December, I was just moseying around your blog and found an interesting
post from June 2007: "Find the Right Publisher (Part One)." You compare two companies: Cleis, of stellar repute; and Publish America, who you refer to as "Champion Scammers."
Thank you!
Granted, they're both print publishers, but the similarities between the practices of PA and the hype and spin that's been most of what's been seen/heard of Ravenous Romance these past few months, whether directly or via their various representatives/cheerleaders, are eerie. Perhaps it's unfair to compare an already established company with one not yet out of the starting gate, but reading this was a bit too close for comfort and did not inspire confidence. Maybe things will become clearer, one way or another, post-launch.
Well...there's spin and there's spin. I would expect Ravenous, as a company that has not yet opened, to put some spin out there (although I think the "We're going to kick all y'all's butts" is a bit much: I find it distasteful). I would expect them to be eagerly seeking submissions. And I do think it's important to remember that their
official spokespeople, while leaving questions unanswered, haven't been as rude and cheerleader-y as their
unofficial ones--people their official spokespeople have asked us to disregard.
In other words, they can't control the behavior of their authors any more than any other publisher can--my behavior doesn't reflect on Juno or Del Rey or EC, either--but what they can control has at least been professional, even if it hasn't been as informative as some of us would have liked. (*This is notwithstanding a claim that was made on EREC that those of us asking questions were doing so because Ravenous had rejected us, which is ridiculous and is, at least in my case, a total and complete lie. The anonymous commenter claimed she'd been told this by editorial staff; I am trying to take that with a grain of salt, rather than believe their editorial staff is spreading such ridiculous falsehoods. But it does add another reason for me to be uncomfortable with them, even if I don't think they're out to scam people.)
If you read the rest of the series I go on to analyze the websites of epublishers and researching epublishers in some depth; there are some differences between the two (epublishers tend to be more eager for submissions, for example, and there's nothing scammy or wrong about that. Epublishers release a lot more books, on average, as well, so they need more submissions to find the good ones.)
The main point of the series, aside from helping people seek and find scam warning signs, is that submitting to start-up houses or houses without a lot of sales is a risk; that it's best to wait until you see the house succeeding, that it's best to wait until you can buy some of their books and see that they're edited to professional standard (and having read what at least one of their editors thinks is professional-quality work and "porn", I have serious doubts about this), that the website works, that the owners of the company aren't running around online calling people names and screeching about "unfairness", and that sales have reached a decent level, because readers tend to be house-loyal rather than author-loyal with ebooks; they don't pay attention to promo, but go with the house they're familiar or comfortable with. Which is exactly what my point has been about Ravenous all along.
In your sum up, out of context perhaps, three out of four things stand out:
We've learned that the website of a legitimate publisher is geared towards selling books to the public and not on getting more submissions;
[...]
We've learned that a legitimate publisher doesn't need to talk about how many authors it "has" or how many books it's published;
We've learned that a legitimate publisher focuses on the business of publishing, and not on discussing how "happy" everybody is.
Whether or not Ravenous Romance is a scam operation is not for me to say. However, your post gave much food for thought. Excellent reportage and recommended reading, in general.
I'm really, really glad the post gave you food for thought; that's exactly what I hoped the entire series would do when I wrote it, and I really appreciate you bringing it up here and again, thank you so much.
But I really don't think at all, from everything I've seen, that Ravenous is a scam (again, despite my discomfort with the conflict of interest). I haven't seen them putting out cheerleadery info about what a big happy family!! they are; their website at the moment is just a placeholder but it is clearly aimed at readers (at least it was last time I was there); and if there is a bit of hoo-rah going on about the number of submissions they've received or whatever it hasn't reached a level where it starts setting off warning bells for me; it's hype, and I think it's working against them, but again I don't think it means they're a scam.
That doesn't mean I think it's a good idea to submit to them; I never recommend people submit to startup publishers, especially startup epublishers run by people who, no matter what their experience in print erotica is, have little to no experience I'm aware of in the ebook market, which is very different from print. The expectations of readers are very different; the market is much more limited; it requires a very different approach. But in this case, my recommendation that writers wait and see how things go before they rush to submit isn't because I doubt the integrity of the owners or I suspect them of claiming their health issues kept them from sending out royalties or whatever. It's simply because in the ebook industry it takes time for a publisher to develop a following, and some of them never really do--I know a few houses that have been open several years now and still aren't managing per-title sales over double digits monthly.
To put it simply (sorry, I'm always long-winded in the mornings): I would not myself submit to Ravenous. I'm not crazy about their attitude; there are certain things done in their name, whether with approval or not, that I would not be comfortable/would not like associating myself with in any way. I don't like the agent involvement, and I think they have a very skewed idea of what the ebook market is and what is possible in that market. And more to the point, I don't submit to start-up epublishers. I just don't. This is my work and my career, and I don't like to take chances with it.
But my reasons for not submitting have nothing to do with thinking the owners or editors or anyone are planning to cheat authors, or thinking they don't know how to run a publishing house and will try to make royalty payments out of their personal Paypal accounts, or anything of that nature.
Does that help? Feel free to PM me as well, if you like, or email. My email is on my user profile on the blog as well as here.