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Limitless Publishing

Filigree

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:Shrug: Probably not, unless the author has some leverage. The pub's terms and sales had better be *really good* for me to accept boilerplate as-is. Most small presses don't come anywhere near the sales and support levels I want, in return. Much less what my agent wants.
 

triceretops

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Hah, biblical truth, Filligree. My agent and I are aghast at the most recent run of contracts--totaling 10 for one book in the last nine months. Only one offered a significant advance (before that on another YA book) and we had to meet them head on with a knife in one hand and a money bag in the other (six others were in the bidding end of it). Not to be a Donny Downer, but I've grown increasingly disgusted with small press and their antics in the past two years. Many, if not most, have developed into author mills (and they are cleverly disguised as such), which is great for the publisher in a quantity sense but a death blow to the author. Who wants to make less than a $100 for a book in a year's time? Who wants to shoulder the entire promotion and marketing load without and SIGNIFICANT support from the publisher? Who wants to surrender most of their rights and be confined to a very long contract term?

In some corners I've been called "The small press king."

That's an insult.

My starry-eyed readers and buyers of my books think I'm famous, including my neighbors, doctor, pharmacist and all their staff.

At the speed of light, I told them the truth about the industry and small press publishing and advised them to wait until I'm written up in the NY times and appear on a major best-selling list. In other words, any one of them could be a published author today without too much trouble.

Tri--Bedazzled, bewildered and befuddled.
 

Ravioli

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Their covers like great, but all the books are Jennifer's with the exception of one author. The small advance and the 50% royalties sound promising, but they make no mention about the marketing. Although they do stress a lot of you having to be on all the social networks which most likely means you have to market yourself.
They lost me at "You have social network pages and are willing to promote your book". No. That's your job as the so-called publisher. I wrote it. I did the bulk of the work - the writing. You wanna make money off it? You do the icky work.
 

triceretops

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They lost me at "You have social network pages and are willing to promote your book". No. That's your job as the so-called publisher. I wrote it. I did the bulk of the work - the writing. You wanna make money off it? You do the icky work.

Unfortunately, most small press houses are functioning on shoestring budgets, and/or they have zero interest and capital to do any marketing or promotion. It almost seems commonplace that the only promotion they dole out is to the author, essentially horsewhipping him/her into constantly barraging the main and small media sites with book ads. Believe me, I've had six-seven publishers who routinely told me to boost the house and the other authors in their stable on FB, Twitter, Goodreads and any other available platform. The problem with this is--if you abuse and spam these sites every day you soon find out that you've lost friends and members because of the repetitious "Buy My Book" messages.

In a perfect literary world we get decent marketing that reaches productive sources, which translates to good sales. Caveat: the brand name medium sized independents and the largest NYC publishers are the only ones that can do this--they have the finances, contacts, marketing teams and publicity managers on their payroll. There are some small press exceptions, to be sure. But for the most part, if you want big you have to go big.
 
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JulieB

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While I understand that there is more of a promotional burden on the author with a small press, it doesn't matter how much you do if the publisher does nothing on their end.
 

triceretops

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The test by fire is to Google your book after is comes out and see where it has been reviewed or included in online retailer listings, besides the listings you already know about or the ones you created. That will show, to some degree, the mettle of the publisher and how thorough they are in a promo and marketing aspect. There are vast differences between one publisher and another, in what they do or have done.
 

pinkbowvintage

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This is disheartening to hear, but I will say that I've met the owner of Ice Cube Press and he was adamant about how hard he works for his authors, including the length he'll go to to set up readings at bookstores and various promotional events. He was the one who made me interested in small presses. I've been hearing quite a few mixed things about them.

I have a full out with Limitless now, so we'll see how that goes I guess. Are there things I should be watching out for if they do offer me a contract?
 

triceretops

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Some small press houses work incredibly hard to get the word out, bookstore and library placement and good reviews. You will see that in every small press house mission statement, too. The successful ones are the ones that pull it off, and that is reflected in sales. Of course, it all depends if you are writing for fun, passing time, desirous to hold a book in your hands or wish to make a career out of it.

What to look out for? There are numerous blogs and posts (stickies) about what to look for in a publisher here at AW. You can start with that. The details are just so involved and lengthily to go into a few sentences or even a paragraph.

Pink, whatever you decide, the best of luck to you and I hope you sell a million copies!
 

Torill

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I checked their FAQ, and these two answers gave me pause:
Our authors all support one another, promote, and mentor each other. We are one big happy family!
No, thank you. I have a family already. No one should look to a publisher to find close, intimate relationships. What you want from a publisher is a business relationship, of the 'you write, they sell' variety.

Also - I want to spend my time writing and promoting my own books. I don't have the time to promote and mentor other authors. And if I had, it would be authors who were my friends, and/or whose work I loved and admired - and volunteered to help! To have an obligation to mentor and promote a bunch of unknown authors just because we shared the same publisher, no matter what I thought about their books? Because we're supposed to be family? No way.

