Quartet Press

Thanks for the interesting links, Para.

Quartet certainly has their sh...tuff together better than a lot of 'publishers' who fling up a shiny new webbie outta the clear blue.

This press is worthy of a one to watch label, and from what I've read on the site, a nice hit of humor accompanies the professionalism.

From Quartet Press website,

"Our Mission:
Publish stories that meet the following quality standards:

Excellence in storytelling.
Works that entertain and enrich the lives of our community of readers.
Works that propel the stature and visibility of Quartet Press.
Stories that embody what Quartet is all about: passion, authenticity, and originality.
Works that increase the overall profitability of the Company.
Our Values:

A passion for high-quality works of romance (and beyond).
An atmosphere of participation and cooperation among not only our authors — but also our READERS, and all who make up the bookish community.
A commitment to the satisfaction of all stakeholders (owners, investors, readers, and authors).
Uncompromising transparency, honesty and integrity.
Open, candid, and clear communication.
A commitment to increasing happiness and profitability through digital publishing of the highest quality books."

FWIW

I spent a little time this evening looking at the Quartet Press website. Author's should be aware that in times of recession, numerous new publishers spring up formed by ex-publishing house staff, redundant editors etc. While I certainly don't mean to place Quartet in this 'fly by night' bracket, authors should be tentative about new independent publishers. There are already a few in the pipeline this fall following the digital/ebook/POD business models - notably, Liz Calder's (ex Bloomsbury) boutique-styled Full Circle Editions and Colin Robinson and John Oakes who will soon be launching OR Books. All new publishers for a new 'digital' age.

I do like Quartet's openness, but looking at the domain name and their website, what struck me was the sense I was browsing a blogsite rather than the corporate home of a new publisher. That of course may change, but its the feeling of liquidity and flexibility that could put both new and established authors off. Whether I am a new author or have built up a long standing in ebooks or print publishing in romance - I'm not sure I'm instilled with confidence in a publisher who gives off the air of a publisher borne of a half hour discussion over four bottles of bud in a NY bar.

As a writer, I need a little more re-assurance than candid online debate on their 'terms of contract' before I'm going to commit a book to them.

"Quartet Press is the love child of Kassia Krozser (our not-so-evil editorial genius and renowned proprietress of BookSquare.com); one Kirk Biglione (the techno-wizard behind the Quartet curtain, who in his spare time co-authors the fantastic Medialoper.com); Kat Meyer (Quartet’s Chief Marketeer and the wearied-but-optimistic veteran of more than a few regional, academic and trade book publishers); and the super secretive Mr. X, whose talents are simply too many to mention (don’t worry – you’ll hear more about him soon)."

I think Kassia and the others are strong in endeavor and experience (can't speak for M. X!) but endeavor and experience also requires significant substance, and this was what I think was fundamentally missing from the website. What actually is their model of digital publishing? What are they offering authors? I suspect, but yes, I am only surmising on what I can go on, that the business publishing model is something similar to Drolliere Press, ebook led, but with the ultimate goal of print publication using POD means.

Their main genre is romance, but again with a new publisher, I'd tend to allow the business and market dictate where the publisher should explore and develop, though I do note their suggestion that they may expand beyond romantic genres. In honesty, if you look hard enough, you will find some form of romance in many general fiction novels.

Hey, wadda I know!

I think for authors this is a case of wait and see, but above all I want Kassia and her publishers to succeed. We desperately need independent publishers at the moment in a world of magnolia publishing corporations!

All true, MickRooney (except, perhaps, for the half hour discussion over four bottles of bud in a NY bar.) I did get the sense there was more to the formation of this press than that.

Hey, having been burned (am still smoldering, okay, so a little in flames) from a start-up with BIG plans, I'd be among the first to caution against chasing someone else's 'dream' with your hours of painstaking work, but comparatively speaking, these people do seem to have a better grasp of the biz than many.

The people behind the project are witty and engaging and smart and respectful, which is terribly appealing to writers. BUT, when I look at it from the reader's point of view (and readers, not writers, are their market), I'm just not sure what they're offering the READER that isn't already being offered.

Given that there are, what, some 100+ new romance genre books (across the whole spectrum of subgenres), maybe more, available as ebooks EVERY SINGLE MONTH, for readers to choose from, and the average reader, even in romance, probably only reads, at most, 20 or 30 of them, why would readers choose Quartet's books over any of the others? The easy answer is that their books are going to be "better" than the others, but that doesnt' really tell me anything, and one person's "better" is another person's wallbanger.

I also think that they over-estimate the reader's awareness of publishers and willingness to follow specific publishers, as opposed to authors. Before I started writing, I read bucketloads of books, and I had favorite authors and genres, but I couldn't tell you the names of ANY of the publishers. Why would readers of e-books go looking for exclusively epublished books, rather than, say, the electronic version of, say, a Nora Roberts book or their other favorite paper-and-e-published authors?

JD

There is an interview with them over at Dear Author.

