PUBSLUSH Press

[Torgo]

Originally Posted by Gillhoughly

An established trade size publisher is a known quantity, having a professional editorial staff, proper vetting of books and in-place promotion and marketing. If St. Martin's Press decided to do something like this it might be worth looking into.

But this looks like a couple of amateurs with no publishing experience hoping to score cash with a weird twist on the old pyramid scheme. What keeps them legal is not charging cash for up front support of a project.

It is ridiculous to expect 2000 people to appear out of the blue to support any single title, so I'm inclined to think they're well-meaning morons who are going to lose money themselves, or at best, make just enough to get by.

If they really wanted to make money then they could go into publishing ebooks like Coker did with Smashwords and promote through the social media, not create this complicated "support" scheme that makes Amway look simple.

They're not answering relevant questions, just continuing with the sales pitch. If this was in a store pitching a mystery product that I only need to pay for once it reaches a quota of votes, I'd be heading for the exit.

Ten pages? They might be an amazing ten pages of prose--but what about the rest of the book? At least with a regular publisher you know it was read by several editors and has a decent chance of being a satisfying read.

But ten pages???? Apparently the author can submit an incomplete book and hope for the best.

I wouldn't go near this place. It's insane.

I agree with all this.

[calieber]

Victoria is asking important questions that I'd like to see answers to. Everyone else seems to be assuming it's bad because ... it's new? Subsidy/vanity publishing is a scam? It operates differently from an agency or publishing house? I can at least understand the RIAA's protective attitude towards pitted plastic and vinyl discs and magnetic tape, misguided though it was. I'm not sure why authors are determined to show that PUBSLUSH is a scam on the basis of knowing it exists. That's as silly as publishing a book on the basis of ten pages and a synopsis.*

Seriously, as far as I can tell from this thread Gillhoughly's entire basis for determinig that there's chicanery afoot is "well, vanity publishing is a scam." In fact, he thinks it's more dishonest than a vanity publisher, since as far as I know every empirical, objective claim made by most vanity publishers is true; they only lie by omission. Gillhoughly is saying "PUBSLUSH says they'll publish any book that garners 2500 supporters, but they won't; they'll say the flow of money will be towards the author, but it won't; they say submitting a book is free, but it isn't."

I'm at least willing to wait until money changes hands, and nothing is published, the author isn't compensated, and/or the people who paid money don't get what they were promised in return before condemning them. I'll wait until someone is scammed before saying it's a scam.

*I think the lower requirements are intended as a feature rather than a bug. I think the typical requirements are what they are for a reason; I don't think there's a basis for concluding the people who run PUBSLUSH are ignorant of what the typical requirements are.

[Momento Mori]

calieber:
Everyone else seems to be assuming it's bad because ... it's new?

I don't see where you're getting the idea that because it's new it's automatically bad. As Victoria said (and as is explained in her blog post on Writer Beware) there are serious concerns with the contracts for what is being proposed, which need to be cleared up and it seems to me that there is contradictory information on the website, which needs to be clarified.

Being new doesn't automatically mean that something is bad, but if something is new then surely it is a good thing to question it and highlight where there are or may be problems?

calieber:
Subsidy/vanity publishing is a scam?

Subsidy/vanity publishing that doesn't hide what it is and where the author goes into it knowing that sales will probably be low and has expectations adjusted accordingly is perfectly fine. Subsidy/vanity publishing that models itself as being an alternative publishing structure that is actually good for authors provided they do all of the work that a publisher normally does, can in certain circumstances be a scam.

calieber:
I'm not sure why authors are determined to show that PUBSLUSH is a scam on the basis of knowing it exists.

I think it's more a case of authors being determined to show where potential pitfalls are so that people submitting to PUBSLUSH are doing so on the basis of an informed decision.

calieber:
I'm at least willing to wait until money changes hands, and nothing is published, the author isn't compensated, and/or the people who paid money don't get what they were promised in return before condemning them.

That's your choice. Personally, I believe in doing some research and asking questions before I pour my money down the drain. The beauty of being on AW is that you can get a variety of informed opinions and get a sounding board for new ventures such as this.

