Tate Publishing

[kullervo]

Assuming you're a trusting soul and not a credulous flatfish, I would respond with that other old chestnut about the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

[michaelthek]

I wish to apologize to all. I wish not to get into lengthy debates which is really what I simply wished to express. I agree that each should always express his/her own thoughts with regard to any information that may be helpful to others. I only disagree with the tone of so many of the notes where there are actual arguments taking place. I appreciate the candor of the original thoughts but don't think arguing to prove one self right accomplishes much that is positive.

I thank you all for the information you have related and hope that the main thoughts don't get lost. I think the most important thoughts are the simplest thoughts. Again, I only wait to hear from someone who has been rejected by Tate, there must be thousands of people based on the numbers they post on their website. That, or the lack thereof, may actually say more than all the debating in the world.

[brainstorm77]

I don't think this area of AW is about being right or wrong. Its about having information given to you. However each person uses it is their own choice. I for one find it great to have it available to me.

[M.R.J. Le Blanc]

Originally Posted by michaelthek

Again, I only wait to hear from someone who has been rejected by Tate, there must be thousands of people based on the numbers they post on their website. That, or the lack thereof, may actually say more than all the debating in the world.

Your last sentence is spot on. See Michael, just because someone's website says something it doesn't automatically mean it's true. Vanity publishers lie on their websites all the time. I've learned the hard way not to take anything at face value, but there's nothing wrong with a healthy open-minded skepticism. Or at least a fair bit of wariness.

[michaelthek]

It's been darn near a month... Still waiting for someone to come forth and admit to being turned down by Tate...

[M.R.J. Le Blanc]

I think, given everything in this thread, relying on hearing of someone who was rejected is irrelevant. There are whole slew of reasons not to go with Tate - whether they've rejected anyone or not seems the least of the concerns. As Anne Marble said earlier in this thread, vanities rejecting mss doesn't mean they're selective. Just like having one or two books do well amidst a sea of ones who don't doesn't validate a vanity either. Especially since in most cases those books that do do well with a vanity are the result of the author's efforts, not the publisher.

[rhp1]

i am glad i found this thread back in sept . i helped me make my decision not to sign with tate music group. after all, what record label signs a band based on one mp3 song submission ? tate music group does! it was way to easy to have a contract rushed to me . they had no idea who i was, they only had one song sample, no bio, no pics, no schedule, no info except my name ,email and one recording. hardly enough information for them to base a sound business decision .

they claimed they would invest over $22,000 into my career with them.

that's alot of money to being thrown at a faceless mp3 song submission.

but they needed $2000 from me to get things rolling.

that made it pretty clear to as why it is so easy to get on the tate roster, they are more interested in my money then my talent.

one of their artist just recently had a fall out with tate , check out for yourself on how the company deals with this unsuspecting client.

http://www.audiostreet.net/forums.as...=836&p=4&s=top

[Roger J Carlson]

Originally Posted by rhp1

i am glad i found this thread back in sept . i helped me make my decision not to sign with tate music group. after all, what record label signs a band based on one mp3 song submission ? tate music group does! it was way to easy to have a contract rushed to me . they had no idea who i was, they only had one song sample, no bio, no pics, no schedule, no info except my name ,email and one recording. hardly enough information for them to base a sound business decision .

they claimed they would invest over $22,000 into my career with them.

that's alot of money to being thrown at a faceless mp3 song submission.

but they needed $2000 from me to get things rolling.

that made it pretty clear to as why it is so easy to get on the tate roster, they are more interested in my money then my talent.

one of their artist just recently had a fall out with tate , check out for yourself on how the company deals with this unsuspecting client.

http://www.audiostreet.net/forums.as...=836&p=4&s=top

Interesting to note they use much the same tactics on music boards as they do here. Thanks for the link.

[James D. Macdonald]

Even PublishAmerica turns down books because there aren't enough hours in the day to publish them all.

[Mr.H.]

I am very concerned, and I feel the need to vent/share my concerns with others here, if I may please.
The Tate issue is what it is, and we all know what it is. It was enlightening to read the musicians' sides of the story as well, and to see that it is not only us.

That said,
I have a headache from reading the posts at the audiostreet blog. And I am sad. Literacy is indeed dead, and printed communication has become a joke. The very thing I love and prize most lies in waste over there, and indeed, at many other forums of open discussion. Readers are exposed to incorrect usage of the language, and repeat what they see elsewhere when they themselves post. Worse, the readership of blog posts is exponentially higher than that of a good book.
Sad.
How do we compete with that?

