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Musa Publishing

Fae Sutherland

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Let me simplify it for you.

I don't need you to simplify anything for me. I understand what you're saying and in my opinion, it's wrong. Simple enough.

So while the royalties system isn't universal, I'd say it's not unheard of.

And in the case of a new company, I'd rather they paid me with money they had as they got it, than by plundering the coffers in advance. Too many publishers have shot themselves in the metaphorical foot doing that, you know?

--Liz

Well no, I didn't say it was unheard of. I was disagreeing with Celina's assertion that the royalties system WAS universal. Her words, not mine. I really disagree with the idea that an editor wanting to be paid has been the downfall of many an otherwise strong epublisher, but I'm not interested in arguing that point.

I'm going to bow out of this thread because quite frankly I have no dog in this fight and my curiosity on some Musa issues has either waned or been satisfied. I wish all the authors and interns at Musa luck.
 

Old Hack

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I would say that at a certain point I personally put in at least 30-50 hours a week working on Musa related content.

That's a bit more than the 3-10 hours a week mentioned on the Musa website, and much more difficult to sustain when the work is unpaid.

During this time I earned no money from Musa, I did not receive college credit, and I came away with a reference stating that I was unable to complete the full requirements of my internship contract and that I also left due to a personality conflict. I don't feel comfortable using that reference, and I also don't feel it has anything to do with my work or the success of my work as a social media intern for Musa Publishing.
Does the reference mention the quality of the work you did while you were with Musa? Does it mention any of the positive things you did while you were there? Does it discuss that you were asked to do far more than you were expecting when you signed up for the internship? Because if not, that strikes me as very unfair.

There have been a few positions that I feel I may not have received because my experience with this company has become a kind of elephant in the interview.
That's sad. And unless you were completely out of control during your time with them it's also really inappropriate given that you were an intern and therefore should not have been expected to know what you were doing, and were bound to make mistakes.

Absolutely. I see no point in making an author uncomfortable. Edits, good and solid content edits, really require trust and communication. If you (universal you) aren't comfortable, that's a completely reasonable concern.

(Although, in the defense of my hypothetical new hire, I'd point out that I'd never let you get sub-par edits. If I hire someone, it's because I have confidence in their abilities. But when it comes to your comfort level with a newbie, I wouldn't fight you.)

My bold.

Liz, a short while ago I took a look at the twelve most recent Musa publications by downloading the samples available for Kindle.

Most of them contained errors in punctuation, grammar and even spelling. The number of errors I found varied, but not one of those books was clean enough, in my opinion, to be sent out into the market to earn money for Musa.

Whether they had larger, more structural errors, I can't say as I didn't read past that sample.

I'm not going to name them here as I don't want to embarrass their authors. But the books I saw were so poorly edited that I recommend authors avoid Musa at this point.

And in the case of a new company, I'd rather they paid me with money they had as they got it, than by plundering the coffers in advance. Too many publishers have shot themselves in the metaphorical foot doing that, you know?

--Liz

If a publisher can't afford to pay its staff appropriately then it is under-capitalised or poorly run.

Paying freelancers for the work they do at an appropriate time isn't "plundering the coffers in advance", it's professional and business-like.

If paying your staff a fair amount in a timely manner is likely to tip Musa over the financial edge then Musa needs to rethink its business plan.

If you decide to pull a book then its editor, who did the work for you in good faith, is going to be penalised for your decision. That editor will bear the financial weight of your business decision. In effect, you're expecting your editors to carry at least part of Musa's financial risk. Do you expect them to also share in Musa's financial success by giving them a share of your profits on top of the royalties you pay them? Because if not this seems weighted very strongly, and very unfairly, in Musa's favour.
 

Gale Haut

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Does the reference mention the quality of the work you did while you were with Musa? Does it mention any of the positive things you did while you were there? Does it discuss that you were asked to do far more than you were expecting when you signed up for the internship? Because if not, that strikes me as very unfair.

It might. What I've been told has been inconsistent and I'm far too insecure about what kind of reference it would be due to the distressing nature of my previous interactions with a key staffer, some of which I already described.

From my documentation, here is what I was told after I had left Musa, and I will not disclose here who I'm quoting:

Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 2:32 PM
Please know that any recommendation that I can now give would have to be amended with a due to personality conflicts he did not complete his internship.

