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Mundania Press / PhazE / New Classics Press

waylander

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I should also note that -- while eBooks will likely replace print books -- that doesn't mean eBook publishers are going to rise to the top. It's likely going to be the same companies driving the print industry. And they'll no doubt be just as selective as they will still need to plunk down the dollars on marketing even if some of the other costs go down. In other words: this isn't something that is going to spring current eBook publishers and eBook writers into the mainstream. It'll be a slow transition of the big publishers selling more and more eBooks.

Plus the big publishers buying up the more successful e-publishers
 

Christine N.

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I know in my conversations with at least two smaller publishers (not EC, but they've made their statement clear) that Borders is the worst company to do business with. They hold inventory for months, then when you expect a check for the books they ordered, they dump a bunch of returned inventory on your step. I can completely believe that something is fishy in that state of Denmark. It's not a complaint I've ever heard about any other chain. And this was some years back, well before the current EC problem.

Hey, Borders is just about on the brink of bankruptcy anyway - I can totally believe there's been some creative bookkeeping going on there.

But that's neither here nor there. Publishers like Mundania cannot afford the price of doing business in the big chains, not the huge discounts, not the returns. That's what it comes down to, and the biggest reason they don't get their books in the stores.
 

Christine N.

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although I would note that Samhain and red sage manage it, also some loose id books

Samhain uses Ingrams Publisher Services, which is a distributor. That's their sales force and who does their catalogs. Samhain also has a different kind of business, from what I understand. Part of the reason they release the ebooks almost a year before the print book, if I'm not mistaken, is to build up revenue to pay for printing. They make the majority of their income from ebooks, I believe, so they can pay for print runs and distribution. I could be wrong, but that's what I've heard. I also heard that it was how EC worked too, but that might not be true any longer.

Some of these micropresses have been around longer than a year or two, so they must be doing something to make money and stay afloat. I'm not saying they're better or worse, just that something must be going right.
 
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priceless1

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I know in my conversations with at least two smaller publishers (not EC, but they've made their statement clear) that Borders is the worst company to do business with. They hold inventory for months, then when you expect a check for the books they ordered, they dump a bunch of returned inventory on your step. I can completely believe that something is fishy in that state of Denmark. It's not a complaint I've ever heard about any other chain.
Off topic here, but this practice is hardly unique to just Borders. Try doing business with some of the indie stores. It's enough to drive our distributors to drink. Glad I don't have that headache...
 

veinglory

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I don't see buy ups in the future. The epress model is too different and what is ultimately bought too much of a mixed blessing and big pile of intangibles. I.e. Buying what the epress did and doing the opposite with it. Also they don't seem to see value in what the epresses are doing
 

Unimportant

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Here's a great article by the wonderful and talented Michael Dirda that discusses small presses. I submit that these are better choices than PODs

*Thanks Lauren!

P1 -- thanks!

To save other fantasy writers the trouble, here are the publishers M Dirda drools over:
Ash-Tree Press (horror)
Big Mouth Press (fiction for middle-grade readers)
Crippen and Landru (crime short-story collections)
Dead Letter Press (horror)
Mage Publishers (Persian literature)
The New York Review of Books (reprinting classics)
PS Publishing (F/SF/H; no info on submissions)
Prime Books (currently closed to submissions)
Tachyon Press (currently closed to submissions)
Tartarus Press (open to submissions)
Hippocampus (closed to unsolicited submissions and proposals)
Subterranean (horror/crime)
Night Shade Books (agented submissions only)
Midnight House (website defunct)
Centipede/Millipede Press (horror/crime)
Mercier Press (no info on submissions)
 

veinglory

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Would you say your situation is the exception to the rule, as Priceless1 noted? If a writer can't get in with a Tor or DAW type publisher, but writes well and can find a home for their work with an e-press or POD press, are the odds still overwhelmingly high that they'll sell poorly, make little money, and gain no respect from the writing community?

Every one of my books sells at or below the statistical average for the small press it is with. My sales are, for my genre, dead typical.

I never submitted to a large press. But if I went into epublishing because I knew my genre could make about $1000 per book as an e- or e/POD. That was my plan and that is what I did. I made 20,000 by writing twenty novellas for a market I researched and understood.

I am being accurate when I say I am lazy. But I am also informed and efficient. The e/POD market is just like the small print market and conventional market. It is pretty transparent in terms of what you have to do and what you get in return. The small press is less risky but less profitable--but I am risk averse and very happy with how things have gone for me.
 

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Thanks, V.

::boggles at the idea of writing TWENTY novellas::
 

Phoenix Fury

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P1 -- thanks!