*sigh*

Ok, back to the matter at hand; Tate.

[rhp1]

don't sweat it Mr. H yea there is a lot of bad spelling going on over there, and incorrect usage of our language, but we are just blogging not writing books. quickly jotting down our thoughts and trying to get our point across. following the rules of the english language is not a priority in a lot of forums, but i get where your coming from, sloppy writing to u is like sloppy performed music to me.

i did start the thread over there , and i hope the audiostreet forum helps musicians make the right decision concerning tate, i truly feel they are trying to take advantage of peoples dreams.

[Mr.H.]

Yes, I admit that people quickly jotting their thoughts down in a blog don't usually take the time to think about grammar. And I agree wholeheartedly with your point about the good work at audiostreet and the intent of the posts there. The meat of the material is not what I have issue with, and I appreciate all of it.

My issue is one of automaticity. I would like to think that getting it right would be the natural trend. No one is immune from mistakes, I know I make them daily. And I am not the editor of all people's work, nor could I claim to be. But as an educator trying my best to help people learn the correct way to do it, and then seeing blatant disregard for correct language usage under the guise of "it doesn't matter here" really gets to me. It matters everywhere. What we produce for an audience to read is a reflection on ourselves and our abilities. When I read such poorly written works as those, I draw my conclusions about the people behind them. How can I not?
No one will read my words and think me a genius, which I am far from. But no one with an education will read my words and think I have none. I wish more people cared enough to at least try to get it right.

This is a rant for a different area of the forum, not this one, and for that I apologize.

Where were we?
Oh yes, Tate! Boo!!!

[rhp1]

no prob Mr. H , i respect your point of view.

[Brianne at TMG]

This is Dr. Richard Tate, founder of Tate Publishing and Enterprises. I would be glad to have a personal conversation with you regarding your questions. It would surprise me if
you called, but feel free to. 1-888-361-9473 or my email is richard@tatepublishing.com

Dr. Richard Tate

[rhp1]

again, no thank you mr tate, i think the readers of my thread would like to know what % of your roster sold enough cd's to get their investment back. it would surprise me if you answered the questions i posted at audiostreet.

[Lion of War]

Although it is beneath the dignity of the company and the authors to reply to some of this, I will instead write about my own experience and let authors decide themselves.

My name is Cliff Graham. I live in San Antonio, TX, and am a real author, not a Tate Publishing "crony." I published my first book with them, "Call of Duty," in 2008. The process went exactly according to how it was presented to me, with neither rosy promises nor cynicism. It has done just fine for a nonfiction title written by an author with no national platform for a niche market.

Based upon the quality of my second book, a novel about King David's Mighty Men titled, "Day of War," I was offered a different and more personally beneficial contract than the author investment contract I initially paid. This was unsolicited and a pleasant surprise, as my first book had only been out for a few months when I submitted the second manuscript. So Tate took a risk on me. An actual financial risk on an unknown author. That sounds a lot like traditional publishing, right?

Everything went great, from acquisitions to editing. The book was selected as a Top Pick for special presentation to buyers at Barnes and Noble in New York City. Tate, along with every other publisher, picks the books that they believe will be the most marketable and presents them to these buyers. I had no say in that process, nor did I pay anything for it.

That pushed the release date of the book to September 29, 2009, six months later than I initially thought. Which was fine, because the Barnes and Noble buyer did indeed pick up the title for regional distribution in Texas. That means that on or near the release date, the book will be on actual store shelves in Barnes and Noble. If it is successful there, they will pick it up for broader distribution.

Things took an interesting turn when the filmmaker David L. Cunningham (The Path to 9/11, To End all Wars) read my book (after coming across my website, http://www.lionofwar.com). He loved it so much that he contacted Tate Publishing immediately for the film rights. I as the author own all the rights to the book, so they put him through to me after carefully screening to make sure he was who he said he was.

Cunningham brought me up to Dallas where he was working on a project and we had a meeting that lasted several hours, during which he communicated his vision for the film and for the rest of the books in the series. I left the meeting convinced that he was the right guy to make the movie.

On August 24, 2009, I signed a six-figure option deal for the rights to my book (no I am not instantly rich, it takes time for money to be doled out in the film industry). Representatives from Tate Publishing helped me incalculably along the way. I was assisted by attorneys as well. It is in the very early phase of development, but progress has been swift. There will be a press release in Daily Variety (The Wall street Journal of Hollywood) in the coming weeks with the names of the people attached and involved in development. Please look for it either in print or at www.variety.com, and look for the line about "published by Tate Publishing."

