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Morgan James Publishing

James D. Macdonald

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Oh, my word:

How does the Morgan James Entrepreneurial Publishing Model Compare?

Just count the palpable lies on that page.


For example: "Many major houses require authors purchase copies of the book upon its release, usually at cost plus a percentage or a discount off retail"

This is ... untrue.

That from the "Book Purchase Requirement" line in their table, in the Traditional Publishing column.

From the Morgan James Publishing column, same line: "Author is asked to commit to purchasing, during the life of the agreement, twenty-five hundred copies at cost plus a percentage".

Which I expect will leave the author with the problem of what to do with the 2,450 copies in their garage when the agreement ends.

And that's not including the good-intentioned, but hopelessly unprepared for reality, publishers who may not take money, but they do take time from their authors.

Worse than time: They may screw up the rights situation, perhaps permanently.
 

priceless1

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That whole page is a sodding mess. A couple things popped out at me:
Average of less than 15% bookstore return rates which are then restocked for resale, offered to the authors, or donated to Habitat for Humanity
There is no way a publisher can make those kinds of claims with any consistency unless there's some footsie going on. Ingram Publisher Services is about getting books on store shelves, just like every other distributor. If the national accounts don't pre-order titles, most of the orders end up at Ingram Warehousing, where they are available for orders from Amazon, or any bookstore or library.

But here's a fun fact. They're supposed to buy the books after 90 days. Of course they don't want to do that, so they bundle up the lot and send them back to the publisher's distributor, after which they issue a purchase order on those very same books. So the publisher is paying for numerous round trips.

Now I have no idea how much in bed IPS is with the warehouse side, but it wouldn't be a wild guess that IPS clients' books aren't sent back, thus making the claim that the publisher suffers very few returns. I have no idea if that's the case, but sitting where I do, it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

Of course, Jim pointed out the silliest one about authors being expected to buy their own books. I'm but a wee company and even we would never make that demand. Silly.
Over $60,000 of co-operative marketing monies is made available to the authors on every book published
Let's not forget that the author paid some of the highest fees in the book vanity world, so I should hope they'd get something for all that money.

But what does that 60K mean? Are they actually spending that much on the marketing of each title, or is this the sum of salaries of those indie contractors who work on MJ's marketing efforts? I'm painfully familiar with one of their marketing people, and she charges a small fortune for absolutely zero results.
Authors become part of our trademarked Entrepreneurial Vision Mastermind to establish the best future for title
Is this is a lot of gobbledegook that means "we include your promotional ideas"? They claim that publisher takes over and makes all decisions. I don't know of a single publisher - big or small - who ignores an author's promo plan and works with them to enhance that plan. The idea is to make the book as successful as possible, and the publisher is creating the national footprint while the author works on the local one. How is this "taking over"?
Authors are treated as valuable partners in the process and are the most important member of the mastermind group created for each project accepted
Why does this tired and ragtag consistently rear its ugly head? The old, "we're soooo much nicer than those other guys," is as moldy as my meatloaf. And it's simply not true. I speak to far too many authors at writer's conferences who have been pubbed by mainstream, both big and small, and each of them felt their voice was heard and welcomed through every phase of production.

In short, I cringe when I see stuff like this because like nearly every vanity site I stumble across, they're very good at one thing; making themselves look like the Second Coming. Reality? Eh, as far as they're concerned, it's way overrated.
 
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brainstorm77

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Run, run like the wind...
 

HapiSofi

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Did anyone notice, back in 2008, that when MJ president Dave Hancock turned up in the thread, his user ID was "frishmr"? That's as in MJ's publicist, Rick Frishman, whom Hancock describes as "one of the most powerful Publicists in the publishing industry" and "a brilliant industry expert."

(Pfft. Yeah, sure. Check out Frishman's website. He throws around the names of publishing companies and celebrity (if not always bestselling) authors he's worked with, but the only titles mentioned on his site are eleven books he's co-authored. All of them are about how you can "leverage the magic of publicity" to make yourself a bestselling author. So far, I've identified one that wasn't self-published.)

Gotta wonder what was going on there. Was that Rick Frishman writing as Dave Hancock, or Dave Hancock appropriating Rick Frishman's name as his user ID? Either way, it was evidence of unhygienic user-identity practices.
 

