• Guest please check The Index before starting a thread.

Anaphora Literary Press

Status
Not open for further replies.

Tnw32

Registered
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
12
Reaction score
0
Location
Texas
Hi guys, has anyone ever heard of Anaphora Literary Press? I noticed they accept pretty much any genre of fiction books but I don't know anything about the company. Any information would be greatly appreciated as I research a bit myself.
 

jvc

Fearsome Dragon Mod
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 2, 2006
Messages
14,639
Reaction score
4,616
Location
Hiding from a teeny tiny spider
Moving this from Newbies over to the Bewares and Background Check forum. Hold on and don't let go. It's gonna be that fast.
 

mrsmig

Write. Write. Writey Write Write.
Staff member
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 4, 2012
Messages
9,884
Reaction score
7,172
Location
Virginia

ShyWriter

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 21, 2011
Messages
95
Reaction score
10
Location
Getting Coffee
I don't understand this part from their submissions page (bolding at the bottom mine) http://anaphoraliterary.com/about/

Publishing Contract: At this time Anaphora asks for you to give up non-exclusive, but continuous, rights to your project. This means that you have to go online to http://www.copyright.gov/eco/notice.html, U. S. Copyrights office, and submit your Word document electronically to them, and pay them $35. This is a good deal because it allows you to publish your book with other publishers in the future without needing to ask for Anaphora’s permission and without needing to pay us money for publishing elsewhere.
 

mrsmig

Write. Write. Writey Write Write.
Staff member
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 4, 2012
Messages
9,884
Reaction score
7,172
Location
Virginia
The whole "Publishing Contract" paragraph made me say "ruh-roh."
 

James D. Macdonald

Your Genial Uncle
Absolute Sage
VPX
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
25,582
Reaction score
3,785
Location
New Hampshire
Website
madhousemanor.wordpress.com
Direct author sales and marketing are essential to the success of a project.

This looks like one of those things that used to be called "Little and Literary," run out of a university. They even list their faculty sponsor.

This isn't the first place I'd look if I wanted commercial publication.
 

Stacia Kane

Girl Detective
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 23, 2006
Messages
8,142
Reaction score
2,668
Location
In cahoots with the other boo-birds
Website
www.staciakane.com
I don't understand this part from their submissions page (bolding at the bottom mine) http://anaphoraliterary.com/about/


I think they're referring to their taking non-exclusive rights with the "This is a good deal because," part, but it's badly worded. Copyright registration has nothing to do with being able to publish later without their permission.

I could of course be wrong, and they do think registering with the US Copyright Office means you can publish with another press.

Either way it doesn't invoke confidence.
 

Zaffiro

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 9, 2013
Messages
61
Reaction score
12
Offhand, I'm guessing it means they think if they register the copyright then they own the copyright - so authors would have to get their permission and pay them for the right to publish elsewhere.

In case anyone's reading and wondering: that's not true. If the copyright is registered in the author's name, it doesn't matter who did the registering - the author owns the copyright. An author can give up copyright, but not simply by letting someone else register it for him. My publishers sort all my copyright registrations, but they're i my name and I own the copyrights to all my books.
 

faktorovich

Registered
Joined
May 29, 2013
Messages
37
Reaction score
0
Location
Quanah, TX, USA
From the Publisher of Anaphora

The Anaphora submissions page states that authors transfer copyrights to Anaphora on a non-exclusive basis and can publish their work elsewhere at no cost as long as they don't use Anaphora's designs and editing. Some othr presses offer exclusive contracts, which prohibit authors from publishing elsewhere unless they pay the publisher a fee or a part of the profits. Copyright is the right to make copies of a book - on several occasions after submitting my PLJ journal to the Library of Congress for copyrights, I've heard back from them and they asked me if I received copyrights releases from all of the contributors - only then do I have copyrights to the entire issue. Since you guys were confused by the wording, I've edited it to a text that should be clearer. Let me know if there are other misunderstandings.

Anaphora is listed in NewPages.com, if you want an outside profile. Anaphora is fully independent, and doesn't accept any funding from any private or public sources, including universities. I'm the owner and Director of the press, not its sponsor - Dr. Anna Faktorovich - yes I have been teaching college English full-time for over 3 years. Over my breaks I work on Anaphora full-time. Anaphora has released over 60 titles, sales per title depend on the quality of the work. Most of our projects so far haven't been intended to sell-out.
 

Round Two

Behind the door of a small house.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 26, 2009
Messages
190
Reaction score
27
The Anaphora submissions page states that authors transfer copyrights to Anaphora on a non-exclusive basis and can publish their work elsewhere at no cost as long as they don't use Anaphora's designs and editing. Some othr presses offer exclusive contracts, which prohibit authors from publishing elsewhere unless they pay the publisher a fee or a part of the profits. Copyright is the right to make copies of a book - on several occasions after submitting my PLJ journal to the Library of Congress for copyrights, I've heard back from them and they asked me if I received copyrights releases from all of the contributors - only then do I have copyrights to the entire issue. Since you guys were confused by the wording, I've edited it to a text that should be clearer. Let me know if there are other misunderstandings.

