Cool Gus Publishing (formerly Who Dares Wins Publishing) (Bob Mayer)

A couple things to think about. I consider epublishing an intermediate step between commercial publishing and self-pub. You get a bigger piece of the pie with e-pubs, but it is a smaller pie. The pie is growing, but it's still less than what you would make with the Big Six (although not always and not for certain authors).

I choose epub because of what I write. Epub is great for certain things and backlists are one of them. The first thing is to look at B&BC and see what others say about the company and contract. Are they up front about who works there and their industry experience? Do they have a good reputation?

Amount of royalty is good. 50% is top of the industry as standards go. Also, look at the term of contract. Anything more than 2-3 years would make me nervous. I'd be willing to gamble a backlist book for that long, but if you aren't happy, you don't want to be locked in for 7 years.

Carefully read the contract and pay attention to things like reversion clauses. What happens if they suspend operations? What happens if they are in breach of the contract? WHat if you or they want to terminate the contract early? Is there a mechanism for doing so?

Play around on their website. Look at the covers. Is the website easy to use? DO the covers look professional? Now go to some third party sites and look for their books. Make sure that what you find on their websire is found on other sites. Buy a few of their books. Are they properly formatted or riddled with errors?

Hope those give you a jumping off point in making your decision.

What does "gross profit" mean? You might want to have this defined - there's a risk that they might decide that "gross profit" comes after they've paid everyone else, leaving you 50% of not very much.

50% of "gross profit" might not be good.

"Gross profit" is the slippery slope. So do they mean you would get 50% of the 70% royalty Amazon offers for ebooks over 2.99? I hope someone with more experience posts on this, because it appears to me you would need to get some very specific details about how exactly they would promote your work for that cut. The uploading part, if you don't want to tackle it yourself, is something you can pay someone a one-time fee to do.

I'd be wary of any new publishing house, especially one set up specifically to sell the owner/creator/boss.

Other much more established epublishers are dealing with backlists. Samhain, for one, has a Retro Romance and there are others with a lot more experience and framework than this outfit.

Even with your backlist you need to be careful - right now I see a lot of start-ups and small publishers racing to get into the business with little understanding of how publishing works - aside from selling to their own authors and bashing trade publishers.

Just my opinion but I'd turn away. Not because of their terms, which are rather shaky to start with, but because it's a company based around one man's books/backlist, giving workshops and selling to other authors. I don't see how they're going to do anything for your book that you can't do yourself or can't have done BETTER by established epublishers who know what they're doing.

When I posted a blog post about WDW as it looked last year (I wasn't overly impressed): http://www.eroticromancepublishers.com/2010/09/market-who-dares-wins-publishing.html

The owner replied: "Well since the latest thing on the bio of the author who runs this site is 2008, I suggest she focus more on getting current with her own material than going around commenting on others. We started our company in 2010 and learned a lot on the way, including redoing our web site. Why a site that focuses on erotica lists us is beyond me, since we don't list that on our submissions page. Ye ole' not paying attention to detail, I suppose.
All in fun, of course."

veinglory said:

The owner replied: "Well since the latest thing on the bio of the author who runs this site is 2008, I suggest she focus more on getting current with her own material than going around commenting on others.

Click to expand...

Lovely way to make friends and influence others.

Fifty percent is NOT the top amount I've heard of or investigated for e-book royalties. I've seen 70 and even 80% from other companies.

And if your royalties are based on some variation of "net," make sure your contract defines "net" as specificially as possible, so you know what you're dealing with. Also check the Amazon e-book (Kindle) ratings for the books the company publishers. If all the e-books have ratings that are in the six figures, that doesn't augur well.

Just a few suggestions based on my own recent experience in signing a contract to bring my StarBridge series back as e-books.

-Ann C. Crispin

Ah, the Del Boy boyz.

Nice.

aruna said:

Totally on a whim I submitted my out-of-print first novel to an E-Publisher that specialises in backlists and out-of-print books. I got the following reply the next day:

"We are interested in republishing your work in eBook format. We offer 50% royalty on gross profit. We provide cover design, file conversion and upload to all the major eBook stores. We will promote your book in social media, however, it is important for the author to promote their own work. One of our authors is a social media expert for writers and is always willing to help out our authors with ideas and cross promotion. "

Is that a good offer or not?

Click to expand...

Just curious, and it's an aside, but have you considered just doing it yourself? Instead of giving out a chunk from royalties you can just hire out for flat fees?

CaoPaux said:

I'm now tempted to insert random apostrophes. Just how does one parse "who dares wins"? </undercaffeinated>

Click to expand...

"He who dares, wins."

Only people who take a dare will achieve victory.

I can't give any insights as to the contract, but Bob does a huge amount of promotion of the company--he speaks at a lot of writers' events all around the world.

aruna said:

I'm happy to give out chunk of my royalties for that luxury; it's time that is at a premium with me.

Click to expand...

You don't have to do it yourself. There are reputable companies that can provide these same services for you for flat fees, rather inexpensively. I've repped you the name of two I've used. You don't have to pay royalties. Just thought it might be something to consider. Good luck however you go.

dpaterso said:

Slight thread derail, but this is the motto of several military special forces including the British SAS.

-Derek

Click to expand...

Bob was a Green Beret, spec ops, and all that. Hence, the name.

Things I noticed immediately about the site:

1. They're selling MP3s and CDs (using an apostrophe so that the CD's appear to be owning something).

2. They misspell the name of the flagship republished series they tout as what led them to create the company. (It's the Atlantis series, but they spell it as Altantis.)

3. Also, it looks like Mr. Mayer made his own Wikipedia page. I'm not sure why that turns me off, but it does.

Anyway, I'd pass.

Paul said:

Ah, the Del Boy boyz.

Click to expand...

That gave me an Only Fools and Horses flashback too.

"This time next year, we'll be millionaires!"