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[Publisher] Imagined Interprises, Inc.

Khazarkhum

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I didn't see these people here, but in the event I missed a thread about them, please accept my apology.

http://www.imaginedinterprises.com/index.html

They claim they want epic fantasy. They also say they want their authors to appear at major conventions. That's interesting. What's also interesting is that there doesn't seem to be any information about whether or not they are epub, POD or what. They do refer to hardcovers, but since they don't seem to have any books out yet it's hard to day what they are.

Maxwell Alexander Drake is their editor & apparently their only author. http://www.maxwellalexanderdrake.com/

Notice that he says his own company has decided to publish him. Hmmmm.

Victoria, Dave--any more information than what I've managed to glean?
 
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nevada

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He's going to be at the Las Vegas Writer's conference, which Dave is presenting at as well. I say we let Dave at him. Should be entertaining and epic.
 

Stacia Kane

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Ugh. The minute I saw the line "It is time for the fans to take back what is rightfully ours!" my palm hit my face, and there it has stayed.


I do love those micropresses who claim the big houses are only spewing out copycat garbage...
 

Khazarkhum

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They say they want epic tales covering several books. And amazing as it may seem, that's precisely what Mr. Drake has written.

Is there a name for these vanity-micros?
 

CaoPaux

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One that's suitable for a public forum? How about YAPHFFSPP: Yet another POD house founded for self-publishing purposes.

In any case, if by some chance you want to risk your book with this guy, wait until he produces his own so you can determine the level of cover art, editing, etc. your book will receive.
 

M.R.J. Le Blanc

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One thing I'd like to know is how is he going to fund all of that? And what writer wants to be at conventions etc every month? Unless you're paying me REALLY well, I'd rather be at home. I have bills to pay. This whole project sounds a little too ambitious.
 

nevada

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On his own website, he acts like they're a totally different company that has nothing to do with him. "he decided to let them publish him". umm okay then.
 

M.R.J. Le Blanc

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"Unfortunately, most publishing houses are not interested in promoting new authors."

Where have we heard this before?

EDIT: This scares me: "April 16th to the 19th 2009 - I will be a presenter at the Las Vegas Writers Conference where I will be giving my presentation How to Create a More Realistic Fantasy World as well as scouting out potential new writers for Imagined Interprises, Inc."

If they're so great, they wouldn't have to fish for writers.
 

victoriastrauss

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If anyone knows the organisers of the convention, now might be the time to drop them a line expressing their concerns about this.
 

Topaz044

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Well, let's see. We have a publisher who has published only one author, yet published his entire six-book collection at once. According to their website, the books should be available before Christmas (but they're not). The website's link for free stuff is a story by Maxwell Drake published by another publisher, so I really hope they have permission to do this. We also have a 'don't click' link which serves no purpose other then to scold the person who clicked it (yeah...so I clicked it :tongue). The website itself seems to have a problem of shifting when you click on different links.

In short...yeah, a publisher who probably means well but is inexperienced. But I'm sure the publisher in question will find this thread soon enough.
 

Khazarkhum

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One thing I'd like to know is how is he going to fund all of that? And what writer wants to be at conventions etc every month? Unless you're paying me REALLY well, I'd rather be at home. I have bills to pay. This whole project sounds a little too ambitious.

It sounds in many ways like he's creating a business to make his con-going into a tax write-off.

The whole thing sounded so wonky that I thought it needed to be discussed & seen here.
 

M.R.J. Le Blanc

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It sounds in many ways like he's creating a business to make his con-going into a tax write-off.

The whole thing sounded so wonky that I thought it needed to be discussed & seen here.

Well that's professional :gone:

I'm all for cons (I'm hoping I might be able to go to a few in the new year) but I can't see it being financially viable to have your author visit all these cons throughout the year unless you're paying them to be there, not just providing board.
 

Khazarkhum

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Well that's professional :gone:

I'm all for cons (I'm hoping I might be able to go to a few in the new year) but I can't see it being financially viable to have your author visit all these cons throughout the year unless you're paying them to be there, not just providing board.

Presumably he expects them to sell their books while signing or manning the company table. However, many congoers will be expecting either freebies or
steep discounts, especially for books from Brand-x pubs like this one.
 

Brian with I.I.I.

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I am Brian with Imagined Interprises, Inc.

My name is Brian, and I am with Imagined Interprises, Inc.

I apologize for not seeing this blog earlier – I try to keep up with news that pops up about us and what we do. This last year has been rather busy for us, however.

Let me first say, it is a shame that no one attempted to contact us to ask any of the questions that were posted here. I am all for sites that try and help protect writers and authors form the predators that are in this market, but it seems that, since we have no negative marks on our record, to be listed here based solely by what people interpreted from our website is rather hasty.

I will try and clarify as few things.

The first is, yes, as a company, we are very to this industry. When all of the posts here were made, we were only 4 months old and had not even released our first product. But, we do have several big names working with us. One of our main editors is Patrick LoBrutto. Mr. LoBrutto has been in the industry some 30 years now, and has worked with Isaac Asimov, Stephen King, Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson, etc. Also, we have Jo Wilkins, an author, editor, and publisher who has been in the industry for over 6 years. Since we have done only one book, we only have one cover artist so far. But, that is Lars Grant-West of Dungeons and Dragon and Magic the Gathering fame.

No, we are not an e-publisher nor a print on demand company. We are a traditional publisher.

