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Safkhet Publishing

Katrina S. Forest

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Thanks for clarifying about what genres you take. I think that's an excellent first step.

Here's the problem from a writer's perspective: Anyone can set up shop on the Internet and say, "Hey, I'm a publisher!" That doesn't mean they know anything about publishing. It's not an entry-level position, but many people treat it like one. So how do we know who's worth sending our manuscripts to? We ask questions.

Take a look at the threads for some new agencies that are popping up. You'll notice many of the first posts will be something to the effect of, "Oh, yes, Mr. Known-Agent left Awesome Literary to form his own agency, now called Super-Awesome Literary." (Note that Mr. Known-Agent was Mr. Assistant Agent for a while before that. And before he was Mr. Assistant Agent, he was the Awesome Literary Intern. He's been building up to the creation of Super-Awesome Literary for years now.)

When we ask you to clarify your industry experience, the intent isn't to jump to conclusions about you or your background. It's to try and learn what makes your company any more likely to succeed than the dozens of other start-ups that sink within a year, taking authors' manuscripts with them.

Remember: we can't give away first rights more than once. If your company sinks, your authors have to shop whatever books they had with you as reprints or write a brand new book. And that's assuming their books aren't somehow tied up with the company when it goes down. Either way, just like that, years of work go down the drain.

Now you see why we're a little touchy when new publishers treat our hard work like something to practice on? No one expects you or your company to be perfect, but we do expect you to know what you're doing. When we submit, we are offering to share the profits of our hard work. If your company can't improve our product or market it any better than we could ourselves, then we might as well go solo.
 
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nkkingston

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I'm sorry if I came off as rude in my first post; looking back I was a bit brusque. My points, however, still stand.

The language on the site is clunky, over punctuated, and comes acress as ESL. It is not promising for a publisher selling English language books to an English language audience.


For example:

If you are an author, you will most likely be looking for this. Otherwise known as mainstream publishing, Safkhet will pay all costs, the author does not have to contribute.


These are not nice sentences to read.


The covers are amateurish. Sorry, but they are. It's not the use of drawn images, it's the layouts, font choices, backgrounds, the way the logo jumps around from cover to cover... It's obvious you're not trained in graphic design. A lot of the covers have the series title larger than the book title, which is just confusing, and why are some author names vertical?


If a company doesn't invest in good covers, why should I, as a customer, assume they've invested in good books, or good editing?


We currently distribute our ebooks only for Kindle - due to the restrictions of the Kindle Select program, although we are considering if it is enough of an added payoff to exclude the ePub market.


As an author, I can do that myself and get a bigger share of the royalties for it. I expect a publisher to get my books into places that I can't, etailers like All Romance eBooks or bookshops like Waterstones.


(and if my friend, who's with a publisher that does little to no promotion for her, has managed to not only organise signings in Waterstones shops but also get her books into stores where she hasn't had an event, I find myself skeptical of your claim that small publishers like yourself can't)


Have you considered promoting your music-themed cookbooks in local music shops? Non-fiction like cookbooks can be found in a much broader variety of venues than fiction. I work in a museum and we've got tons in our shop. Also, supermarkets! Places that sell food sell cookbooks.


I expect my authors to know their genre - inside and out. Otherwise, I cannot get them to effectively help me sell the book. They need to know what books compete with them, what the latest trends are in their genre, how to write well in their genre, and how to present their manuscript. I also expect my authors to be able to creatively come up with new ideas on how to get people interested in their work, and to work hand-in-hand with me and my team to accomplish this.


The publisher markets. The author promotes. ARCs, distribution, trade reviews, catalogues, trade fairs, networking, retail outlets authors can't get into alone... That's your job. That's what gets people interested in the books.


Twitter, facebook, blogging, websites, blogtours, interviews, giveaways... They're nice, but they don't work on their own (as so many self-published authors will tell you). You need that base in the industry as a launch point, and, frankly, I'm skeptical that you can provide that base.

It doesn't make sense to me to branch out from cookbooks into fantasy and romcom. They're not overlapping genres, and I would be surprised if you had the contacts and knowledge in each to successfully market your authors' books.
 

veinglory

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In my experience, and that of many others, the advantages of Kindle Select do not outweigh the advantages of being in other channels.
 

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Our physical books are distributed through Ingram and their associated distributors, Betrams, Gardners, Libri, ... but they do not make much of an added effort to push sales for our books. For them to actively push our books, we would have to have a yearly turnover of more than $200,000 (same for any indie publisher using their system) and even then, they would bunch us into a bulk sales drive. Admittedly, that might be nice, but a dedicated sales team would be better - and that we cannot afford at this time. This is also why we have our authors help us out with publicity. After all, who knows the genre better than the one who actively writes in it?

