[Display site] BookSubmit

Old Hack · Jan 17, 2012

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you yet another display site: BookSubmit.

Its How It Works page promises,

LIST YOUR BOOK (FOR FREE) AND WE WILL PROMOTE IT TO MORE THAN 200 LITERARY AGENTS! ... ALL LISTINGS ARE COMPLETELY FREE! (For a limited period only)

Its Who Are We? page is particularly interesting:

Sunstyle Designs (formerley Exford Systems Ltd) is a leading automotive consultancy business based in the Northwest of England.

We offer a range of specialised motor trade services including, parts catalogue design, mapping of product data into MAM, TecDoc and Activant formats, CD-ROM & Web catalogues, e-commerce solutions and cost saving advice.

Book-Submit is the latest in a long line of projects that we have been involved with.

CLIENTS INCLUDE:- Unipart Automotive, Finelist Group Plc, British Gaskets, Chiltern Components, Comline Autoparts Ltd, Brakeworld, Lighten Point Corporation, Car Car Supplies, The AA, Currentcare Ltd, FAI Automotive, Kar Engine Services, Mahle Filters, National Autoparts, Bettaparts, International Radiators, Solid Auto, Transhock, Trupart, Ultraparts, Zerosixty Components and many more.

It's not April the first, is it?

Old Hack · Jan 17, 2012

From their FAQs:

Isn't this just Y.A.D.S (Yet Another Display Site)?Definately [sic] not.
The main difference with Book-Submit is that we are PRO-ACTIVE. We directly market book details to Agents on your behalf.

Why would a Literary agent use the Book-Submit site?Literary Agents receive hundreds of submissions a month (some thousands). They have to sift through these manually and select the ones (if any) that they are interested in. This takes a great deal of time. Rejected items then have to be packed up and returned to authors. Many authors wait months for a reply (or rejection).
Our system allows agents to browse your submissions on-line (within a day of receiving them) and search only the genres that they are interested in.

Do I have to have a cover image?No. If you don't upload an image we will place a default 'blank' image in its place. However, we strongly recommend that you do upload a cover image. The book cover image is a powerful marketing tool and will definatley pique the interest of the Agent.

Terie · Jan 17, 2012

Okay, points for actually knowing the YADS acronym.

But other than that, they sure don't seem to know much about publishing beyond surface knowledge. Which, curiously, they admit right up front:

What do you know about the Book Industry?

We know that the current method of submitting books to literary agents is an antiquated system that dates back to the Victorian era.

When the only thing you 'know' about an industry is a single detail that's not actually true, well......

aliceshortcake · Jan 17, 2012

Another gem:

PUSH MARKETING*

Click to expand...

– We also CONTACT AGENTS REGULARLY WITH YOUR DETAILS, reminding them constantly of the Book-Submit website and encouraging them to visit. Every month they get statistics on the total number of books listed on the system and the NEW ADDITIONS. In addition we send SPECIFIC DETAILS OF YOUR BOOK to them on a MONTHLY BASIS, via a TARGETED OPT-IN E-MAIL NEWSLETTER SYSTEM, and ALSO BY POST to Agents who are not subscribed to our e-mail system. These e-mails contain a direct link back to the site, and your book listing page, making it very easy for Agents to ‘click through’ and see your work.

*Push marketing activities will start when we have sufficient book numbers on the system.
http://book-submit.com/pricing/

Yes, that will make BookSubmit popular with agents.

Momento Mori · Jan 17, 2012

Book-Submit Website:
How many Agents do you have on your database?
At the moment the system is marketed directly to Agents in the UK & Ireland but this will be expanded in the near future to include the USA, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
The total number of UK & Ireland agents is around the 280 mark. This number is a small niche market that is easily contactable by established marketing channels.

That 280 mark sounds like the number of agents listed in the annual Artists and Writers Yearbook. Is that where they got their database from?

Of those 280 agencies, how many have signed up to receive Book-Submit's spam?

