Swimming Kangaroo Books

I might end up happy with them, too. Who knows? No disrespect intended for the ones who publish with them. I'm just a bit clueless on the entire subject, and not terribly comfortable with it for that reason.

Thanks again for the replies.

Well, I have to say that in the very little time I have been dealing with SK, they have been amazingly nice. I was quite surprised when the owner helped me to contact some of their authors to ask my questions. I was very surprised and pleased. I had read they were nice people, and I can confirm that much. Whether they end up publishing my novel or not, dealing with them has been a very pleasant experience.

Edit: I have also gotten very positive emails from several of their authors.

I wanted to expand on the above. I have exchanged emails with about half a dozen of the Swimming Kangaroo authors with the encouragement of the owner. They have had uniformly positive comments, including the comment from one of their more experienced authors that they do a pretty good job of marketing for a very small press. I don't have their permission to go into detail about their emails, but not one had negative comments and they ranged from mildly positive to glowing.

After talking with 5 of their authors who rated them anywhere between Ok up to fantastic, I did indeed sign with them in spite of that clause. They seem to do a good job on their books. I looked at several of them and was impressed with the covers and editing. They also seem to work hard at marketing which is always difficult for the micropresses.

I don't know what an expert would have done since I'm not.

It doesn't look like a terrible clause. It's basically a kill fee, but not. They're saying, it seems, that if they put out the money for the art, ISBN, copyright, etc..and you, the author, change your mind about publishing with them, then they want to be reimbursed for their money and time.

Which doesn't seem unreasonable to me, especially if they really are doing marketing and promotion. If I was promoting something for sale and it suddenly wasn't available, through no fault of my own, I'd want compensation too. Essentially it's the author breaking the contract, and there should be a penalty for it, especially if the other party has lived up to their end of it.

It's one of those CYA clauses I would be aware of, but doubt is ever used.

FWIW, I have a SK book here, waiting for me to read and review. The cover art is very nice and quality is standard trade paperback. Once I get around to reading it, I'll let you know what I think.

That was how I read it, Christine. They're a small company and can't afford to not be reinbursed. I did ask Dindy, the owner, about the clause, and that was her explanation. She said they are willing to let authors out of the contract if they get a better deal but can't afford to take a loss on it. Seemed reasonable to me. But like I said, I'm not exactly an expert.

I compared it to some published "form" contracts from MWA and others and it looked very similar otherwise. So I felt pretty comfortable. I just signed it two weeks ago though, so obviously I can't say much beyond that.

re

Ive met up with them before ... they arent too bad by all accounts but their book covers are really awful lol..!

Regards
Jules
publisher

I guess it's a matter of preference. I kind of liked the ones I saw. That may mean that I like awful book covers, though. LOL

And their authors seem happy with them.

Edit: I should say "other authors" but I'm so early in the process I have trouble thinking of myself in those terms and can't tell yet how things are going to go. But so far I feel good about the whole thing.

I dunno, jules. The one I have here is very nice. Nicely balanced, decent artwork, good coloring. Definitely not clip art.

offered a contract

I've just been offered a contract by Swimming Kangaroo. Wondered if you-all (especially the SKB authors) had anything new to add?

My story is that the first two books came out with Eos (funny, someone mentioned them above), but they declined the third (actually, a bit of a relief, but that's for another time and place). I've done the writing, so I want to get the book out for my fans. At the same time, I'd rather put my serious energy into a different series with a major publisher, so going small press with a book that otherwise won't see print seems like a good option.

So I'm doing some more research on SKB, and hope to talk with Dindy later on.

Elaine, there are a lot of small presses out there, and many of them have a good deal more presence in the SF/fantasy market. I don't know how many others you've approached, but if Swimming Kangaroo is the first or near the first, I'd definitely suggest a lot more looking around before you settle for this offer.

- Victoria

From their submissions page:

We need to come up for air. Everyone knows the economy sucks, and it sucks for us too. We need to take a breather and figure out how to deal with rising costs, reduced income and the general turmoil in the publishing industry. Therefore we are not accepting any new submissions for the indefinite future. Sorry folks! Good luck placing your books elsewhere.

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And this is the common problem with any publisher who knows little about the industry and is vastly under capitalized.

priceless1 said:

And this is the common problem with any publisher who knows little about the industry and is vastly under capitalized.

Click to expand...

To be fair, they've been around since 2006. They may be undercapitalised, but having survived four years one hopes they know a little something about the industry. At least they didn't take the author mill route instead.

I agree, nkkingston, to a point. But to say that someone is closing their doors because "the economy sucks" tells me they didn't figure out how to make sales in these tough economic times.

I don't know if they were a POD press, but if they were the scenario would be something like this: They are without distribution and their ability to get books placed on the shelves is greatly hindered. Add the invariable returns to the mix, and now you have no income. The only hope left is to depend on one's authors to buy their own books. Obviously the authors' financial situations aren't very good either, so now the publisher is left without any way to increase their bottom line. What choice does the publisher have but to say, "the economy sucks"?