DWIW, while I am familiar with crowdsourcing as a mechanism for raising funds in the low budget film industry, if you're not careful it can be used by unscrupulous people for unscrupulous ends and just because a site tells you that money will be refunded, doesn't mean that it automatically will be.

MM

[calieber]

I'm willing to assume they're incompetent until proven otherwise; I'm willing to assume it won't work until some success has been demonstrated. I'm certainly willing to wait until it's out of beta before seriously attempting to evaluate it or declaring it a grand new paradigm. But I'm not going to assume they're lying without someone coming forward and saying "they lied to me, and here's my story."

Just as I'm not going to say it works without someone coming forward and saying "it worked for me, and here's my story."

("Here's my story" because "I paid them $400 for 'proccessing' half an hour ago and now they say they've never heard of me" isn't the same as "they said it went to press this morning and I'm not doing cocaine with supermodels yet")

"They have no track record" is a valid criticism, but all it means is no track record. It's the difference between saying "that restaurant is new and the chef is fresh out of culinary school, I don't know what the food is like" and saying "that restaurant is new and the chef is fresh out of culinary school, I'll bet everything is terrible and gives you botulism, and all the drinks are watered down."

I'm not saying PUBSLUSH wouldn't have published Atlanta Nights. I'm saying that if PUBSLUSH isn't lying on their site, they would have published Atlanta Nights on the basis of presales rather than publishing it on the basis of passing a supposedly rigorous screening process that in reality consists only of ensuring that the check clears.

There are several posts on this thread that take for granted that if I were to submit to PUBSLUSH, I am going to end up out a substantial amount of money -- actual money, not money I might have gotten but didn't -- and have nothing to show for it. And I don't see that happening unless they're either fundamentally dishonest or spectacularly ill-run. At worst I think I'd have wasted four months or gotten a worse deal than I otherwise might have.

[priceless1]

Originally Posted by calieber

"They have no track record" is a valid criticism, but all it means is no track record.

Well, it means more than that. There are many people here who are entrenched in the publishing industry and are in a good position to analyze a business plan and draw some probable conclusions. Whether you decide to consider those opinions is up to you.

[victoriastrauss]

PUBSLUSH has made some good changes, but important concerns remain. Update here.

- Victoria

[Momento Mori]

calieber:
I'm willing to assume they're incompetent until proven otherwise; I'm willing to assume it won't work until some success has been demonstrated. I'm certainly willing to wait until it's out of beta before seriously attempting to evaluate it or declaring it a grand new paradigm. But I'm not going to assume they're lying without someone coming forward and saying "they lied to me, and here's my story."

Again, that's up to you.

Personally, if I see a new publishing venture pop up I want to see evidence that suggests that they can deliver on what they're doing. If they don't provide evidence (and saying you have industry experience without stating what that experience is), or you delete comments on your corporate pages (their FB page is working as corporate promotion), then I'm going to assume that you have something to hide until you give me something that supports what you're talking about.

calieber:
"They have no track record" is a valid criticism, but all it means is no track record.

Yes, and no track record means that there is nothing to verify whether they can do what they're talking about doing. Whether you're willing to give them a chance on your book or not, you are taking a bigger risk on them than they are with you.

calieber:
It's the difference between saying "that restaurant is new and the chef is fresh out of culinary school, I don't know what the food is like" and saying "that restaurant is new and the chef is fresh out of culinary school, I'll bet everything is terrible and gives you botulism, and all the drinks are watered down."

Actually, in the case of PUBSLUSH I think it's more a case of "the restaurant is new, it wants you to pay before they'll bring you a meal, I have to bring 2000 friends before we place an order and we don't know who the chef is or whether the chef can even boil an egg".

calieber:
There are several posts on this thread that take for granted that if I were to submit to PUBSLUSH, I am going to end up out a substantial amount of money -- actual money, not money I might have gotten but didn't -- and have nothing to show for it. And I don't see that happening unless they're either fundamentally dishonest or spectacularly ill-run.

Personally, I'm less worried about the loss of money than in the potential loss of a manuscript. Some of the publication agreement terms are, in my opinion, not to an author's advantage and according to the terms of the site you are agreeing to them just by submitting.

