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Worldwide Publishers, LLC / Worldwide Literary Agency

jackstr952

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I've been offered a book contract by a start up publisher - Worldwide Publishers LLC - can't find much on them - they are listed on Preditors and Editors.

The contract sounds very fair in that I as Author incur no expenses.

The contract states that "the Copyright will be filed by the Publisher on behalf of the Author and remain the property of the Author hereafter.

There is a clause that states the publisher has right of first refusal on any of the Authors works which I will request is either removed or states first refusal of Authors second book only.

Is this a standard? Anything suspect about that clause?

Has anyone dealt with this publisher or heard anything?

Basically it all sounds too good to be true so I'm a little skeptical.

Thanks for any help and advice.
 

jackstr952

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Worldwide Publishers LLC

Anyone have any experience or heard of a publisher called Worldwide Publishers LLC? They have a website, apparently are a startup publisher (don't have offices yet), and have offered me a book contract which sounds very attractive.

Thanks,
Jack
 

eternalised

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Adding link: http://www.worldwidepublishersllc.com/

Being an author myself I know what it's like
trying to get published today. I don't know
if I will like your work, but I can tell you
that it will be treated with respect, reviewed
fully and if mailed returned with the postage
prepaid within 30 days with a rejected or
accepted letter.
This is on their about page. There's at least two red flags in this paragraph. The publisher claims to be an author himself, and ventures about the near impossibility of getting published today. It's generally speaking not a good idea if an author, with trouble of getting published, then turns around and decides to open up a publishing house themselves. Second red flag is that this website is obviously geared towards authors, not readers.

You can see some book covers on this page. They all look unprofessional, just an image slapped on a book cover. The website itself looks unprofessional as well. You would think a publisher could at least hire a web designer or cover artist.

They do share an author contract on this page. It's a bit small to read, but they mention this underneath:

We believe the above agreement is fair and above board,
if you don't think so then by all means please don't forward
us your manuscripts we have enough manuscripts to read allready.
So basically, there's no room to negotiate about the contract. Also, I think it should be 'already' not 'allready', so I'd question the abilities of the editors they have on hand, if any. The above statement also sounds a bit rude in my opinion.

Based on their contract, they ask movie and TV rights as well. For the 'new kids on the block', as they call themselves, I think this is way too soon to jump on the movie and TV rights bandwagon.

From their homepage:

We are looking for authors who are writing original and interesting stories of all genres, fiction or non-fiction
who want to get published.


Huge red flag. In other words, they accept all genres. For a small publisher, it's near impossible to target every niche market. If you're looking for a publisher try to choose one who has one, two or even three target markets, but no more. Unless they're large publishers, of course, who have departments for practically every genre.

There's no list of staff working for them (their about us page only lists one person, and he's an author) nor does it show the owner has any credentials in the publishing community whatsoever. Their website is horrible. Not just graphics-wise, but also to access, with images overlapping text and what not. You can't see any books previously published by them, except the ones on the About page and all three of those are by the same author. They don't seem to have a distributor.

If I were you, I'd stay away from this publisher, and I definitely wouldn't sign a contract with them.

If however, you're still interested in signing with them, ask them a couple of important questions:
- who is your distributor?
- what is your experience in publishing?
- who works for you, and what is their experience?



 

jackstr952

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Thank you so much - you cited many of the issues I noted myself and their contract lacked professionalism. Your comments were some I've received from others and were all red flags that either I myself or others made note of. Basically, it all sounded too good to be true and the promises made by the emails sounded somewhat unrealistic, particularly after reading their review of my manuscript which indicated it needed a lot of work.

Thank you for your comments - they helped a ton!

Jack.
 

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I wouldn't go ahead with this offer. Query more established, successful presses. You'll be better off.
 

Marian Perera

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Even for an amateur micropress, their website is awful. No "buy" links to books (though the only books currently available seem to be by the same author/publisher), no sample pages, shoddy editing... absolutely nothing to recommend them.

Plus, they seem to want exclusives on fulls:

I can't believe I had to say this, but if you have other Publishers who looked at or are looking at your work and your waiting for a decision, please don't forward it to us, we just wasted three days reading a 700 page manuscript and when we just ready to tell the author we wanted to move forward on it, he advised us that he had signed with another publisher.
I can't believe anyone who can write a manuscript could be so rude and dumb.
 

Gravity

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Why in the Sam Scratch would any publisher, startup or not, use anything less than absolutely perfect language on their website, especially when seeking new authors? It wouldn't take long to run their text through a word processing program to catch any errors.

The mind, she reels ...
 

