Tiny House Publishing

IMO, if you walk into this blind, it's by choice. The red flags, all ten of them, are all still fluttering in the breeze. Ignore them at your peril. Several of those red flags are absolute deal breakers to me, and it's not like I'm some well-established writer.

The publisher does not seem to be in the business of selling books, period. That's enough right there. Even clueless start-ups realize they have to produce and sell books.

The lone five-star review for Emma Leigh Reed's book appears to have been removed at Amazon, although its rating remains. That suggests--not proves, just suggests--somebody got caught gaming the system. The five star review of Sara Cremano's first book was posted the day it was published and is the person's only review of anything.

The co-author of Sara Cremeno's book is Colleen Leigh Genest, whose picture is the same as Emma Leigh Reed's. Nothing wrong with using a pseudonym for each genre, but the fact that Genest has had a hand in every book published makes me wonder if she is the owner.

"Sara owns a business to help her fellow authors succeed by writing truly thoughtful and thought provoking reviews of their literary works." Is that reviews for money? Golly gee, could those reviews be biased? (https://cindyshea.wordpress.com/2014/07/21/mywritingprocess/ --and I found an article noting that Sara, Colleen, and Cindy Shea, whose website that's on, are friends [http://nhwritersproject.org/content/three-writers-find-friendship-kindred-souls-writers’-night-out])

The contact info at Tiny House is scgauthors. Shea, Cremeno, Genest, ? I dunno, but maybe. This suggests three writers decided to start a publishing house, though none has ever worked for one.

I'm with JetFueledCar. Run.

Maryn

It took only a very small amount of sleuthing to learn Sara Cremeno is a dental assistant, married to Scott Carbonneau, a cabinet maker.

It seems she's putting on two hats, editor and author, and is not being transparent about it. Make that eleven red flags.

This sounds like an enterprise that isn't going to make it, speaking frankly. If it were me, I would haul ass.

Edit: Psst! Cathie! That image in your signature exceeds the maximum size we allow, 400 x 400 pixels or any other shape with the same total area. This isn't my board so I can't make you do anything about it, but you should probably fix it before the moderator insists.

Poifect! Big enough to see, small enough that people with data limits, dial-up connections, etc. can still function in this thread.

Once upon a time I moderated a chat which had a lot of people acting in bad faith. I got fairly good at ferreting out which new person was the person we'd recently banned just by chasing links on the internet, no hacking or anything. I used those skills here, although I won't bore you with everything I found:

Colleen Leigh Genest writes romance under the pen name Emma Leigh Reed. She is in her late 40s, divorced or widowed, the mother of three adult children and an empty nester. She uses the same photograph on both her Amazon bios. She has self-published books through CreateSpace and has books with Whiskey Creek, which had its authors subsidize the cost of setting up the publish-on-demand for each title. She has written or co-written all the books Tiny House has published.

Sara Cremeno is in her mid-20s and writes children's picture books with co-author Colleen Genest. She is married to Scott Carbonneau. She has favorably reviewed Reed's book at GoodReads and lists her as her favorite author, although she reads other authors more. She works as a dental hygienist and has worked with special needs children and adults in that capacity.

The two women attended a new Hampshire Writers' Night Out event in 2014 where coverage noted they were close friends and kindred souls with fellow writer Cindy Shea, who also had grown children and lives with her boyfriend on a farm.

The fact that the author and editor with whom you have had contact have not been open about their other involvement with the publishing company is disturbing to me. If Genest is one of the owners, of course when you contact her as an author, she's going to give her own business rave reviews.

Maryn, who ran out of time without finding much about Shea

I agree that there seems to be zero intent to deceive authors and that it's three like-minded writers who decided to start a publishing company when none of them had experience in the industry other than writing for publication. This doesn't mean they're out to hurt authors, nor does it mean their venture is doomed to failure--but both those things are possible, whether they intend those consequences or not.

Anybody can play this game, by the way. I just start with the obvious--publisher's website, Amazon bio, like that, and follow what I can. It helps me to keep notes and links so I can return to something when I get a ping on it, like reading in one place that Sara Cremeno has a new husband Scott and at another place that New Hampshire cabinetmaker Scott Carbonneau's bride is a writer of illustrated kids' books...

Maryn, no special skill set