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[Publisher] Black Rose Writing (Reagan Rothe)

PrisonGuy

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Yes, there are tons of red flags and it does read like a PublishAmerica contract (At "Publisher's Discretion"), which means Black Rose Writing is contractually obligated to do nothing after they put your book in "print". None, zero.

AUTHOR hereby agrees that the PUBLISHER shall have the exclusive right for the duration of this

Agreement to negotiate for the sale, lease, license or other disposition of the said literary work in all

hard and/or soft cover or reprint editions in book form. AUTHOR furthermore agrees that the

PUBLISHER shall have the exclusive right for the duration of this Agreement to negotiate for the sale,

lease, license or other disposition of the said literary work in the motion picture, dramatic, radio,

television and/or all other fields only if so instructed by the AUTHOR in writing. It is also agreed that

the PUBLISHER may engage an agent, or agents, to negotiate, or assist in negotiating, for such sale,

lease, license or other disposition. All payments due from the PUBLISHER to the AUTHOR hereunder

shall be made within one-hundred and twenty (120) days from the receipt thereof by the PUBLISHER,

accompanied by statements of the amounts received and disbursed.

This a broad grant of rights that BRW has shown no capability of exploiting.

This isn't a bad contract, it's a terrible contract.
 

Marian Perera

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Yes, there are tons of red flags and it does read like a PublishAmerica contract

It's been a while since I read the PA contract analysis thread, so I browsed that over breakfast, and the similarities are remarkable. Down to the "we can't guarantee the sale of any number of books" clause and the "IF content editing is needed" clause.

As Sheryl said, do the research.
 

victoriastrauss

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A lot of the contract is PA's verbatim, but there are also additions and changes. (All bolding is mine.)

1. The AUTHOR grants and assigns to the PUBLISHER during a period of TWO years from the date of the signing of this agreement by both parties thereto the exclusive right to produce, publish, sell or export, or cause to be produced, published, sold or exported, the above work in book form in any language or languages, in the United States of America, its Dependencies, and in Canada and United Kingdom; and the exclusive right to arrange for the publication of the above work in book form in all foreign countries, and/or to export copies to these territories and countries. All clauses hereafter also subject to a period of TWO years.
There's no evidence whatsoever that Black Rose is capable of exploiting foreign language rights, or licensing them to others. A small publisher shouldn't claim rights it can't use.

Also, what happens once the two years is up? If a book is successful, both author and publisher will probably want to keep the relationship going. There should be some provision for extending the contract by mutual agreement.
3. The PUBLISHER agrees to cause all copies of the said literary work to be printed as the market demands, and agrees, furthermore, to cause the copies so printed to be bound, from time to time, in sufficient quantities to supply purchasers of the said literary work therewith.
This is the PA contract verbatim. What it means: there will not be a print run. Your book will be POD, printed only as ordered. Not a big deal--many small presses use POD as a lower-cost way of making print copies available--unless you've been promised something else.
10 percent of the sales (retail) price thereof on the first 5,000 copies sold;

12.5 percent on the next 10,000 copies sold;