Stacia Kane

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Oh, don't even get me started on Rick Frishman. I've started like a dozen blog posts on him, only to stop because he seems like the very litigious type. But yeah, no real credits, no real evidence of success, no evidence at all that he knows what he's talking about and is more than just a vanity-press shill.
 

Scribble Orca

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Icky feeling - someone for this MJ organisation started following me on Twitter. Just their tagline alone gave me goose bumps.

I haven't had any other dealings, but their website page reads like a vanity publisher - particularly with the buy back clause.

Not someone with whom I want to hang around.

If you really want to publish your book unagented/trad pubbed, find a good editor and cover designer as a start. And start thinking how you are going to market, distribute and deliver your book. But don't give money to these people.
 

Literateparakeet

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I first heard about Morgan James from one of their new editors at a Writer's Conference. Sigh, aren't writer's conferences where you are supposed to go to get GOOD information on writing and publishing?

I pitched to him--for practice--and was invited to send my non-fiction proposal. I won't though because I have been well-trained here on AW--Money flows to the writer. :)

FYI, the pitch I heard from the editor was similar to what is posted here...$5,000 up front for copies of your books, but the claim is that it is worth it because they get you in brick and mortar stores. Ya da, ya da.

I'll just keep querying agents and seeking a trade publisher. :)
 
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mrcyogi

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Hello, Water Cooler Gurus.

Has anyone had experience with Morgan James Publishing? Terry Whalin, an acquisition editor is interested in my latest manuscript...

Thanks to all commenters.

Regards,
Marshall Chamberlain
 

Dhewco

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I couldn't afford five copies of my own books at this point. 2500 seems as likely as a lotto win. I just can't see it.
 

ctripp

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I especially enjoyed Morgan James "Compare" page, where among other false information about Trade Publishers, they state many of the big publishers require their Authors to buy 5000 of their own books, compared to MJ's that "only" requires the purchase of 2500

http://www.morganjamespublishing.com/compare

Sadly a new writer won't know that's a joke, if they haven't done their industry research:(
 

The Suspense Author

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Publishers requiring you to buy thousands of copies of your own book

A part of a small publishers requirements for contract are that over the time-span of your contract you buy a couple thousand copies of your own book. They are trying to convince me that this is standard and that all big publishers require you to buy 5,000-10,000 copies of your own book. I have never heard of this before. Is there any truth to this? I have always been told that the publisher often gives you a few copies of your book plus gives you a discount on future purchases of your book..... but never force you to buy thousands of copies of your book.
 

Captcha

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No, that's a scam. Big publishers GIVE you books, they don't ask you to buy them.

Run. These guys aren't legit.
 

Helix

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A part of a small publishers requirements for contract are that over the time-span of your contract you buy a couple thousand copies of your own book. They are trying to convince me that this is standard and that all big publishers require you to buy 5,000-10,000 copies of your own book. I have never heard of this before. Is there any truth to this? I have always been told that the publisher often gives you a few copies of your book plus gives you a discount on future purchases of your book..... but never force you to buy thousands of copies of your book.

They're telling you nonsense.
 

mirandashell

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A part of a small publishers requirements for contract are that over the time-span of your contract you buy a couple thousand copies of your own book. They are trying to convince me that this is standard and that all big publishers require you to buy 5,000-10,000 copies of your own book. I have never heard of this before. Is there any truth to this? I have always been told that the publisher often gives you a few copies of your book plus gives you a discount on future purchases of your book..... but never force you to buy thousands of copies of your book.
Are you already signed up with this 'publisher'?
 

mrsmig

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If, in any way, you must provide funds for your book to be published - whether it's by buying a "package" or by purchasing x number of your own books - you're dealing with a vanity publisher.
 

The Suspense Author

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I haven't signed anything with them. They were going to read my manuscript when I stumbled upon the info on their site and then i messaged them on twitter to ask about it and their exact response was "That is not uncommon. Wiley and Simon & Schuster it can be as high as ten thousand. However, the good news is twenty five hundred is the max we'd ask for non fiction. For fiction it could be up to just one thousand. And it is over the life of the work."