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Carina Press

Angela James

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Well, received my R today. I think it was a bit of a shock - obviously you can never guarantee good news, but they had stated on social media that they would be giving feedback to anyone who submitted by the end of November, but I just received a standard reply with nothing distinguishing my work. Sigh. I'd say back to the drawing board, but as I don't have any feedback at all I'm not really sure which direction my re-write should be going.

If you feel you should have received feedback through some sort of social media submissions drive, you could certainly follow-up and ask about that. If it was one of our submissions, this is what I'd want you to do.

Note: I am not affiliated with Carina UK as they're a separate business, so this is just advice, not internal insight.
 

zippora

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If you feel you should have received feedback through some sort of social media submissions drive, you could certainly follow-up and ask about that. If it was one of our submissions, this is what I'd want you to do.

Note: I am not affiliated with Carina UK as they're a separate business, so this is just advice, not internal insight.

Hey Angela - thank you for your recommendation. I did reply pretty much straight away, and ask if they had any feedback so that I could revise the manuscript, and I'm waiting to hear back. I know that they must get thousands of submissions, so hopefully they'll get back to me when they can :)
 

zippora

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Just to update people - never heard back, and I don't want to bug them and get a black mark against my name!
 

hsavage

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Well I'm super excited about this...because it's a first. I submitted to Carina 12/6 due to a favorite on #Pitmad, and received my first R&R on 12/31!!!!! Now....people may be thinking that it's not that great but for someone who has been dealing with agent rejections for the last forever and a half, I feel very motivated. Today I'm going to make a separate file and make some of the revisions she suggested (a 3-page email worth of suggestions), to see how I like the story. I'm making it separate because I have other submissions with other publishers, so I want to make sure that if somebody accepts it the way it is that I don't mess with it. Any suggestions/opinions on a revise and resubmit? Experience with such?
 

Roxxsmom

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DRM helps no one and frustrates readers because if the device you got the original book on dies, you've pretty much lost the book and need to buy it again.

DRM does not stop pirating either because the people who put up pirated books tend to be the same people who can crack a DRM code, unlike your average reader who can't.

And there are numerous programs available on the web (one is an add on for calibre) that breaks DRMs so they can be read on different readers. I remember buying an ebook once and finding out it was only readable on kindle-compatible readers (I didn't have a device that read kindle books at the time, aside from my PC), so I'd have been SoL if that hadn't been available. I'm generally a law-abiding person, but the idea that I could buy a book for full price and not be able to read it on any device I owned was just annoying as heck.

And the way the book industry is going is away from the old model of advances and print.

A retreat from advances by small and e-book only presses is troubling to me, as it demonstrates a lack of faith in their own ability to garner sales at even a certain minimum threshold that would "sell out" such an advance. If they're reluctant to gamble even 2000-3000 bucks up front against future sales, how good can they be at getting an author's books out there into the world where potential buyers will find them?

And it's not clear a shift to higher royalties means more money for authors, even if those royalties are quite high compared to what's standard for publishers who pay advances. Maybe for top selling titles, but I'm guessing that most small or boutique presses, whether print or digital only, sell a few hundred, or at most a couple thousand copies of each book, not tens of thousands.

I don't know about the Romance Writers of America, but some writers' professional associations only accept publishers as "membership qualifying markets" if they grant advances of a certain amount, regardless of how much sales revenue the book may generate. The SFWA recently voted to allow self published authors who've exceeded certain sales figures to be members, but they don't recognize writers who have signed contracts with royalty-only publishers, even if the royalty percentages are quite high.
 

hsavage

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Yay! Sent out the revised version to her. Now it's another waiting game >.< She sent me an email saying she was really excited to read the new version. I really want her because she seems so enthusiastic about my story, and I feel that really makes a difference in the editor/author relationship. Crossing my fingers!
 

Anna204

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Yay! Sent out the revised version to her. Now it's another waiting game >.< She sent me an email saying she was really excited to read the new version. I really want her because she seems so enthusiastic about my story, and I feel that really makes a difference in the editor/author relationship. Crossing my fingers!

Good luck!!
 

hsavage

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Got my rejection on Friday :-( Feeling quite depressed about it.
 

Anna204

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I'm sorry to hear about this. I've had a few rejections from Carina and I'm not quite sure what they are looking for. I know it's a letdown, but don't give up.
 

Snowstorm

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Does anyone have info on response times?

Hopefully, you've found the information. Their submission guidelines state it's 12 weeks for "an editorial response" to a submission. On Feb. 20, I submitted to them. Their automated site shows my submission is "in-progress." No news is good news!
 

JustWonderin

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Hopefully, you've found the information. Their submission guidelines state it's 12 weeks for "an editorial response" to a submission. On Feb. 20, I submitted to them. Their automated site shows my submission is "in-progress." No news is good news!


It took just over four months for my reply. My MS said In-Progress for about three of those months. I got a form rejection with absolutely no editorial notes. Just FYI.
 

Anna204

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Hopefully, you've found the information. Their submission guidelines state it's 12 weeks for "an editorial response" to a submission. On Feb. 20, I submitted to them. Their automated site shows my submission is "in-progress." No news is good news!

I've had two rejections from them. The first was a form rejection and this was a few years ago, but I believe I got it within a month. The second was part of their pitch contest and that rejection came within a month. I did get some editorial notes that were helpful.
 

BarbaraSheridan

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akaria

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Took a look at some of their titles on Amazon. Pricing appears to be between 2.99 & 4.99. I'm more disappointed by the single note looking titles. Status Update, Radio Silenceand Out of Bounds all look very similar yet aren't by the same author or in the same series. More creativity please!

The paranormal titles seem to get the smaller review numbers, but their rankings aren't too bad. Like many other places, M/M is still hot. None of this looks good for my WIP. :(