So am I right in assuming you only have wholesale service, and not full-service distribution? That makes a huge difference to the sales that your books will enjoy, and it's enough for me to warn writers who might be considering submitting to you to think again.

Here's an insight into a situation that we've recently had to deal with:
Waterstones bookshops have decided to restrict author signings to those who are national authors (usually only those who are backed by national or international publishers). The "directive" from upper management stated that a store may have an author signing for 1 hour, the author may only passively sell the book from the table assigned, and when the "queue" in front of the table is gone (what queue? only nationally known authors have queues), the author should not be allowed to stay longer. A regional manager also told me that he is negotiating a book tour for a number of authors from a Big Six publisher. So, there is a disparate favoritism towards Big Six publishers who can pay for author signings and adverts.

This doesn't tally with what my friends have told me about their signings in Waterstones, but I suspect their publishers had full distribution, so it wouldn't be such an issue for them.

In response to a question asking how many editors work at Safkhet you wrote,

Two. A Safkhet Soul editor (my partner) and a Safkhet Fantasy editor (me). Officially to the public, we have a Safkhet Cookery editor too, but that person really is just us working together. :D

That implies that you have one editor who works on your Soul imprint, and another--you--who works on the fantasy line, and that you both double-up to work on your cookery imprint. But earlier you wrote this:

Safkhet Publishing started trading only last year in June with three imprints: Safkhet Cookery, Safkhet Fantasy, and Safkhet Select (a select list of books that don’t fit into either cookery or fantasy). In our inaugural year, we published five titles: For Those About To Cook (a heavy metal cookbook) by Bruce Moore, The Amulet of Kings (a comedy fantasy) by Will Macmillan Jones, Faerytale (a rhyming dark fantasy fairy tale) by Rachael Fuller, Ollie the Octopus (a children’s coloring book) by William Banks, and Entschuldigund aber ich bin nur Kinderarzt (a biography on a Nobel prize-winning pediatrician – translated title is “I’m sorry but I’m just a kid’s doctor”) by Kim Maya. Since then, we’ve also started a rom-com imprint called Safkhet Soul and published a total of 12 titles.

You are publishing cookery books, fantasy books, books which don't fit into either cookery or fantasy, comedy, rhyming books, children's colouring books, biography, and romantic comedy.

If just the two of you are editing all those lines then I will repeat what I said earlier: "This is why you should specialise, and only publish genres which you know, love and understand. With all due respect you can't possibly do your best for your authors if you don't know enough about the genre they're writing." We went off into a bit of a tangent in the following discussion, but my point remains pertinent.

Learning while actively in the business is normal. it's natural. You do things, you make mistakes, you learn from them, and you keep going. No one (at least no human being on THIS planet) is error-free from the get-go.

Learning while in the business is normal. But you know enough before you start or you'll make all sorts of mistakes.

Sounds like you had quite the roles to fulfill yourself. So you should know exactly what I'm talking about... and I think you do.

My duties weren't exceptional: most editors take care of all those things and more.

I expect my authors to be active in their promotion of their own book. I expect them to go to author signings and book fairs, do blog tours, respond on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms for their book. I expect them to be active in their genre - on forums, Amazon, Goodreads, and anywhere else that they can make the book as visible as possible. I expect them to go to schools and libraries to promote the book, creative writing and literacy. Since Safkhet is not omnipresent, I ask my authors to do what they can to make us (the company) more visible.

When I was editing full time I expected my authors to write more books. They're the best promotional tool there is.

AND, yes, I expect my authors to support the other authors where possible to help them promote their own books. That's what our publishing family does. I don't expect them to buy the other books, I expect hem to read the other author's blogs and respond to them, get other people maybe to Like the book's or the author's Facebook page, talk to them, give whatever advice they have to the other authors, help them with book signings - advice or even going to the book signing as support.

We are a family, we treat each other as friends, and none of our authors are allowed to sit back and not participate in this company. We create a support structure for our authors, and any of our authors can talk to the others for any reason. We are always there for our authors, they can call us day and night for any reason. Of course, we don't call them day and night for any reason - but we offer to them that they can do that. They usually don't.

It's what family does.

No.

No no no no no.

You're not "family", you're a business. You might become friends: but that's a side benefit. I'm all for authors supporting one another, but I don't think it's appropriate for a publisher to require its authors to do that. This is a big red flag for me.

True, but I haven't yet told you everything that we do or have done in the past. You have no idea as to what I've done in my life that qualifies me to have a business in book production.

So tell us! What, specifically, qualifies you to run a publishing house? How many best sellers have you published, either through Safkhet or at other publishers? How long have you worked in publishing? Where did you train?

