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Dark Dragon Publishing

JL_Benet

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Dark Dragon Publishing is a new Canadian small independent publisher of the fantastic.

We specialize in Science Fiction, Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Paranormal Romance and Horror that
sparks the imagination and can transport readers into realms only found in dreams.

Though we are primarily a publisher of fiction for adults we will consider well written Young
Adult fiction as well.

We love stories that transport us on the back of the dragon to new worlds of wonder.
http://www.darkdragonpublishing.com/index.html
https://www.facebook.com/darkdragonpublishing

It looks like the owner is also involved with Vamptasy, but it doesn't look like the two companies are actually, officially involved.

Right now, Karen Dales is Dark Dragon's only author.
http://www.karendales.com/
https://www.facebook.com/karendales
 

amergina

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The biggest issue I have is that there is absolutely no "about us" information. Who is the owner? Who is on their editorial staff? What experience do they have?

Dark Dragon Publishing first published Ms. Dales in 2009. No other authors in two years. On the one hand, they're expanding slowly. On the other hand... that's quite a slow expansion.

I did find that Ms. Dales, according to her LinkedIn profile, is an editor at Dark Dragon Publishing. No idea if she's the only one, since--again--there is no information about the staff on the DDP website.

FWIW, the address for DDP in that edition of the book (available via the Amazon Look inside feature here) is the same as another business that was run by Ms. Dales (found in this directory).

The address for DDP in Ms. Dales current books is different.

(Saying all that, it's pretty obvious that Ms. Dales has worked her butt off and has developed a fan-base for her novels. Kudos to her.)
 

juniper

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Active in promoting their books on Facebook, but still no info on who runs the business. Three more authors are on their "authors" page. Says trade pb are available from Amazon etc but most likely PODs.*

Most of the promotional stuff seems to come from Karen Dales so I'd hazard a guess that this is a company she started to publish her own books and is slowly adding some others in.

She has a blog that I've read a bit and she seems to know what's what. I've thought about buying one of her books, but myTBR list is already quite long. So I'm curious about the Dark Dragon Publishing too.

Currently closed to submissions as they work through backlog of queries. (according to website)
Currently open to submissions "We are currently welcoming queries. Please see our submissions guidelines on our website." according to their Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/darkdragonpublishing/info

*(I defer to James D. Macdonald's explanation about POD and trade pb not being related to trim size but to distribution methods.) http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7231047&postcount=9
 
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matdonna

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Hi, gang-- boy I've been away from AW for too long. I run the Canadian SF & Fantasy group on FB.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2504522110/

I recently had a group member complain that Dark Dragon was doing too much promotion of their books on the group. Reviewing the posts, I thought he was right, so I sent a message to Dark Dragon's FB page asking them to dial it down. I got no answer, but the next day Karen Dales personally posted yet another ad for the company's most recent release, a supernatural thriller from a first time author named Tyner Gillies. So I went public with the request to stop taking up more than their share of the group with the ads. Then I went and found this thread on AW and asked Karen Dales to answer a couple of questions. She hasn't responded, but Tyner Gillies did. I was trying to find a way to link the ensuing discussion thread here, but I'm not sure if there's a way to do that-- if you go to the FB group you can scroll down to find the conversation.
 

CaoPaux

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Do you have a page that doesn't require a log-in?
 

CaoPaux

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The link you gave requires logging in to see the page, so it's only "open" to folks with FB accounts.
 

CaoPaux

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Tried that. Depending upon the browser I used, it either redirected me back to https, or stayed http, but still required log in. C'est la vie.
 

Unimportant

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I can get to the Dark Dragon page. No info about the owner/staff, fairly unimpressive cover art, and a note that they're currently closed to submissions.

I'm not a FB user so their FB page is pretty useless for me.
 

eternalised

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I could enter the group just fine. For those who can't, here is the conversation matdonna is talking about:

screenshotdarkdragon3.jpg

screenshotdarkdragon.jpg

screenshotdarkdragon2.jpg
 

matdonna

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Karen Dales gave an answer that she was contracted to edit other authors with the press, and also has a business of her own and has edited for another press. A cover artist complained about her work being bashed here, but I don't see what comment she's talking about. DDP's official page comment in the thread comes from someone named K.F. Gould. I've told the group that if they are interested to take their questions direct to Karen or follow discussion here. The FB group is not meant for this kind of discussion, and is not even just for writers, but I was concerned enough about possible conflict of interest that when I didn't get a private response and got another promotional post not from the DDP page but from Karen, I then posted publicly.
 

matdonna

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I have made an apology to Karen Dales for jumping the gun and asking pointed questions publicly. For the record, she is not in fact the owner/publisher of DDP. The owner's name is Fern Gould. Karen does do freelance editing, and Dark Dragon contracted her to edit the books of some of the other authors. One of those authors, Tyner Gillies, describes his experience with the company in his blog here, and he is quite satisfied with it, as the other authors seem to be as well.
 

ShaunHorton

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Was wondering if anyone has heard anything more on these folks lately, as they've popped up on Facebook as being open to submissions again.

Their books seem to have some good reviews, even if they're all fairly overpriced.
 

writera

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Are they legit? Anymore information? I saw a noteworthy editor linking to them once on Twitter.