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Zoetic Press / NonBinary Review / Lithomobilus

Kayley

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This is my first time posting a thread in this forum, so forgive me if I make any obvious mistakes.

I was perusing NaNo's "Special Offers & Greetings from NaNo Sponsors" forum and saw a thread about submitting work to Zoetic Press. Anyone heard about them? I couldn't find a thread here in BR&BC.

Zoetic Press website: http://zoeticpress.com/

I'm personally a bit skeptical. The Submissions page on their website says " It’s not enough that your story be novel in presentation – it must also be well-written, compelling and engaging." Yet, on the same page, they say "Please submit your short stories, commentary, essays, alternative narratives, etc. to us via Submittable." So what types of works are they really looking for?

It seems novels are acceptable, given that Zoetic Press has opened up submissions for NaNo works. For some reason, the name listed on that page is Nonbinary Review, which seems to be operated by the same woman, Lise Quintana. Upon further research, it seems Nonbinary Review is a publication put out by Zoetic Press.

Both of these sites operate under Narrative Technologies, which is Lise's company supporting her Lithomobilus e-reader platform.

Nonbinary Review site: http://nonbinaryreview.com/

Lithomobilus: http://lithomobilus.com/

The Lithomobilus platform seems interesting.

I'll leave it to the more experienced people to comment further.

EDIT: According to discussion on NaNo, they seem to prefer multiple PoV works in case anyone is interested in submitting to them. They also prefer longer over shorter works where novels are concerned. This is primarily due to the Lithomobilus platform, which allows them to charge for each additional item of content that is included; multiple PoVs and/or larger books enable them to add more paid content.

EDIT EDIT: Some notes from Managing Editor Allie Batts' post on the NaNo forums:

- They do not charge to publish work.

- They will be reading NaNo books through November and well into December.

- They currently only have content on iTunes because they publish through the Lithomobilus platform. iPhone capability is expected to launch by Thanksgiving and they have plans to support Android devices in the future. Works will not be available on other platforms such as Kindle, Nook, or Kobo.

EDIT EDIT: Some notes from Lise Quintana post on the NaNo forums:

- They ask for the same rights as other traditional publishers.

- They pay no advances and give royalties of "50% of the gross of each book sold".

- They do not offer print books but sometimes coordinate POD releases in conjunction with the Zoetic release.

- Android app of Lithomobilus will not be available for at least eight months.

- This whole paragraph kind of made me go "wah??" (is it okay to quote whole paragraphs? if not, I'll paraphrase):

Lastly, we're fiction publishers. We're not writing instructors or a critique circle or an editing service. We publish two journals (NonBinary Review and Unbound Octavo), and right this second, there are probably 50 things in my queue to read that I have to get through by Friday, by which time there will be dozens more. That's the nature of being a publisher. This means that if you send us your rough draft, we don't have the time to give you the kind of thorough, thoughtful response it would take to help you craft it into a finished novel.

That's not the nature of being a publisher...good publishers always provide editing. Saying you have too much work to handle is not an excuse; it means you need to be more selective during the submission process. (These are my words, not hers.)

- Based on the above quote, they are looking for NaNo works from previous years that have already been edited and polished, not NaNo works from this year. I'm glad she pointed this out in her post, because it's not mentioned anywhere else; the nature of the promotion makes it seem like she is seeking current NaNo projects rather than previous ones.
 
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Metaphorosis

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I 'sold' a story to them for one of their reissue books - classic works with new stories attached that expand on/illuminate an aspect of the main story.

We signed a contract with one year exclusivity. Since then, I've had exactly zero updates (let alone money), despite multiple requests. The year has now expired (despite their lack of communication, I held up my end). It's conceivable that my story led to no sales. Any responsible publisher would have at least sent a statement saying "0 sales".

It's possible their more mainstream publishing works differently, but I wouldn't touch these guys again with an eleven foot pole.
 
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tiakall

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I remember seeing this on Nano last year and thinking this was such a microplatform that sales would be unlikely. Does iTunes show you how many downloads the app has gotten? Can't pull that up at work, and apparently I won't be able to check the app out either since it requires iOS 7 or greater.

I'm also curious as to whether their contracts request exclusive rights. I certainly wouldn't use them for an original project due to lack of platform, but one of their pubdomain fanfiction-esque projects might not be too bad if you can also self-publish the work yourself on Amazon, Nook, etc.
 

Metaphorosis

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I'm not an iTunes user, so I can't answer the question. I hadn't thought to check it, though; good idea.

The rights portion of my contract specified:
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]First North American Serial Rights of the Work to electronically publish, produce, reproduce, distribute, and market the electronic version of the Work in Publication. If the work has been previously published, the Author hereby transfers and assigns the rights to republish the Work to the Publisher, as listed above. All other, remaining rights revert to the Author upon publication. The Author agrees to refrain from selling or giving rights to another publication for one year from the date of this agreement and contract. The Author shall be paid at the following rate: 50% of the net sales from in-app purchases of the content, to be paid out quarterly. [/FONT]
 

tiakall

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Just went checking into this since they're a sponsor on Nano again - they have two books out. One by the author, one pub domain work with two poems attached. (Metaphorosis, was the Alice in Wonderland the antho you submitted to?)

No Android app mentioned on the website or otherwise. I can't get the Lithomobilus website to pull up at all, but that could just be my dumb work computer.
 

Metaphorosis

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Yes. Since all this, Zoetic has stepped up and agreed a new contract to publish my story in an issue of Non-Binary Review, at a fixed (near-pro) per-word rate, and sent me a check. I give them credit for eventually doing the right thing on this, but the fact that they were completely silent (and ignored repeated queries) for a very long time means I wouldn't do business with them again.
 
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