Individuals involved during this process were:
Director/Producer David L. Cunningham
United Talent Agency representatives Ramses IsHak and Mike Sheresky.
Attorney Patti Felker (the 2008 Entertainment Attorney of the Year)
Tate Publishing Marketing Representative Jim Miller
Tate Publishing Marketing Director Mark Mingle

All of this, and the book has not even officially released yet.

I am currently finishing the second novel in the series that Cunningham and his production partners are developing into a major motion picture franchise. Throughout the process, all of those involved on the film side were complimentary of the professionalism and competence of Tate Publishing staff.

As a result of this new exposure, I have been in contact with various agencies and "traditional" publishers (as they define it) seeking to represent or publish the remaining books in the series through their channels. I intend to stay with Tate Publishing, because they are the future of the industry. I don't want to leap out of the battleship for a luxury suite on the Titanic.

I say things so matter-of-fact because it is important to deal with facts when you are trying to be heard amidst the whining of people of questionable intent. I write a blog about the experiences of the Tate author as I know them, http://www.tateauthors.blogspot.com I encourage you to read it if you are a prospective author considering Tate Publishing. It's designed to be somewhat of a rebuttal to much of this madness in the discourse concerning Tate Publishing.

You can email me directly at tateauthors@gmail.com with questions of any kind.

Many authors already have, and I have been able to counsel them on whether Tate is the right option for them. Everyone on this board assumes that Tate offers every author at least the investment option, but that is not true. I have had to speak with authors who have been turned down by Tate, as their book did not justify the considerable resources spent on each title.


Please follow my blog for information about the further experiences of this Tate Author.

[Momento Mori]

Hi, Cliff and welcome to AW.

Lion of War:
Based upon the quality of my second book, a novel about King David's Mighty Men titled, "Day of War," I was offered a different and more personally beneficial contract than the author investment contract I initially paid. This was unsolicited and a pleasant surprise, as my first book had only been out for a few months when I submitted the second manuscript. So Tate took a risk on me. An actual financial risk on an unknown author. That sounds a lot like traditional publishing, right?

Just to clarify, by "actual financial risk on an unknown author" do you mean that Tate paid you an advance for your second book, or were you offered a second author investment contract where you contributed less money than for the first book?

With regards to the remaining books in your series, will Tate be paying an advance for them or will you remain on author investment contracts?

Lion of War:
It's designed to be somewhat of a rebuttal to much of this madness in the discourse concerning Tate Publishing.

If you read through this thread you'll see how much "madness in the discourse concerning Tate Publishing" came from Tate Publishing itself. However that's by-the-by.

Whilst you've achieved a wonderful result for your work (for which I sincerely congratulate you), the possibility of author investment contracts becoming "the future of the industry" fills me with alarm. This is because it is a system that is open to appalling abuse of would-be authors (if a publisher is receiving money from an author, then there is a potential disincentive to maintain quality control) who could find themselves considerably out of pocket as a result of going down this route when the risks have not been adequately explained to them.

One of the major concerns raised time and time again on this thread (concerns that were never fully responded to by Tate) was that so few authors seemed to be hitting the sales figures necessary for the return of their initial outlay - an outlay that was a considerable sum.

If, as you seem to be saying, Tate are now achieving stock and distribution deals with stores like Barnes and Noble, then this represents a significant improvement and at least goes someway to giving authors a chance to recoup that outlay. Previously though, there were questions about Tate's ability to get books into stores, with many authors apparently having to go down the convention and self-sale route to try and hit the targets necessary to make back their outlay.

Although your achievement of selling the film rights is wonderful, it is nevertheless one that came about by chance. By your own admission, David Cunningham found your website and then read your book. Usually, film makers and production companies will be aware of books coming out onto the market because of promotional activities being undertaken by publishers or through keeping tabs on sales being made within the book industry and the level of "talk" that those deals are creating.

I applaud Tate for supporting you in the negotiation process, but would point out that it was naturally very much in their interest to do so.

Lion of War:
You can email me directly at tateauthors@gmail.com with questions of any kind.

Would you be prepared to answer questions on this thread? If you could do so, then it would be a useful resource for people trying to make up their mind whether to go with the company and go some way to providing a different experience to previous posters.

Lion of War:
Everyone on this board assumes that Tate offers every author at least the investment option, but that is not true. I have had to speak with authors who have been turned down by Tate, as their book did not justify the considerable resources spent on each title.

