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[Publisher] Ravenous Romance

veinglory

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I like Harlequin too. But if a Blaze has 5 typos and a continuity error within 2 pages I am going to criticise it. Why would they even strive to do better if the readership doesn't demand it? Why would that level or errors be acceptable?
 

jennontheisland

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"the net dollar amount received by the Publisher for sale of the Publisher’s publication(s) of the Work from the retailer or consumer, after discount, less actual returns or credits issued relating to prior sales; less shipping, mailing, insurance and handling expenses; less credit card, payment processing or collection costs; and less currency conversion costs; and excluding sales, GST, VAT or other taxes"


The word net is not one I would ever want to see in my contract. The potential for worms in that can is beyond belief. "Handling expenses" for example, could be anything. They could charge an hourly rate for administrative costs to calculate the net amount. Insurance costs could apply to any kind of insurance. Collection costs? Really? If someone owes them money for my books, I have to pay so that they can try to collect it?

Wow.

Um, no. Thank you.
 

Sheryl Nantus

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The word net is not one I would ever want to see in my contract. The potential for worms in that can is beyond belief. "Handling expenses" for example, could be anything. They could charge an hourly rate for administrative costs to calculate the net amount. Insurance costs could apply to any kind of insurance. Collection costs? Really? If someone owes them money for my books, I have to pay so that they can try to collect it?

Wow.

Um, no. Thank you.

I have something like that in my current contract. Which means that when someone buys my $12.95 book from a bookstore (Ingram's, to be specific) I get 20% of $4.22 which is 84 cents.

:(
 

michael_b

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Ravenous offers a money-back guarantee on their books. And they also are selling the print rights of their books as well as foreign rights (mostly print0, so their print/foreign titles can have returns and shipping expenses.

Do you mean they are refunding money to people who buy an ebook then decide they don't want it? If they're doing that they've found a great way to fuel the pirate ebook sites. Not only do the pirates get to put books up that others can download for free they then even get their own money back on the purchase.

I really hope that's not what you mean and they don't really refund money on ebooks. It's standard in the ebook industry that once you've bought an ebook, that's it, no refund. That's the standard for any downloadable purchase industry.
 

Fae Sutherland

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Do you mean they are refunding money to people who buy an ebook then decide they don't want it? If they're doing that they've found a great way to fuel the pirate ebook sites. Not only do the pirates get to put books up that others can download for free they then even get their own money back on the purchase.

I really hope that's not what you mean and they don't really refund money on ebooks. It's standard in the ebook industry that once you've bought an ebook, that's it, no refund. That's the standard for any downloadable purchase industry.

Per RR's site: Ravenous Romance is proud to be the only digital publisher that offers a money-back guarantee. We know how good our books are, and we stand behind them by putting our money where our mouth is. If you buy one of our ebooks or audiobooks and it doesn't meet your expectations, email us at [email protected], and we will refund your money (minus the small processing fee our gateway charges us). We're confident you'll find our ebooks and audiobooks to be the best on the Web.

So does this mean that authors royalties reflect these 'returns'? Or does RR eat the costs if books get refunded?
 

veinglory

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I read the "net" definition as saying royalties are not paid on returned books. If the sale was via a credit card or distributopr/charged handling it is possible the author would make a loss? I mean American express charges 6% and I assume you don't get that back?

not to say it isn't a good idea. Ebook buyers are starting to get a bit grumpy about loss of share/reslae in the format and the chance you take with a new press. A returns policy could significantly lower buying behavior thresholds--meaning greater earnings overall.
 

Lainey Bancroft

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A money back guarantee strikes me as a pretty wide open barn door. Yikes!

Based on...what? I mean, I've paid $4-12.99 for paperbacks that IMO weren't worth the paper they were printed on but I certainly couldn't just march them back to a bookstore and get a refund because they weren't to my taste.

A money back guarantee on a book--e or paper--seems like a Pandora's Box to me.
 

Chumplet

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Editing on The Toast Bitches took a little over a week. They seem to do things differently there -- no errata to look at, no ARC to inspect. The copy editor seemed thorough -- she had a few suggestions and an adjustment to the ending. I googled her and she used to work at a Boston daily as a copy editor, so she must know her stuff.

I was told it's being released this Sunday, but I haven't seen a cover and I guess I won't get a link in advance so I can set things up on my website and blog.

I wonder if we at least get an author copy, or the freedom to send pdfs to reviewers?
 

Sakamonda

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I wonder if we at least get an author copy, or the freedom to send pdfs to reviewers?

---You get both, but you need to ask for them. Email Michelle Frantz at Ravenous and she will be happy to oblige.

Sometimes I've seen my covers in advance, sometimes not. Depends on when they get the cover art back from the designers.
 

kropedykrop

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Just wanted to hear an update about Ravenous Romance. How are sales, royalties, authors' experiences?

Thanks,

K.
 

veinglory

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I don't have a representitive data set yet, but what I do have is in line with a brand new epublisher. i.e. sales are not strong. Of course not all the authors who promised to send figures seem to have done so, unless my email account is eating them.
 

mlhernandez

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I have a story in an anthology and the sales were a tad disappointing. I think it sold a whopping 15 copies in a quarter from RR's website. I have no idea about third party vendor sales yet. I think I'll get those numbers next quarter. Obviously I have no idea whether single titles sell better. They probably do. How much better, I couldn't guess.
 

