This strange email arrived today. Does anybody know anything about the company? The 25% royalty sounds amazing.

Sheila


[edit- name removed by admin]


No fees. No charges. Just great books.


A co-operative recruiting great writers.

An independent route for affordable publishing.

A manufacturer of professional quality bound books.

A book distributor offering exceptional value.

What do we do?

We recruit great writers.

We manufacture quality books.

We sell, sell and then continue to sell.

We carefully pack and post our TMB books.

We listen to the feedback from our customers, which encourages us.

We watch as the expanding pyramid of Turner Maxwell Books continues to grow.


Sadly but understandably, we realise the current wealth of literature lies in the supply chain and not with the author. Our business shares that true abundance of prosperity within this co-operative. We think we offer better rates than the major publishers. A minimum retail price of £9.99, including packing and postage, with 25% payment to the author.

[edit- name removed by admin]

[Edited by david bruce at 10:21:00 on 12 February 2008
Reason: name removed to avoid potential libel]

Take a look at their covers. You get an idea for the quality they are talking about. Reminds me of Publish America - without the gloss.

Wow! That was quick! I only went to make a cup of tea. I see what you mean- it hadn't occurred to me to look at their website but I will. I don't know Publish America, either.

I suppose I meant what kind of a company is it and why would they target me? Maybe they compile a list from sites like Writewords?

As it goes, I do have a novel ...but I'd have thought they'd need to read it first?

Sheila

<Added>

I've read their website and I'm not much wiser, except they have a number of books for sale. Although they don't say so, perhaps they ask authors to pay them to publish books. The style is rather obscure:


Sadly but understandably, we realise the current wealth of literature lies in the supply chain and not with the author. Our business shares that true abundance of prosperity within this co-operative.

So as I can't even understand what they mean, although that tue abundance of prosperity bit sounds Amarican, I think I won't pursue it further

Sheila

I'd never heard of them, even though they appear to be based in High Wycombe, which is the nearest town to where I live (not that I ever go there, cos it's a dump). I agree with Colin - the covers say it all. I really don't understand why these companies betray themselves with such trashy artwork - Photoshop is really not that difficult to learn.

It's difficult to see exactly how they work, but the phrase 'affordable publishing' and the fact that they emailed you are huge warning flags.

Not really. It's fairly easy to make a publishing company if you want to make your money purely through the authors. Step one, accept a manuscript. Step two, typeset it as best you can (I've seen some horror stories in this department). Step three, register an ISBN and get a barcode. Step four, print a few copies using POD (estimate how many your author will want to buy from you. Step five, register it with Amazon and/or Neilson Book Data, just to please your author. Step six, to fulfill your obligation to the author (25% royalties) allow them to buy their own books for £7.50.

Step 8. Leave all promotion to the author.

The thing is, for some people, doing local history or family history or something very specialist (a guide to Japanese Ping Pong Balls), this route to getting published might be ideal. For fiction authors, unless your goal is simply to see your book in print and listed on Amazon, then it's probably a waste of time.

As for how they got your email???? Who knows? Personally, I'm careful where I register on this internet thing. I usually use an alternative email address in case I do get crap - then it goes to a different account.

<Added>

sorry, that "not really" was in reply to :"but I'd have thought they'd need to read it first?"

I was thinking, it's just like any other bespoke industry kind of thing - you ask them to make something, they do it and that's that. Still, I suppose it's not a bad thing for people with money who are keen to get published. They do invite you to buy one of their books so you at least get to inspect the quality before investing rather more of your own money.

Thanks for the replies. Also the tip-off about High Wycombe, which sounds rather posh if you don't know any better. I'm thinking of moving to a cheaper location, so maybe it would suit me - I wonder how it compares with Catford, for instance?

Sheila

There are plenty of posh places around High Wycombe (e.g. Marlow and Amersham) but the town itself is grotty!

Re. people paying for publication - I think it's fine as long as everything is out in the open and the author knows how much they are paying and what they will receive in return. The trouble is that the subsidy publishing industry is such a magnet for rip-off merchants!

I think the problem comes when people are misinformed about what they are getting into, and after six months of being published they phone the company to ask what their sales figures are, only to get the reply, "well how many have you sold?"

You're not going to end up in the top 10 by this method, but I'm sure some people are happy just to have a product they can pass around.

Please remember ww has to be very careful to avoid potential libel actions, and we've learned that its much harder than it seems to determine what is and isn't libelous - so we don't allow discussion of specific firms on the forums I'm afraid. I've removed the name of this company, perhaps cornelia will be willing to tell people who it is if they ask her by wwmail - you are free to say what you like in private wwmails.

Sorry, David. I didn't know I wasn't allowed to mention the company, just curious as to the nature of their business. Apologies, and I'll try to remember in future.

Sheila

Every day in schools, children are given a bunch of homework that affects their emotional system and the psyche itself, because of which, they often have nervous breakdowns. How to avoid it? Everything is very simple, if you use the services of authors, then you know that they can write an essay for your child, and the essay paper format will always be written correctly. Why should our children suffer when there is an author for this.
Edited by MaksRomanov at 14:57:00 on 01 November 2022