I was also more consistently told that any employer calling for a reference would be informed that I did not complete my commitment with the company if they were asked the length of my internship. This did not instill much confidence in me regarding this reference, and I already had very little confidence in the reference given the incident I described earlier.

I don't believe there are many companies willing to overlook the "amendments" to whatever praise Musa may or may not have been willing to give.
 
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Stacia Kane

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Really? Why? No offence, but I don't understand why you think they're the top of a pile. Honestly, I don't get this whole categorizing system some people seem to deal publishers into. It feels (and frankly, IS!) manufactured.

Manufactured by publishers, and readers.


Yes, there is a heiarchy for publishers, but there is not a heiarchy of digital presses, and then another heiarchy of print presses. There is one list. You don't make two lists when you're going to submit to a press (one for print and one for digital).

Yes, you do, if you know anything about your genre, what you write, what the market for it is, and what the actual differences are between print-first houses and e-first houses.

The difference between, say, Ellora's Cave and Ballantine is NOT just one of which format they publish first, or primarily. Not at all. You seem to be assuming/behaving as though it is.

Books which are appropriate for EC will not necessarily be appropriate for Ballantine, and vice versa. They have different heat levels, different expectations, different focuses.


And really, why in the world would you NOT make two lists?

Let's put aside the fact that there are many authors out there who aren't particularly interested in finding an agent and submitting to NY, and so would just make a list of epublishers to start with and not concern themselves with NY.

What you seem to be proposing here is that when it comes to epublishers, there is no hierarchy or no difference between them; the implication I'm getting here is that if you for whatever reason are not published by one of the Big Five, any old epublisher will do. That's categorically untrue, and your insistence that it's wrong to consider which epublishers are the best at doing the specific things epublishers do is confusing at best.

You also seem to think there is no difference between epublishers and NY houses, just because all of them put out digital editions. That's not the case. Not only is it a different business model, it's a different focus. Many of the epublishers focus on very erotic books, which many of the NY houses shy away from. Epublishers publish a lot more "niche" books or books with focuses not as popular in NY; the rise of m/m began in epublishing. There are more menage books in epublishing. Epublished books tend to be far more graphic.


Think of it this way. If you've written a literary novel about a young woman finding herself as she works her way through culinary school, submitting that novel (which, btw, should not ever be referred to as a "fiction novel") to Tor isn't a smart thing to do, regardless of how high Tor might be on some list. Because Tor doesn't publish literary fiction.


It is 2013! All publishers do digital publishing. Do people not know that? The best digital publishers are the same guys who are the best print publishers. Being the best "digital-only publisher" is completely meaningless. EC and Samhain both do print too by the way, so why are they not just seen as "publishers?"


Because they do not operate on the same business model as HarperCollins or Random House. Just because you don't know the difference doesn't mean the rest of us don't, and believe me, we are very aware that all publishers do digital editions at this point in time.

If a publisher has some background or skill set that enables them to perform better using digital-only publishing, then their print and digital competition can do, great. They get to shimmy up the list in the top publisher list.

But again, not everyone wants to be published by NY. Not everyone wants to be published by an ehouse. If epublishing is your primary goal, because you want a specific royalty rate and/or payment schedule, why in the world would you add NY houses to your list when you know for a fact they will not provide those rates or schedules? If epublishing is your primary focus, why in the world would you not want to know who the best e-first houses are?



Let me simplify it for you. You saying that X publisher is the best "Digital only" publisher, is like saying X publisher is the fastest slow kid in school. Among those publishers who limit their distribution to digital marketplaces, publisher x is the best. See what I mean?

No one is failing to understand what you mean. We simply think you're really, really wrong, and that you're making your statements based on assumptions and misinformation.


Because everyone publishes digitally. So either you're the best publisher, or you're not. They all compete on the same field. Every publisher is a digital publisher. So the top digital publisher is going to be one (or all) of the big six publishers. Harper, Random House . . . etc. Who sells more digital titles than they do? No one! So they get to be called the best.

Except their business model isn't what every author wants, and the books they publish aren't what everyone wants to write, or they don't publish what some people DO want to write. Really, I find myself shocked that this needs to be explained, and I find myself shocked that you're presuming to tell people how they should be classifying publishers based on...some sort of knowledge gap about what the differences between epublishers and print publishers are.