We...ll, Quartet does appear to be padding the stable with knowledgeable industry professionals:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152148

Further commentary from Karen Scott:
http://karenknowsbest.com/2009/08/18/quartet-press-getting-lots-of-love-before-they-open-but-why/

and Mrs. Giggles:
http://mrsgiggles00.livejournal.com/21766.html?view=64518#t64518

I tend to agree that they've made great moves in terms of aligning themselves with the Bitches and Dear Author. Add Angela James, a virtual face of epublishing, and they've got writers all a-twitter. They're doing a great job of attracting writers, but I see nothing really to draw readers.

With no hint of what kind of books are to come on their site, rumours that the first releases will be e-prints of long ago NY releases, and nothing to separate them from most new epublishers (other than NY house experience) I'm waiting and seeing.

Thanks for the fresh links, JennOTI.

I hadn't heard whispers about the first releases being old NY stuff.

Will definitely be interesting to wait and see what and who they use to launch the site.

I'm still confused as to whether they're paying on net (the way most epubbed writers understand it) or gross or some combination of the two. I've followed Kassia Kroszer's comments on Karen Scott's blog and still have no idea what the heck she's saying. Makes me feel rather lame since I somehow managed to read through my biochem and genetics tomes while at university without ever feeling this lost.

Can anyone give me a clear answer? Do they pay on cover price for all sales through their website and then pay on the net receipts from third party distributors? Or net receipts on all their sales?

mlhernandez said:

I'm still confused as to whether they're paying on net (the way most epubbed writers understand it) or gross or some combination of the two. I've followed Kassia Kroszer's comments on Karen Scott's blog and still have no idea what the heck she's saying. Makes me feel rather lame since I somehow managed to read through my biochem and genetics tomes while at university without ever feeling this lost.

Can anyone give me a clear answer? Do they pay on cover price for all sales through their website and then pay on the net receipts from third party distributors? Or net receipts on all their sales?

Click to expand...

The way I'm understanding it (which might very well be wrong since it is more than a little foggy) is they pay on gross on their site and gross minus etailer fees for offsite sales like FW or ARe. I think. I wonder what happens if they have a sale on their site like many epubs do from time to time.

Fae Sutherland said:

The way I'm understanding it (which might very well be wrong since it is more than a little foggy) is they pay on gross on their site and gross minus etailer fees for offsite sales like FW or ARe. I think. I wonder what happens if they have a sale on their site like many epubs do from time to time.

Click to expand...

This is what I've come to understand from reading the explanations as well.

Sale price minus fees = net.

Sales from their site have 0% fees. So, if your book sells for $5.00, $5.00 - 0% = $5.00. This is a net amount.

(yup, it's the same as gross, but since we did the calculation, it's called net. Isn't math fun.)

OK. That makes sense. I think they'd be better served to use terms as most in the epubbing world understand them and not go into these long-winded explanations of accounting practices when we're essentially talking about the same thing. I get seriously twitchy when I see "net." Other authors I've spoken to feel the same way.

Indeed. It may just depend on how you define the words. but it pays to conform to how the words are used by the group you are talking to.

jennontheisland said:

This is what I've come to understand from reading the explanations as well.

Sale price minus fees = net.

Sales from their site have 0% fees. So, if your book sells for $5.00, $5.00 - 0% = $5.00. This is a net amount.

(yup, it's the same as gross, but since we did the calculation, it's called net. Isn't math fun.)

Click to expand...

Actually there are fees involved even from a publisher's website because they have to have some type of merchant account. Even if it's Paypal the merchant service takes a small fee, usually based on a percentage of the total sale.

michael_b said:

Actually there are fees involved even from a publisher's website because they have to have some type of merchant account. Even if it's Paypal the merchant service takes a small fee, usually based on a percentage of the total sale.

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Agreed. That is one of the things about their definition that concerns me.

So far, they've insisted that 'net' from the publisher site will be the same as 'gross,' but the wording leaves that open for them to change in the future.

I have one publisher that pays on "Gross Receipts". So they pay on what they get from the seller, NOT the cover price. Basically net.

Many small presses pay this way, instead of on cover price. It's become the new norm, unfortunately.

Well, pretty much all epublishers half the royalties they pay in distributed copies, to acount for the 50% cut to the distibutor. But is this is the only exception from gross it is generally specified in the contract as the sole exception rather than venturing into the gray area of net.

Just announced: Quartet Press is shutting down.

http://quartetpress.com/blog/about-quartet-press/to-our-friends-in-the-bookish-community/

wow! I am very surprised it seemed like they were running a very tight ship.

This is probably the most left-field announcement I've ever seen out of publishing. What in the world happened? There are already shockwaves spreading through the digital publishing community - and poor Angela James. Man. That has to hurt so much.

I'll be watching here and hoping someone has more on this. It's just nuts.

They honestly didn't look too good to be true; with the experience at the helm and the pull of Angela James on new authors it really looked like it was going somewhere.

At the very least, it'd be a lesson in start-ups to know what the heck went wrong!