In my experience on these boards, there aren't many start-ups out there that begin with dishonest intentions but there are an awful lot that go belly up and take your manuscript with it because they're clueless people who can't deliver on their promises.

MM

[Gravity]

I simply can't get past the name of the thing.

[Gillhoughly]

Gillhoughly is saying "PUBSLUSH says they'll publish any book that garners 2500 supporters, but they won't; they'll say the flow of money will be towards the author, but it won't; they say submitting a book is free, but it isn't."

Bolding mine. There's a difference between won't, isn't and unlikely.

Read my posts again. I'm careful about what I write on the Net, knowing it'll be up there forever.

I wrote that it is not likely that 2500 (or 2000, whatever it is today) supporters will underwrite expenses for a book.

I'm not saying it won't be published by a commercial house, but that it is unlikely to happen.

It is unlikely a commercial publisher will accept such a book. They're busy dealing with regular submissions coming through regular channels and agents. Danged few books posted on display sites--and that IS what PubSlush is in essence, a display site--ever get published.

Maybe a couple titles get spotted and picked up: a couple out of 100s of books displayed over the years on other sites. The writer would have the same opportunity by subbing her book directly to a publisher than wasting four months hoping for support.

I know I've said the flow of money should be TOWARD the author, quoting Uncle Jim, but I don't see it happening at all here. Sure, a 5000.00 "bonus" is wonderful--but will the book ever make its quota? Not likely giving the current circumstances.

Submitting a book to PubSlush is free, no argument--but it ties the book up in limbo for 4 months. I see no benefit to the author in that.

Where are those 2000 (or 2500) magical supporters coming from? Facebook? How much traffic comes to the PubSlush site each day? I'm not talking Google hits, but people actually clicking and looking at the first page for 30 seconds.

There's 800+ "Likes" on the PubSlush FB page today, but those numbers have been artificially inflated by the "Win a Kindle" contest. If I wanted to swell the number of "Likes" on my own page I could do the same thing, but I would not expect those people to ever return.

Does PubSlush think those 800+ "Likers" will register with them and think it's a awesome thing to read 10 pages of a book and promise to pledge 5.00 (or 25.00 and up) on an unknown quantity? That's unlikely, too. And if I've not said it's insane before, I'll say so now. That's insane.

If a book does get 800 pledges, might a desperate author find a way of making up the shortfall? At 5.00 a pop that's 6,000.00. She'd only get back 5K of that with the promised "bonus." There's no guarantee commercial publication will follow. PubSlush is not addressing that issue of an eager author pledging her own cash. Are there checks in place to prevent an author from playing financial sockpuppet?

If a book does get its quota and is submitted and rejected, then what? Will PubSlush step in and publish the book? People have been asking and not getting an answer.

If a book makes its quota and by some miracle is accepted by a commercial publisher, then what? Who gets the advance? Who gets the cash left over after the author's 5,000.00 "bonus"? What do the "supporters" get for their support?

Will a commercial publisher tolerate PubSlush sending their own copies to those 2000 (or 2500) supporters. Um, no. I can say with confidence that a commercial publisher would reject that idea outright.

Would the commercial publisher then please send those 2000 (or 2500) supporters a free copy? No. Why should they? That's PubSlush's deal with supporters, not the publisher's. PubSlush has the pledge money for those books. Will they turn it over to the commercial publisher to pay for 2000 copies? (Or 2500.)

Who owns the copyright? A commercial publisher prefers an unentangled copyright. There's a built-in rejection for a book with a confusion over who owns it. PubSlush may have a good title to sell, but there's plenty of other titles available that don't come with attached complications.

On the Writer Beware Blog this troubling issue was raised:

"It's a life-of-copyright agreement with a completely inadequate reversion clause ("out of print" isn't even rudimentarily defined; moreover, authors can't demand reversion until the book has been out of print for at least two years); there are sweeping claims on a wide range of subrights despite the lack of any evidence that PUBSLUSH is capable of exploiting them; there's an onerous competitive works clause; and there's an option clause that amounts to a perpetual option on sequels and related works. Moreover, because submitting to PS constitutes full agreement to all these terms, the author forfeits any possibility of negotiation."