No, that wouldn't be a reason to make two lists. My point was, you start at the top when you submit to any publisher. If you think Musa, or Samhain, or EC are the best publishers, go ahead and submit to them first. But don't think they're not competing with all the other publishers out there. They are.

No. They are not. Not any more than Tor is competing with Random House's Schocken Books. Not any more than HarperVoyager is competing with Atria Books over at S&S.

The idea that every publisher is the same, and every book is the same, and they're all competing with each other, is simply not true.

My point is, if they compete together, they should produce the same quality products. If they don't, they're doing something wrong.

My point is, different publishers do things differently, and focus on different markets, and different types of stories, and authors want different things, so one-size-fits-all doesn't work.
 

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Was this a misquote, or... what part of it am I mistaken about? I don't understand what you're saying or disagreeing with.

Hapi quoted the part of your comment she was referring to. I'll reconstruct her comment here, to help clarify this for you.

I should clarify that I have no experience with Musa - my timeline was with a different e-publisher; I was attempting to address the apparently nonexistent opinion that proper editing can't be done on a e-publisher's schedule. in general.

You're mistaken.

More detailed answer to follow.
 

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Great post, Stacia.

The idea that every publisher is the same, and every book is the same, and they're all competing with each other, is simply not true.

My point is, different publishers do things differently, and focus on different markets, and different types of stories, and authors want different things, so one-size-fits-all doesn't work.

True.

Suggesting that all publishers are in direct competition with one another is like suggesting that if we put all the medal-winners from last year's Olympic Games into a great big running race then we'd be able to work out who was the greatest Olympian of them all.

How well would the archers do, do you think? Or the swimmers? Or the shot-putters? Might the athletes who won the running races dominate in such an event, do you think? And would that mean that the other athletes weren't therefore as good as the runners?
 

twiharder

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Stacia, let me remind you the comment I had issue with:


I consider (and I think many would agree) Carina, Samhain and EC as the top 3 epubs in the industry, without question.


Top three epubs in the industry. Not top three erotic fiction electronic publishers, top three electronic publishers.



Yes, you do, if you know anything about your genre, what you write, what the market for it is, and what the actual differences are between print-first houses and e-first houses.

I never said you don’t separate by genre. I said when you’re calling these three publishers “THE BEST” producers of digital books YOU.ARE.WRONG. If you wanted to call them the best producers of erotic fiction, well, I’d say you’d have a better argument.

And producers of mysteries compete against other producers of mysteries, producers of si/fi compete against other producers of si/fi, producers of erotica compete against other producers of erotica.

That is just common sense. Of course if you're building a submission list for who to send your erotic romance novel to, you don't add Bloomsbury.
 

Alessandra Kelley

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4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern, and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded.

There's a lot of back and forth involved when an intern is not entirely familiar with the situation, and some things take twice as long because of that or even just because there's an added person in the equation. Things do move more smoothly the further in an internship we go, of course, but nothing's easy right away.

I have to confess, this part confuses me.

I was under the impression that Musa editing interns were not simply being trained with classroom-like exercises, but are editing real submitted manuscripts for actual publication. They are doing work on books which will be published by Musa.

I am not a lawyer, but from a layman's perspective that has the appearance of an "immediate advantage" for Musa.

All trainees have some slowness and learning to do at the start; that's normal for any job.

My reading of these regulations -- again, not a lawyer -- suggests that if the company is profiting from the trainees' work, then the trainees must earn at least minimum wage. Or, since apparently in the arts world pay is still very rare, college credit.
 

Stacia Kane

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Stacia, let me remind you the comment I had issue with:


Top three epubs in the industry. Not top three erotic fiction electronic publishers, top three electronic publishers.

Actually, it's perfectly clear to me, and I think to many others, that Fae meant the epublishing industry specifically, as in, houses which publish ebooks first/primarily ebooks. Since, you know, she was replying to a post which said (bolding mine):

I apologize in advance, because I know this is off the topic.

I am so curious about this, I'd like to get a short list of the 'big dog' epubs and write to them so I can ask about their practices, both now and in the first year or two of their operations. I think it would make an interesting article for RWR or some other magazine.