All of our books are readily available in bookstore’s and library’s systems to be ordered, but they will not be on the shelves. If you want them to be on the shelves you can go in and talk to local bookstores and see if they will order them. We have had authors do this and they’ve been successful. However, about 90-95% of book sales are now digital. So only about 5% of sales come from paperback/hardcover books.
No distribution to bookstores. Fair enough, they're an epublisher. But only about 5% of sales come from paperback/hardcover books? Seriously? I'd like to see where that statistics came from. I wouldn't want to trust a publisher who just makes up their own numbers to defend their lack of bookstore distribution.
 
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DreamWeaver

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Well, if each title counts as one, rather than each sale counting as one, probably 95% of titles sold are electronic due to the huge self-publishing boom (if it only takes one sale to count as a title sold). If one counts copies sold, the numbers probably reverse.

ETA: Another example of why there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
 
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Ravioli

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I need to raise a RED FLAG here as I have just finished reading a book published by LP and returned it for a refund.

They do an extremely poor editing job. There are word repetitions, even of 2 words in a row, there are incorrect word choices such as easy vs. ease, and so on and so on. I bought a novella, a one hour read, and it was full of glaring issues any halfway decent beta reader/editor should have picked up. I left a review on the Amazon page of said book, PM for link. I list all my issues with the book there, as they are issues the publisher is responsible for - not boring content, but extremely poor editing.
Yeah, we all know no author should submit a first draft, but if you accept the submission, you better give it the workover it needs.
 
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Pony.

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Limitless has improved their editing standards. They hired a managing editor, which helped. Also, they formed a marketing department. They do cover reveals, provide graphics for your launch, send your books to blogs for review and actively use social media.
 

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Agree with Filigree. Please give specifics facts and or links to other articles which support your comment. Otherwise it's no more than an some anonymous writer/reader/employee throwing sour grapes...

What specifics do you need?
 

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Does anyone have any recent experience with this publisher? I received a full request from them today.

I worked with them in January and published in March. I was pleased with the speed of my book, though it had been previously published so needed little editing. Since the book has released, I've not heard from them.

At this point, they do have a marketing department that to my understanding is helping authors who publish with them now. I'm not sure I could go to them for help with my book. Though, sales have been decent on the book since it published with them. Much better than with the previous publisher.
 

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Limitless's "managing editor" has done nothing to improve the standards. One author reported 70 errors in her book just last week. That's right, 70.

The marketing department is an improvement, albeit a small one. Problem is they're just two bloggers. They have a fairly wide network, but don't do anything for free beyond cover reveals and I'm not really sure how effective those are.

Limitless is not a competently run organization. Look at the background of their founder. She's a psychic. Not someone with any experience in publishing. They're nothing but an author mill, looking to make a quick buck off their authors, who cover costs by buying tons of their own books. It's a cruel way to exploit people's dreams.
 

JBuck

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I've published YA fantasy - a trilogy, 2 books released so far with Harlequin Teen (Australia) and I also have a YA contemporary coming soon with Limitless Publishing. So far I've been pleased with how the publishing process has progressed with Limitless and I'd be more than happy to publish with them again based on this. I'd rate them equal to Harlequin as far as professionalism, staff and editing goes. Obviously I cannot comment about sales as yet but they have been great to deal with.
 
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LadyErBeth

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She is a professional psychic. To each their own, I guess. She founded LP with her daughter Jessica, who has a fashion degree from a community college. Again, nothing wrong with that, but these are not people who have experience in publishing.

The editing is a crapshoot. Some of their editors are better than others, but there's no recourse for the botch jobs. Couple that with the near non-existent marketing, even after hiring a couple bloggers, and you get plenty of legitimate concerns.
 
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pinkbowvintage

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Oh dear, the poor editing is certainly giving me pause. That is critical.

JBuck, how has the editing process been for you? (And congrats on the book :))
 

JBuck

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Thanks, Pinkbowvintage! The editing has been very thorough, which surprised me after reading these comments. The manuscript came back to me with plenty of comments, suggestions and red! Much like my HQNTeen edits. I also made a point to read a few of their YA books before I submitted to them, just to get a feel for the publisher and was lucky to have read well written and strongly edited novels. I can only speak of my situation of course, and do sympathise with any writer who has had a negative publishing experience. My heart goes out to you.
I read all that I can about publishing, the good and bad, sometimes until my eyeballs burn, and have discovered that there is light and shade everywhere. There are negative and positive reports on Self-publishing, Indie publishing and traditional/trade. I've had Big 5, Indie and self-publishing friends complain about their experience and I've had others rave about it, which makes it so hard to determine which path to take in this industry...
But anyway, getting back to Limitless. I've been very happy with how things have progressed so far. I've been extremely pleased with my edits, communication is great - they are quick to respond to my emails, and my cover is to die for. So overall, very happy! :)
 
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pinkbowvintage

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Thanks so much for answering my question :) This is all very helpful. I do hope your sales are great, as that is of course one of the most important things!

Do you feel Limitless is providing you or will provide you with ample support when it comes time to sell and market your book? Are they making an effort to get your book into brick & mortar stores and Barnes & Noble? Are they doing or planning Goodreads giveaways, promo events, readings?