Kicking it off!

Well, this thread has been here for some time. Ignored. Understandable, really. Unlike some other forums where you can sign in with a cute little handle and distance yourself from anything inflamatory you may wish to say, we're here under our own names--and many our own faces.

So I just thought I'd get the party started! If I've learned anything in the almost two years since my first release, it is that the sharing of information can only help us all.

Here I am...to share! I have four short stories and a contemporary romance published with The Wild Rose Press, plus a novella and another contemporary coming soon. I have a novella with Amira Press. A novella out and a contemporary romance soon to be released with Siren/BookStrand Publishing. A novella that won a spot in a Liquid Silver Books anthology. And finally, I have a chick lit romance that just came out with a brand new player, Absolute XPress, a division of the award winning Hades Publications.

I won't hastle you with an info dump, but if anyone has questions regarding my experience with any of these publishers, put it out here! I'll answer to the best of my ability and experience. And I look forward to hearing about your experiences.

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Permalink Reply by ann campbell on January 15, 2009 at 10:56am

I am a new author with TWRP myself. I have found them to be VERY friendly and willing to help in any way they can. I have thought about subbing to a different publisher for the sake of a few more irons in the fire, but I am old fashioned and tend to depend on loyalty. I find that when I think about sending something to a different publisher I feel guilty. Did you ever feel that way?

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Permalink Reply by Lainey Bancroft on January 15, 2009 at 11:37am

Hi Ann. Nice to be in the garden with you! There's a lot to be said for loyalty and developing a relationship with a single publisher and the readers who regularly buy there. The stories I have with TWRP are all sweet contemporary, so I really had no guilt about querying my books and novellas that contained racier content to different publishing houses. I also hoped that branching out would help me build name recognition. I believe it has, but fair warning--the more publishers you work with, the more of your time gets eaten up with promo loops, chats etc. I am feeling spread very thin at the moment, and probably will not query anything else for 6 or 8 months while I study the responses I have to current works at the various publishers.

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Permalink Reply by Judith on January 15, 2009 at 12:13pm

Okay, Lainey, I have a question. What do you think about the other presses you have work with. I'm curious about how they compare to TWRP? I've heard very little about AP and LSB.

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Permalink Reply by Lainey Bancroft on January 15, 2009 at 2:13pm

The editor at Amira was terrific, the royalty reports arrive regularly the first of the month, and they have a smaller stable of authors rather than faceless masses, which I think is a plus. Having said that, I probably won't query them again. For one, they withhold payment from Fictionwise until you have earned out the $15.00 set-up fee Fictionwise charges. Not a huge deal, but the other publishers do not. Also, all Amira books are now sold at BookStrand (they have a huge online store that sells harlequins and everything) so since I already have an established relationship at BookStrand, it doesn't make sense to me to have Amira as a middleman.

LSB is terrifically friendly and professional from a query to response time stand point, and very good about all the red tape of contracts. The editor I've dealt with is thorough, and LSB has a fun forum of authors and readers. Beyond that, I really can't comment as I'm still in the edit stage with the novella I have there, and truthfully, offering an objective comment on sales there may be impossible as I'm in an anthology with two other authors--one of whom is established with LSB (Jennifer Leeland/Jennifer McKenzie) So it will be difficult to judge whether their anthologies sell well, or my story caught reader eyes or whether I just took a ride on Jennifer's fans. lol.

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Permalink Reply by Lainey Bancroft on October 7, 2009 at 7:25pm

This has been dormant for some time and I seriously thought about closing the discussion, but in the interest of fairness and information sharing I wanted to update and let anyone reading know that Absolute XPress is no longer publishing romance and my experience with them turned out VERY badly. Heart breaking TTTT. I won't go into the ugly and unfortunate details, but if anyone has a personal interest in the press or the 'players' who have moved on to start another ebook company, PM me and I'll share what info I have.