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Brundage Publishing

writersblock

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Anyone has any knowledge of or experiences with this publishing house? They're listed as straightforward publishers on the Preditors and Editors site, but require payment from authors wanting to publish.
 

Uncarved

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writersblock said:
Anyone has any knowledge of or experiences with this publishing house? They're listed as straightforward publishers on the Preditors and Editors site, but require payment from authors wanting to publish.

NO. No. NO. Repeat it over and over again.
Money flows TOWARD the author. NEVER pay to publish with anyone unless you are wanting to Self-Publish the book. If you want a real publisher, then you are the one that should get paid, not them.

This has been your local "Just say no" programming, we now return you to "Attack of the PA barbies"
 

DaveKuzminski

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P&E is currently gathering information about Brundage. So far, it does not appear promising for any writer to use.
 

sgtsdaughter

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Be Careful

Writersblock et al.

Brundage is a self publisher, and they use veiled language to hide the fact. More so, they will try to win you over with a sales pitch that you can market the book than any publisher, and that their books get compliments on their binding. Be very careful of them. They will even try to tell you that they will reexamine your file in six months and see if they can publish it then. I have yet to hear anyone that didn't have to pay them, and in my phone calls I got an inconclusive affirmative that everyone of their authors has paid to be published.

Needless to say, they are not on my "good" list, but I did get some good research notes for another project that I am working on.

Annessa
 

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sgtsdaughter said:
Brundage is a self publisher, and they use veiled language to hide the fact.
<nitpick> I think the term "vanity" publisher would be more accurate, just to keep the stigma where it belongs. </nitpick>
 

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Brundage charges $8,000 for preparing a book for printing--editing, preparation, graphics design, formatting. The author also has to pay all printing costs. But wait--that's not all! The author has to reimburse the publisher for shipping and other "unanticipated" charges--and for a bonus feature, Brundage requires the author to enter into a "standard agency agreement that [sic] terms of which will provide for a 15% commission on any and all benefits arising to the Author through the efforts of the Publisher." Wow!

This is a grossly expensive vanity deal, for a service not much different than you'd get from iUniverse for a few hundred bucks.

- Victoria
 

sgtsdaughter

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victoriastrauss said:
Brundage charges $8,000 for preparing a book for printing--editing, preparation, graphics design, formatting. The author also has to pay all printing costs. But wait--that's not all! The author has to reimburse the publisher for shipping and other "unanticipated" charges--and for a bonus feature, Brundage requires the author to enter into a "standard agency agreement that [sic] terms of which will provide for a 15% commission on any and all benefits arising to the Author through the efforts of the Publisher." Wow!

This is a grossly expensive vanity deal, for a service not much different than you'd get from iUniverse for a few hundred bucks.

- Victoria

yes, they are narly little folks . . . ain't they?
scary5.gif
 

DaveKuzminski

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Oh, gee, they just discovered the P&E recommendation and have sent me an email.

Victoria, I'll forward a copy to you. It has two large attachments, but they're safe to open.
 

HapiSofi

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victoriastrauss said:
Brundage charges $8,000 for preparing a book for printing--editing, preparation, graphics design, formatting. The author also has to pay all printing costs. But wait--that's not all! The author has to reimburse the publisher for shipping and other "unanticipated" charges--and for a bonus feature, Brundage requires the author to enter into a "standard agency agreement that [sic] terms of which will provide for a 15% commission on any and all benefits arising to the Author through the efforts of the Publisher."
Dang. I am definitely working in the wrong end of the industry.
 

victoriastrauss

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HapiSofi said:
Dang. I am definitely working in the wrong end of the industry.
I know the feeling. Yesterday my husband Rob and I went for a four-mile walk and hammered out the structure of an incredibly lucrative soup-to-nuts literary scam operation (in case anyone fears I'm turning to the dark side, this was triggered by Rob's interest in the unfolding ST Literary-CLA scheme, about which I'll soon be posting new info). We even set it up so we didn't have to be too dishonest, and would mistreat our victims only marginally. We estimated that with our kinder, gentler scam we could easily make half a million a year, even with judicious outsourcing of various tasks such as editing (for the paid editing service) and cover design (for the vanity publishing operation into which we'd dump our clients after six months or so of rejections). We decided to call it SLA Unlimited (which could stand for Strauss Literary Associates or Sleazy Lying A$$holes, whichever was more appropriate).

It was fun. But now Rob is giving me funny looks, and I know he's thinking about actually doing it...

- Victoria
 

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I have discovered that I don't like Brundage. Anything they say now seems to resemble some form of disgusting canned meet, now a synonym for junk mail...hmm...what could it be...

:Spam:!!!!!!!!

(This is my blatent excuse for using this smiley. finally, i can put it somewhere that works!)
 

Lauri B

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into which we'd dump our clients after six months or so of rejections). We decided to call it SLA Unlimited (which could stand for Strauss Literary Associates or Sleazy Lying A$$holes, whichever was more appropriate).

It was fun. But now Rob is giving me funny looks, and I know he's thinking about actually doing it...

- Victoria[/QUOTE]

Victoria, I was just thinking that I am totally in the wrong business--why be an editor at a real publishing company when I could charge people to edit my books, and then charge them again to buy them? And it would be fun in an evil kind of way. Or what if I started a publishing industry award and charged self publishers $50 per title to enter--and then never chose a winner. Or better yet, declared everyone a winner, since I will have so many, many categories of entry. Everyone who wins will be invited to purchase a golden trophy that looks suspiciously like an Oscar, but holding book and wearing reading glasses with a pencil behind its ear. Wait, this is a great idea!
 

victoriastrauss

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Your contest idea is inspired, Nomad. Don't forget the anthology in which excerpts from finalists would be published--only $49.95 to the lucky participants and their families.

We should all join forces. We could have a scam empire!

- Victoria
 

DaveKuzminski

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And then we put together a second and third publishing house. Also, we'd create a literary agency and a couple of editing services.

The second one would want reprint rights which the first house would be unwilling to sell unless it was included in the royalty distribution which would have to come out of the author's portion.

Then we could give PA-style reversions to authors whose books didn't sell enough copies to the authors on the condition that they first find another house that wanted the book. As soon as the author found our third publishing house, which is always interested in anything from our first house but never identified as part of our empire, they would ask about the rights. We would make it clear that we could only fully release those rights once we recouped our investment which the third house would be unwilling to pay leaving the author with no choice but to pay us just to sign up with our other house.

Once the author gets sick of the third house, we'd give them a full reversion and let our literary agency go after them to represent their book to other houses for an upfront fee.

All along the line, we'd suggest that the book be edited and offer a list of editing services that we recommend. Of course, all of the editing would be done by the same staff using multiple business names. Employees would never be allowed to give more than their first names and would have confidentiality statements in their employment contracts subjecting them to heavy penalties.
 

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Website is gone (and Wayback's being uncooperative *grumble*). Don't seem to be any books published after Oct 2006. There are a couple mentions in prospective authors' blogs in early 2007 re: books delayed because of Brundage "relocating", but no sign of pub happening (and one took the book to Lulu...).

So, dare we hope?