Anaphora is listed in NewPages.com, if you want an outside profile. Anaphora is fully independent, and doesn't accept any funding from any private or public sources, including universities. I'm the owner and Director of the press, not its sponsor - Dr. Anna Faktorovich - yes I have been teaching college English full-time for over 3 years. Over my breaks I work on Anaphora full-time. Anaphora has released over 60 titles, sales per title depend on the quality of the work. Most of our projects so far haven't been intended to sell-out.

No.

This is wrong on multiple levels.

The copyright to a work is a one time thing typically done in the author's name (exception being a work for hire). It is not something that is transferred from publisher to author to other publisher. It is never non-exclusive.

However, what you are talking about is the licensing of print rights. Print rights (a wholly and very separate thing from copyright) could, theoretically be non-exclusive, though I am hard pressed to think of any examples. Typically, those rights would be licensed to one publisher and would, at some point, contractually revert to the author before they could be exploited elsewhere (by another publisher).

When putting together a collection that makes use of previously published/copyrighted material, you are asking the copyright holder to LICENSE the print (translation, digital, audio) rights. This is not a transfer of copyright, but, again, a license of rights. Two very, very different things.
 

gingerwoman

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 27, 2007
Messages
2,548
Reaction score
228
Their submissions page is all about how you should buy your own books back from them to "off set costs of production"? That sounds bad.
 

faktorovich

Registered
Joined
May 29, 2013
Messages
37
Reaction score
0
Location
Quanah, TX, USA
Additional Clarifications

Yes, when you register your copyrights with the US Copyrights Office, you are registering as the author of the work and the one with the exclusive rights to sell the right to print the book etc. to publishers. The publisher only owns exclusive copyrights to a work if the contract is for work-for-hire and the rights are fully transferred to the publisher in their agreement. In my case, I ask writers to register their exclusive copyrights with the US Copyrights office, so that they will have a defense in case somebody accuses them of plagiarism later on. When they sign an agreement with Anaphora they non-exclusively transfer their rights for Anaphora to print their book. Non-exclusive contracts are more common today, especially with online services like EBSCO and ProQuest (in which I participate with my journal). For my journal, PLJ, I only reproduce new works for which authors have transferred their rights to me, or classical works that are out of copyrights. Yes, one of the authors with whom I’m currently in negotiations with has mentioned that in case I take his book out of print he wants his rights to return back to him. As I explained to him, non-exclusive rights means that he has the right to sell the book to other publishers even before I take it out of print with Anaphora. But, yes, I definitely think it’s fair that if I take a book out of print, the rights should revert back fully to the writer, leaving the publisher without a right to begin printing the book in the future, if this is an author’s preference.

Anaphora prints books POD; therefore, there are no books to buy “back.” I currently live in an apartment. I don’t have any space to store thousands of the books that I print yearly. Anaphora isn’t a distributor; it is a publisher. The books go from the printer to the consumers or to the authors that want to buy them at a discount. All publishers that I’ve worked with, including major national academic publishers, who have published my own books, allow authors to buy their books at a discount rate that’s lower than the retail price of the book. This is a benefit offered to authors who want to make a profit from selling some copies of their books directly. My policies regarding buying copies change regularly and depend on the quality of the book and the chances that it will sell well in the market. Poetry, autobiography and several other genres just don’t sell well enough to make it likely that they’ll make a significant enough return to warrant publication, unless the writer is going to actively help promote their books and can guarantee a certain level of sales through their marketing plan, or is able to buy 40 copies at 25% off (shipping included – so really 40% discount). I have an ad currently up in NewPages, and I’m a member of 5+ associations, organizations and other costly groups that I use to forward my business. I also travel to conferences, and promote books through various types of marketing efforts (including direct marketing to libraries). I work on Anaphora for more than 40 hours on an average week. If I published the 60 titles I’ve published so far and didn’t require some copies purchases for the titles that weren’t likely to sell, the business wouldn’t be profitable and I would’ve folded. The market is such that only the top publishers can afford printing 100,000+ copies of a new title and selling them to retail stores at extremely high discounts, and can then handle potential 40%+ returns. I’m not a millionaire that is “investing” in a business. I just want to help writers publish their books and to find interested readers. My policies are clearly stated on the website, in this reply, in my contracts, and elsewhere. There is an extremely small percentage of female publishing business owners out there, and this is a very tough business. This is not the appropriate place to discuss Anaphora, there is no need for a “Background Check” where Anaphora is concerned. Why don’t you put Harlequin, Tom Doherty and Disney up here instead?
 

eternalised

practical experience, FTW
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
684
Reaction score
59
Location
Belgium
Website
majankaverstraete.com
We do background checks on all publishers we come across. Your business is no exception. We're here to protect writers, not publishers.