Book-Submit Website:
What if Agents don't make use of the site?
We remind them constantly by sending e-mail (and postal) newsletters to them on a regular basis.
a) when a new book is submitted on the site
b) a monthly summary of all submissions.
c) Regular updates throughout the course of a year.
Agents can filter these newsletters by genre so they only receive the books that they are interested in.

Those "reminders" sound as if they'd get really irritating, really quickly. I'd also be interested in knowing how such reminders would be viewed under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, given that the FAQs are a bit mealy mouthed on whether agents have actually signed up to use the service or are merely aware of it.

Book-Submit Website:
by publishing, displaying or uploading (collectively, “Posting”) any text, links, photos, messages or other data or information (collectively, “Content”) on or to the Website (including on or to your profile), you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to Book-Submit an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, fully-paid and worldwide license to display and distribute such Content.

The terms of this licence bother me - specifically the fact that it's a licence in perpetuity and it's deemed to be irrevocable. In theory, that means that Book-Submit still have the right to use your content (whether that's chapters or a whole manuscript) after you've decided to stop using the site. That may not be what's intended, but it's something I would caution against.

Book-Submit Website:
Disputes.
If there is any dispute between you and us about or involving the Website or the Service, by using the Website or the Service, you agree that the dispute will be governed by the laws of the United Kingdom without regard to its conflict of law provisions.

This is pure pedantry on my part, but there are different laws and civil courts procedures in the UK depending on whether you bring a dispute in England and Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland. Strictly speaking (and on the basis that the company is based in England), this should refer to the laws in England and Wales (no disrespect intended to those AWers in Northern Ireland or Scotland).

Book-Submit Website:
FEES
Joining Book-Submit and posting your book on-line is subject to our Standard Listing Fee. We do charge fees for using other services, such as the Featured Listing. When you use a service that has a fee, you have an opportunity to review and accept the fees that you will be charged based on our Fees schedule, which we may change from time to time. Changes to that schedule are effective after we provide you notice by posting the changes on the Book-Submit site.
We may choose to temporarily change the fees for our services for promotional events or new services, and such changes are effective when we post the temporary promotional event or new service on the sites.

I'd want this clarified because the site currently says that standard and featured listing is free (basically because they're trying to bulk up with manuscripts) but there's no time limit on it. Nor is there anything to indicate that when you do pay a fee, that fee applies for a set period of time, i.e. the way this is worded potentially allows them to keep imposing different charges at different times and you only have the ability to not pay (at which point you will be delisted).

MM

waylander · Jan 17, 2012

So they will spam agents with details of the manuscripts on their site.
How long before these 'alerts' get automatically directed to an agent's spam folder? Less than a week I reckon

DreamWeaver · Jan 17, 2012

We know that the current method of submitting books to literary agents is an antiquated system that dates back to the Victorian era

And the wheel is an antiquated technology that dates back to before the ancient Egyptians. Your point?

aliceshortcake · Jan 17, 2012

We know that the current method of submitting books to literary agents is an antiquated system that dates back to the Victorian era

Good heavens, yes. It took the Bronte sisters and Charles Dickens years to find agents!

Stacia Kane · Jan 17, 2012

Terie said:
When the only thing you 'know' about an industry is a single detail that's not actually true, well......

Not to mention that they don't seem to realize what an agent's assistant does, or the fact that odds are the agents in question will never see any of this; their assistants will delete it all/send it to spam immediately.

Momento Mori said:
Those "reminders" sound as if they'd get really irritating, really quickly. I'd also be interested in knowing how such reminders would be viewed under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, given that the FAQs are a bit mealy mouthed on whether agents have actually signed up to use the service or are merely aware of it.

In fairness, the bit Aliceshortcake quoted about "Push Marketing" says it's an "opt-in" system, but yeah, there's no clarity on whether all of the emails are opt-in or only the newsletter or what, and afaik the "opt-in" option could be hidden anywhere; you know, like those sites where you set up an account and you have to un-click a tiny separate box that's already Xed and says something like "Send me updates!"