Also, after reading your blog and your links/webpage, I wouldn't say your qualified to judge me without knowing me. Besides, correct me if I'm wrong, but... you don't know what it's like to work as a publisher. It also doesn't look like you've ever started up your own business. You work as a technical writer for a software company. You may know what it's like to work WITH a publisher, but not as one. I'd would wager to say that Old Hack can (and - by working in the industry for many years - has earned the RIGHT to) comment on my opinions as to my capabilities as a publisher.

I think you're underestimating Terie's experience and knowledge, and I worry that you're coming a little too close to being disrespectful to her: but I'll thank you for the compliment.

But I don't see how you are qualified to judge my capabilities as a publisher or whether my business will succeed, based on the paltry amount of information you've gleaned from this forum.

We're not trying to work out whether or not your business will succeed: we're trying to work out if submitting to you would be a good choice for us. Two very different things.

You might want to think about that and the fact that so far all you've done is read my comments out of context and judged me.

I don't think that's what's been done here at all. As Katrina said, we discuss here the pros and cons of many publishers, not just Safkhet; it's to help us ensure that our work is published in the best way possible. We don't mean to cause you any upset: and if you are a good publisher it'll work out well for you, I'm sure.
 

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I think you should give a new publisher a chance. They sound okay to me. Any new publisher is a risk, but the way I see it these days you are lucky to find a mainstream publisher at all and it seems to me Safkhet are doing a good job. Why all this negativity? Any new business has to start somewhere.

PP
 

Anninyn

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I think you should give a new publisher a chance. They sound okay to me. Any new publisher is a risk, but the way I see it these days you are lucky to find a mainstream publisher at all and it seems to me Safkhet are doing a good job. Why all this negativity? Any new business has to start somewhere.

PP

The job of this board is to raise questions and concerns about publishers and agents - all publishers and agents. You may want to read through the Ridan thread currently ongoing to see why we do.

If a publisher fails, it can take your career with it.

Typically, a new publishing business starts with people who already know how the business works, having had experience in existing publishing houses and it doesn't learn on the job, as it were. That may fly in other businesses, but it doesn't in publishing. Why should I let a publisher learn through mistakes with MY work?

Standard advice over all new publishers is to give them two years - even publishers started by people with experience in the business have collapsed in that time.
 

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I think you should give a new publisher a chance. They sound okay to me. Any new publisher is a risk, but the way I see it these days you are lucky to find a mainstream publisher at all and it seems to me Safkhet are doing a good job. Why all this negativity? Any new business has to start somewhere.

PP

Patti, I notice that you've been promoting the York Conference For New Writers elsewhere on AW.

Just this morning I noticed a link to that conference on Twitter; and I noticed that Safkhet had been invited to speak at the conference (in part, I gather, because Lin Treadgold, who is organising the conference, is being published by Safkhet next year). And so I left a comment on the organiser's blog, leaving a link to this thread.

As far as I can tell, that comment has not yet been approved for publication and yet here you are. Are you Lin Treadgold, who is organising the York Conference?

ETA: I've just checked again and sure enough, my comment on Ms Treadgold's blog has not yet been published. Here it is, though, if you're interested.

Jane Smith Your comment is awaiting moderation.
October 8, 2012 at 10:45 am
“We now have confirmation there will be representation from Safkhet Publishing.”
I strongly urge all of your Workshop attendees to read this thread about Safkhet at AbsoluteWrite before they consider submitting to them.
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=250518
 

Stacia Kane

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I think you should give a new publisher a chance.

Why?


They sound okay to me. Any new publisher is a risk, but the way I see it these days you are lucky to find a mainstream publisher at all and it seems to me Safkhet are doing a good job.

It's not really luck, though. It's very hard work. There is an element of luck, sure, as there is in any business. But those books on shelves in stores are not there because their authors were just lucky. They're there because their authors read, wrote, researched, wrote, edited, submitted according to guidelines, wrote something people wanted to read, all that stuff. They didn't just toss a ms into the ether and it happened to hit an editor. It's not playing the lottery.

Can I ask, on what are you basing your opinion that Safkhet is "doing a good job?"


Will certainly seems like a nice and intelligent gentleman, and his contributions to this discussion are appreciated. But I'm still unfortunately not seeing any evidence of publishing experience or skill, or the ability to sell authors' books and get them in stores.

In fact, I too find the idea that Safkhet's authors are expected to promote and support their other authors, and take time to read and comment on their blogs and push their books on their own Facebook pages and whatever else to be worrying. I don't like all of the other books published by all of my publishers. I've been asked to provide promotional blurbs for books and had to decline because I didn't care for those books, and so wouldn't recommend them to my readers--see, my obligation is to my readers, not other authors I may not even know or like, simply because we've been published by the same house.