Naturally, Carina is not going to be the same, since it's backed by the giant Harlequin, but I'm genuinely curious about some of the others. And I think that the business about the copy edits is just a misunderstanding.

Who are the 'big dogs' of epublishing? I'll see if I can get any information out of them and get back to you.

/end derail

Karen's question asked very specifically who were the "big dog" epublishers. Not publishers in general. Epublishers--again, houses which either do not publish print books or publish print editions after the ebook has been on sale for some time. Fae responded with her opinion regarding the "big dogs" in the epublishing industry. Why in the world would Fae need to say "the top three epublishers" in reply to a question which asked, "Who are the biggest epublishers?" It was clear what the question was. She quoted it before replying. (Karen also clearly sees a difference between epublishers and print publishers, which is why I bolded the statement about Carina.)

I appreciate the reminder of which comment you "had issue" with, but it wasn't necessary. I remembered why Fae said what she said, and understood Karen's question and Fae's reply; it seems you were confused by it, but I was not.



I never said you don’t separate by genre. I said when you’re calling these three publishers “THE BEST” producers of digital books YOU.ARE.WRONG. If you wanted to call them the best producers of erotic fiction, well, I’d say you’d have a better argument.

No, it is not wrong. The fact that you don't seem to understand what is actually being discussed, or what the differences are, doesn't change that. (And it wasn't "who produces the 'best' ebooks," it was "who are the biggest epublishers?")


And producers of mysteries compete against other producers of mysteries, producers of si/fi compete against other producers of si/fi, producers of erotica compete against other producers of erotica.


Sure, if all mysteries were exactly the same, and all sci-fi novels were exactly the same, and all erotica was exactly the same, and the authors of those books all want exactly the same thing from their publishers. But they're not, and they don't.

EC is not "in competition" with Berkley (actually, "competes" isn't really the right word to use in publishing, necessarily, because books are individual products). If you want a book of the sort EC publishes, you look at EC. Perhaps at some other erotic romance epublishers. You do not look at Berkley, because their books are not completely interchangeable with EC's. If you read in the genre--in any genre--the differences are clear and obvious.

And frankly, some readers read books from epublishers almost exclusively, and some readers do not own ereaders or read ebooks. Why? Because that's what they do. Because that's what they like. Because they've found House X's books suit their tastes whereas House Y's do not. Authors looking to epublish look at the biggest ehouses because they have the largest built-in audiences, who head to their website every Wednesday or whatever to check out that week's new releases. Every publisher is not the same.

How do you think agents choose which editors to submit a particular book to? They know which publishers produce which types of books, and which editors like which particular types of stories/voices/etc. Why would they do that if all publishers were exactly alike and produced exactly the same types of books?


And again, we are talking about different business models here.

I'm honestly having a hard time seeing what is so difficult about this, or why you're so insistent that everyone here is "wrong" to separate epublishers from print houses. There are big print houses. There are big epublishers. If you want print publishing you go for the biggest print houses. If you want epublishing you go for the biggest epublishers. It's not rocket science.


That is just common sense.

No, actually, it's incorrect. See above: not all books are the same, and publishers really aren't "competing" with each other in the sense you seem to mean.

Of course if you're building a submission list for who to send your erotic romance novel to, you don't add Bloomsbury.

And if your interest is in being published in ebook first, because epublishers are the ones who produce the types of books you write, and/or because you want a monthly payment schedule, and/or a certain royalty percent, and/or a certain type of experience, and/or are aiming at a particular audience, and/or write shorts or novellas which the large print houses aren't interested in, you look at epublishers first, and want to know who the biggest ones are. My point about genre was simply to illustrate that not all houses are the same, not all books are the same, and that if one acknowledges the differences there one must also see that there are other differences.

Bottom line, authors are allowed to classify and/or judge publishers however they like, and it's really not your place to say they're "wrong" for doing so (we have a specific forum here for epublishing; are we "wrong?"). You are free to lump all publishers together or to think the only difference is format or whatever else and make your decisions accordingly; no one is stopping you. But the rest of us will classify them according to what we know about them and how they work and the industry as a whole, and we're not "wrong" for doing so. It is in fact rather disrespectful of you to insist everyone is "wrong" for judging epublishers separately from print publishers, just because NY produces ebooks, too.