15 percent on all copies sold in excess of 15,000.
"Sales price" doesn't mean cover price, but rather the publisher's net income, which can be as little as 40% of list price. There's also some wishful thinking here; I'd be surprised if any of Black Rose's books have sold as many as 5,000 copies (excluding author purchases).
7. No payment shall be made to the AUTHOR on any copies of the said literary work that the PUBLISHER may distribute for advertising and/or sales promotion purposes, that may be discounted above a 55% or more discount, that may be destroyed by fire and/or water or otherwise damaged or destroyed, or that may be lost in transit or in any other manner – such damage, loss and/or destruction not being due to any negligence on the part of the PUBLISHER.
So if your book is sold at more than a 55% discount--which could happen, depending on the vendor--you will receive no payment. That's right: your royalty for such sales will be zero. I've seen contracts where authors' royalties were cut in half for discounted sales, but never one that reduced the royalty to nothing.
9. The PUBLISHER agrees to distribute, at his discretion, for purposes of publicity and/or review, promotional information pertaining to the said literary work, to publications throughout the United States and/or Canada, or elsewhere. Distribution of this promotional material shall be at the PUBLISHER'S own cost and expense and to media outlets of the PUBLISHER'S own choice. The AUTHOR agrees that excerpts of the said literary work may be included in this promotional information, and agrees, furthermore, that the PUBLISHER may, at the PUBLISHER'S election and discretion, cause to promote the said literary work, as designated, in any electronic format, and that the PUBLISHER shall have the exclusive right to distribute or cause to distribute, and to sell or cause to sell, at the PUBLISHER'S election and discretion, copies of the said literary work in any electronic or audio format. The PUBLISHER agrees to pay to the AUTHOR a royalty rate of 15%, of this agreement of the sales price of every copy in any electronic or audio format that may be sold/downloaded and for which the PUBLISHER shall receive payment in money.
This is the PA contract again. A lot wrong here. First, the fact that the publisher intends to produce an ebook edition and/or an audio edition shouldn't be buried in a clause about promotion and publicity; it should be included in the primary grant of rights clause or made part of a separate subsidiary rights clause.

Second, 15% of the "sale price" (a.k.a. the publisher's net income) is a wretched royalty for ebooks. Reputable small presses typically pay 30% or more, and even the big publishers pay 25%. Since, due to the challenges of print distribution, small presses are far more likely to be successful selling ebooks than p-books, this is of major concern.

Third..."payment in money?" What else would payment be in? Cows?
10. The PUBLISHER agrees to deliver to the AUTHOR 1 copy of the said literary work, on publication, without charge. Should the AUTHOR wish to purchase additional copies of the said literary work directly from the PUBLISHER, the PUBLISHER agrees to supply the AUTHOR with such copies at a discount of 20% from the regular retail price per copy, if the AUTHOR orders up to 49 copies at a time, and at a discount of 30% from the regular retail price per copy, if the AUTHOR orders 50 copies or more at a time. The AUTHOR may dispose of these copies in any manner, and, if re-sold, may retain all monies derived therefrom. PUBLISHER open to higher discounts on bulk orders.
One author copy is really stingy.

This clause is where Black Rose preserves some of the advantage (to it) of the self-purchase requirement that's no longer included in the contract. The author discount for anything under 50 copies is a joke, and the discount for 50 copies or more isn't too great, either. The promise of "higher discounts on bulk orders," therefore, is a strong incentive for authors to order large numbers of their own books.
14. (A) If, in the PUBLISHER'S opinion, the manuscript of the said literary work requires substantial
editing, the PUBLISHER agrees to assist with such editorial service without cost or expense to the AUTHOR at the AUTHOR'S request unless prior noted....The PUBLISHER shall not be held responsible for ANY editorial complaint, issue, or alterations after said work is published.
"Unless prior noted"--what exactly does that mean? Also, the final sentence of this clause, which absolves the publisher of any responsibility for errors, or to make changes or corrections, once the book is published, could be a problem if the formatting process creates mistakes that slip through whatever quality control system Black Rose has in place--a not uncommon occurrence with small presses.
16. The AUTHOR agrees to revise the work on request of the PUBLISHER, if the Publisher considers it necessary in the best interests of the First and/or future Editions of the work. The provision of this agreement shall apply to each revision of the work by the AUTHOR as though that revision were the work being published for the first time under this agreement, except that the manuscript of the revised work shall be delivered in final form by the AUTHOR to the PUBLISHER within a reasonable time after request for revision; further, no initial payment shall be made in connection with such revision.
This is the PA contract again. A clause like this is appropriate for nonfiction works, which may need to be updated from time to time in new editions--but not for fiction, which, once finalized, isn't usually reworked or revised. Language like this should always be struck from a fiction contract.