(I won't even go into the idea that Facebook "likes" are somehow analogous to or contribute to sales.)

When a publisher says it's a "family," that often means "We don't intend to treat you like professionals engaged in a business relationship with us." I'm not saying that's absolutely the case here, simply that it's a red flag to me.

And yes, new publishers tend to be risks. What we do here is try to educate authors on whether or not they want to take that risk.



Why all this negativity? Any new business has to start somewhere.

PP

It's not negativity. It's trying to help authors avoid losing money, time, and the first rights to their work, and to help them avoid much stress and unhappiness.

Yes, new businesses need to start somewhere. Successful publishers usually start by having extensive experience in the industry. Failed publishers usually start by having none.

It is not the responsibility of authors to allow themselves to be used as guinea pigs by people who decide they'd like to become publishers. There is no obligation on the part of authors to submit to such enterprises. We work hard on our books, and we deserve publishers who know what to do with them to make them successful. No offense to Will, but it's not our job to help strangers start their own publishing houses.
 

veinglory

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The number one job of an conference specifically targeting aspiring writers should be how to choose a decent publisher that is likely to make your book meaningfully profitable (all other things being equal).
If this is not one of the goals, I would advise newbie writers to stay well away from it.
 

WillatSafkhet

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I think you should give a new publisher a chance. They sound okay to me. Any new publisher is a risk, but the way I see it these days you are lucky to find a mainstream publisher at all and it seems to me Safkhet are doing a good job. Why all this negativity? Any new business has to start somewhere.

PP

Thank you for the nice comment, Peppermint Patti! We do appreciate change and diversity. New companies, regardless of how much experience their employees have, all have to start at the beginning.
 

WillatSafkhet

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Patti, I notice that you've been promoting the York Conference For New Writers elsewhere on AW.

Just this morning I noticed a link to that conference on Twitter; and I noticed that Safkhet had been invited to speak at the conference (in part, I gather, because Lin Treadgold, who is organising the conference, is being published by Safkhet next year). And so I left a comment on the organiser's blog, leaving a link to this thread.

As far as I can tell, that comment has not yet been approved for publication and yet here you are. Are you Lin Treadgold, who is organising the York Conference?

ETA: I've just checked again and sure enough, my comment on Ms Treadgold's blog has not yet been published. Here it is, though, if you're interested.

It HAS been posted. I just checked this morning.
 

Old Hack

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New companies, regardless of how much experience their employees have, all have to start at the beginning.

They do, you're right.

But new publishing companies which are started by people with a thorough knowledge and understanding of publishing almost always do better than those started by people who have no publishing experience and little knowledge or understanding of how the business works.

Safkhet seems to be in that latter group, and writers should be aware of that, and all that it implies.
 

Old Hack

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It HAS been posted. I just checked this morning.

You're right, Will, it has been posted now. But you've missed the point I was trying to make. In case I wasn't clear enough, I'll make it again.

I left a comment on Lin Treadgold's blog about the Northern Writers' Workshops yesterday morning, in which I linked to this thread.

Very soon after I left that comment, Peppermint Patti left this comment in this thread:

I think you should give a new publisher a chance. They sound okay to me. Any new publisher is a risk, but the way I see it these days you are lucky to find a mainstream publisher at all and it seems to me Safkhet are doing a good job. Why all this negativity? Any new business has to start somewhere.

PP

At the time that Patti left that comment here, the only people who knew I'd linked to this thread in my comment on Lin's blog were Lin and me, as at that time Lin had not yet approved my comment.

I wondered if Lin Treadgold and Peppermint Patti were the same person, and so I asked her that in this thread:

Patti, I notice that you've been promoting the York Conference For New Writers elsewhere on AW.

Just this morning I noticed a link to that conference on Twitter; and I noticed that Safkhet had been invited to speak at the conference (in part, I gather, because Lin Treadgold, who is organising the conference, is being published by Safkhet next year). And so I left a comment on the organiser's blog, leaving a link to this thread.

As far as I can tell, that comment has not yet been approved for publication and yet here you are. Are you Lin Treadgold, who is organising the York Conference?

ETA: I've just checked again and sure enough, my comment on Ms Treadgold's blog has not yet been published. Here it is, though, if you're interested.

Emphasis added.

My comment has now been published, along with a second one from me in which I hope I clarified my position.

Patti hasn't yet responded to my question here, although according to her profile she did drop by here yesterday afternoon.

I note that in the thread she started in Announcements to advertise the Northern Writers' Workshops she suggests that Lin Treadgold is a friend of hers:

22 - 24 MARCH 2013

The Northern Writers' Workshop at the York Marriott Hotel in the UK City of York.

Go to

http://itslinhere.wordpress.com.