But since you are so determined to bang this particular drum, I'd love to know why you feel there is no difference between NY and epublishers. Do you think the business models are the same? Do you think the types of books they publish are the same? Do you see no difference between books published by NY and books published by ehouses as far as length, content, level of explicitness? Do you think their authors have the exact same experiences? Do you think their distribution models are the same? Their marketing and promotion?

On what, exactly, are you basing your insistence that they should all be lumped together as "publishers" with no differentiation made at all? What experiences have you had, either as a reader or a writer, that convinced you they're exactly the same?
 
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Filigree

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Twiharder, I understand your clarification. We maybe should have specified 'erotic romance'.

But there's a shift happening in the markets. Musa and Carina have gone on record stating that they want more sf&f and mystery fiction, not necessarily with a romance theme. In this way, they are competing directly with the big houses and feisty smaller presses traditionally known for such genres. As Musa, Carina, and other e-pub only or mostly e-pub houses get into the mainstream markets, they will be judged by those fields' standards, not by what has evolved within the e-pub romance markets.

Likewise, as the big houses wise up to putting their OOP backlists into e-pub formats to attract new sales, those houses will be competing with the e-book publishers.

Personally, by 'best' I judge editing quality, cover art & book design, marketing, support for existing authors, and sales. I've seen bad examples of each in both mainstream and e-pub houses.

I wish Celina and the other Musa principals the best. There's room in the industry for what they say they want to achieve. But I'm holding off on subbing to Musa again, until I see improvements in certain areas that leave me hesitant to commit my work.
 

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You're right, Filigree. Musa accepted my novel, Beyond the Third Garden, which is a literary fiction piece and doesn't have an ounce of erotic romance in it. As for subbing to Musa for my next novel, if they do good work on my first - it won't come out till summer -, I don't see any reason for shifting to another publisher. And judging by all I've heard from most Musa authors, the good work is a sure thing.
 

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Top three epubs in the industry. Not top three erotic fiction electronic publishers, top three electronic publishers.

I never said you don’t separate by genre. I said when you’re calling these three publishers “THE BEST” producers of digital books YOU.ARE.WRONG. If you wanted to call them the best producers of erotic fiction, well, I’d say you’d have a better argument.

And producers of mysteries compete against other producers of mysteries, producers of si/fi compete against other producers of si/fi, producers of erotica compete against other producers of erotica.

That is just common sense. Of course if you're building a submission list for who to send your erotic romance novel to, you don't add Bloomsbury.

Alright, if that is true, then explain to me why many NY published, sometimes bestselling authors ALSO epublish with the houses I listed? Do you want names? Megan Hart, Shannon Stacey, Bertrice Small, Kate Pearce, Carrie Lofty, Deidre Knight and so on and so on. If the best place to publish a book is ALWAYS one of the Big 6, then why are those authors simultaneously publishing at epublishers rather than giving those books to their existing mainstream pubs?

I'll tell you why. Because just because the big 6 put out E-versions of their books, that does not make them the best at it. Ask authors whose ebook sales at the major pubs are a trickle because their books are priced at 9 bucks or more, or because their books did not get an E-version until 6 months after release, or are DRM locked and geographically closed down etc etc. Not to mention the fact that authors are not nearly as restricted creatively in epublishing as in mainstream publishing. Length, content, genre, sexuality - it's all up for grabs and open to being played with. That is extremely appealing to a writer, even one who's currently working with publishers you call the BEST.

I know I said I was done with this thread, but the sheer ignorance of some of your statements is hard to ignore. You can keep shouting that we're wrong all you like, it doesn't make it true. It's pretty clear you're lacking in some knowledge of what epublishing actually is. It's not the same as a print publisher putting out a digital version of a paperback book. It's a completely different business model, as Stacia said, and has quite a few very large advantages over the mainstream. I assure you, having been working with epublishers for the last almost 8 years, I'm well aware of where my books are best placed and it's not at one of the Big 6. No matter how many times you shout that it is.
 

Filigree

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Before this flares up again, I'd like to point out that authors always need to do their research. Different markets do different things.