To save other fantasy writers the trouble, here are the publishers M Dirda drools over:
Ash-Tree Press (horror)
Big Mouth Press (fiction for middle-grade readers)
Crippen and Landru (crime short-story collections)
Dead Letter Press (horror)
Mage Publishers (Persian literature)
The New York Review of Books (reprinting classics)
PS Publishing (F/SF/H; no info on submissions)
Prime Books (currently closed to submissions)
Tachyon Press (currently closed to submissions)
Tartarus Press (open to submissions)
Hippocampus (closed to unsolicited submissions and proposals)
Subterranean (horror/crime)
Night Shade Books (agented submissions only)
Midnight House (website defunct)
Centipede/Millipede Press (horror/crime)
Mercier Press (no info on submissions)

I followed up: Mercier Press doesn't deal with fantasy, and Tartarus Press essentially deals with horror, at best fantasy with heavy horror elements. And according to the head of PS Publishing, whose words you can read in this interview, an agent is "absolutely essential." In other words, TWO of these presses, PS Publishing and Night Shade, will take unsolicited submissions of speculative fiction if you have an agent. If you don't have one, you're out of luck.

I promise to stop beating this dead horse, but...not exactly a plethora of options, eh?

Just saying. :)
 

herdon

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I don't see buy ups in the future. The epress model is too different and what is ultimately bought too much of a mixed blessing and big pile of intangibles. I.e. Buying what the epress did and doing the opposite with it. Also they don't seem to see value in what the epresses are doing

I agree. I could possibly see some of the romantic eBook presses being bought out simply because they make money, but the big guys don't need to buy the eBook presses to become the dominant force in eBooks.
 

MundaniaPress

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And this is why Mundania and other PODs clean up. They don't care whether something is terribly marketable because they don't have the amount of risk that we do. They make most of their money from authors buying their own books. It's a false market.

These are inaccurate assumptions. We do care about marketable books and take great efforts to review all submissions. We accept only about 2-4 books out of the 500 we get monthly.

We do not make most of our money by selling to our authors. We do not force authors, nor even encourage authors, to buy books. In reality, we have a tiny portion of our authors who do buy their books. And since we set up authors who are interested in doing that as a normal bookseller account, that means they can order on credit, have full return capabilities, and still get normal royalties as well. This is a lot of extra work for us and frankly isn’t worth the trouble, however, we do this because our authors want this service.

Dan
 
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Christine N.

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To be fair, Dan, Lynn's company does NOT publish the same material as you do. She does not publish spec fic (or YA, much to my chagrin :tongue) nor do her books fill anywhere near the same niche as Mundania's.

She may be making a false assumption, but you're incorrect about her intention. I don't think MP actually strives to sell books only to the authors, far from it, but I will say that Lynn has got her act together when it comes to being a small press. Behler has done very well for itself, having books on shelves and reviews in places like PW. She knows her business, and is only commenting on what she sees as faults with many other small presses. Some can see the faults and live with them, and some can't.
 
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priceless1

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We do not make most of our money by selling to our authors. We do not force authors, nor even encourage authors, to buy books.
I've had numerous Mundania authors send me correspondence from your email address where you advocate this very thing. I assume nothing and would never go off half-cocked with any revelation. I have no horse in this race. My only concern is that authors are completely aware of what a company can and cannot do for them. I'll be sure to email all of the Mundania authors back and inform them they are flat out wrong.
 

Christine N.

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And I also think there's a difference between a publisher saying "FYI, we are offering this particular deal to our authors who wish to purchase books", or "this is a change in our current policy re: authors who want to buy books" vs. "BUY BUY BUY now, before this deal expires!

One is informational, one is solicitation. I've never gotten solicitation emails from either of my publishers, but I have on occasion (maybe ONCE) gotten an email where a change in policy or reminder of current policy regarding books I might wish to purchase.

I don't THINK MP is in the habit of sending solicitations. I'm not one of their authors, so I can't be positive. If it seems like I'm playing both sides, I don't HAVE a side - I don't think this is an either/or situation. Things are what they are, and there is good and bad to everything. MP is not PA, Behler is not MP.

And regarding the Epress buyup talked about upthread: not a press buyout, but how about B&N buying Fictionwise? That was surprising, but on the other hand B&N has to compete with Amazon. It's certainly an interesting development.
 
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MundaniaPress

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I've had numerous Mundania authors send me correspondence from your email address where you advocate this very thing. I assume nothing and would never go off half-cocked with any revelation. I have no horse in this race. My only concern is that authors are completely aware of what a company can and cannot do for them. I'll be sure to email all of the Mundania authors back and inform them they are flat out wrong.


Explaining a program and requiring it are two different situations. If someone has written to you and stated that we have forced our authors to buy books, they are under a misconception.

In fact, we recently acquired another publishing company who did have such a policy and the first thing we did was abolish it. Authors are free to request us to set up a bookseller account for them. All we have ever said is that it is available.

Dan
 

priceless1

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I don't THINK MP is in the habit of sending solicitations. I'm not one of their authors, so I can't be positive.
Christine, I wouldn't bother sticking my foot into the Mundania thread if I didn't have backup from Dan's email address stating this very thing. I've had enough Mundania authors contact me with their experiences, and I felt authors should be aware of what I've been told. If authors understand these things and decide to submit, then that's fine. But they should go into a query with their open at all times. That's all I'm saying. There is nothing in it for me to slam another publisher. I have no agenda other than education.
 