Another problem: potentially, the effect of this clause is to negate royalty escalations. Suppose your sales are approaching the 5,000 mark at which your royalty rates rise. The publisher could decree a new edition, which would return you to the original royalty rate and start the count all over again.
22. This agreement is entered into by both parties in good faith, with the mutual understanding that neither party has guaranteed, or is to guarantee, the sale of any specific number of copies of the said literary work, it being impossible to predict, before publication, what success any book may attain.
Weasel wording excusing the publisher in advance for poor sales. Always a warning sign.
23. The AUTHOR acknowledges that the PUBLISHER has not made any prior pledges, promises, guarantees, inducements, of whatever nature, either in writing, by word of mouth, or in any form, that are not contained in the terms of this agreement.
Has the publisher made you any verbal promises? Described the process of publication, or marketing, or anything else, in a way that differs from the wording of the contract? This clause negates all that. The contract, and only the contract, governs your relationship with Black Rose.
24. The PUBLISHER agrees to commence production of the said literary work within 6 months from the date of the signing of this agreement by both parties thereto, provided the PUBLISHER is not hindered by causes beyond its own control, or by the AUTHOR.
"Or by the Author??" At any rate, the important thing isn't when the publisher commences production, but when it puts the book on sale. Otherwise it can drag production out indefinitely, and there's nothing the author can do about it. A good contract should require the publisher to publish within a specific timeframe (say, within 12 months of delivery of a final manuscript), or else return rights.
30. The PUBLISHER agrees to accept returns of unsold books of the said literary work from local, regional, and national bookstores after six months of being placed in that specific store for distribution. This clause ensures no risk for the bookstores, providing the AUTHOR and PUBLISHER justified reason for
Where's the rest of this clause? It sounds as if bookstores' ability to make returns may be limited.

- Victoria
 

Gillhoughly

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You may not be obligated to buy any books, but chances are high that you will, if only to show off to family and friends.

Please check your favorite store to see how many BR titles they shelve every month. If the manager has never heard of them, take that as a bad sign.

I stand by my investigation that their books are too highly priced to sell to anyone except the author.

Here's another: a 208-page trade for 19.95.

I have a 350-page trade in stores that's only 16.00. In fact, I have FIVE different trade editions in stores at that price.

The same Black Rose book in hardcover is priced at a wholly ridiculous 48.99. No one in their right mind will buy it.

Anyway, the usual thing for REAL publishers is to release a hardcover first (along with the e-book). Hardcore fans of the writer snap up the HC and the publisher makes money.

After a year the mass market paperback or trade edition appears and they get another bump in sales from fans who waited and people curious about this "new" and more affordable title.

But BR releasing all three formats at once is as ridiculous as their high prices.

The book's sales rank is 6,480,457, making it unlikely it's sold a single copy since it was published.

Or you can interpret it to mean every other book on Amazon is selling better than that one.

I know it is tempting to be offered a contract after getting turned down by others. You feel you're FINALLY getting validation for all your hard work.

But this is the interest of a hooker looking to score money.

BR is not as successful a hooker as PublishAmerica, but it does rake in a good share of tricks who will buy their own books. BR is satisfied to score a lot of little profits from writers who don't expect much and certainly won't get it.


It took over two dozen tries before I got a contract for my first novel.

HOWEVER -- they offered a check along with a multi-book contract and 18 months later my title was in stores across the country, getting reviews and selling well. I was absolutely entitled to join MWA, SFWA, HWA, RWA or any other professional writing organization if I felt like it. I was in. (I also got a big box of free copies to pass out.)

This thread has devoted pages and pages of warnings from professionals in the industry (Ms. Strauss and Mr. Macdonald are VERY well known advocates for helping writers avoid scams). This thread is to let authors know they can do BETTER than BR and they DESERVE better than BR.

If you just want to have a book in hand, then Createspace and Lulu are low cost alternatives that won't tie your work up in a contract.

If you want to be a professional writer--and we're absolutely on your side for that!--tell BR "no thanks" and keep going.

They are a total waste of your time and talent.
 
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frimble3

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Third..."payment in money?" What else would payment be in? Cows?
Or, in kind. What if a barista in the nearest coffee shop is a voracious reader? If they can persuade the barista that a paperback is 'worth' the $20 cover price, their coffee bills are covered. If they can persuade a restaurant that a hardback is $50.00, yahoo!
Or a cab driver, or the paper kid, or any minor transaction. Of course, it's hard to give a percentage of a haircut to the author.
 

