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Another new romance e-pub I saw on twitter. Focusing on sweet romance.
frontporchromance.com
frontporchromance.com
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Madison Connors, owner/CEO/publisher, has many years in the publishing industry and has decided to open her own e-publishing house. She has worked with hundreds of authors over the years and has completed her first historical western romance series, which will be sold through Front Porch Romance.
http://66.147.240.170/~frontpo5/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=70&zenid=102oamnkc5e43gmp3o1mqe0ij7
Kate Winslow has loved Rome Sterling, her brother's best friend, since she was a teenage girl. Unfortunate for her he has never noticed her, except to give her a hard time. Over the years, Rome has ridiculed her and hurt her feelings, but one morning Kate learns why Rome has always been so resilient of her affection.
Postmistress Joslyn Manning will always be considered the town spinster at the ripe old age of twenty-four. Never had a serious beau or any proposals in her life, she has given up on ever marrying. Her days are spent sorting mail, listening to gossip and feeling envious of her best friend Sarah Browning who remarried recently and gushes of happiness.
Newcomer Preston Cutler settles in Sheridan Valley hoping to recover from a his injuries acquired during the war. He's a solitude man not looking for friendship, let alone love, but when he lays eyes upon Joslyn, he is instantly smitten with her. Shamed by his physical scars, Preston feels no woman would ever be attracted to him, let alone fall in love with him.
Widow Sarah Browning has spent the last year trying to keep her homestead and ranch running, but not without obstacles ranging from no money to local ranchers trying to 'steal' her 500-acre land with marriage proposals and outright thievery. But this mother of four refuses to give up or give in. She's determined to prove every man from the Mississippi River to the foothills of the Colorado Mountains that she is a survivor and needs no man in her life to endure hardships. Although a little assistance to keep the local men at bay isn't out of the question.
Drifter Clint Houston will never allow another woman to blindside him, just as he'll never forget the child he lost to a woman's selfishness. Still mourning his son, Clint heads west in search of a new life and land to start over. He's expecting to find government land ready for the taking, what he doesn't expect is finding Sarah in dire straits with four young'uns who need a fatherly figure.
I'd be very wary of the fact that the only listed staff member, Madison Connors, is publishing her own books through Front Porch Romance. Isn't that a conflict of interest?
As for her experience, Bing says that she was an acquiring editor with Prism Book Group. You will, however, have to look at the cached page, as the one in the search results redirects to a 404.
I love the wide ranges of genres that erotic romance offers as I used to work for a GLBT publisher, but I feel the mainstay of romance is always going to be in demand.
http://romancemarketplace.blogspot.co.uk/2012_11_01_archive.html
That may or may not be the same person, even; that page uses the spelling "Connors" once, but "Conners" the rest of the time -- unless the Madison Connors of FPR confirms that she is one and the same, I would call that link potential but uncertain.
So your working on getting back on Amazon, my question is this you list Bookstrand as a distribution third party site. How do you plan to do that with only 3 titles? As Bookstrand won't even consider a pub house without at least ten titles?
Hi Madison, welcome to AW!
Just curious, why do you not have excerpts of your published books on your site? Most readers (IME) want to check out a sample before buying.
Hi Stacia,
the sample chapter on Goodreads was written long before I submitted to FPR. Any mistakes, typos, flaws etc. you've spotted, anything you dislike, are entirely down to me and nothing to do with the publisher!
The editing process was intense, the editor at FPR went through it with a fine toothcomb for both structure and grammar, punctuation etc. Then it went backwards and forwards between us. It's now with a proofreader.
Hi, is there any recent news on this publisher?
Who wants their book to be released after just one line edit?
I`ve been told by a lot of people to share my story. Even though I was reluctant, I realized that there are writers who need to have this information to- if nothing else- make an informed decision.
After the founder of the publishing company (Front Porch Romance) and one author of theirs bravely defended the e-pub, I thought at the time that I`ve made the ‘right’ choice to have signed with them. Yes you read right, I had already signed with the publisher when I stumbled on this thread. But because from their emails it sounded like (though they were still starting out and small) they would be able to give their attention to my book. (And I know that there are small presses who actually do this, they are extremely selective & make sure what they put out would ensure they build on a good reputation that`s founded on quality.).