From a friend of mine!

PP

I do hope she'll come back to clarify this situation.

I believe that Safkhet is publishing Ms Treadgold's first book some time next year.
 

WillatSafkhet

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I'm sorry if I came off as rude in my first post; looking back I was a bit brusque. My points, however, still stand.

The language on the site is clunky, over punctuated, and comes acress as ESL. It is not promising for a publisher selling English language books to an English language audience.

Thank you for all your comments about the website. We've worked through the website and have rebuilt it entirely. Please take a look at the new page and tell us what you think!

The covers are amateurish. Sorry, but they are. It's not the use of drawn images, it's the layouts, font choices, backgrounds, the way the logo jumps around from cover to cover... It's obvious you're not trained in graphic design. A lot of the covers have the series title larger than the book title, which is just confusing, and why are some author names vertical?

If a company doesn't invest in good covers, why should I, as a customer, assume they've invested in good books, or good editing?

All of our covers were produced by experienced graphic designers. Series titles have been made larger than book titles because (in the case of The Banned Underground, to which I believe you are referring) the series is the brand that Safkhet is promoting - very similar to series branding in the "Harry Potter" series (where the words "Harry Potter" are larger than the book titles on most covers) as well as the "Warhammer 40,000" books, "Doctor Who" fiction titles, and many other fiction series.

Vertical author names on a cover is a style question. We like this style - it's different and innovative.

As an author, I can do that myself and get a bigger share of the royalties for it. I expect a publisher to get my books into places that I can't, retailers like All Romance eBooks or bookshops like Waterstones.


(and if my friend, who's with a publisher that does little to no promotion for her, has managed to not only organise signings in Waterstones shops but also get her books into stores where she hasn't had an event, I find myself skeptical of your claim that small publishers like yourself can't)

We will be negotiating with international book chain procurement officers at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week to get on the shelves of your favorite major-chain bookstores.

Have you considered promoting your music-themed cookbooks in local music shops? Non-fiction like cookbooks can be found in a much broader variety of venues than fiction. I work in a museum and we've got tons in our shop. Also, supermarkets! Places that sell food sell cookbooks.

We actually are doing just that!

For supermarkets, w'd love to get our books in there, but the discount that supermarkets ask for is very high - it's just not economically feasible for us to sell to supermarket chains. As the price for digital printing continues to go down, based on improvements in technology and changes in society's environmental expectations, the feasibility for selling digitally-printed cookbooks in supermarkets should get better. Keep your fingers crossed that this occurs sooner rather than later.

The publisher markets. The author promotes. ARCs, distribution, trade reviews, catalogues, trade fairs, networking, retail outlets authors can't get into alone... That's your job. That's what gets people interested in the books.

Twitter, facebook, blogging, websites, blogtours, interviews, giveaways... They're nice, but they don't work on their own (as so many self-published authors will tell you). You need that base in the industry as a launch point, and, frankly, I'm skeptical that you can provide that base.

We're constantly working to improve our marketing plans to promote our authors and their titles. We do attend trade fairs, have press contacts for reviews, and have a wide network of contacts in the publishing industry. We are listed in major distribution catalogs and are distributing our titles (currently) on three continents. However, we're always open for constructive suggestions. If you've got some great ideas, why not share them with all of us?

It doesn't make sense to me to branch out from cookbooks into fantasy and romcom. They're not overlapping genres, and I would be surprised if you had the contacts and knowledge in each to successfully market your authors' books.

We now have several new team members in the Safkhet family! Our editors are very specialized in the genre that they work in. The company, Safkhet Publishing, may have several imprints but that doesn't mean that its editors and marketing teams are not fully competent in their fields.

I hope you can see that, even though Safkhet Publishing is a relatively new company, the people behind it are hard-working, experienced and give their fullest and best attention to selling Safkhet's titles. We are always there for our clients!
 

WillatSafkhet

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Thanks for clarifying about what genres you take. I think that's an excellent first step.

Here's the problem from a writer's perspective: Anyone can set up shop on the Internet and say, "Hey, I'm a publisher!" That doesn't mean they know anything about publishing. It's not an entry-level position, but many people treat it like one. So how do we know who's worth sending our manuscripts to? We ask questions.

Take a look at the threads for some new agencies that are popping up. You'll notice many of the first posts will be something to the effect of, "Oh, yes, Mr. Known-Agent left Awesome Literary to form his own agency, now called Super-Awesome Literary." (Note that Mr. Known-Agent was Mr. Assistant Agent for a while before that. And before he was Mr. Assistant Agent, he was the Awesome Literary Intern. He's been building up to the creation of Super-Awesome Literary for years now.)

