a certain number of books sell, and of course every new writer thinks their special book will easily sell at least 5,000 copies.

The catch? You won't sell that many books. You'll be lucky if you sell even 50 in the first year or two.

Like all the other deceptive, bottom-feeding vanities out there, Tate cannot get your book into stores.

Take that as a fact. They will set you up with a single signing, you may have to buy those books, and afterward you can whistle for their attention.

IT'S A BAD DEAL; WALK AWAY.

Seriously, the website leaves out the all important detail that they can't get books printed in the thousand and shipped to bookstores. They're after your cash, not selling your book.

You are far better off self-publishing than tying your book up with that bunch.

If you are remotely considering signing with them, do this simple test: go to a bookstore--not the website but a bookstore--and ask to see all their titles from Tate.

They won't be there.

Those blankety-blanks contacted you out of the blue hoping you'd be so flattered by their attention and so starved for "professional" validation that you'd sign right away without asking the very important question "Is this too good to be true?"

Clearly you wondered, or you'd not have come to AW and read the thread.

Real publishers don't do what they did. They're too busy looking at books that were submitted via the proper channels. They don't have time to troll for new titles.

What puzzled me, though, that the lady from Tate was complimenting me on my book, the plot and the characters. However, she hasn't even read the whole story. It could be that at the end of the book one of my adorable characters might turn into a lunatic and mutilate another character with whom he hobnobbed in the first chapter. Then what? Would they still publish my book?

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No publisher in their right mind accepts a book without reading the whole thing first!

Real publishers spend months deciding on a book--even the ones who pay only in royalty earnings take a lot of time before deciding. No book is "cost-free"; they have to invest thousands into a book to get it edited, the interior design set, cover art, etc. None of that is cheap and they're not going to risk that on a new writer unless they think you'll earn back the investment.

Unless you're selling 1000s of copies of your self-pub Kindle story, figure that the only ones interested in your work are pay to play leeches. (And if you're selling 1000's, then you sure as heck don't need them or perhaps even a true commercial publisher!)

Maybe you can provide an excuse that "perhaps she just read a bit of it and others on staff read the rest" -- don't fall for it. They pull the same snow job on every writer who sends them anything, publishable or not. Those glowing testimonials--you won't find a vanity site without them--are from the honeymooners. Check back in a year and see if they still have the same warm glow about their sales with Tate.

They praise your book--and it is so sweet to hear!!--but 10 minutes of cheerful validation can strip your bank account down the road. They have your book locked up, you get a miserable royalty compared to Kindle's rate, and you may be stuck with boxes of unsold books and in debt. That's usually what happens with vanity titles.

Your book may be awesome! If it is, then give it a chance to be seen by a real publisher that has books in the stores!

I think Tate's crew is flat out lying that they'll publish it for "free." It's likely they'll want you to buy a certain number of copies. Or they'll say they need you to ante up some "promotional money" and pull your weight.

You need to print this out and tape it over your desk "There ain't no such thing as a "free" lunch!"

You want to see their true colors? Send "Dr." Tate's cheerfully helpful minion this little note:I'd love to see their face when that pops onto their screen.

You'll get a really interesting response, trust me. I hope you'll post it here!

In the meantime please check their treatment of other writers who trusted them:

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/misc/tate_publishing.html

http://publisherstandardsboard.org/book-publisher-scams-and-warnings.html

http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_writers_life/2006/03/tit_for_tate.html

Just remember--if one publisher likes your work, so will another.

Good luck!

Unless you're selling 1000s of copies of your Kindle story, figure that the only ones interested in your work are pay to play leeches.

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Just to clarify, you mean that unless the OP is selling 1000's of copies, figure the only publishers who would contact her(?) out of the blue are pay-to-play.

Commercial publishers might certainly be interested if they took reprints and the OP submitted to them.

Gillhoughly said:

...No publisher in their right mind accepts a book without reading the whole thing first!...

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??????

Are you suggesting that no book is ever signed to a contract on the basis of a book proposal?

--Ken

IceCreamEmpress said:

. . .(You'd probably need to have at least 2,000 sales before a commercial publisher might be interested. . . .)

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I doubt that AW's own K. L. Brady sold that many before being signed to a two-book contract (the first being a revised republication of her first, self-published, novel), or that Stephanie Chandler's book on Internet marketing for authors sold anywhere near that many on Lulu before Quill Driver signed a contract for a new edition. The very-small-press (not self-published) edition of Kiyo Sato's memoir sold far fewer than 1,000 copies by the time that Soho Press signed a contract for a new edition. (Soho issued a hardback and then a trade paperback edition, under an unwisely revised title.)

The publisher needs to believe the book has suitable sales potential and that it fits into its catalog. My own observations (including the folks named above) suggest that there are no hard-and-fast rules about sales numbers of previous editions.

--Ken

ResearchGuy said:

??????

Are you suggesting that no book is ever signed to a contract on the basis of a book proposal?

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In this case, Ken, the book is clearly finished, and already for sale.

Otherwise, I agree. Publishers sign contracts based on proposals all the time.