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Barnes and Noble and Books a Million refuse to take Black Rose Writing because they do not deal with POD. The Assistant President of books at BAM seems to have changed his ideas. Try getting one of your authors a signing there.
 

Thedrellum

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Barnes and Noble and Books a Million refuse to take Black Rose Writing because they do not deal with POD. The Assistant President of books at BAM seems to have changed his ideas. Try getting one of your authors a signing there.

Who are you responding to? We are authors (mostly) on these boards, so I'm not sure why you would think we have authors of our own (besides ourselves) who we would try to get a signing.
 

Fuchsia Groan

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I checked this out because a nearby college sent me a press release. One of their MFA grads, after getting interest from a big-name NY agent that went nowhere, ended up publishing with Black Rose. The release touts this as a bold and innovative independent route to publication.

I wish more publicists and journalists would come here to vet publishers. It's not just writers who are involved. I did it only out of curiosity, but if I actually wrote a story on this author/book, I'd want to know whether this was really a viable pub model and a selective publisher.
 
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I have started to believe that most journalists don't care. They want fast, easy local interest stories, and most of the 'reporters' writing for that market have neither the skills nor the time to do more than cursory research.

You could tell the college, but they'd probably do nothing about it. The MFA grad may wise up eventually.

Sorry to be cynical, but I've seen so much of this, I've stopped trying to rescue anyone but the most hapless innocents. An MFA grad presumably has the skills to avoid being taken.
 

Fuchsia Groan

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Sorry to be cynical, but I've seen so much of this, I've stopped trying to rescue anyone but the most hapless innocents. An MFA grad presumably has the skills to avoid being taken.

Agreed. I've learned not to question people's publishing choices, just tell them I probably can't review the book when it's from, say, Tate. Of course there are usually other good reasons not to review the book, and I wouldn't absolutely disqualify any book because of a questionable publisher.

But a journalist who receives mountains of self-published and POD books, and books from authors touting their paid Kirkus reviews, learns to care about the differences and do triage. If a bona fide, reputable tiny indie publisher put out a good book, great, I'll give them due credit. Of course it helps that I'm a writer myself and care about this stuff. :)
 

aliceshortcake

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I hate to think how many new writers have been thrown into the clutches of PublishAmerica, Tate and the like by reading a "Local Person Publishes Novel!" article in their local paper.
 

Filigree

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I live in a fairly large US city, and nearly every month one or more of our local community focused newspapers has an article about a newly-published author. Sometimes they're true self-pub folks, but most often they're the victims of vanity publishing. In 25 years, I have seen only a handful of trade-published authors featured.
 

victoriastrauss

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I hate to think how many new writers have been thrown into the clutches of PublishAmerica, Tate and the like by reading a "Local Person Publishes Novel!" article in their local paper.
Me too. Once upon a time, one also saw a fair bit of news coverage of poets snagged by vanity anthology schemes like Poetry.com.

- Victoria
 

Fuchsia Groan

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I live in a fairly large US city, and nearly every month one or more of our local community focused newspapers has an article about a newly-published author. Sometimes they're true self-pub folks, but most often they're the victims of vanity publishing. In 25 years, I have seen only a handful of trade-published authors featured.

Ugh, that's sad to hear (sad for journalism, that is). And makes me think I should be even MORE explicit in my reviews about how an author was published, even if that means asking them uncomfortable questions. (A lot of people still think the term "self-published" carries an insult or stigma, though the number is decreasing.)

Maybe the smaller papers aren't on the list for trade ARCs, so they see a skewed sample. I get some of everything.
 
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Black Rose Writing is an Author Mill

Spoke with a recent Black Rose author who said that Black Rose Writing did absolutely no editing (no line editing, no copy edits, nothing), but would charge if the author ever requested that typos be fixed down the road. The author also mentioned that Black Rose did absolutely no marketing and got real vague when pressed on sending out advance review copies. The author also mentioned that the week the book came out, she received a document containing links to the trade magazines (PW, Kirkus, etc.), which made no sense as the trade magazines would have needed copies of the book four months earlier.
 

