Re: ebook sales

Ah, yes... P&E.  I usually just stay away from commenting on that
little nexus of hubris, but here I must drop in and comment.

(By the way, Ms Burton and I are in no way related, at least as far as
I know...)

I own a small press, and I freely admit that I offer other services,
such as cover design, editing, book trailer creation, etc.  The first
book that I published other than my own was SEVEN BY SEVEN, and the
seven authors involved (along with myself) each put $50 into the pot.
 A fairly modest sum, I think.

Each of those authors has received over $500 in royalties from sales
over the last 18 months, and some of them have expanded that even more
by selling quantities of the book face-to-face. The book is still
selling, by the way.  It's not a bad return on an investment,
considering that the anthology only required them to write a maximum
of 4,200 words.  The remainder of the books there (Sunny Frazier's
novel, Frank Zafiro's novel, the other anthologies) were all published
commercially.

Yet, P&E lists me as a subsidy publisher.  When I contacted them and
said that was sort of narrow, and asked them to list me as simply "a
publisher" or as someone who published both commercially and through
subsidy arrangements, they refused.  "The subsidy publishing takes
precedence, and authors should know that above all," is what I was told.

It's the old "one drop of blood rule," I guess.

Tony Burton

--- In [email protected], Elizabeth Burton <EBurton@...>
wrote:
>
> That would be the P&E that, after having awarded Zumaya a commendation  
> for being author friendly, a year later now lists us as "Not  
> recommended" because of "bad contract?" The provision of our contract  
> that led to this is the one wherein we permit authors to purchase 20  
> copies of their own books at wholesale than unlimited numbers at 52%  
> discount. According to Mr. Kuzminsky, this makes us look like a vanity  
> publisher. What we're supposed to do is make our authors register with  
> us as vendors, get the standard discount (which, btw, for prepaid  
> nonreturnable orders is exactly 2% less than the author discount) then  
> pay them royalties on those sales.
> 
> Bear in mind that this contract he feels is so bad nobody should sign  
> it has been reviewed by literary agents and intellectual property  
> attorneys and found to be VERY author-friendly. And that the above is  
> SOP with many in the independent industry because it simplifies  
> bookkeeping and allows authors who know they have an uphill battle  
> persuading booksellers to stock their books opportunities for signings  
> and other events they might otherwise never have.
> 
> All of which I pointed out to Mr. Kuzminsky, to no avail. He also took  
> exception to a clause whereby the author pays a use fee of $250 if  
> they choose to use our version of the book to produce an audiobook for  
> commercial purposes. However, it was the author discount and the right  
> to unlimited purchases that was apparently the major problem.
> 
> I'll note that this abrupt reversal of our status at B&E came less  
> than a week after I questioned the former president of the Mystery  
> Writers of America regarding a rather illogical new membership  
> requirement MWA enacted that led to a number of previously accepted  
> publishers, including Zumaya and Mundania, being "unaccepted," thus  
> barring any of our authors who are MWA members from participating in  
> programming at major mystery conventions. At the time I posted that  
> question to the gentleman's blog, someone without the courage to use  
> his own name (although I have my suspicions as to his identity)  
> screamed Zumaya was a vanity press because it publishes my own books.  
> That would be three-going-on-four out of 170-plus. Apparently,  
> "Anonymous" never heard of Bennett Cerf.
> 
> I have no proof the incidents are connected. I just find the timing a  
> bit serendipitous.
> 
> L
> Elizabeth Burton, Executive Editor
> Zumaya Publications LLC
> http://www.zumayapublications.com
> Opening doors to the creative mind
> 
> 
> On Nov 18, 2007, at 4:06 PM, shippard@... wrote:
> 
> In the case of Preditors and Editors, I know that from personal  
> experience that they carefully verify any complaints they receive and  
> this site has been performing yeoman service for our industry for many  
> years.
>




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