Musa Publishing

If you ask for elaboration you probably won't like it. Suffice it to say I am not impressed by the editing.

If you want we can take this to PM, but I'm generally curious. I read the look inside for KTC's book and I didn't find any glaring errors. The style is literary and not my thing, but everything seemed competant. I don't want to pick on KTC, but if it's a matter of Musa's editing having glaring issues and I'm assuming by Amadan's wow she saw some, I don't see them. I see stylistic changes I might have made, but that would have made it my voice and not Sebastian's.

Oh full disclosure: I have two Musa releases coming out in 2013 for the Calliope line (one a novella and one a novel). I haven't received edits yet, but one release date is in 12/2013 and the other hasn't been assigned a release date yet.

Let's not forget that this thread is about Musa Publishing, and not about Kevin's writing.

RYFW, everyone. Thanks.

Also, Amadan's a he. Just saying, because yanno...

Jamiekswriter said:

if it's a matter of Musa's editing having glaring issues and I'm assuming by Amadan's wow she saw some, I don't see them.

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KTC said:

I've read a few Musa books by now. I've not yet been disappointed. I don't recall seeing any glaring errors, either.

As for my own experience, it was actually the editing that sold me on Musa. I had a wonderful experience with my editor. My story was made stronger by the relationship. I am about to head into edits for my second Musa novel. Both of my Musas are literary.

I just checked the Look Inside feature on my first Musa novel, and I could not find any glaring issues. I know there are at least two mistakes in the manuscript...I caught them when I first read through the print version, of course. But I have to be honest, I find errors in every book I read. I'm a perfectionist. I'm thrilled with my Musa experience thus far.

Musa's not my first publisher, but it has been my best experience with a publisher to date.

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How have your sales been?

The only kudos I had in mind when I posted the link were for my editor. I had a great learning experience with my Musa editor. I've taken the things I learned with me on to my future projects. I saw a lot of opinions floating around in this thread. I reread the amazon preview of my own novel to see if there were any unsightly errors...saw there were none (at least in my thinking) and linked to it because I'm proud of the final product here--not because of my own writing, but because of the level of editing it received from Musa. I won't recant that. Obviously others disagree (some apparently vehemently). I stand behind my belief that my work received exceptional editing. I'm assuming the problem others have with the sample is the style? I don't know. I know only one thing...Musa seems to be under a microscope here for some reason I do not understand. My experiences with the publisher have all been good.

jennontheisland said:

How have your sales been?

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I think this is the big question. Editing and internships aside, is anyone making any money?

Folks, if y'all have issues with the writing or editing of any particular book, please write directly (and privately) to the authors or editors.

This is not SYW.

BR&BC is not now and never has been a place for crits.

Talk about business models. That's what we're here for. Talk about sales. Talk about contracts.

Respect the writers.

We're all doing the best we can.

If anyone wants to PM me I'll be happy to share details on my novella sales. I will say that I have finally made back the money I spent having bookmarks printed for giveaways. It took a year.

Saanen said:

If anyone wants to PM me I'll be happy to share details on my novella sales. I will say that I have finally made back the money I spent having bookmarks printed for giveaways. It took a year.

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Ok, *that's* worth a WOW. With an OUCH for good measure. Sorry for that, Saanen.

While I don't think my income is anyone's business but my own, I will say my best-selling book is a Musa book written for their shared world series. Shifter's Dance was a paranormal bestseller at ARe for over a week, and it sold more in its opening weekend than Two in Winter sold in it's first quarter.

While I don't have sales figures for all of January yet, based on the numbers I *do* have I would guess its sales since release two months ago are approx. 600 copies.

VanessaNorth said:

While I don't think my income is anyone's business but my own, I will say my best-selling book is a Musa book written for their shared world series. Shifter's Dance was a paranormal bestseller at ARe for over a week, and it sold more in its opening weekend than Two in Winter sold in it's first quarter.

While I don't have sales figures for all of January yet, based on the numbers I *do* have I would guess its sales since release two months ago are approx. 600 copies.

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Congrats! Speaking as a fellow author, it's always nice to hear about other people's successes. Gives me hope for the stories I have yet to write. @=)

That's pretty good, Vanessa.

Sales are important to consider so I will chime in here. I've had consistent sales every month since my book released (and I choose to keep exact numbers to myself and my husband, thank you). Aside from the initial launch, I have not done much self-promotion to get those sales. They've come about mostly through word-of-mouth from people who read the book and liked it enough to recommend it.

Lydia Sharp said:

Sales are important to consider so I will chime in here. I've had consistent sales every month since my book released (and I choose to keep exact numbers to myself and my husband, thank you). Aside from the initial launch, I have not done much self-promotion to get those sales. They've come about mostly through word-of-mouth from people who read the book and liked it enough to recommend it.

