Publishers

Does anyone know anything about these publishers:

Wild Rose Press
Vinspire
Black Opal Press
Black Rose Press

Have any of you published with publishers that you would recommend?

What is your experience with self-publishing vs. publishers?

I'm primarily interested in fiction; however, non-fiction experiences may also be relevant. Thanks.

4/12/2014

                           DK..

                                  Here's info on Wild Rose Press

 http://www.wildrosepublishing.com/maincatalog_v151/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=214

Plus Black Opal Books..  http://www.blackopalbooks.com/about-us/about-us

                                                Cheers..Joe..

Black Rose Press has been closed to submissions sicne 2012, at least according to their submissions page.

Andddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd: 

• A reading fee of $50, which can be paid by check or money order (payable to the order of Black Rose Books; in U.S. $ outside of Canada), and which will be returned to the author if the manuscript is published.
  
  

Caveat Emptor

Thanks. I have investigated them all on the Internet with varying results.  Your personal experiences or results of your info is helpful.

I am pleased with ATTMP.  They are honorable.  http://www.allthingsthatmatterpress.com/index.htm

4/13/2014

                   Who is this new publisher ? What company owns it ?

                                        Cheers..Joe

Joe, what company are you referencing?  If it is ATTMP, the owners are Phil Harris and his wife Debbie.  There is no controlling company.

Publishing fiction through a traditional publisher is very difficult and, for the remaining major players, almost impossible without an agent as few publishers accept submissions directly from authors. I have not attempted to publish my fiction collection or poetry through traditional publishers for that reason. I don't need or want an agent for my nonfiction and no established agent would be interested in a single collection of fiction with no immediate future plans for continued output in the genre that could lead to additional books. When I complete my novel, that will be a different matter. For now, I will contact traditional publishers only for my nonfiction and I have turned down publication offers (without burning any bridges) when my publisher's vision and pricing for a book differs significantly from my own.

New and established authors alike need to be wary of POD publishers masquerading as "traditional" publishers which require exclusive publication agreements but provide few (and in some cases none) of the marketing, editing and distribution channels that are the only good reason to go with a "traditional" publisher in the first place. Any publisher that requires authors to market their own titles and provides no firm commitment to do much (if anything)  beyond listing their title on their web page or catalog is a waste of time, in my view, and is NOT a "traditional publisher."

This is not to say that there are not good small presses out there and that they can offer an author (especially a new author) some welcomed assistance and support. By and large, however, most of these are vanity presses by any other name--especially if they have reading fees for submissions or require authors to buy any number of books for distribution by the author as part of the contractual agreement.

I am very happy with Amazon and CreateSpace for my self published books. Low sales of most of these is no one's fault but mine as I do very little to market them beyond occasional postings on free sites (including here) and minimal blogging. I have just put most of my self published work (except for the intellectual property book that sells fairly well--for me at least--in paperback and Kindle versions) on Smashwords. I would not contract away my rights to any of these for a small press without a proven sales record as they may sell even fewer books than I do and I would lose control of the ability to update at will, set whatever sales price I like and publish new editions based on older material as I see fit with unfettered editorial control of my work.

Even for very well known authors with major presses there is no guarantee of success. Isaac Asimov may be the most prolific writer in history, but some of his books barely made back their advance and some advances were very modest indeed. Even for someone as monstrously famous as Asimov major publishers could not guarantee success--and we know they will have tried with enormous marketing resources behind them. I don't trust my books appearing on a third-rate "publisher's" site to sell  any better than they do at Amazon. And I am very confident that my skepticism is very well justified.