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You may not be obligated to buy any books, but chances are high that you will, if only to show off to family and friends.

Please check your favorite store to see how many BR titles they shelve every month. If the manager has never heard of them, take that as a bad sign.

I stand by my investigation that their books are too highly priced to sell to anyone except the author.

Here's another: a 208-page trade for 19.95.

I have a 350-page trade in stores that's only 16.00. In fact, I have FIVE different trade editions in stores at that price.

The same Black Rose book in hardcover is priced at a wholly ridiculous 48.99. No one in their right mind will buy it.

Anyway, the usual thing for REAL publishers is to release a hardcover first (along with the e-book). Hardcore fans of the writer snap up the HC and the publisher makes money.

After a year the mass market paperback or trade edition appears and they get another bump in sales from fans who waited and people curious about this "new" and more affordable title.

But BR releasing all three formats at once is as ridiculous as their high prices.

The book's sales rank is 6,480,457, making it unlikely it's sold a single copy since it was published.

Or you can interpret it to mean every other book on Amazon is selling better than that one.

I know it is tempting to be offered a contract after getting turned down by others. You feel you're FINALLY getting validation for all your hard work.

But this is the interest of a hooker looking to score money.

BR is not as successful a hooker as PublishAmerica, but it does rake in a good share of tricks who will buy their own books. BR is satisfied to score a lot of little profits from writers who don't expect much and certainly won't get it.


It took over two dozen tries before I got a contract for my first novel.

HOWEVER -- they offered a check along with a multi-book contract and 18 months later my title was in stores across the country, getting reviews and selling well. I was absolutely entitled to join MWA, SFWA, HWA, RWA or any other professional writing organization if I felt like it. I was in. (I also got a big box of free copies to pass out.)

This thread has devoted pages and pages of warnings from professionals in the industry (Ms. Strauss and Mr. Macdonald are VERY well known advocates for helping writers avoid scams). This thread is to let authors know they can do BETTER than BR and they DESERVE better than BR.

If you just want to have a book in hand, then Createspace and Lulu are low cost alternatives that won't tie your work up in a contract.

If you want to be a professional writer--and we're absolutely on your side for that!--tell BR "no thanks" and keep going.

They are a total waste of your time and talent.
Aren't Lulu now tired to the notorious "Author Solutions".
 
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Gillhoughly

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My post there is over a year old. Times change.

Let writers beware. If a publisher wants your money, they're not gonna be on anyone's side but their own.

Hell, they're not going to be on your side that much even when they give you a check!
 
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Filigree

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They have a booth at the Tucson Festival of Books this weekend, along with Author Solutions. I resisted the urge to amble up to AS and ask 'How's the lawsuit going?'

With Black Rose, I stumbled across them after turning around from a neighboring booth. A woman in a hippie dress shoved a flimsy-looking POD trade paperback in my face & blathered about how its inspiring story of a sculptor's reinvention of self would revolutionize my life. She would not stop talking. I let the crushing crowd pull me away because it didn't look like she was giving up. As soon as I was out of range, she glommed onto someone else.

I feel for all the book exhibitors at festivals like this - it's hard, pitching books in a loud, boisterous fish-market kind of event. But I wish the festival coordinators would do better vetting of their exhibitors than 'Did the check clear for the entry fee?'
 

Gillhoughly

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It takes all types, and the "fish market" kind of selling has its fans, but I'm not one of them.

Here's something to grin about: Black Rose got taken for 500.00 to be a "sponsor" of a display site:

http://books.txauthors.com/category-s/1959.htm

Texas Association of Authors charges writers 115.00 to have their book listed on the site.

There's also the 2016 book contest. For 125.00 you can enter your book.

http://books.txauthors.com/category-s/1977.htm

Oh, goodie. More predators. If I had less scruples my house would be paid off and I'd start my retirement this afternoon.