[Publisher] Barbarian Books

[J.S.F.]

Apologies if this company has been brought up before. A search here netted me nothing, but then again it's morning and I'm not fully awake.

e-books only, rights for three years, and they promise generous profits. Covers look so-so to cheap in some cases (my opinion) and some look pretty decent. I don't think they're a scam outfit, but since they don't edit...what say everyone else?

Link: http://www.barbarianbooks.com/default.html

 

[victoriastrauss]

A couple of things I notice. On a spot check, their Amazon Kindle rankings are awful. They tout their promotional efforts, but this makes me wonder what they're actually doing. If they're not editing, and even with promo they have books with rankings in the millions or with no rankings at all, why do you need them?

Also, on Amazon at least, the listings for all the books include the name of one of the company's owners as "editor." Why, if the company doesn't offer edits or revisions, as it claims?

Hmm. On the sample contract, I see this: "[FONT=&quot]The Author agrees to allow the Publisher to perform certain minor script editing (abridgement of the text, [FONT=&quot]sen[/FONT]tence restructuring, correcting spelling and grammar errors, etc.)[/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot] without significantly changing the characters, plot or pertinent facts."

[/FONT][/FONT] The latter two are indeed "minor script editing" but the first two are pretty major. And "without significantly changing" can cover a lot of ground. So again--why this, for a company that claims not to offer editing?

- Victoria

 

[MartinD]

Was I the only one who thought this publisher would specialize in fantasy novels, especially sword and sorcery novels? You know, Conan-type tales?

JSF, I think you're looking at their covers with a kind eye. I find the best of the bunch to be unimpressive. If they can't be bothered to provide editing, why should you bother with them?

 

[CaoPaux]

Closed August '15.

 

[under the moon]

In January of 2015 they offered me a contract, and initially I was pleased, because they *seemed* author-friendly, offering 70% instead of the usual 50%, and saying, "We want you to help with marketing, but we mostly want you to write more good stuff!" (sic). I went with someone else and was frankly very surprised to find out this past fall that they were out of business. It was a very "dodged a bullet" kind of feeling.