And yeah:

Book-Submit Website:
by publishing, displaying or uploading (collectively, “Posting”) any text, links, photos, messages or other data or information (collectively, “Content”) on or to the Website (including on or to your profile), you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to Book-Submit an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, fully-paid and worldwide license to display and distribute such Content.

Click to expand...

The terms of this licence bother me - specifically the fact that it's a licence in perpetuity and it's deemed to be irrevocable. In theory, that means that Book-Submit still have the right to use your content (whether that's chapters or a whole manuscript) after you've decided to stop using the site. That may not be what's intended, but it's something I would caution against.

Definitely agree here. If you're granting them the irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive worldwide right to "display and distribute" your submission...

Yes, they only want you to upload "sample chapters," so it's probably not going to make a huge difference/matter at all, really, as far as your publishing rights go, but still "irrevocable" and "perpetual" seem extremely problematic to me.

James D. Macdonald · Jan 17, 2012

Isn't this just Y.A.D.S (Yet Another Display Site)?Definately [sic] not.

Actually, it is. Straight-up YADS, indistinguishable from dozens of others.

frimble3 · Jan 17, 2012

James D. Macdonald said:
Actually, it is. Straight-up YADS, indistinguishable from dozens of others.

Probably worse, if the usual YADS just plops your 'display' out there on the cold, crowded Internet. This one gets in agents' faces, annoying them. What's worse than being forgotten? Being remembered in a bad way.

CaoPaux · Aug 16, 2014

Their last communiqué:

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE : January 3rd 2013
————————————–————————
Of interest to editors and journalists covering: Book publishing, self publishing, vanity publishing, how to get published, how to contact literary agents.

BOOK SUBMIT CLOSES DOWN

Book-Submit (www.book-submit.com), a Book-Submission website for Authors and Literary Agents will close down after 18 months of activity. The website allowed authors to list their books on-line in a searchable database of new submissions. Literary agents could then search the book database by keyword or genre to find submissions in the genres that they were interested in.

Peter Scott (Managing Director of Book-Submit) says, "The main reason for the closure of the system is that the Literary Agents that we targeted were not interested in becoming involved with an automated book submission service. Our marketing strategy relied on Agents becoming involved and promoting the site for us. As a result of this, we were not able to attract sufficient numbers of authors to the system in order to reach a 'critical mass' of users and thus make the system profitable. Over the 18 months that we were in operation the revenues from the Book-Submit subscription system were not sufficient to cover the operating costs of the website; and now that our 12 months trial period has completed we have decided to close down the operation."

He goes on to say, "We have had a great deal of support from hundreds of authors and we thank all participants for giving our system a tryout."

MESSAGE TO BOOK-SUBMIT MEMBERS
————————————––—————

The Book-Submit web site will not be accepting any new submissions as from today. (January 3rd 2013) However, a final submission of all books on the system will be sent to Literary Agents at the end of January 2013.

All user accounts will be closed today and all user data will be destroyed. Your data will not be passed on to any third parties.

Once again we would like to thank all authors who gave the system a try.

About Book-Submit

The Book-Submit website was the brainchild of veteran software developer Peter Scott. Peter has over 30 years experience in the IT sector and has been responsible for developing a number of specialised computer systems in the automotive industry. He has worked on projects with the Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Unipart and other major parts distributors and manufacturers. His programming experience goes back over 30 years to the early days of personal computing, using BASIC and assembler programming. He has also been directly involved with the roll out and ongoing marketing of two market leading national computer systems. Peter is married with two children.

[Display site] BookSubmit

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman

Terie

Writer is as Writer does

aliceshortcake

Wilde about Oscar

Momento Mori

Tired and Disillusioned

waylander

Who's going for a beer?

DreamWeaver

Shakespearean Fool

aliceshortcake

Wilde about Oscar

Stacia Kane

Girl Detective

James D. Macdonald

Your Genial Uncle

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

CaoPaux

Mostly Harmless