Life of the copyright??? THAT is insane, too. No agent or commercial publisher would go near such a deal and certainly it's a bad one for the author.

I'm at least willing to wait until money changes hands, and nothing is published, the author isn't compensated, and/or the people who paid money don't get what they were promised in return before condemning them. I'll wait until someone is scammed before saying it's a scam.

But the writers and editors here on AW are not willing to wait. The purpose of this forum is to point out problems and keep writers from making mistakes.

PubSlush--while it may be entirely well-meaning and honest--has serious problems. New doesn't mean bad, but in this case I think "new" means inexperienced, well-meaning but not thought through, and open to abuse.

*I think the lower requirements are intended as a feature rather than a bug. I think the typical requirements are what they are for a reason; I don't think there's a basis for concluding the people who run PUBSLUSH are ignorant of what the typical requirements are.

"Lower requirements" -- Speaking as a reader, I find this to be idiotic. When I buy a book I expect it to be well-written, properly edited, and provide me with a few hours of satisfying entertainment. I do not lower my requirements, so why should the publisher?

For a publisher to lower its requirements is a cheat to the reader as well as the writer.

It's one thing to nurture a new writer along. An experienced editor can point out ways for a writer to make her book into a gem. It is quite another to try selling a "lower requirement" product just because the author got lots of support and her mother really likes that book.

I don't see the names of any experienced editors on the PubSlush site. Apparently all one needs are 2000 (or 2500) supporters putting up cash when a quota is reached. We're here to point out the flaws in that idea.

And I don't see that happening unless they're either fundamentally dishonest or spectacularly ill-run. At worst I think I'd have wasted four months or gotten a worse deal than I otherwise might have.

Bingo! My points exactly. They're a waste of a writer's time and possibly a bad deal.

If someone wants to step in the water and see if it's a good place to swim or find out that Bruce the shark is looking for a snack--despite all the warning signs on the beach--then that's their business. I'll keep tacking up the signs. Maybe those fins belong to friendly dolphins. I'm just saying why take chances?

I can see from the Writer Beware blog that PubSlush is polite as all get-out, BUT the people running it are not answering obvious questions, apparently lack actual experience in the publishing industry, don't seem to have experienced editors on board, and are happy to promote and take pledges for slush, thus making it entirely logical for me to conclude that if not dishonest and ill-run, then certainly they are ignorant.

Selling Amway is starting to look a LOT more simple.

[victoriastrauss]

Gill, if the book gets its quota, PUBSLUSH publishes it. We may question PUBSLUSH's experience, but there's no uncertainty about this arrangement--the website FAQ and the Publication Agreement make this clear. In that context, a life-of-copyright grant is not "insane," it's pretty standard. With a small publisher a limited term is preferable, true--but the problem with PUBSLUSH's life-of-copyright grant isn't the grant, but the horrible reversion clause.

If you read the FAQ and the contract, it's clear that the book is made available to publishing house editors while it's on display. (My impression is that PUBSLUSH will not be "submitting" anything, but will be trying to draw editors to the site to look at its offerings--let's leave aside for the moment whether that's a pipe dream or not). If the book gets an offer from a publisher, PUBSLUSH morphs into the author's agent to broker a contract (a bad idea, but leave that aside for the moment too), in which case the whole issue of supporters (who, remember, have not actually paid anything) becomes moot. If there's no offer and the book makes its supporter quota, PUBSLUSH publishes. If the 120 days passes and the book doesn't get an offer or make its quota, it goes off the site.

There are plenty of issues with PUBSLUSH, but I don't see that there's any real confusion about the basic process.

"Lower requirements" -- Speaking as a reader, I find this to be idiotic. When I buy a book I expect it to be well-written, properly edited, and provide me with a few hours of satisfying entertainment. I do not lower my requirements, so why should the publisher?

I think this is kind of missing the point. PUBSLUSH is a crowdfunding experiment. Like other crowdfunding ventures, it subscribes to the theory that there is wisdom in crowds, and that using that wisdom to pinpoint viable projects is an acceptable alternative to the traditional gatekeeping system. One may dispute this theory--I personally think "the wisdom of crowds" is an oxymoron--but the theory itself is what it is, and doesn't involve a deliberate "lowering" of standards but rather a different idea of what standards should be.