MundaniaPress

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I don't THINK MP is in the habit of sending solicitations. I'm not one of their authors, so I can't be positive.

Hey Christine,

I will be more than happy to provide you the public email addresses of our authors who post them and let you verify the facts directly. They can also verify that there have been many posts from me explaining what options they have and reiterating strongly that an author with any of our companies is never requried to purchase books, never required to pay us any money for anything, ever.

Dan
 
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Mark Wakely

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I've said it here before and I'll say it again, even though some people don't want to hear it:

The standard model of publishing- with its guesswork overprinting, inefficient delivery methods and massive returns- is not sustainable. It doesn't matter if "that's the way it's always been done," it's still astonishingly, needlessly wasteful. The reluctance by some people in publishing (certainly not everyone) to even consider more responsible, alternative methods of book creation and delivery is both curious and disheartening to anyone concerned about the environment.

It's somewhat like Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery, where the townsfolk continue the annual tradition of stoning one person to death despite a multitude of good reasons not to- they just don't want their "cherished" tradition to come to an end.

The standard method of publishing makes about as much sense.

Sorry if that's upsetting to some, but it's the cold truth, so give Mundania and other honest POD publishers credit at least for offering an alternative to the madness of the standard model. Is POD perfect? No, but it is a step in the right direction.

Decades ago we could have said we were simply unaware of the negative environmental impact of the book industry, but we can't say that anymore. It's just not sustainable, and change in the way the industry operates is way, way overdue. Whether that change comes voluntarily or by future legislation to curb the waste remains to be seen (probably a mixture of both) but eventually change will come, and not a moment too soon. Most will embrace the change, but others will be dragged to it kicking and screaming. It's the kickers and screamers who are holding us back for now, but their days are undoubtedly numbered.
 
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priceless1

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The standard model of publishing- with its guesswork overprinting, inefficient delivery methods and massive returns- is not sustainable.
Mark, that you're a Mundania author puts you in a category of someone who is unable to determine what types of publishing is sustainable. And frankly, this argument is shopworn.

All of publishing is a crapshoot, but trade publication isn't akin to shooting darts in the dark, as you would like people to believe. Trade publishers have distribution, and this allows our sales teams to go out and gather up pre-sale purchase orders from the genre buyers of stores and libraries. Based on that number and the platform of the author, publishers have a very good idea of an appropriate print run. No one goes out and prints up hundreds of thousands of books just because they woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

As for your claims of inefficient delivery, I'm unsure as to your meaning, since trade publishers are far more efficient in their delivery because Ingram and B&T stock their books on their warehouse shelves by the hundreds and thousands - all based on demand. PODs don't get shelf space, and that is one of the chief complaints I've heard from Mundania authors; that they couldn't get their books to the stores in time for events.

The massive returns was not a result of poor planning on the publisher's part, but the box stores clearing out their shelves because of inefficient business practices. We were small enough to react a lot faster, so we weren't hit as badly with the massive returns. But a lot of presses were hit hard because, even though they saw the writing on the wall, their stock was out there. Because of the economy, everyone is being forced to work smart, which makes good sense. But to call trade publishing unsustainable is ignorant.

The reluctance by some people in publishing (certainly not everyone) to even consider more responsible, alternative methods of book creation and delivery is both curious and disheartening to anyone concerned about the environment.
This argument is also a bit shopworn. This is the classic POD mantra because it sounds really good. In truth, PODs can't get their books to market because they don't print large enough runs. If you have a successful author whose demand suddenly jumps, the publisher needs to print up a large run...and pay for it. Most PODs don't have that kind of cash, since it can easily run $10,000 for a good run. Since PODs don't have a large operating budget, they can't afford the risk of having those books returned. It would put them out of business - which we've seen many PODs do.

The only way they can afford to do a run like that is if the author buys his own stock. Then it's a guaranteed sale, which makes the POD very happy. There is too much risk in printing up too many books, and this limits the impact a POD can have on their authors. With trade publishing, the sky is the limit because they are doing promotion, printing up hundreds of ARCs to send out to trade reviewers. They discuss promotion with their authors and are constantly working in the background to support the author. They have books already sitting on the store shelves, and this enhances the author's visibility. PODs can't afford any of this.

Look, I'm not saying this is bad, but don't tell people that PODs are where it's happenin' and that trade publishing is broken. It's evolving, and that's a good thing. PODs, on the other hand, will never be able to compete on the scale trade presses do because they can't afford the risk.
 

herdon

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Mark, that you're a Mundania author puts you in a category of someone who is unable to determine what types of publishing is sustainable. And frankly, this argument is shopworn.

Huh? I have an ebook, though not with Mundania. Did I suddenly lose all knowledge of the publishing industry just because I decided to take a book down the ebook route?

That doesn't make any sense at all. Priceless, you are smarter than that statement.