I can't be bothered to search the forums, but I'm sure we have threads about Disney, Harlequin, etc. as well.
 

nkkingston

Bemused Girl
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 11, 2008
Messages
1,116
Reaction score
67
Location
UK
Website
www.solelyfictional.org
This is not the appropriate place to discuss Anaphora, there is no need for a “Background Check” where Anaphora is concerned. Why don’t you put Harlequin, Tom Doherty and Disney up here instead?

This is the place we discuss all publishers, whether good, bad, large, small, scams or legitimate. You'll notice the forum name is not just 'Background Check'*, but also 'Beware', and the almost always overlooked 'Recommendations'. Sadly, we lack a Disney thread, but you'll find Tom Doherty and Tor Press here, and Harlequin Enterprises here. If you check out the Index, you'll notice that even big name publishers get put through the wringer for bad business decisions.

At the end of the day, we're here to help authors decide if a publisher is a good fit for their book. Even the biggest publishers aren't the best choice for everyone. We encourage all authors to do their own research and share their own experiences. If publishers choose to engage with us that's great, but they need to do so with an awareness that this forum is for writers, not for them.

*Not that doing one on any business, in any sector, should be seen as a bad thing. You take references on employees, you google car dealerships before you buy from them, you check out hotels on TripAdvisor... I'd be concerned about doing business - which is what I'd be doing if I subbed a book to you - with someone who didn't think it was appropriate to learn as much as you can about a company before engaging in financial transactions with them.
 

Wisteria Vine

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 6, 2010
Messages
300
Reaction score
47
Location
Massachusetts
. [/FONT]


I currently live in an apartment. I don’t have any space to store thousands of the books that I print yearly.

My policies regarding buying copies change regularly...

Poetry, autobiography and several other genres just don’t sell well enough to make it likely that they’ll make a significant enough return to warrant publication, unless the writer is going to actively help promote their books and can guarantee a certain level of sales through their marketing plan...

If I published the 60 titles I’ve published so far and didn’t require some copies purchases for the titles that weren’t likely to sell, the business wouldn’t be profitable and I would’ve folded.

I’m not a millionaire that is “investing” in a business. I just want to help writers publish their books and to find interested readers.

This is not the appropriate place to discuss Anaphora, there is no need for a “Background Check” where Anaphora is concerned.

Why don’t you put Harlequin, Tom Doherty and Disney up here instead?


See all of these things? THIS is why Anaphora needs to be discussed here so new authors can make up their mind about the quality of support they're going to receive from your company.

Ms. Faktorovich, I've read Harlequin and Disney. I know Harlequin and Disney. Harlequin and Disney are friends of mine. And you, Madam, are no Harlequin and Disney.
 

Terie

Writer is as Writer does
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 18, 2008
Messages
4,151
Reaction score
951
Location
Manchester, UK
Website
www.teriegarrison.com
Yes, when you register your copyrights with the US Copyrights Office, you are registering as the author of the work and the one with the exclusive rights to sell the right to print the book etc. to publishers. The publisher only owns exclusive copyrights to a work if the contract is for work-for-hire and the rights are fully transferred to the publisher in their agreement. In my case, I ask writers to register their exclusive copyrights with the US Copyrights office, so that they will have a defense in case somebody accuses them of plagiarism later on. When they sign an agreement with Anaphora they non-exclusively transfer their rights for Anaphora to print their book. Non-exclusive contracts are more common today, especially with online services like EBSCO and ProQuest (in which I participate with my journal). For my journal, PLJ, I only reproduce new works for which authors have transferred their rights to me, or classical works that are out of copyrights. Yes, one of the authors with whom I’m currently in negotiations with has mentioned that in case I take his book out of print he wants his rights to return back to him. As I explained to him, non-exclusive rights means that he has the right to sell the book to other publishers even before I take it out of print with Anaphora. But, yes, I definitely think it’s fair that if I take a book out of print, the rights should revert back fully to the writer, leaving the publisher without a right to begin printing the book in the future, if this is an author’s preference.

