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Brighter Books Publishing House

currerbell

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Help! I received an offer for publication from Brighter Books Publishing House in Canada. They are new and green and I really like their publishing objectives. Their contract looks normal to me and doesn't promise anything outrageous. My concern is that Pred-Ed has them listed as "not recommended". They do charge a $3 fee for an electronic submission, which I didn't mind paying, given the potential cost of mailing a full MS to them. Could this be why Pred-Ed listed them that way? Does anyone know anything else?
 

M.R.J. Le Blanc

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Any fees, regardless of what they call them, are generally a no-no. I've never heard of any pub charging a fee for an online submission; that's absurd. Regardless, if P&E gives them a 'not recommended' there's probably a good reason for it. Do they have experience? Good distribution? Fair advances/royalties for a publisher of their size? Are their books competitive? If the answer is no, don't bother with them. A publisher doesn't have to be a scam to be a Bad Idea. Inexperienced publishers will ruin your book just as badly as a scammer will.
 

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Currerbell, do you have a link to their website?

edit: ah, bugger, someone posted the link in that split second when I was typing!
 

jennontheisland

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They charge you money to submit to them?

No.

You don't pay publishers for anything. Anything. And you don't pay submission systems to submit to publishers.

Besides that, the reason they give for using this http://www.submishmash.com/ submission system is because they don't like having to read crappy slush.

However, we have been receiving an extremely high number of submissions which are not well edited or polished, or are irrelevant to our publishing house mission and values. We have spent precious time reading through these manuscripts and responding back, usually with suggestions for improvement. This is a little troubling; we have not even properly launched yet, and no one even knows all the great things we have planned — imagine when they do!
For this reason, we have decided to adopt Submishmash as our submissions manager.
Um, they're still going to have to read it regardless of how it comes. That's their job.

And I'm much too cynical to think they aren't either the owner/operator of submishmash, or at least getting a cut from it.

As for the contract you've been offered, I suggest you take it to a lawyer or agent who has experience in dealing with literary contracts. There could be any number of reasons why P&E lists them as not recommended.
 
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KTC

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Besides the money issue...does anybody see anywhere on the site what they are looking for. The guidelines seem to discuss, mainly, the fee and the excuses for it.
 

KTC

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Forget that comment. If you hit the link to submit...it outlines what they are looking for. I find it odd that it's not also on the site, though. May be a little thing?
 

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I have to admit, I don't like that they admit the electronic submission fee is a source of capital for them. However, since it probably equates to snail-mail postage costs, I don't think the author is losing out financially.

What does bother me a lot more is that they have no books published. No track record. No list of staff and what their qualifications are. No distribution in place. No mention of what formats they publish in or what rights they contract. No editorial specialties. No anything, in fact. Just 'We love books and want to publish some'.

Currerbell, you might want to flick the contract on to Victoria Strauss/Writer Beware and ask them if they see any red flags.
 

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I have to admit, I don't like that they admit the electronic submission fee is a source of capital for them. However, since it probably equates to snail-mail postage costs, I don't think the author is losing out financially.

it would actually be cheaper to submit it through their site than to snail mail it...but still...it raises flags.
 

jennontheisland

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Even cheaper to just email.

Also:

They are POD ("we only print books when they are needed") and their address is a UPS store.
 
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jennontheisland: I didn't see the POD bit on their website. The address listed there is:
Brighter Books Publishing House
5765 Turner Road, Unit 1, Suite # 409
Nanaimo B.C. V9T 6M4 Canada

veinglory: Wow, that "I get free books in exchange for writing a good review of the book, and also they might publish my book" is a very bad look.

The Brighter Books website is registered to Angela Jurgensen of Brighter Brains Inc. Brighter Brains Inc is a freelance editing service (minimum hourly rate $20) with zero clients that admits to being a publishing house under a different name.

My cynical crystal ball tells me that authors with Brighter Books may be asked to pay Brighter Brains for editing. At the very least, it's an unfortunate conflict of interest.
 

jennontheisland

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Google the address.
http://www.google.ca/search?q=5765+...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

I lived just outside Nanaimo not too long ago. It's a UPS Store in a strip mall. There's a half decent Asian Fusion restaurant next door called Blue Ginger. At least there was when I lived there.

As for the POD, I admit I'm conclusion jumping based on the "we only print books when they are needed" that is stated on the Our Story page of their website. But I'm not sure what else to take from that statement.
 
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M.R.J. Le Blanc

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The Brighter Books website is registered to Angela Jurgensen of Brighter Brains Inc. Brighter Brains Inc is a freelance editing service (minimum hourly rate $20) with zero clients that admits to being a publishing house under a different name.

My cynical crystal ball tells me that authors with Brighter Books may be asked to pay Brighter Brains for editing. At the very least, it's an unfortunate conflict of interest.

Mine tells me they probably steer rejected writers to the editing service with that oh-so-hopeless dream that if they get it edited with their sister company they might reconsider the ms.
 

Sydewinder

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I'd be far more concerned that they have no books with which to gauge quality and sales than the $3 fee or the fact that they use a P/O box. The latter is hardly a red flag, imo. I can name a couple other respectable pubs that use po boxes for submission. Perhaps the $3 fee is because they read hard copies of what they receive so either you mail one to them or they print if out (paper + ink = $3 (?) ).

Still, there's no way I'd submit until I saw what I'd be getting.
 

M.R.J. Le Blanc

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For me it was the principle, but yeah there isn't much here to recommend them even without that :)
 

Sydewinder

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oops, from their website
Submishmash allows us to charge a small fee — equivalent to the fee authors used to pay for postage – for every submission we receive from now on. It’s a return to the times before email, when writers would polish a manuscript, and research the Publishing houses really well before they decided to send something in. We hope that by adopting their system, we will cut down on the spam emails and spam submissions, and start receiving more relevant, polished and well-edited manuscripts.

Seems they think charging a fee will inspire higher calibre submissions. *shakes head*
 

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I think it is likely that using submishmash will cut down on general spam, and on ms submissions that get sent spam-like to all publishers by scam agents etc.
 

M.R.J. Le Blanc

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oops, from their website


Seems they think charging a fee will inspire higher calibre submissions. *shakes head*

It won't. When someone's desperate enough to be published, they'll pay anything that might bring them that much closer. Serious and smart writers have a very large pool of choices to sub to. I think most are going to just walk away and find somewhere else to sub.
 

currerbell

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Wow. Thanks for all the input. That's pretty scary. I submitted to them because they claimed to be looking for exactly the sort of thing I had. I love the aspiring reviewer/author who doesn't even have much of a grasp of basic grammar. @Unimportant - that is a good idea.