That's good to know as it suggests that Tate has no intention of turning into an author mill.

Best of luck with your future work.

MM

[III]

A bald, Christian fiction author from San Antonio? Sounds like a great guy to me.

[Mr.H.]

Lion of War;
If I owned a company, I would want you to be my PR guy! The positivity that flows from you regarding your experience with Tate, as well as Tate itself, is applaudable.

I also read through the posts on the forum you mentioned, and again, it is the same thing. It's as if nothing bad has happened to you. You have tremendous luck, no doubt augmented by personal ability.

Ever the skeptic, however, I got hung up on a few phrases that sounded as if Tate fed them to you to use with us here. I could be wrong, and often am, but it resonated with me a bit. Then I noticed your email address. YOUR email address. That sounds to me like someone who is more than just a little happy with a company. Thrilled as I am with my kitchen appliances, I would never establish an email address like Kenmoreguy@gmail.com unless Kenmore was paying me to do so.

If you've read the posts in the previous 39 pages of this thread, you see that several times a variety of employees of Tate have chimed in from time to time, and at first blush, that was what this looked like to me. Taking your words at face value, I see that this is not the case. Good. But one wonders of the motivation to gush so openly about a company without some sort of vested interest.

I offer my most heartfelt congratulations to you on your positive experience, and wish the same for many more authors. It's not that I'm a conspiracy theorist or anything; I just wonder why, after so many opportunities have been presented here, on this open forum, for Tate (or any of its cheerleaders) to directly answer the questions that others here have posted, no answers have been given. That casts a huge doubt-shadow for the rest of us. That's all we want.

As to you personally, I am thrilled to hear Tate was good to you, and I wish you continued success.

[Gravity]

In Lion's defense, the email addy he provided is a gmail account. I know when I've set these up, they're for a one-off reason, and then they're never looked at again. It could be he set his up just to field questions from his post here. That's what I'd do, and keep my own website with its "contact" page separate.

[Stacy Baker]

Dear Sunnie and Dr. Tate:

Just to inform you that I received a personal, very complimentary letter from Joni Eareckson Tada regarding me and my book. I sent her a copy at her request in early summer of this year. She said she is keeping her copy of my book on her desk so as to be able to refer to the poetry which she especially liked, it seems. She also sent me a personal cheque to pay for a book and its shipping charge to a friend of hers who suffers from mental illness in the Netherlands. She called my book "very special".

I have also been invited to Christian Writers' Expo to be held at Faith Family Books and Gifts, the local Christian bookstore on November 20, 2009. I am one of only 20 authors invited. A representative of the store also told me that they have reviewed my book and want 5 copies to put on the shelves there.

Just wanted to give you some good news re: my book, /Hope for the Heavy
Heart: For the War-Weary and Heaven-bent. / Thank you again Dr. Tate for taking a chance on me and my book. Maybe there is still a chance yet that it will take off, who knows??? God bless.

In Christ,
E.R.

[Richard White]

For those who might not have read through this entire thread, Stacy Baker is a Tate Employee.

I note she failed to mention she was shilling for her company here.

[BenPanced]

Oh, yeah. We noticed that Dr. Tate had made a post stating that Ms. Baker is not authorized to post here any longer.
sockpuppet
But here she is.
sockpuppet
Again.
sockpuppet
If my supervisor found out I was visiting websites I'd been expressly banned from visiting, I'd be out the door.
sockpuppet
But this appears to be a unique situation.sockpuppet

[Richard White]

Ben,

I also found it interesting that my book (which has been out of print since 1995) has a higher Amazon ranking than a number of Tate's boosk that were released this past year.

While Amazon numbers are "flaky", I still found it interesting.

I mean seriously, how does an out-of-print book get a 700K ranking?

[Queen of Swords]

What's the latest on Shane Hamman, Stacy? Has he submitted a manuscript to Tate yet, after you supposedly paid him an advance or a signing bonus of $20,000 over two years ago?

Still nothing about his book on Amazon... but regarding the book in the email that Stacy posted, I checked it out on Amazon. It was released on February 24, 2009, and has a sales rank of well over 4 million. No reader reviews.

I'm not surprised that at the end of that email, the author expresses a hope that there is a still a chance for the book to "take off". But if she paid Tate Publishing, then there was no way Tate was "taking a chance" on her.

Some of those statements in that email were echoes of what I've read on the PublishAmerica message board as well. And it gave me a chance to look up what I assume is a typical Tate product. Thanks for posting it, Stacy!