Anaphora prints books POD; therefore, there are no books to buy “back.” I currently live in an apartment. I don’t have any space to store thousands of the books that I print yearly. Anaphora isn’t a distributor; it is a publisher. The books go from the printer to the consumers or to the authors that want to buy them at a discount. All publishers that I’ve worked with, including major national academic publishers, who have published my own books, allow authors to buy their books at a discount rate that’s lower than the retail price of the book. This is a benefit offered to authors who want to make a profit from selling some copies of their books directly. My policies regarding buying copies change regularly and depend on the quality of the book and the chances that it will sell well in the market. Poetry, autobiography and several other genres just don’t sell well enough to make it likely that they’ll make a significant enough return to warrant publication, unless the writer is going to actively help promote their books and can guarantee a certain level of sales through their marketing plan, or is able to buy 40 copies at 25% off (shipping included – so really 40% discount). I have an ad currently up in NewPages, and I’m a member of 5+ associations, organizations and other costly groups that I use to forward my business. I also travel to conferences, and promote books through various types of marketing efforts (including direct marketing to libraries). I work on Anaphora for more than 40 hours on an average week. If I published the 60 titles I’ve published so far and didn’t require some copies purchases for the titles that weren’t likely to sell, the business wouldn’t be profitable and I would’ve folded. The market is such that only the top publishers can afford printing 100,000+ copies of a new title and selling them to retail stores at extremely high discounts, and can then handle potential 40%+ returns. I’m not a millionaire that is “investing” in a business. I just want to help writers publish their books and to find interested readers. My policies are clearly stated on the website, in this reply, in my contracts, and elsewhere. There is an extremely small percentage of female publishing business owners out there, and this is a very tough business. This is not the appropriate place to discuss Anaphora, there is no need for a “Background Check” where Anaphora is concerned. Why don’t you put Harlequin, Tom Doherty and Disney up here instead?

Quoted in full for posterity.
 

christwriter

Resistance is Everything
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 25, 2010
Messages
275
Reaction score
63
Location
Texas
Website
creativedoubledipper.blogspot.com
Hi, faktorovich. Well, yes this is the place to do background checks on new-to-us publishers. Because a lot of publishers go up in flames with book rights still tucked away in the attics, and we'd rather not lose our books forever while a bankruptcy court tries to find its backside with both mandibles. It's not personal.

(Heck, you should have seen the dog-pile over Hydra's contracts several months ago. That was actually kind of pretty)

I have a few questions, and a couple comments on your submission guidelines.

I was under the impression that most (read as: every other publisher I've heard of so far) publishers want to register copyright themselves, so that they can defend their intellectual property in court. Why do you think it's your author's job to protect assets you are buying?

Why are you contracting for non-exclusive rights? Given your phrasing, (When they sign an agreement with Anaphora they non-exclusively transfer their rights for Anaphora to print their book.) it means that someone could have you set up the book, and then go through createspace and offer competing copies of the same material. Why are you willing to put up with that?

The POD books. The buying of books by authors instead of customers. Uh. yeah. No. Why are you publishing books that you don't believe have a chance of selling well?

What services do you provide to authors free of charge? What services do you provide in general? In short, what benefits would an author have going through your company, rather than going through another publisher or working on their own?

As for your submission guidelines...you might want to rephrase the "100-300 page" requirement into wordcount--that'd be 30k-100K words--because it's bleeding easy to fudge a pagecount. But the thing that really jumped out at me was this:

In fact, you should call your local book stores before signing the contract, to check if you will be able to generate some sales
I'd call that real low confidence in the author and/or the manuscript itself, as well as a signal that maybe your company has a less-than-perfect track record of getting books into stores. Here's the other big red flag for me:
We have a very quick production schedule; occasionally a book is on sale a month after a contract is signed.
I'm a self-publisher with a one-book-a-month schedule. These are e-books. They take less effort than print books. Putting out a book a month is grueling, and the production values suck. You're doing print books. It's taken me three months to put one print book together, and I'm using materials I already made for my e-book.

And then there's this part:

If you want to wait for pre-production reviews, these take an additional 4 months, heavy editing takes a couple of months, and you can also request a delay if you want your project to come out at a specific time, though typically books can’t be scheduled for publication more than 1 year after a contract is signed.
That last part made my jaw drop a little. The others can correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't eight months to a year not overly long for a new professional book to come out?

Forgive the vitriol, but I just don't see how you can put out a book with only a month's worth of labor and have it be a good product. Especially not when you specifically state that you don't do editing unless requested, and that you don't provide any time for reviews.

It's very good to want to help writers get published. That's why this website exists. That's not a good reason to become a publisher. You are asking me, or authors like me, to give you a couple years of our life in 12pt type, and yet from what I've seen you've provided no service that I could not do on my own without having to tangle with contracts and who has which set of rights.

You don't become a publisher because you want to print books. You become one because you want to sell books, and you do that by making a good product. Yes? Yes.

You demand a marketing plan from prospective authors. Prospective authors should and DO have the same right to demand a marketing plan from you.

Please tell us what you do for authors beyond dumping the text of their manuscripts into a createspace template. Editing, typesetting, cover design, marketing, distribution, ect.
 

faktorovich

Registered
Joined
May 29, 2013
Messages
37
Reaction score
0
Location
Quanah, TX, USA
Discussion Continued...

