Fantasy Island Book Publishing

This company?

http://www.fantasyislandbookpublishing.com/

Outside of the fact that the editors there have no professional experience outside of Fantasy Island Books?
At least, that's the impression I am getting from the bios there.
And as I read the about us page, the way things are phrased makes me think you have to pay to be published by them.

The only thing I know about them is that a friend of mine is published through them and she seems pretty happy. Wish I could tell you more.

On FIB's 'About Us' page:

Co-operative publishing.

[Their] co-operative publishing solution provides a full service publisher at a reasonable price.

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http://www.fantasyislandbookpublishing.com/about-us

I wonder what prompted the change over to co-operative publishing? They've been publishing since 2008, but switched over to co-op in 2011.

Holy crap! I believe this post speaks for itself: http://the-scribes-ass.blogspot.com/2012/01/fantasy-island-book-publishing.html?m=1

Fallen said:

On FIB's 'About Us' page:



http://www.fantasyislandbookpublishing.com/about-us

I wonder what prompted the change over to co-operative publishing? They've been publishing since 2008, but switched over to co-op in 2011.

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Probably they weren't selling enough books to make money.

Charging authors to publish is a much faster, cheaper, and easier way to make money than developing and implementing an effective marketing plan.

MysteryRiter said:

Holy crap! I believe this post speaks for itself: http://the-scribes-ass.blogspot.com/2012/01/fantasy-island-book-publishing.html?m=1

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Yeah. And possibly not in the way it intends. Looks like someone has a big axe to grind.

- Victoria

victoriastrauss said:

Yeah. And possibly not in the way it intends. Looks like someone has a big axe to grind.

- Victoria

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That's exactly what I thought.

Also agree with jennontheisland, co-op publishing makes it much easer for the publisher to make money on a vanity press. They don't have to worry about pesky things like selling books 8)

TheOneTrueBen said:

Do you mind sharing the name she writes under? I'm also interested to see how their authors do on Amazon. I've found some less than savory info in my own research, but I'm not one to take things at face value without more corroboration.

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Her name is Lili Tufel, the author of Sand. A wonderful book that she self published for a while before going with them. As I've said before, she seems pretty happy and that's all I can say since I haven't dealt with them personally.

jennontheisland said:

Probably they weren't selling enough books to make money.

Charging authors to publish is a much faster, cheaper, and easier way to make money than developing and implementing an effective marketing plan.

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Thank you. There's no mention of the charges either. Makes me feel even more uncomfortable.

I suspect it is 'not recommended' on Preditors and Editors for a reason.

And Piers Anthony says: "I list this only to report that they are ripping off authors and libeling those who protest; there's a lawsuit. Stay away."

I would not ignore the combination of those two warnings without finding out what they were based on first.

saphirablue84 said:

Her name is Lili Tufel, the author of Sand. A wonderful book that she self published for a while before going with them.

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The thing is that if she went with a co-op publisher the second time around, she's still essentially self-published, except for the part where now it qualifies more as vanity published. Co-op publishing is just another form of vanity publishing; it's not commercial publishing.

Terie said:

The thing is that if she went with a co-op publisher the second time around, she's still essentially self-published, except for the part where now it qualifies more as vanity published. Co-op publishing is just another form of vanity publishing; it's not commercial publishing.

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What I meant by that was that she published through Smashwords/Amazon (I believe. Don't quote me on that one,) before going with them. I count self publishing and co-op/vanity as two different things. And like I've said before, she seems happy with them and since I can't/don't speak for her, that's all I know and can tell you.

saphirablue84 said:

What I meant by that was that she published through Smashwords/Amazon (I believe. Don't quote me on that one,) before going with them. I count self publishing and co-op/vanity as two different things. And like I've said before, she seems happy with them and since I can't/don't speak for her, that's all I know and can tell you.

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Yes, publishing through Smashwords/Amazon is self-publishing. Where the author keeps all profits.

Co-op publishing is a form of vanity publishing, wherein the author pays someone else and then only keeps some of the profits.

IOW, vanity/co-op publishing is a step down from self-publishing.

It's nice your friend is happy so far, but the bottom line is that instead of putting all the profits into her own pocket, she paid someone else money who then also gets to keep a portion of the profits, too. I can't wrap my head around how that's better.

Terie said:

It's nice your friend is happy so far, but the bottom line is that instead of putting all the profits into her own pocket, she paid someone else money who then also gets to keep a portion of the profits, too. I can't wrap my head around how that's better.

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I'm not saying it is. I'm also not saying that it isn't because I don't know her exact arrangement with them. She's happy and I support her choices even though it wouldn't be my own. I still support her and her book 100%!

This is a choice all of us must make really. Some will choose the agent path to the big prize, (my chosen path.) Some will choose the total self publish path, (many friends have done this & I support them all the same.) And some will choose the co-op/vanity path. While I will and have spoken against some of these business because a friend was going to be ripped off unknowingly, I support the ones who make their choice with eyes wide open. While I'm not taking that path, nor do I really recommend it, I truly only want them to be happy with the choice they make. Besides, it's not mine to make for them anyway.

To each their own, right?

TheOneTrueBen said:

Saphira, one thing that bothered me was that the "editor" put his name on the credits of the book your friend Lili wrote, when in most cases I've seen, the editor only gets credit when it's an anthology or other story collection, not when it's a single author book. Something about that doesn't feel right to me. Can't put my finger on it, but I just don't like it.

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I had to ask a friend to look at their copy, (since it's newer than mine,) about that. I had no clue that the editor's name was on the credits because I have the original kindle edition. And I understand what you mean.

I'm still supporting her and her book because I love it and her. In no way is my support for the publisher because I fell in love with the book before they came into the picture, which says it all to me.