Yes, we only have one author, Maxwell Alexander Drake. No, he is not an editor for us (hence, why we have other editors – to edit Drake’s work.) We had originally wanted to produce three novels in 2009. Unfortunately, for us, we never found what we were looking for. We came close, however. One agented author is working to make some changes to his manuscript for a second pass with us. Hopefully, our 2010 lineup will have at least one additional author other than Drake. But, we will not simply publish someone else just to have an additional author in our house. Our site is very specific as to what we are looking for.

We do now have our first novel out. It is Farmers and Mercenaries by Maxwell Alexander Drake. It is available at many of the on-line stores, but, unfortunately due to the fact that we are a new publisher, we are still working on placing the novel in the larger, brick and mortar bookstores. It can be found at several independently owned book and comic stores, however.

The book itself is getting good reviews, which is wonderful. But, us as a publishing house, have received rave reviews as to the quality of the book itself. As promised on our website, we produced a very high-quality product. A litho-printed cover (no dust jacket to rip), silk bookmark built into the spine, nice thick paper and larger print all make the book a wonderful item to own for those who like the books they read to be pretty, as well as enjoyable. The cover art is top-notch, which really adds to the overall appeal of the package. We are releasing a mass-market paperback as well as a dust-jacketed hardback version in the coming months.

Drake did get invited to Comic-con, as well as Gen-con this year. At Comic-con, he will be at the Magic the Gathering booth #1031 when he is not in the Autograph area. At Gen-con, he will be in the author’s area for most of the convention. Yes, one reason for this is to sell books. We are a business. And, if we are to produce more products, we need to sell what we have. But, it is more. We really do want our authors and artists out there meeting people. Currently, unless you are a big-name talent, the authors and artists have to front their own money to visit conventions. This leads to many either opting out of them, or, at the least, being very selective about which they attend.

I think our product speaks for itself. It is a wonderful, high-quality book. We said on our website, and still desire to hold to this course, that we are trying to be a cut above. It will take us time to grow and build, but we are willing.

We are also running both a sci-fi and fantasy short story contest as well as an art contest. There is no cost to this, and we are giving cash prizes as well.

Our website is www.imaginedinterprises.com. If you would like to see a high-resolution picture of the cover of Farmers and Mercenaries, please do so at www.genesisofoblivion.com.

I hope that I have cleared up a few of the issues raised here. If not, please feel free to contact me. brian.stalians at imaginedinterprises dot com.

Brian
 

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Brian, thanks for stopping by to provide us with information about your company.

I'm a short story writer, and I found the rules for your contest very problematic. As it states that your editors are going to post their top choices on the website for fans to read and vote on, this will in effect use up first publishing rights to those stories. The statement that "Author maintains all rights to the story. Imagined Interprises, Inc. only has the right to publish the story in the collection it was selected for, and any "best of" collections it decides to put out in the future" is misleading. The author is not maintaining all rights. He's giving up first electronic rights simply by submitting his story. Then, if the story is one of the ~20 selected for the anthology, he's giving up first print rights in return for a few contributer's copies unless his story is judged in the top 3. And he's giving up exclusive reprint rights.

You might want to reconsider and and perhaps use a more conventional method of acquiring stories for your anthologies.
 

CaoPaux

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You'll also need to explain what you mean by "traditional publisher", since that's an empty term coined by the vanity POD Publish America. Do you mean trade and/or commercial publisher? If so, who is your distributor?
 

M.R.J. Le Blanc

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We do now have our first novel out. It is Farmers and Mercenaries by Maxwell Alexander Drake. It is available at many of the on-line stores, but, unfortunately due to the fact that we are a new publisher, we are still working on placing the novel in the larger, brick and mortar bookstores. It can be found at several independently owned book and comic stores, however.

Bolded is mine. This would suggest to me that Imagined Interprises doesn't have a distributor.
 

priceless1

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This would suggest to me that Imagined Interprises doesn't have a distributor.
They aren't listed in Ingram's database, so it's a natural assumption they don't have a distributor. Being in Ingram is as natural as brushing your teeth - but it costs money - so perhaps that's a concern. The "traditional publisher" comment should make anyone wince.
 

CaoPaux

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Mmm. As long as they're not a one-book wonder then, yes, this bodes well for the publisher. They're not releasing other authors' books until 2010, though, so it's going to be a long wait to see what their viability is.
 

miamyselfandi

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So... is the jury still out? I notice on their webpage they've found their second author (but he's not in print yet). Award recognition and names like Pat Lobrutto do seem to give legitimacy, but I'm too new to really know.
 
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DreamWeaver

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Serious question, not being snarky: how well known and respected is the Moonbeam Bronze Award? I'll admit to never having heard of it before, but then the things I haven't heard of are legion.

Current Amazon sales rankings for the first book in the series:
Mass Market Paperback: 1,800,232
Trade Paperback: 540,205
Hardcover: 3,327,205
Audio CD: 3,653,470
Audible Unabridged: No current ranking

Since Amazon rankings are like golf scores (small numbers good, large numbers bad), these don't seem like sales figures to write home about.
 

priceless1

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Serious question, not being snarky: how well known and respected is the Moonbeam Bronze Award?
It's called Moonbeam Children's Book Awards. Run by the Jenkins Group - the same guys who run the IPPYs and other book awards. If memory serves, it started about three-ish years ago. I don't know how impressive an award is, but it's no PEN Award...
 
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