This conversation is in the top page of searches when users search for "Anaphora Literary Press" - your website doesn't come up at the top when you search for "Harlequin" or any other major publisher you might have covered. It's very true that I'm not Disney (yet), but it's likely that if you put erroneous complaints regarding small independent presses on your site, writers who can't get published with the big presses, will keep their books in their closets because they'll trust something that you are saying without closely studying the evidence.

I've been in business now for over 5 years, while also working two other jobs, so I'm here to stay, and my press won't be folding in the upcoming few decades.

Why aren't you using your real names? If you are giving helpful factual information to writers. You should explain who you are and why you believe you are knowledgeable about the publishing industry.

Why do you think you know more about how publishing works than somebody who runs a press that has released over 60 titles? Go on Amazon and do a search for "Anaphora Literary Press" or under my name (I'm credited as the designer), Anna Faktorovich, and you'll find the cover designs I've come up with on very tight 1-4 months schedules. Anybody who is a professional designer, editor and publisher can set up and process a book quickly. Editing takes the most time, but some writers prefer not to be edited and just want their books out quicker than the 1-3 years the big publishers might need. The bigger publishers need more time because they produce hundreds of books each year and the designer/ producer has a long stack of books before getting to a new title. I don't have a backlog. The other parts of production, besides editing, can be done quickly if somebody has a firm grasp of InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and knows all of the steps involved in bringing a book out.

I’m giving you advice from the perspective that has both practical and theoretical knowledge in the field. I’m currently under contract to finish an academic book for McFarland on the current popular publishing industry, called, “Formulaic Writing within Genres.” I can include a section here if you want to understand the current publishing market better.

If you check Anaphora’s Editorial Board, you’d notice that it has a best-selling novelist, Davis Bunn, on it. It also includes two editors who are among the most respected journal and series editors in the current academic market. Why would any of these people work with me if something scam-like was going on?

If one of my authors plagiarizes their book, I do not want to nor can I afford to defend them in court. The contract states that the publisher will not be responsible for any plagiarism, obscenity, or other inappropriate information in the book. Anaphora is solely owned by me; it is not a corporation. Therefore, all litigation against Anaphora, is litigation against me personally. Would you want to be sued for publishing a book one of your writers plagiarized? In addition, the Library of Congress’s rules prevent me from being able to register the work for the writers I publish for various technical reasons. They have to copyright it themselves. If I receive a complaint against copyright ownership from somebody with proof, I immediately withdraw the book from print. To do otherwise would be unethical and illogical in business terms. It is not lawful to buy assets that do not belong to an author – so it is the author’s responsibility to avoid plagiarism, and other forms of unlawful activity. Would you want to “protect” potentially stolen assets? If they are not stolen, and if the author is the rightful owner of the copyrights, the transfer of copyrights to the publisher or licensing the work is just as legally binding if the author registers copyrights as if the publisher does so.

Yes, writers that I publish can provide their titles via CreateSpace or Harlequin in addition to publishing with Anaphora, while they are under contract. I’ve only had one occurrence out of 60 of this so far, with an author that wanted to do an e-version, and I’m against e-books as they don’t sell well. I don’t think he sold many copies of it and he’s now giving it away for free. If one of Anaphora’s authors signs a contract with a major publisher while they are non-exclusive with me – that only adds to Anaphora’s reputation as a place where they can launch a great new book. Either way, my method is one that I researched and tested, and is the best route for my project.

My POD books sell well with both authors and buyers. I said that some of my titles don’t sell as well as others, and for those authors buying some copies for direct sales helps them as they make some profits from the publication, as well as me. They make 25% profits when they sell the 40 copies that they buy. Almost all of my authors later buy additional copies beyond the 40 and sell all of them. A few to the students in their creative writing classes, some at readings, others to associations, and elsewhere. If an author doesn’t think 40 people will buy their book, why are they sending it for publication?

Self-publishing can cost $1,000 - $5,000 depending on which designer, printer, and distributor you use. It’s expensive. When most writers try to self-publish by designing the books themselves, these are typically done with a very poor quality. It’s tough finding a publisher who is willing to do small runs and to print POD because most need sufficient profits to make the publishing business profitable. I don’t. I work as a professor, publish my own books, and maintain other jobs besides this publishing business, so that I don’t have these pressures on me. So, it’s a pretty unique opportunity for writers to work with an experienced professional who will either publish their work at no cost at all (if the book has a good chance of selling), or ask them to contribute by buying and selling 40 copies of their book at readings etc., which they should do with any publisher. Yes, I provide all of the services any major publisher would provide, “Editing, typesetting, cover design, marketing, distribution.” How on earth would I be able to publish books without doing all of these steps?