MysteryRiter

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From the site:

(Spelling mistakes are theirs, not mine)

I can't believe I had to say this, but if you have other Publishers
who looked at or are looking at your work and your waiting for a decision , please don't forward it to us, we just wasted three days reading a 700 page manuscript and when we just ready to tell the author we wanted to move forward on it, he advised us that he had signed with another publisher.

I can't believe anyone who can write a manuscript could be so rude
and dumb.



Um, yeah...
 

aliceshortcake

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From WP's website:

A Just Cause, is Joseph R. Pugia, Senior's first
book and was completed in 2011 its 323 pages and some 93,000 words.

This book was after several editing of the original manuscript forwarded in first printers proof form to non family people for reading after which they were requested to answer a questionnaire which asked several key questions.

Regarding how interesting they found the plot and if at the suggested retail price of $17.99 the book had fair market value and so on.

Based on their reurned answers in the questionnaire the book went through another rewrite with more editing being done.

The book is now completed and printed and is
being submitted for consideration to traditional mortar and brick book store owners nationwide by Worldwide Publishers, LLC under a set marketing plan...


This is my second book, "A Tale of The American West," its 214 pages some 55,000 words and like my first book was given to a group of non related readers in this case high school students in printer proofs form who read it then submitted their thoughts on pre completed forms and returned them to me, the book was then rewriten and re-edited and It's now completed and is going to the printer, its a Western done in the old style, a good man who has to deal with bad men. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.


Is he trying to say that he edited the books himself? Because if he employed professional editors they did a poor job with the cover blurbs! And I really don't think that $17.99 represents 'fair market value'.

(Sorry about the weird formatting of this post - this is what happens when you try to cut and paste from the WP site.)
 

Marian Perera

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I searched for these books on Amazon and didn't find them, so I emailed the publisher/author to ask where they could be purchased. Today I got a reply.

Thanks for writing me, you can buy a Just Cause by contacting <name redacted> the Manager of The Sprit Of 76 Bookstore and Card Shop, they are on 107 Pleasant Street, Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945 at 781-631-7199 or email her at <email redacted> part of the Hugo Book Store chain you may want to see their webpage at www.hugobookstores.com the price is $17.99 and <name redacted> or her staff will help you.

This guy can't sell his own books, let alone anyone else's.
 

aliceshortcake

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I never cease to be amazed by the gormlessness of these amateur publishers. I can understand why Worldwide's "set marketing plan" failed to get Pugia's own overpriced books on the shelves of "mortar and brick" bookstores...but how difficult would it be to get them listed on Amazon?
 

James D. Macdonald

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The contract sounds very fair in that I as Author incur no expenses.

That's a start, but by no means all that you're looking for in a publisher.

How much are they paying you up front?

How many books have they published? Are they physically on the shelves of multiple bookstores? How are the reviews? Any best sellers? Any award winners?

Have you, personally, read any of their books?
 

Marian Perera

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I emailed back:

Thank you for your reply. The price of $18/book seems a little high, especially when shipping fees to Canada are added. Are e-book versions available?

And the answer was:

No I am sorry, A Just Cause is 325 pages ........ Its an action adventure, I am sure you will enjoy it, but thank you for your interests

Uploading a manuscript to Kindle Direct and forgetting all about it from then on would probably generate more sales than being accepted by Worldwide.
 

LaLa

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Under their sample contract:

We believe this is a fair agreement, we are always open to suggestions, what we tried to do in this agreement is give our Authors peace of mind without all the mumble jumbo and what for and whatever there seems to be in the 10 page (or more) contracts we seen.

When it all breaks down doesn't it really come to a matter of trust?

I am sure the water cooler gang will find something wrong with that idea or the composting and spelling in the above sample agreement but then again let them.
I assume Absolute Write is 'the water cooler gang', forever snarking about people's composting skills?

66534133-db37.gif
 

Marian Perera

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Oh my, this is hilarious.

We don't sell off this web page and are not E publishers so we don't need anyone reading samples of the books listed here!
It's as though the publisher/author took a course on how to avoid selling books, and is now following that to the letter.

In the hope my spelling in the above statements and our attempt to do the right thing by accepting sumissions from none published authors to be placed once reviewed and approved into our established retail pipeline whie developing our business from the ground up meets the approval of the gang around the water cooler?
Can anyone short of a professional pearl diver read that sentence aloud in a single breath? It would be perfect for the Bulwer-Lytton contest, though.
 

MysteryRiter

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It's as though the publisher/author took a course on how to avoid selling books, and is now following that to the letter.

:roll:

Can anyone short of a professional pearl diver read that sentence aloud in a single breath? It would be perfect for the Bulwer-Lytton contest, though.

No. I had to read it three times to understand it, and even then I was confused. :)