I would never have been able to publish my debut novel with Tor, DAW, Del Rey Spectra, Orbit, Pyr, or any of the other 'traditional' sf&f houses because of the graphic and necessary sexual content. E-pubs made sense there. Loose Id, Carina, Samhain, and Musa were on my list because they were more open to spec fiction elements. Loose Id could handle the rougher elements of the story, so I chose their offer.

I will probably never be able to sub my big mainstream fantasy to one of the evolving e-pubs because of its complexity, scope, and some hot-button issues that the e-pubs shy from. So a big sf&f house makes sense, there.

I have other work that I will probably have to self-publish, and I'm fine with that - but I'm going to make sure I have a record to trade upon before I attempt it.

The brave new world of publishing is a lot like that of energy efficiency and climate change: no one option is always going to be 'the best', and successful ventures will incorporate a mix of strategies.
 

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I see we have a number of new members posting in this thread, so I'm going to remind people:

You're welcome to disagree, but you will be courteous about it. That applies to everyone.

If you haven't already, please go read The Newbie Guide to Absolute Write.
 

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You're right, Filigree. Musa accepted my novel, Beyond the Third Garden, which is a literary fiction piece and doesn't have an ounce of erotic romance in it. As for subbing to Musa for my next novel, if they do good work on my first - it won't come out till summer -, I don't see any reason for shifting to another publisher. And judging by all I've heard from most Musa authors, the good work is a sure thing.
Congratulations on your novel being published. Since Musa isn't really known for publishing literary fiction, what made you submit to them? I have no idea about how they market books and to what success, but what are their plans for your novel? I ask because it seems it's out of their usual realm of books they publish (from what I've read in this thread). I also recently looked at some of their samples on Amazon and I agree with Old Hack's assessment. I was surprised at the quality of editing, but truthfully, I can't blame it all on the editing. Which leads me to ask if interns have a hand in choosing novels from the slush? I also wonder... about the acquiring editors' selectivity, and editing experience.

What stage is your novel in, what round of editing, if you don't mind sharing. What kinds of edits are you being asked to revisit?

You say "the good work is a sure thing." What do you mean by that? Are you basing this on sales, or Musa novels you've read? Could you name a few as examples of what you consider 'good work' or in which Musa performed 'good work' if that's what you meant?

To Musa authors: How are sales? Am I wrong to think success is based on number$? (Aside from personal success of finding a home for novels, making Mom proud, having something to brag about at high school reunions, etc.) Bottom line, at least for a publisher, is sales, right? Not to mention legitimate awards.

Thanks ahead for taking the time to answer.
 

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Lilly, thanks for the congrats. You're right that Musa hasn't dealt with literary fiction much, but I think they're starting another imprint that's in the general genre of 'contemporary', which is where my novel will end up. As for the editing process, it hasn't started yet, but I'll be sure to keep you posted about the outcome. I base 'the sure thing' phrase on what I read posted by authors on the Musa FB site.

Anyway, nothing beats personal experience, which I won't gain until the first round of editing.
 

LillyPu

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Thanks, Snafu, and best of luck. I'll look for your novel when it comes out. :)
 

Alessandra Kelley

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After the incident a staffer compared the "trial run" I was put on as no different than what I would do auditioning as an artist for "Disney." This statement was similar to some that were made with the staffer from the incident. There was never a "trial run" agreement made, or an attempt to define this aspect of my role with Musa until after the incident.

Gale, I'm truly sorry for your experience.

After that comment, I was curious to know the actual terms of Disney art internships, so I looked them up.

Disney's intern programs offer paid postgraduate positions for periods of 3-6 months and mentored internships for students for no more than three months with no pay (but a "basic relocation package" to help with living expenses), and college credit "depends on your educational institution."

So yes, Disney does offer 6 month internships (but not unpaid ones) and unpaid internships (but not six-month ones). These have clearly defined projects, which are not part of Disney's professional output, and a lot of supervision by industry professionals and the colleges.

Given that Musa was offering a six-month unpaid period with no college credits in which there were no clearly defined limits to the work (which was expected to be used professionally by Musa), I would say that no, Musa's "trial runs" are not like Disney's at all.
 

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Hapi quoted the part of your comment she was referring to. I'll reconstruct her comment here, to help clarify this for you.

