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Haven Publishing House & Entertainment

Bicyclefish

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URL: http://havenpublishinghouse.com/

Important note: This does not appear to be in any way affiliated with Haven Entertainment formed in 2012.

The following comes from the blog (and mirrored on her Tumblr) of comic artist and writer Colleen Doran: http://www.adistantsoil.com/2014/01/15/very-bad-publishers-the-strange-case-of-haven-publishing-2/ . I found no existing BR&BC thread, though the name sounded vaguely familiar. A bit of searching tuned up this old AW thread in the comics forum, with a link to Haven in the signature of someone mentioned as being with the company.

Haven Publishing bills itself as “a publisher of niche genre books” and claims to deliver “…impactful literature, graphic novels, and comic books to an ever changing market and striving to seek out talented authors, writers and illustrators that have yet to be discovered.” [...]
However,

As of April 2014, Haven Publishing has not released any books into print. However, they did release Camacho’s self published tome about his adventures at conventions to Kindle using the Amazon self publishing program. At the same time, they released a novel by another small-time author to Amazon’s program. This is anything anyone can do without a publisher. Haven backed away from its lavish claims to status in the publishing and film industry, and is now touting itself as a small start up by a couple of friends.
Owner Emanuel (Manny) Camacho has quite a history with failed conventions, something he seems proud of in his own book, dubbing himself a "controversial figure in anime and gaming fandom".

Camacho is also the chairman of a failed convention scheme Kunicon, noted for its significant budget overun. Thanks to Dave Merrill for the information. The IMDB page has a small list of credits, some of which are “uncredited”. As for those credits, I think I may actually have more film and tv name checks than this dude does, and I’m a cartoonist. UPDATE: G.A.M.M.E. Expo also appears to have imploded and left a lot of people out of some moolah.
One of the authors touted to be on of their creators, Bo Hampton, denied association with Haven.

I never agreed to do ANY thing with them but that guy Manny’s name rings a bell. [...] He may have asked me to work on something but couldn’t meet my page rate so I turned him down.[ In fact I'm almost certain he wanted to do an Atlanta based zombie book ].
Then there's the experience one Dan Coglan related on his Indiegogo campaign.

In July of 2012 [...] we signed on with Haven Publishing for a 5 year, 4 novel contract. We started working with Haven's owner and editors on revising The Pack, getting it a new professional cover, and making it ready for the big time. In February 2013, we got an excited call from our Publisher, saying that he had sold 50,000 copies of the pack [...] the deal was for 50,000 copies of each of Dan's four novels contracted with Haven, to be paid out over 4 years. That meant a check for $169,440 in 2013; and checks for $183,377.50 in 2014, 2015 & 2016.

Acting on these promises from our publisher, we began to rearrange our lives [...] Jillian being able to leave her long-time part-time job to focus on being an agent for Dan's written works and for Samurai Dan & Jillian as performers. In August 2013 we were given confirmation that our first royalty check was on its way to us! To celebrate the achievement of his lifelong dream, we went out and got Dan's dream car! We also purchased a used SUV to replace our old worn out car for traveling to conventions.

The day to cash the check had arrived, and there were insufficient funds available in the account(read-- NONE!). After 2 weeks of waiting everyday for news, and being assured repeatedly that things were being fixed, we were finally told that it was GUARANTEED to be fixed by the end of 2013. And so we clung to that hope, believing the word of our publisher, and fell deeper into debt, waiting for and counting on the royalty paycheck to become valid. [...]

5 days before Christmas we got confirmation from the company the book deal was supposed to be with(that we were being paid from) that the contract was a fraud! They had no deal with and had never heard of Haven Publishing.
Colleen goes into detail why "this is not how publishing works".
 
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Filigree

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I'm not that sorry for them.

Anyone remotely familiar with Manny Camacho's past rep might well avoid 'Haven' when they realize he's involved.

Coglan supposedly knew the entertainment industry, or claimed to. He didn't do the *very basic research* to learn how publishing works. He didn't bother to contact any of the hundreds of literary agents or editors who might have set him straight in a brief phone or email consult. AW is online, and hard to miss. So are Preditors & Editors, Writer Beware, Hi Piers, Making Light, Emily Suess, and a whole lotta other places to learn how publishing works. He took out massive amounts of personal debt based on little more than vague promises - while I haven't seen the 'contract', that much is obvious.

Let's look at that personal debt:

"Jillian being able to leave her long-time part-time job to focus on being an agent for Dan's written works and for Samurai Dan & Jillian as performers. In August 2013 we were given confirmation that our first royalty check was on its way to us! To celebrate the achievement of his lifelong dream, we went out and got Dan's dream car! We also purchased a used SUV to replace our old worn out car for traveling to conventions."

Nope, sorry, you leave your day job when you have three years' income or more banked. Or you simply cannot stand it anymore, and are willing to risk homelessness.

Your confirmation is when the bank verifies the check is not fraudulent and then cashes it for you.

Again, you don't buy the dream car until you have the dream money in your hot little hands - and have set aside what you need for taxes.

The used SUV may have been the most honest, well-thought-out part of the plan, and it was probably the cheapest.

Coglan pretty much did this to himself. He serves as an adequate warning to other people, and for that I thank him. And I thank Colleen for writing about it, and Bicyclefish for relaying the links.
 
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Avatar_fan

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Nooooo, I feel so bad for them. I read their story, but they should have known it was too good to be true. This is awful.
 

K. Q. Watson

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They shouldn't have gone and bought cars without making sure the cheques were good first.
 

CaoPaux

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Site gone, last book published in '15.