I publish some poetry books that have less than 30K words. So, no, changing the pages to a word count doesn’t make sense for the wide range of genres that I publish.

If you think that the publisher is expressing a low confidence in you as an author when they ask you to contact your local bookstores to find out if they would invite you for readings… you are not the sort of writer that I want to publish with Anaphora. It’s a phone call. If your bookstore says “yes, sure,” you know you can make a 25% profit from the 40 copies and have a great local reading that will make you noticeable in your community. What on earth can possibly be negative about that?

The big publishers produce hundreds of books, which means that they typically have one designer that handles around one book design, typesetting, and formatting per day. I’m proficient enough with design that I can also keep up with a schedule like this. If you need 1 month to design one book… why is that a good thing? Barbara Cartland wrote 1 novel in 2 weeks, writing 23 in 1983. Some publishers are just quicker than others, among both small and giant presses. When big publishers delay publication it’s to wait for pre-publication reviews to find out how many copies to run in the first printing. Harlequin doesn’t spend the year-and-a-half between the time your work is accepted and the time the book comes out completing your book’s design. One publisher can sit on a book for 2 years and release a bad-quality product. I create great-quality designs quickly. I’m not a hen, sitting on your book won’t help me to hatch it. I do recommend asking me to edit a book, and I do recommend waiting an extra 4 months for pre-publication reviews, but some writers just want to see the book in print as soon as possible (if they need it for tenure, promotion, or just because they want to show it off to their friends).

If you can do it on your own – you should. You don’t have to split profits with the publisher 50/50% or at any other rate.

As I mentioned before, I don’t “print” books. I “publish” books. I also “sell” books. I want to “sell” more books, and I hope that sales will increase, but it’s my job as the director of Anaphora to make sure that the press stays in business even if sales aren’t that high – as you point out a press going out of business and taking its books out of print isn’t a good option for any of the writers that have signed contracts with me. Most of my writers receive royalty checks and all of them are happy with the publication. So, I must be doing a great job for them.

I do have a marketing plan, and I’ve mentioned some of the ways I market books in these posts. My books have been reviewed in major national publications, and are otherwise visible due to my marketing efforts. How on earth did you find out about Anaphora? It’s probably because you came across one of my marketing efforts…

I can answer additional questions about Anaphora’s operations. But please don’t repeat the same questions I already answered.
 

roach

annoyed and annoying
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
701
Reaction score
130
Location
Bolingbrook, IL
Website
www.idiorhythmic.net
In addition, the Library of Congress’s rules prevent me from being able to register the work for the writers I publish for various technical reasons. They have to copyright it themselves.

I'm not certain where you are getting your information for the above.

I've registered the copyright of works Eggplant has published without any problem. The form is set up to be filled out by either the author or authorized agent of the author. I fill out the form, include the author's information, check the box that states I certify I'm the authorized agent of the author, and pay the fees. The certificate is mailed to me, I make a copy and send the certificate on to the author. I'm not the only publisher who does this, either.

Granted this is for single author works (e-books), not anthologies or magazines but I have a hard time believing the process wouldn't be similar for those as well.
 

Round Two

Behind the door of a small house.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 26, 2009
Messages
190
Reaction score
27
This conversation is in the top page of searches when users search for "Anaphora Literary Press" - your website doesn't come up at the top when you search for "Harlequin" or any other major publisher you might have covered.
Search results are determined by a variety of factors, including who links to the site, how many visits a site gets, and how many mentions of the site can be found on the web. Large publishing companies with a huge track record of accomplishments, reviews, media appearances, etc. will have completely different results in a search engine.
However, it is very easy to show that threads about those companies exist by searching the index.
It's very true that I'm not Disney (yet), but it's likely that if you put erroneous complaints regarding small independent presses on your site, writers who can't get published with the big presses, will keep their books in their closets because they'll trust something that you are saying without closely studying the evidence.

There are plenty of small and independent presses discussed in the Bewares, Recommendations, & Background forum favorably. Those companies have demonstrated their ability to stay in business, do what is expected of a publishing company, and have positive results to show for their efforts. Some companies that started out positively, took turns for the worse, and at that point, were called out accordingly (Nightshade being an example).

Conversely, there are all kinds of examples of clueless people with good intentions, scam artists, and others who couldn’t sustain a business for one reason or another mentioned in the forum. Some of these companies, when they crashed to the ground, took the works of the authors they published with them.

To suggest it’s wrong to point out the shortcomings and/or raise questions about publishers (of any size) isn’t fair to writers who aren’t familiar with the industry.

In your first response to this thread, you said, “The Anaphora submissions page states that authors transfer copyrights to Anaphora on a non-exclusive basis and can publish their work elsewhere at no cost as long as they don't use Anaphora's designs and editing.”

As has already been pointed out, you are misunderstanding “copyright” with “print rights,” two very different things, and that, rightfully, raises questions about what other misunderstandings might be happening.