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That is an awesome cover, Lydia. Awesome.

Hi there I thought I'd chime in since people were asking for sales info. I'm not sure what good ebook sales are. With the exception of New York Times bestsellers, and one terrifying article that said midlisters sell about 800 books a month, I don't have a basis of comparison, but I'm happy to share my numbers.

My young adult novel, Persephone, was released July 6th of last year. Thus far it has sold 1,158 books, excluding January sales because I don't have them yet. The sequel to Persephone, Daughter of the Earth and Sky, was released December 21st of last year and in the month of December sold 179 books. All told last year I took home about two grand in royalties.

I haven't done much in the way of advertising other than send review copies of my book to every website on Musa's list, and every website an awesomely friendly musa writer posts to our facebook group. She rocks at finding review sites. I've considered doing more to advertise, but I'm not really sure what works. For me, reviews, word of mouth, and amazon recommends helps me to find books, but I'm not every reader.


Review wise I'm doing pretty well, Persephone has 70 reviews on amazon and only three are less than four star. On goodreads I have eighty-five reviews, 291 rating, and seventeen of those are less than four star.

So... numbers wise I don't think I'm doing badly, but I'm not sure what realistic expectations of "good" look like so I can't really answer for how well musa books sell compared to the rest of the market.

What constitutes a good level of sales is difficult to define, as so much depends on genre and who you're comparing your figures to: "good" for one publisher might well be laughable for another.

A friend of mine is a big name in crime fiction, and routinely sells 2,500 copies in the first week of release and then averages down to about 1,000 copies a week for six months or so. His books sell a few hundred thousand copies every year. He is an exception, of course, but it's a useful guideline (and happy dream!).

At the other end of the scale, if a book from a medium-sized publisher sells less than 2,000 or 3,000 copies in its first year of release, it's not done very well.

I do know a few small presses which are happy to sell 500 copies of a title, but they don't have full distribution and operate in a very niche market.

Bear in mind that I'm in the UK, which is a much smaller market than the US; and most of my experience is in working with (and having published) print editions, which makes my opinions slightly off-centre in this discussion. I'd assume that solid sales for a US publisher would be higher than I'm used to, and relatively new presses, like Musa, wouldn't do as well simply because they've yet not had time to build a decent reader-base. And e-publishing is a different animal to print, and works to different expectations, of course.

BarbaraSheridan said:

Agreed, but from what I've seen over the course of many years in terms of sales from e only publishers (not affiliated with one of the "big 6") KaitlinBevis is doing pretty well with a YA title.

If someone wishes to correct me on that score, have at it.

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It's not bad, no. Children's ebooks haven't really taken off yet, and sales of everything apart from top-brand YA authors are fairly small. If you're selling a couple of hundred copies a month consistently in YA ebooks, that's fine ... in the UK, at least. I don't know what those numbers mean in the US.

I have a novel called Trigger Point with Musa that came out about a year ago, in their suspense line. I have to say I was extremely impressed with the three rounds of edits they gave me. If those folks were interns, then they were darn good and conscientious interns. I'm also pleased with their sales tracking system, and their lines of communication have always been speedy when I needed to contact them. I think they need to do some more work on the marketing front, where they seem to have more channels to YA and romance review networks than they do with some of their other genres, such as mystery/suspense. Basically my experience with them has been very positive and professional.

Old Hack said:

I'd assume that solid sales for a US publisher would be higher than I'm used to, and relatively new presses, like Musa, wouldn't do as well simply because they've yet not had time to build a decent reader-base.

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It is very hard to sell lots of copies of many releases.

Very very hard.

For all sorts of reasons, but principally, it's the kid in the candy store problem. You have 1.00. You're in a candy store with lots and lots and lots of choices, all under 1.00.

What do you buy?

Surprisingly, many customers, rather than risk the "wrong" choice, won't buy anything. They walk away, with the dollar.

Acceptance today from Liz Silver for the Pan YA GLBT imprint for my novel Where No One Knows, about a transgender boy who is kicked out of his home... for being psychic.

I submitted it on December 21, after meeting and speaking with Liz at a conference, so that's a pretty good turnaround time for a submission, I think.

KimJo said:

Acceptance today from Liz Silver for the Pan YA GLBT imprint for my novel Where No One Knows, about a transgender boy who is kicked out of his home... for being psychic.

I submitted it on December 21, after meeting and speaking with Liz at a conference, so that's a pretty good turnaround time for a submission, I think.

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Awesome, congratulations! I love working with Liz. She edits the Wiccan Haus books and I think she's just fantastic.

Thanks, Vanessa I'm excited to see how this goes!