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Addict
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Twilight
Posts: 129
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Subsidy Pubs. and the experience
I was going to post this earlier, it appears someone sort of beat me to the main theme. I decided to post it seperate, instead of replying to the other thread, because I actually have experience at dealing with such a thing. If you have ever even considered, for a moment, about mailing a subsidy publisher a red cent, then please...please....please, don't put your self through the hassle and let-down.
When I first got out of high school, I was riding high. I had just graduated with Honors, among my highest grades being english and grammer. The world was at my fingertips. For nearly three years I sat home, working oddball jobs to support my part of the bills, and I wrote. I would get up in the morning, write twelve hours, do my two acre garden, and write a little more. In those few short years, I wrote ten novels. All of my writing awards in school, always echoing in the recesses of my mind. Stacking these longhand novels on top of each other, I have a stack of manuscripts up to my waist. (Thank God for the PC)
I was reading a magazine one day when I wandered upon an ad in the back asking for authors. I had never had dealings with anything in the writing world, and I learned that this is what subsidy publishers depend on. Your ignoreance.
My family helped me type up on of my books, a title called, Secret Vengeance, and we mailed it off. Six weeks later, a letter arrived telling me that my manuscript had went in before the editor and they would send me a letter in a few weeks on the verdict. I thought it weird when the letter arrived the next morning. At the same time, I was excited, because in the editorial notes, it was apparent that they had indeed read the story.
In the end I left my meager existence to go out and get a real job. The small town was behind me, for my face was in the towns annual magazine, as "A young man who would put us on the map." Boy, this fueled me. Our bank gave us a loan for a certain amount, and I working night day for a year, rolling in the popularity.
After, six thousand dollars, I began to come down off my high. They were not living up to their part of anything. They had not sent me the book jackets. A lawyer friend had looked over the contract, and told me that this was typical.
When a contract says "We will produce up to 5,000 copies..." it means they can produce "one, or two" and they have fulfilled their terms. The attorney told me, if ever you sign a contract, get exact totals.
Not long after, I quit sending them a red cent. I realized that I had been taken. The total was almost 13000, that in my younger, STUPID ASS, years, did not seem like a very big hill. Ask me what I think now, and I just smile, and say, "I lived and I learned."
Three days before Christmas of 1998, I received a letter in the mail with the letterhead from some New York lawyer, stating that Carlton Press had filed bankruptcy, either send him ten dollars for the return of my manuscript, or it would be shredded and thrown in the dumpster..and that is pretty much what it said. Lets just add a little insult to injury.
I am sure CARLTON PRESS is still around, just under another name. There are others, I think is called Vantage, or Vintage...I don't give a crap to really know, but, avoid any such publisher. The frame of mind about paying just to see your writting in print, is foolish thoughts. I was young, I learned that if it isn't good enough for the publisher to pay you, then tell them to go to hell.
Watch yourselves....continue to work on your writing, so that one day, you will become that author you always planned to be.
Thanks!
__________________
"You cannot reach them. We tried once, yes, precious. I tried once;
but you cannot reach them. Only shapes to see, perhaps, not to touch.
No precious! All dead."
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