PUBSLUSH still presents plenty of concerns for authors, but I do think that some of the discussion is going pretty far off track at the moment.

- Victoria

[Gillhoughly]

I stand corrected on various issues!

You've got the patience to go through the fine print, but my alarms went off on the 2000 supporters stuff and that it's a Yet Another Display Site with a twist.

As a writer I consider those to be a waste of time. As an editor, I simply avoid them. If a writer is serious about getting professionally published she can send her work to me through the regular channels and not futz around for four months hoping that I might drop by for a look. Maybe other editors have the time, but I do not.

I'm off on several points, won't be the first time I grabbed the bit and ran, but there's more wrong with PubSlush than is right; I'm never going to be able to recommend this site to a new writer.

I am REALLY glad Writer Beware took a close and considered look at the details. I'm like a Jackson Pollack, flinging paint every which way, but WB is more careful of the fine stuff, like Jan Vermeer. And for that I am most thankful!

Appropriate to the theme, Vermeer's "Woman Holding a Balance."

[Miss Plum]

Let me just say this: 2000 "likes" for a book to go? That seems like an awful lot.

[brianm]

Originally Posted by Gillhoughly

Lovely picture of you, dear. When are you due?

~brianm~

[Momento Mori]

Huffington Post (here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/1..._n_997068.html) published an article Pubslush and another display site/slush pile project called Inkubate (for which a thread exists here: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/...d.php?t=215944), to which Pubslush gave a response.

The comments do answer a couple of questions I had about how this is intended to work - specifically, it seems that you need to have 2000 people supporting your work before anything kicks off (which seems to me to be insane).

Erin Eber on Huffington Post:
While we are honored by the comparison­, Kickstarte­r is primarily a crowd funding platform. PUBSLUSH on the other hand is a publisher and non profit that uses crowd funding as the first step in the publicatio­n process to source new writing talent. Also, in regards to the comparison to self publishing­, PUBSLUSH is actually a full service publisher, and really the opposite of self publishing­: we never ask the author to pay any money, ever. Self publishing implies that an author can publish a book themself. With PUBSLUSH, our model requires 2,000 unique supporters­, other than the author, to publish a book. In this way, we use crowd sourcing to gauge a market, and to benefit the author by establishi­ng an audience before the book is even published. This also allows quality content to emerge organicall­y, which is one of the major issues of self publishing­. When a book is published through PUBSLUSH, it is sold in printed and digital form. We believe printed books and a presence in bookstores are still an important part of an author’s success

However, Erin's comments also left me confused on a couple of issues. For example, above she talks about Pubslush being a non-profit organisation but in another comment, she says that they have a business model and the fact that authors get higher royalties suggests to me that Pubslush is keeping a percentage of the sales. Perhaps this is to cover the cost of the advance and their other costs, but I'd be interested in knowing what that percentage is because I'm not sure that I've seen the royalty rates they're proposing to pay to authors:

Erin Eber on Huffington Post:
In addition, since there are no agents on PUBSLUSH, an author keeps all of their royalties, which are also higher than in legacy publishing

(Incidentally, whoever wrote the article for Huffington Post doesn't seem to be that familiar with the publishing industry, e.g. they refer to Pubslush paying $5000 royalties up front, when the correct terminology is an advance).

MM

[shaldna]

There are a lot of issues here that would concern me.

And to be honest, I just don't see how a book is going to get 2000 donations as these sort of display sites are notoriously difficult - it reminds me a lot of the great idea that became the popularity contest and ultimate circus that was Authonomy.

In principle I actually quite like the idea. But I see too many areas where this could fall flat and a lot of people could be disapointed.

[James D. Macdonald]

"Not familiar with the publishing industry" pretty much sums up both PubSlush and Inkubate.

[veinglory]

Kickstarter, on the other hands, is pretty cool. I have contributed to a project over there.

[CaoPaux]

Updating link: http://www.pubslush.com/