Well, verbatim reposting of the post that originally confused me doesn't really clarify things for me, but I guess I appreciate the effort?

I assume Hapi wasn't disagreeing with the part of my comment where I said I'd never worked with Musa, so I guess she was disagreeing with the second part? Where I said I was trying to establish that it was possible for effective editing to be done on an e-publishing schedule.

So I guess that means she thinks it IS impossible for effective editing to be done on an e-publishing schedule? But that can't be right, because she said she wasn't criticizing the e-publishing model in general, just expressing concerns about Musa. And her later comment seems to be Musa-specific, since it was based on looking at Musa books. Obviously finding flaws in the editing of books from a specific house doesn't prove that editing from all houses is similarly flawed.

Hence my confusion. I don't think there was anything in my statement that her later post disproved, and it would be pretty hard to ever disprove it without a completely exhaustive search.

So I thought maybe she quoted the wrong part of my post, or something. Otherwise, I think it's just faulty logic.
 

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So I thought maybe she quoted the wrong part of my post, or something. Otherwise, I think it's just faulty logic.

You could simply wait and see, before asserting "faulty logic." Were I you, I'd rather err on side of courtesy.
 

HapiSofi

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You could simply wait and see, before asserting "faulty logic." Were I you, I'd rather err on side of courtesy.
Courtesy or catharsis; and courtesy's better.

If ever it's the other of the two, I hope I'm here for it.

===

Captcha, first, I deny that there is such a thing as an e-publishing schedule. There is nothing inherent in the technology or the distribution system that makes short turnarounds necessary.

Can good editing be done on a short schedule? Sometimes. Not a majority of times. When it happens, it's a property of that author, that editor, and that specific book; and it helps if the book arrives at the right moment in the editor's workflow.

If a book or story isn't a natural for a fast edit, pushing the pace won't get satisfactory results. I saw your earlier remarks about editing and production schedules, and it struck me that you left out three things.

The first is time for the editor to think about the work after their first or second read-through. That really can take a while. We're not pachinko machines. Readers generally know whether they're happy or dissatisfied with a book, but they're less sure about why, and seldom have to think about the mechanics of what went wrong. We do. It takes time.

The second is time for the editor to convey what they have in mind to the author. You've probably never seen a twenty-something-page single-spaced editorial letter going over every nontrivial mark and suggestion in the entire book. They take a while to write. If instead we mark up the manuscript, write abbreviated queries in the margins, ship the whole thing off to the author, and have a nice long talk after they've looked at it, the process may run faster, but there may be supplementary sessions when the author, in the midst of rewriting a passage, decides that they can't have understood you as well as they thought had when you were talking about it. However you handle it, you're going to be conveying a vast amount of nuanced information. That's never fast, to transmit or receive.

The third is time for the author(s) to assimilate the new input, think about it, rewrite some sections, and make fiddly changes in the rest. Like item #2, the time this takes is not primarily a function of the author's typing speed. Some long ruminative thoughts are required. Ask Jim Macdonald about that one. I know I've heard him tell a story about realizing en route to NYC to drop off a manuscript that what his and Doyle's latest book needed was a big, flashy space fleet battle. The patch was written while they were on the road, and printed out (iirc) in a Staples parking lot.

So. Does that give you any idea what I'm talking about?
 
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Captcha

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So. Does that give you any idea what I'm talking about?

I continue to have an idea of what you're talking about. I just disagree with it. Not all of it, but... enough of it.

And since we're WAY far from the original topic and I'm apparently arguing with (or at least being 'corrected' by) several mods, I think I'll back away.

Have an excellent day.
 

KTC

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I've read a few Musa books by now. I've not yet been disappointed. I don't recall seeing any glaring errors, either.

As for my own experience, it was actually the editing that sold me on Musa. I had a wonderful experience with my editor. My story was made stronger by the relationship. I am about to head into edits for my second Musa novel. Both of my Musas are literary.

I just checked the Look Inside feature on my first Musa novel, and I could not find any glaring issues. I know there are at least two mistakes in the manuscript...I caught them when I first read through the print version, of course. But I have to be honest, I find errors in every book I read. I'm a perfectionist. I'm thrilled with my Musa experience thus far.

Musa's not my first publisher, but it has been my best experience with a publisher to date.