When we ask you to clarify your industry experience, the intent isn't to jump to conclusions about you or your background. It's to try and learn what makes your company any more likely to succeed than the dozens of other start-ups that sink within a year, taking authors' manuscripts with them.

Remember: we can't give away first rights more than once. If your company sinks, your authors have to shop whatever books they had with you as reprints or write a brand new book. And that's assuming their books aren't somehow tied up with the company when it goes down. Either way, just like that, years of work go down the drain.

Now you see why we're a little touchy when new publishers treat our hard work like something to practice on? No one expects you or your company to be perfect, but we do expect you to know what you're doing. When we submit, we are offering to share the profits of our hard work. If your company can't improve our product or market it any better than we could ourselves, then we might as well go solo.

We appreciate all your comments, as they allow us to see where possible errors are and allow us to grow and improve. Thank you very much!

We never approach our authors and their hard work as something to just practice on. We submit that our collective publishing experience gained in several different countries since 1988 can provide quite the boost to our new company.

We can only tell you that we DO know what we're doing - and hope that you can trust that, along with our experience, we have the best interests of Safkhet Publishing and your title in mind when we give our one million percent to getting your title out there.
 

WillatSafkhet

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So am I right in assuming you only have wholesale service, and not full-service distribution? That makes a huge difference to the sales that your books will enjoy, and it's enough for me to warn writers who might be considering submitting to you to think again.



You are publishing cookery books, fantasy books, books which don't fit into either cookery or fantasy, comedy, rhyming books, children's colouring books, biography, and romantic comedy.

If just the two of you are editing all those lines then I will repeat what I said earlier: "This is why you should specialise, and only publish genres which you know, love and understand. With all due respect you can't possibly do your best for your authors if you don't know enough about the genre they're writing." We went off into a bit of a tangent in the following discussion, but my point remains pertinent.

We certainly do know, love and understand our genres. We only publish genres that we are experts in. We are focused on fantasy and romantic comedy. Yes, we do have a few cookbooks, one children's coloring book (that I wrote when I was 11 years old), and one biography about a Nobel Prize winner.

Learning while in the business is normal. But you know enough before you start or you'll make all sorts of mistakes.

Knowing enough before you start is great advice! I'd like to think that Safkhet's collective experience in publishing gained since 1988 is enough, but it's amazing what time, new technology, innovative ideas and a changing society will throw at you to prove THAT wrong.

When I was editing full time I expected my authors to write more books. They're the best promotional tool there is.

They are! We love it that our authors promote their books. We also love helping our authors promote their books.

You're not "family", you're a business. You might become friends: but that's a side benefit. I'm all for authors supporting one another, but I don't think it's appropriate for a publisher to require its authors to do that. This is a big red flag for me.

Of course we're a business; I'm certainly not dedicating 48 hours a day, 14 days a week and all my sleep just for fun. We call it a "family" because we want to show that we are always there for each other. It's not contractually required. We ASK them to do it. If they don't want to, that's their prerogative. We feel that if all of us help each other, we'll accomplish more than if we try to slug it out on our own.

So tell us! What, specifically, qualifies you to run a publishing house? How many best sellers have you published, either through Safkhet or at other publishers? How long have you worked in publishing? Where did you train?

What really qualifies anyone to open their own business? The desire to produce quality products and/or services that the person believes in and the desire to make money doing something they love doing. We run a publishing house because we have been working in the publishing industry since 1988 and can bring 46 collective years of experience to the table, and we've produced enough books for other companies and worked with enough other clients as employees or freelance workers to know what we are doing.

I don't think that's what's been done here at all. As Katrina said, we discuss here the pros and cons of many publishers, not just Safkhet; it's to help us ensure that our work is published in the best way possible. We don't mean to cause you any upset: and if you are a good publisher it'll work out well for you, I'm sure.

Thank you. We'd like to think that we are a good publisher. It'd be nice to see some pros on Safkhet Publishing and not just cons here. Has anyone read anything about us out there on the internet that can balance this thread out a bit?
 

WillatSafkhet

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The job of this board is to raise questions and concerns about publishers and agents - all publishers and agents. You may want to read through the Ridan thread currently ongoing to see why we do.

If a publisher fails, it can take your career with it.

Typically, a new publishing business starts with people who already know how the business works, having had experience in existing publishing houses and it doesn't learn on the job, as it were. That may fly in other businesses, but it doesn't in publishing. Why should I let a publisher learn through mistakes with MY work?

Standard advice over all new publishers is to give them two years - even publishers started by people with experience in the business have collapsed in that time.

Great idea! Our second birthday is coming up on November 29, 2012. Come celebrate with us!
 