I've been in business now for over 5 years, while also working two other jobs, so I'm here to stay, and my press won't be folding in the upcoming few decades.

I’ll give you the benefit and say that you will keep the business going, one way or another, for the rest of your life. I hope you go another sixty years.

However, not folding and being a good option for an author are not the same thing.

In those five years, what is your bestselling work? What are yearly revenues? How much have authors been paid? Have you won awards? What sort of coverage are you getting in the media?

At the end of the day, nothing else really matters when it comes to evaluating a publishing company. The particulars of the owners/management don’t mean anything to readers.


Why do you think you know more about how publishing works than somebody who runs a press that has released over 60 titles? Go on Amazon and do a search for "Anaphora Literary Press"...

I did the search you suggested. Can you tell me which books in your catalog have the best sales rank? I also noticed there were allegations of plagiarism Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht, were you aware of them?

...or under my name (I'm credited as the designer), Anna Faktorovich, and you'll find the cover designs I've come up with on very tight 1-4 months schedules. Anybody who is a professional designer, editor and publisher can set up and process a book quickly. Editing takes the most time, but some writers prefer not to be edited and just want their books out quicker than the 1-3 years the big publishers might need. The bigger publishers need more time because they produce hundreds of books each year and the designer/ producer has a long stack of books before getting to a new title. I don't have a backlog. The other parts of production, besides editing, can be done quickly if somebody has a firm grasp of InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and knows all of the steps involved in bringing a book out.

Getting a book to market so that it has a viable chance of success isn’t a race. It isn’t measured in how fast you can turn around a Word document and a cover concept.

Writers who prefer not to be edited are, more than likely, in great need of being edited. The first thing to delete would be the hubris. Again, getting a book “out quicker” isn’t the goal. It’s getting a book “out right.”

You’re right that big publishers produce hundreds of books each year. You are wrong in thinking that the limiting factor in getting them out quicker is the backlog of the design department.

There are matters of sales forces selling to retail accounts months in advance (when retailers do their buying), sending books out to reviewers and long lead media who want the book a minimum of three to four months before the official release date so they can slot any potential reviews/editorial coverage within the boundaries of their own editorial schedule. Those are the reviews and coverage that, not coincidentally, help retailers decide which books they’re going to buy.

I’m giving you advice from the perspective that has both practical and theoretical knowledge in the field. I’m currently under contract to finish an academic book for McFarland on the current popular publishing industry, called, “Formulaic Writing within Genres.” I can include a section here if you want to understand the current publishing market better.

I’m giving you advice from the perspective of somebody who has been running publishing companies for more than ten years and has learned plenty during that time.

...To do otherwise would be unethical and illogical in business terms. It is not lawful to buy assets that do not belong to an author – so it is the author’s responsibility to avoid plagiarism, and other forms of unlawful activity. Would you want to “protect” potentially stolen assets? If they are not stolen, and if the author is the rightful owner of the copyrights, the transfer of copyrights to the publisher or licensing the work is just as legally binding if the author registers copyrights as if the publisher does so.

Again, authors don’t transfer copyright to a publisher. They license print and other subsidiary rights to a work. This is a very, very key point to be made. You’re right that you, as a publisher, want to confirm the person licensing the print rights to you, does, in fact, have the legal authority to do so. But, they aren’t transferring copyright to you. They are licensing the print rights.

Yes, writers that I publish can provide their titles via CreateSpace or Harlequin in addition to publishing with Anaphora, while they are under contract. I’ve only had one occurrence out of 60 of this so far, with an author that wanted to do an e-version, and I’m against e-books as they don’t sell well. I don’t think he sold many copies of it and he’s now giving it away for free. If one of Anaphora’s authors signs a contract with a major publisher while they are non-exclusive with me – that only adds to Anaphora’s reputation as a place where they can launch a great new book. Either way, my method is one that I researched and tested, and is the best route for my project.

Couple of points here – (1) Harlequin would never agree to let an author simultaneously license the print rights to a book to multiple publishers. (2) An author wanting to put out an e-book means the author did not license the electronic rights of the book to you. We are now talking about two different licenses of rights. Your version, the print. Author’s version, electronic. This is not about non-exclusive deals, this is about the separate and distinct exploitation of two different subsidiary rights attached to a work. (3) E-books, at last estimate, generally speaking, make up 20% of the market. Not a small amount.

Can you cite an example of an author who was first published with Anaphora who has then gone on to publish the same or another work with a major publisher? This is the kind of information that would be valuable to an aspiring writer considering Anaphora.

I can promise you, though, no major publisher is going to allow an author to sign a non-exclusive deal with them and you for simultaneous versions of a book. Won’t happen. Ever. It makes no sense from a business standpoint.

