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Reliquary Press

veinglory

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It sets off pretty much all of my alarm bells from the poorly written website to the weird and implausible royalty structure. I would guess that the only author they have so far pretty much "is" the publisher.

p.s. the "new concept in publishing" and "we beleive in you" part is not a good sign either.
 
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Giant Baby

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Everything about the site seems geared toward attracting writers, not readers.

That's not good.
 

Unimportant

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Yup, I agree with veinglory. It has all the appearances of a clueless vanity publisher.
 

CaoPaux

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Hmm. The book on their site was initially published by iUniverse, with the press owner as "contributor" (graphics, probably, he's a designer).
 

CaoPaux

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Aha! If Coffin is more than an author, he brings a background in RPG publishing (although it's an entirely different beast than commercial fiction).
 

V. Greene

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I hadn't spotted that their one book so far was Coffin's -- interesting. What blew my mind, actually, was "Reliquary encourages the submission of unsolicited manuscripts." I can only read that as, "We're trying to build a nice big slush pile to sit on; it's cheaper than office chairs."

Thanks for all the feedback. Out of curiosity, what should a new publisher say on his/her shiny new website?
 

CaoPaux

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In so many words, they should sell their books to readers, not their services to authors.
 
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ResearchGuy

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. . . Out of curiosity, what should a new publisher say on his/her shiny new website?
Oh, maybe stuff like:

Whatsis Press is pleased to announce the publication of the following books for the fall season. Readers will enjoy these contemporary novels, and can find them at bookstores everywhere.
  • List item (title, author, synopsis, ISBN/publishing data/price)
  • List item (ditto)
  • List item (ditto)

No appeal to authors, just to readers and book buyers.

Maybe, though, on a subsidiary page, guidelines for writers would be appropriate, listing the kinds of books the company publishes and how/where to submit a query or book proposal.

Here is a good example from an established independent publisher that accepts unagented work: http://www.sohopress.com/submissions.php

In contrast, Random House makes it clear that it does not accept unagented submissions: http://www.randomhouse.com/about/faq/index.php?ToDo=browse&catId=20

--Ken
 

FOTSGreg

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Oh, my...

Somewhere, I have a copy of System Failure in my copious archives. It's a great concept, but a poorly written, badly organized, conceptually difficult RPG - and I've been reading, playing, and writing RPGs (all of my written ones remain unknown and shall remain so, but I participated in the rewrite of the rules for the pbem version of Villains & Vigilantes just to name one (btw, not one of my proudest achievements)) for the last couple or three decades.

Great art & concept - pathetic editing and way too close to the Rifts concept to have been called anything but derivative (and possibly derivative enough to have been copyright infringing).

Run away - very fast.
 

Unimportant

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I must be missing something:
Details on royalties:



First off we believe the content producer should make the majority of the money on every book sold. Period. And the most clear way to do this is with a high percentage on net sales. However with research we have found most people seem to like being paid a royalty on the cover price of the book. So we offer two royalty packages:



  1. 50% net. This means after printing expenses you receive 55% of what is left over in profit.
  2. 10% cover price. You receive 15% of the cover price of the book.
 

FOTSGreg

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Unimportant, all I can say is, um, well...clearly there appears to be a serious disconnect there somewhere.

50% net after printing costs is a virtual guarantee the author will never receive a penny.

it's #2 that has me scratching my head. Ten percent of the cover price, let's call it $10 would mean the author would receive $1 per sale according to the way I learned math, but that sentence says they'd get $1.50. Now, I'm assuming that's also net, meaning after printing costs, etc., which would also mean the author will likely never see a penny. Now, maybe they're saying you'd get 10-15% of the cover price per sale, after net costs are paid. So, if you sell a thousand copies and net costs are paid, you'd get a check for between $1000 and $1500 and either ten or fifteen percent per sale thereafter. This is, of course, pure conjecture on my part.

Nevertheless, I don't like the terms. They're vague, subject to interpretation, and the whole "net" price thing sends me saying "No, thanks."

Contract terms should never be vague or subject to interpretation. Publishing terms should never be vague or subject to interpretation. The terms are either this or that, not both or neither, not open, not vague or subject to interpretation. The language is pretty easy actually, and any publisher ought to be able to use it sufficiently well to get their terms across on a website.

In my not so humble opinion, of course.
 

kelliewallace

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I queried him in Nov 2011. He requested a full with the response of 'absolutely please send it.' I assumed he was interested. Never heard back.
 

HapiSofi

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That is such an unpromising first page.
Welcome to Reliquary Press
A publishing company by writers, for writers.
They're doomed.
Ever wonder why it is that when you go to the bookstore, the shelves are filled with dressed-up fan fiction, sparkly vampires and bodice-rippers your mom’s weird friend likes to read?
Anybody else get a strong whiff of misogyny off that? They're about a half-inch from saying the books have Girl Cooties. That's weird in its own right, and weird because bookstores are still full of guy books and general-interest books, and three times weird because normally, when writers do this rant, they claim that bookstores are full of bestsellers and celebrity tell-alls.

We are in the presence of Issues. We're also in the presence of someone who doesn't spend a lot of time looking at what's actually on the bookstore shelves. That's not a good sign in a startup publisher.
Yeah, we do, too. Here’s the thing: big publishing companies won’t take a chance on publishing anything that hasn’t passed their gauntlet of focus groups, marketing plans and everything else that seems like some corporate conspiracy to turn out books that require as little thinking as possible to appreciate.
Translation: his book got rejected. Also, he doesn't spend a lot of time looking at what's actually on the bookstore shelves.
We decided to do something about it. Reliquary Press is an indie publisher dedicated to finding great new writers and giving them an opportunity to show the world what it has been missing.
Lo, another Master of the Universe whose book has been rejected declares his belief in the myth that slushpiles are full of brilliant unpublished works -- you know, just like his.

He knows nothing about publishing. What he does know is that his book has been rejected, so publishing must be broken, so he's going to publish his book himself. Only he's going to call what he's doing a publishing house, to give his self-published book more dignity, and he's going to recruit other unpublished writers, to give his publishing house more dignity.

The only thing that's remarkable is how often we see these. We need a shorthand term for them like YADS. I'm tempted to call them MURPs, for Master of the Universe Reinvents Publishing.
It’s tough enough to just write a good book. It shouldn’t be so hard to get it into print.
He's right. If it's a genuinely good book, it shouldn't be all that hard to get it into print.
That’s where Reliquary comes in. Join us and remember why you fell in love with great novels to begin with.
How long do you suppose it'll last, once he figures out that running a publishing operation means he spends all his time paying attention to other people's books?
 

Wordvine

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The only thing that's remarkable is how often we see these. We need a shorthand term for them like YADS. I'm tempted to call them MURPs, for Master of the Universe Reinvents Publishing.

I've never actually posted before, nor do I have anything to add about this publisher, other than to sigh and shake my head, but I just wanted to say that the term MURPs has now become my go-to word for people like this. It just sounds so...right.