Old Hack

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We will be negotiating with international book chain procurement officers at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week to get on the shelves of your favorite major-chain bookstores.
I wish you good luck with that: full-service distribution is essential if you’re going to offer the best to your readers and the authors you publish. However, this following comment of yours makes me concerned that you might be wasting your time trying for distribution right now:

For supermarkets, w'd love to get our books in there, but the discount that supermarkets ask for is very high - it's just not economically feasible for us to sell to supermarket chains. As the price for digital printing continues to go down, based on improvements in technology and changes in society's environmental expectations, the feasibility for selling digitally-printed cookbooks in supermarkets should get better. Keep your fingers crossed that this occurs sooner rather than later.
Until you’re using offset printing and not digital printing you’re very unlikely to be able to afford to get a good distributor to take you on. And if you can’t get full distribution, you’re going to struggle to sell books in good quantity.

I think that the current break-point for making offset an affordable option is around 500 copies. What are your usual print runs? Have you considered this?

We're constantly working to improve our marketing plans to promote our authors and their titles. We do attend trade fairs, have press contacts for reviews, and have a wide network of contacts in the publishing industry. We are listed in major distribution catalogs and are distributing our titles (currently) on three continents. However, we're always open for constructive suggestions. If you've got some great ideas, why not share them with all of us?
Anything with an ISBN can get listed in those catalogues: this isn’t a big deal. And unless you have a real distribution deal in place you’re not distributing your titles anywhere, you’re just making them available for sale, which isn’t the same thing at all.

In your place, I’d invest in better covers and decent print runs and work my tail off to get full distribution. However, this will require substantial financial investment.

Knowing enough before you start is great advice! I'd like to think that Safkhet's collective experience in publishing gained since 1988 is enough, but it's amazing what time, new technology, innovative ideas and a changing society will throw at you to prove THAT wrong.
<snipped>

We run a publishing house because we have been working in the publishing industry since 1988 and can bring 46 collective years of experience to the table, and we've produced enough books for other companies and worked with enough other clients as employees or freelance workers to know what we are doing.

I might be missing something, Will, and if so I hope you’ll correct me here.

When I look at your LinkedIn profile (which you link to from your "about" page on the Safkhet website) I see no mention of you having worked in publishing. According to that profile since 1994 you’ve worked as a bouncer, a PC helpdesk technician, an upgrade centre manager, a QA controller, a law clerk, an internet technician, a teaching assistant, a research assistant, a financial consultant, an associate lecturer in American federalism, and a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, you’ve been involved in translation services, and then in 2010 you started Safkhet Publishing.

In 1988, when you claim that your collective experience in publishing starts, your LinkedIn profile states that you were attending high school.


Wichita Falls High School
Diploma, General Education
1986 – 1990
According again to LinkedIn, your business partner (and, I believe, your wife—again, please correct me if I’m wrong), Kim Maya Sutton, does have some experience in publishing: she worked as a bookseller at Blackwell’s in Cambridge for one year. During this time she was simultaneously a director at Safkhet, a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, where you also worked, and was taking an MA in publishing at that same University. While lecturing at ARU Ms Sutton’s area of expertise seems to have been business and organisation, but not publishing.

In 1988, when you claim your collective publishing experience began, I think she was also attending high school:

Käthe-Kollwitz Schule Wilhelmshaven
Abitur, Abitur

1986 – 1993


Have I got this wrong? If not, and if we’re very generous, we could say that Ms Sutton gained two years’ publishing experience from her MA in publishing, during which time she also worked as a bookseller for one year. I note that such experience would only qualify her for an internship at a good publishing house: it wouldn’t lead her to a director-level role.

That’s two years’ publishing experience for Ms Sutton and none for you, then. So what publishing experience does your third member of staff, Susanne Kammerer, have?

As you’ve been so very specific, we know she must have been working in publishing in 1988 because neither you nor Ms Sutton were; and as you’ve said that between you the three of you have 46 years’ experience, and we’re accepting that Ms Sutton could, at a stretch, have two years’ experience, that means that your third member of staff must have gained 44 years’ experience in publishing in the 24 years since 1988 during which time she’s also run her own translation service.

I understand that I might have got this horribly wrong, in which case I really hope you’ll set me straight, and I apologise hugely in advance if this is so.

But meanwhile, I’m not convinced.

Thank you. We'd like to think that we are a good publisher. It'd be nice to see some pros on Safkhet Publishing and not just cons here. Has anyone read anything about us out there on the internet that can balance this thread out a bit?

"Balance" isn't going to make any of our concerns go away, Will. Nor will it discount the issue of your publishing experience--or lack of it.
 

WillatSafkhet

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When a publisher says it's a "family," that often means "We don't intend to treat you like professionals engaged in a business relationship with us." I'm not saying that's absolutely the case here, simply that it's a red flag to me.