My POD books sell well with both authors and buyers. I said that some of my titles don’t sell as well as others, and for those authors buying some copies for direct sales helps them as they make some profits from the publication, as well as me. They make 25% profits when they sell the 40 copies that they buy. Almost all of my authors later buy additional copies beyond the 40 and sell all of them. A few to the students in their creative writing classes, some at readings, others to associations, and elsewhere. If an author doesn’t think 40 people will buy their book, why are they sending it for publication?

It’s not that an author doesn’t think 40 people will buy their book, it’s just that they expect the publisher to be the seller of the book to readers – the publisher’s targeted consumers. Writers write. Publishers sell books to bookstores, and ultimately, to readers.

Yes, I provide all of the services any major publisher would provide, “Editing, typesetting, cover design, marketing, distribution.” How on earth would I be able to publish books without doing all of these steps?

What sort of marketing and distribution do you do? How are you defining those efforts? Again, this is good information for an aspiring writer to know when evaluating publishing companies. It’s a matter of public record that major publishers have sales forces, teams of publicists, and the necessary contacts with retailers and media to be effective.


The big publishers produce hundreds of books, which means that they typically have one designer that handles around one book design, typesetting, and formatting per day. I’m proficient enough with design that I can also keep up with a schedule like this.

Where did you get this information? The designers I know who work for mid and large size publishing companies are not jacks-of-all-trades. Cover designers don’t do typesetting and vice versa. They have specialized skill sets. I’ve also known them to be working on multiple projects during the course of a day.

As I mentioned before, I don’t “print” books. I “publish” books. I also “sell” books. I want to “sell” more books, and I hope that sales will increase, but it’s my job as the director of Anaphora to make sure that the press stays in business even if sales aren’t that high – as you point out a press going out of business and taking its books out of print isn’t a good option for any of the writers that have signed contracts with me. Most of my writers receive royalty checks and all of them are happy with the publication. So, I must be doing a great job for them.

But how do you keep a press in business if sales aren’t high or at least successful by the standards of the P/L you’ve, no doubt, created?
 
Last edited:

James D. Macdonald

Your Genial Uncle
Absolute Sage
VPX
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
25,582
Reaction score
3,785
Location
New Hampshire
Website
madhousemanor.wordpress.com
If one of my authors plagiarizes their book, I do not want to nor can I afford to defend them in court. The contract states that the publisher will not be responsible for any plagiarism, obscenity, or other inappropriate information in the book. Anaphora is solely owned by me; it is not a corporation. Therefore, all litigation against Anaphora, is litigation against me personally. Would you want to be sued for publishing a book one of your writers plagiarized? In addition, the Library of Congress’s rules prevent me from being able to register the work for the writers I publish for various technical reasons. They have to copyright it themselves. If I receive a complaint against copyright ownership from somebody with proof, I immediately withdraw the book from print. To do otherwise would be unethical and illogical in business terms. It is not lawful to buy assets that do not belong to an author – so it is the author’s responsibility to avoid plagiarism, and other forms of unlawful activity. Would you want to “protect” potentially stolen assets? If they are not stolen, and if the author is the rightful owner of the copyrights, the transfer of copyrights to the publisher or licensing the work is just as legally binding if the author registers copyrights as if the publisher does so.

What do the Warranties and Indemnities clauses in your contracts look like?
 

James D. Macdonald

Your Genial Uncle
Absolute Sage
VPX
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
25,582
Reaction score
3,785
Location
New Hampshire
Website
madhousemanor.wordpress.com
I did the search you suggested. Can you tell me which books in your catalog have the best sales rank? I also noticed there were allegations of plagiarism Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht, were you aware of them?

I think she must be, given the repeated references to plagiarism in her comments here. Also, I note that book is not available from the publisher. One copy appears to be available from a third-party seller, at the astounding price of $200.
 

BenPanced

THE BLUEBERRY QUEEN OF HADES (he/him)
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
17,864
Reaction score
4,639
Location
dunking doughnuts at Dunkin' Donuts
Srsly?

Your catalog is available from Amazon for $7.89 when I can download the pdf version off Box.com for free and you link directly to the download from your website?

:Huh:
If I published the 60 titles I’ve published so far and didn’t require some copies purchases

Any publisher that requires their authors to make a purchase to help keep the company afloat needs to take a long, hard, serious look at the business plan to either cut back on services and/or good produced, or increase operating capital before any new business is conducted.
for the titles that weren’t likely to sell
Waidaminnit. Did I read that correctly (and, in all honestly, I truly hope I didn't)? Are you telling me you are taking on titles you don't expect to sell? If you are, that is some of the worst publishing business acumen I have ever read on these boards. If you are publishing books you don't expect to sell well and are requiring those authors to make some sort of purchase just to keep your business open, that's no better than any of the vanity presses out there.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.