Lainey Bancroft

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I have a story in an anthology and the sales were a tad disappointing. I think it sold a whopping 15 copies in a quarter from RR's website. I have no idea about third party vendor sales yet. I think I'll get those numbers next quarter. Obviously I have no idea whether single titles sell better. They probably do. How much better, I couldn't guess.

I know this is slightly off topic (apologies, if I'm too off course zap me with the magic 'delete' mods) but, is that the norm for anthologies? I rather thought they were a good thing, pulling in the loyal readers of 3-5 different authors. But the recent experience I had with an anthology (not RR) was also disappointing.:Shrug:

As far as RR data goes, I have about the same as para.
 

mlhernandez

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I know this is slightly off topic (apologies, if I'm too off course zap me with the magic 'delete' mods) but, is that the norm for anthologies? I rather thought they were a good thing, pulling in the loyal readers of 3-5 different authors. But the recent experience I had with an anthology (not RR) was also disappointing.:Shrug:

As far as RR data goes, I have about the same as para.

Not with EC at least. The EC Cavemen anthologies (ebook versions) sell incredibly well. I have a few friends with stories in some of the latest editions and they were very pleased with the sales (four digits.) But that may just be a quirk of EC's reader base, you know?

I don't know. I guess I was expecting way more from RR after all the promo talk. Who knows. Their single title numbers might be great. They just might not be positioned to sell anthologies very well.

I likely won't submit anything else to them though since I haven't been very impressed with the strength of the editing or the storytelling of the ten or so pieces I've purchased so far. Sad, really, since they have gorgeous covers and what seemed like a solid business plan.
 

victoriastrauss

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A recent PW article mentions Ravenous Romance. Interestingly, while it identifies Lori Perkins as an agent who has sent many clients to Ravenous, it doesn't reveal that she is a part-owner of the company.

This, along with other things I've been hearing, suggests to me that there are still conflict of interest issues here.

- Victoria
 

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Victoria, I noticed this in the PW article you linked to:

Schmidt, who worked at Rodale and other houses before starting Ravenous Romance (a sister company to the book packager Holland Publishing)

I've not heard of Holland Publishing, either here or elsewhere on the internet (admittedly, I'm not terribly up to date with current book packagers despite having edited for one in the past). But I do know that packagers can require an awful lot of writers, particularly if they're packaging series fiction for publication under a brand-name, non-existent (or resting) author. Should this have set my spidey-senses tingling the way it did, or am I just being cynical? Because if Perkins is also referring clients to Holland, then it seems to me that there's even more room for those potential conflicts of interest than we thought.

I might well be speculating a little too wildly here: it just seemed suspicious to me. If I've got it wrong then I apologise, but it's worth considering.
 

veinglory

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Holland isn't a high volume packager. They do artsy, quirky sexy non-fiction of various types.

I agree that their continuing failure to mention Perkin's direct involvement isn't a good look for RR or Perkins.
 

Chumplet

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I believe it's Hollan Publishing.

First royalty statements: Sex & Shoes Anthology looks like 15 copies, only from the RR site. No word on affiliate vendors yet.
The Toast Bitches went on sale Feb. 22nd, so in about six weeks it sold 5 copies from the RR site. Again, I won't know until my second report about sales from Fictionwise and such.

Sales seem to be no worse or better than my first two e-pubs, The Wild Rose Press and Champagne Books, both of which were in operation only a couple of years when I submitted to them. I'll wait till I get my second statement from RR before drawing any conclusions. If our relationship is profitable, I might continue the relationship. If not, well, the Toast Bitches will be my only book with them.

I did mention on our loops that actual copy sales numbers would be nice on our statements.

I have no opinion about Lori's conflict of interest concerns, since I don't know enough about it. I'll be shopping for an agent with my next book(s), and she has just as much chance of being my agent as any other. I expect my future agent to sell my work to a traditional house with good distribution and to get me a good advance. I trust if Lori is interested in anything I have to submit, she'll do the best she can for me. After all, fifteen percent of two hundred dollars isn't much. Why make the effort?
 

Sakamonda

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Ms. Perkins does not have an owership stake with Hollan Publishing, which is a book packager. She has an ownership stake with Literary Partners Group, Ravenous' parent company, which is a completely separate entity from the book packager.

Ms. Perkins' stake in Ravenous Romance has always been publicly disclosed whenever she is personally representing the company at conferences, etc. I've been at conferences w/ her and seen how she does it. She obviously can't always control what journalists write about it/her, though.
 

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I've only submitted/sold one short story to RR, so my experience is a single datum point:

1. Very slow responses. It took me emailing three or four different people to get a response to my query about the contract. I've had a similar lack of response for my request for payment.

2. What appears to be misrepresentative description of the anthology: It's listed as "Title" by "Name", with the name being that of the editor (making it look like she's the author). The description of the stories in the blurb imply that all the stories are by that single author. On the cover, the "edited by" is very difficult to read (in between BIG TITLE and BIG EDITOR'S NAME), furthering this misleading stance.

3. Editing of my short story (unless it was done without my knowledge) was precisely zero, but perhaps that's standard.

4. Nice cover art. No arguments there.

5. No complimentary author copy, which considering the negligible cost of creating an extra e-book is pretty disappointing.
 

veinglory

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Single or double digit sales would put them well down the list of epublishers. If this is typical it would put them in last place at EREC.