First of all, the author`s comments on editing. I joined FPR in April 2013. I was given a tentative date in July 2013. Because they were still starting out, I didn`t have a problem with this. I`m a newbie author, overzealous when it came to my writing, so I was willing to put in the work in the timeframe. I was led to believe that there would be a stringent editing process that my book wouldn`t see the light of day unless it’s gone through this process.
In June I got my first edit from their editor (I only refer to one since I only dealt with one editor from FPR). I was told I could contact said editor for any questions, etc. The first edit was a line or copy edit. At the time I didn`t know this. I worked on the book, sent it back and waited for the next round of edits. None came.
The end of June loomed and still no edits. For some reason (fate) I went on their website just to see what it was doing. And there was my book being advertised! My heart stopped. I checked the date and saw that it was for the end of June. My mind raced.
I`m not in the US, I`m on the other side of the world, so it was the middle of the night when I saw this: my book advertised to come out at the end of June with no cover. And to top it all off, the end of June was actually the next day! Imagine that. Your book`s going viral and you didn`t know about it. Your book`s going viral with no cover. Your book`s going viral after only one line edit! Yeah I freaked out!
I emailed the editor, then the owner of the e-pub and then one of the author`s who was also scheduled to come out on that day. I needed to know if they were aware of the release date.
I`m still waiting for that editor to get back to me. Seriously. If only to ask: If she knew there was no way she would get back to me after one edit why be all cutesy in her emails like she was my best friend? Yeah I`m still annoyed.
The owner got back to me that night via Facebook. I asked her why the book was going viral without my knowledge and there`s no cover? She told me about a library deal that they got and that due to that the dates had to be pushed up. And that was also the reason why there wasn`t a cover. I expressed my unhappiness with the situation. She agreed to move the date back to mid-July. I was so relieved that I didn`t even think of more editing etc. I was put into contact with a cover artist who was supposed to start (emphasis on start) the cover for my book. As it turned out there was already a worked on cover because it was sent to me minutes after I was told that the cover artist would contact me. Remember this was all happening in the same night!
Needless to say, I didn’t like it. I objected after being told via email (I still have record of that) that I could have final say on the cover. But then I raised some issues and I got a snooty attitude from the artist and was told that the owner had okay-ed the cover already anyway so I should just accept it as it was. As you can guess, at this point I was fried, raw & pissed off! The artist acted like I was being a temperamental, overly sensitive author. And then to top it all off, it looked like the owner and the artist didn`t seem to communicate well. Either that or they were trying to give me the run around. I suspected the latter.
I suggested I`d get my own cover designer. I`ll pay for it. Then I was told I had to pay the artist for the work they`ve put in already. At this point I was way beyond caring and just said that so far I`ve been a trooper in spite of their lack of consideration. And that we wouldn`t be having this problem if work for the book was done in the time frame given. They backed off on that and I was reassured that we would work on the cover together.
Then I got this crazy random email from a man I`ve never dealt with in regards to Front Porch Romance, also emailing me about the cover, stating that they would accommodate me. Then minutes after this email, comes another one, but this time it`s a lot less friendly and basically threatening me that if I want to take my book and go then I should just go.
I`ve spent 48hrs without sleep.
This email came around 4 in the morning. At this point I was done. I closed off my email. I went to bed. I was officially done. I`ve been running on stress-filled adrenaline, I needed a break. When I got up, I was clear headed. But I needed guidance so I did something I should have done a long time ago. I started asking questions and I was advised to take my book & run!
And that was what I did. I replied to the man and my contract got removed with them.
As a new author, new to the writing world I`ve placed too much faith in people and their word. I didn`t want to be a ‘nagging author’ so I didn`t ask questions even when I felt in my gut that something wasn`t right. In the end I got my voice back.
Who wants their book to be released after just one line edit? What author wants to be on the out on what`s happening with their book and its cover?
Like I`ve mentioned before I`m not from the US which means I have to apply for an ITIN to get my royalties. Front Porch Romance didn`t mention anything about this or send forms so that I could apply for this.
This begs the question: would I even have gotten paid? Would there have been constant back and forth`s about payments or maybe not even receiving any payment for years?
These questions came back to haunt me. Yes I got my rights to my book back. I literally got snatched from the fire but I still have chills running down my spine when I think of what could have been.
*sigh*
This is my story. I can`t speak for anyone else. I just hope that this helps to make an informed decision.