In this case it's an existing book that's already been published. What publisher would offer a contract for a book already in circulation without having read the book? How do they know it's a good fit for their house? Considering that the book in question is a 32-page book for children, I find this particularly odd.

And as BlueRussian pointed out:

It could be that at the end of the book one of my adorable characters might turn into a lunatic and mutilate another character with whom he hobnobbed in the first chapter. Then what? Would they still publish my book?

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ResearchGuy said:

??????

Are you suggesting that no book is ever signed to a contract on the basis of a book proposal?

--Ken

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That's reserved for established writers who have a track record of sales or for non-fiction proposals presented by an expert on the topic--which had better be hot.

I've sold books based on a detailed synopsis and 60 pages of story, but then I'd sold 20+ books to other publishers and have an excellent agent. Despite that, it was a slow process, taking 6-8 months before getting any replies. Seven out of eight houses turned it down.

Debut fiction authors have to have a finished product to sell.

Which this writer did.

But in this case the "publisher" couldn't be bothered to finish 32 pages of a kids book, heaped on the praise, and was eager to present a contract--which we all know is not how things work in the industry.

Those clowns at Tate want writers to believe that THEIR book is so special and wonderful that the big break all writers long for has magically happened and fame and acclaim will float gently down upon them like heaven's own light, accompanied by cooing doves and the von Trapp Family Singers' rendition of Edelweiss.

Balls to that, "Doctor" Tate.

The acquisitions editor for a legit publishing house will read the whole story, kick it upstairs, then THAT editor reads it, if she thinks it has potential, she passes it to others, and at some point down the road the senior editor will argue its merits to some Suits at a weekly meeting--along with a few other books that might have potential to make the company money.

The Suits either like the idea or not. They might read the book or not. They have trust in the senior editor's judgment.

Whatever--the process takes weeks, often months, but everyone connected to the project will have read the book before they make an offer to the author.


Tate has one aim in making cold calls to unknown writers with no professional publishing credits and that is flattering writers into signing up, then finding ways of getting cash out of them afterward.

They must have taken a page from PublishAmerica's book, "How to Get Rich Scamming Neos to Publishing."

Gillhoughly said:

Those clowns at Tate want writers to believe that THEIR book is so special and wonderful that the big break all writers long for has magically happened and fame and acclaim will float gently down upon them like heaven's own light, accompanied by cooing doves and the von Trapp Family Singers' rendition of Edelweiss.

Balls to that, "Doctor" Tate.

The acquisitions editor for a legit publishing house will read the whole story, kick it upstairs, then THAT editor reads it, if she thinks it has potential, she passes it to others, and at some point down the road the senior editor will argue its merits to some Suits at a weekly meeting--along with a few other books that might have potential to make the company money.

The Suits either like the idea or not. They might read the book or not. They have trust in the senior editor's judgment.

Whatever--the process takes weeks, often months, but everyone connected to the project will have read the book before they make an offer to the author.

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This is why I love you. And why you owe me a keyboard after the "cooing doves" line.

ResearchGuy said:

The publisher needs to believe the book has suitable sales potential and that it fits into its catalog. My own observations (including the folks named above) suggest that there are no hard-and-fast rules about sales numbers of previous editions.

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This is all certainly true. However, given the specifics of the book as previously described, I think that sales would have to be in the 2,000 copy range before it was of interest to any commercial publisher (it's a 32-page humorous book for children, per the original poster).

The acquisitions editor for a legit publishing house will read the whole story, kick it upstairs, then THAT editor reads it, if she thinks it has potential, she passes it to others, and at some point down the road the senior editor will argue its merits to some Suits at a weekly meeting--along with a few other books that might have potential to make the company money.


Whatever--the process takes weeks, often months, but everyone connected to the project will have read the book before they make an offer to the author.

Bravo, Mr. Grumpy Writer from Absolute Rage!
O-o-ops! Absolute Sage! Sorry about that, but what these people from Tate are trying to do enrages me a lot. I realize what happened:a couple of years ago I did my homework and mailed the first chapter of my book plus synopsis to many-many-many publishers of children books. And Tate was probably one of them. (I guess, now they pulled out my file and are trying to "hook" me.) Well, since I finally self-published my book on Kindle one can see clearly that there were no offers from a legit publisher. It left me disillusioned but not to such extent that I stopped writing. How can anyone infected with a writer's bug stop writing? I have a rough draft of very cool detective story, I was also toying with an idea of writing a romantic mystery... Dum Spiro Spero and Scribere!

ResearchGuy said:

Are you suggesting that no book is ever signed to a contract on the basis of a book proposal?

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It's vanishingly rare for a first-time fiction writer to sell an unwritten work on proposal.

As to a character turning into a monster, as long as it's believable within the plot, it isn't necessarily a problem
We-ell, in my book for 7-8 year old kids this is not the case. Besides, I personally think that with Tate's doctrine based on Christian principles and brotherly love Tate will play safe staying away from plots that deal with human scum including murder, violence, mutilation, rape - you name it. Unless there will be a very happy ending, and all bad guys will repent, become missionaires and all this good stuff.