When we say we're a "family", it means we support each other completely and unconditionally, that we give each other constructive advice, that we coordinate our efforts and we all pull our share. We ask and suggest, we treat each other with respect and dignity, we interact and coordinate - AND we do that in the same way we would if we were a regular family, rather than "just" a distant business relationship.

It is not the responsibility of authors to allow themselves to be used as guinea pigs by people who decide they'd like to become publishers. There is no obligation on the part of authors to submit to such enterprises. We work hard on our books, and we deserve publishers who know what to do with them to make them successful. No offense to Will, but it's not our job to help strangers start their own publishing houses.

We respect that authors have worked hard on their labors of love. We promise to our authors that we bring (among other things) experience, knowledge, and dedication to the working relationship. We also invest a great deal of time and effort into the manuscripts that accept - because our authors deserve that level of attention and expertise.
 

WillatSafkhet

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In 1988, when you claim that your collective experience in publishing starts, your LinkedIn profile states that you were attending high school.

You're absolutely right, I was in high school in 1988 and I ran one of the very first Bulletin Board Systems (that's pre-internet) in the United States outside of the military and university servers. It was called The Philadelphia Experiment and ran on my home computer with it's 10 MB hard drive over a 2400 baud dial-up modem using the Frontdoor email server. As a content provider, I provided email and text services to over 2000 users in North Texas over FidoNet, and hosted an "online" science fiction magazine on my site, with short stories written by local writers.

Thank you, however, for pointing out that our LinkedIn profiles are incomplete. With the number of positions that we have held over the years, it seems too showy and bragging to list every detailed position we've ever held at any given time.
 

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You're absolutely right, I was in high school in 1988 and I ran one of the very first Bulletin Board Systems (that's pre-internet) in the United States outside of the military and university servers. It was called The Philadelphia Experiment and ran on my home computer with it's 10 MB hard drive over a 2400 baud dial-up modem using the Frontdoor email server. As a content provider, I provided email and text services to over 2000 users in North Texas over FidoNet, and hosted an "online" science fiction magazine on my site, with short stories written by local writers.

Thank you, however, for pointing out that our LinkedIn profiles are incomplete. With the number of positions that we have held over the years, it seems too showy and bragging to list every detailed position we've ever held at any given time.

This is not publishing industry experience, and it is (ahem) misleading to suggest that it is. Publishing industry experience means working or interning for a publisher.
 

WillatSafkhet

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This is not publishing industry experience, and it is (ahem) misleading to suggest that it is. Publishing industry experience means working or interning for a publisher.

Publishing industry experience IS experience in the publishing industry, meaning ANY experience whatsoever in producing and publishing content for dissemination to the general public. A person does not have to be employed at a publisher to have acquired publishing experience.

Using this logic, author J.K. Rowling has absolutely no publishing industry experience as she has never actually worked for a publisher nor held an internship at one. Same logic - signer and songwriter Michael Jackson (arguably the greatest pop icon of our time) never had any music industry experience at all because he never worked for a music label as an employee or an intern.

Running a bulletin board system, and editing and disseminating a science fiction magazine that I started sounds like publishing experience to me. Nothing misleading about that.
 

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Using this logic, author J.K. Rowling has absolutely no publishing industry experience as she has never actually worked for a publisher nor held an internship at one.

She doesn't. She's an author. An author is a vendor. She does not have experience working as a publisher. These are completely different skillsets.

I am a published author of six books and have been a technical writer for 25 years. Neither of these facts qualify me to start up a publisher, despite the fact that I write, edit, and publish material every day.

You have yet to assure writers that you and your team actually possess the experience to take on their work. What we've seen so far is, for lack of a better term, experience inflation. I find that worrisome.
 

WillatSafkhet

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She doesn't. She's an author. An author is a vendor. She does not have experience working as a publisher. These are completely different skillsets.

I am a published author of six books and have been a technical writer for 25 years. Neither of these facts qualify me to start up a publisher, despite the fact that I write, edit, and publish material every day.

You have yet to assure writers that you and your team actually possess the experience to take on their work. What we've seen so far is, for lack of a better term, experience inflation. I find that worrisome.

Actually, I would wager to say that BECAUSE you have 25 years of writing, editing and publishing experience and that you are a published author of six books means SPECIFICALLY that you have publishing industry experience.

Don't put your light under your chair, Teri. You've got a lot of experience in the publishing industry.

I simply don't believe (and neither do any of our authors or other staff as well) that the only experience you can get in the publishing industry is by working as an employee or intern at a mainstream publishing house. Makes no sense. You get your experience where you can get it.

However, you are entitled to put your light under whatever chair you want. Be worried. Meanwhile, we'll keep publishing books with our 46 years of experience gained wherever we could get it.