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Burping Frog Publishing

DeadlyAccurate

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Does anyone know anything about this company? P&E just notes that it's a new publishing house specializing in spy and espionage thrillers. They have a few books, and their amazon price is reasonable, but I can't tell what kind of publisher they are.
 

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Love the name. :roll: http://www.burpingfrog.com/

It seems to be an imprint of The Red Press, whose website didn’t come up for me. I did find this on their eBay (!) listing, though:

“The Red Press Publishing Company was established to bring to life stories and items of non-fiction that might not otherwise have a voice in the world of publishing.”

All in all, it has a whiff of POD. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, but….
 

Richard

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Note that all of their books, current and upcoming, are by Jack Allen, also listed as the main name on the Contact page. And that the submissions address is '[email protected]'. Certainly to me, that /suggests/ one of those companies set up by an author or two to publish their own work.
 

Literary Lola

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CaoPaux said:
Love the name. :roll: http://www.burpingfrog.com/

It seems to be an imprint of The Red Press, whose website didn’t come up for me. I did find this on their eBay (!) listing, though:

“The Red Press Publishing Company was established to bring to life stories and items of non-fiction that might not otherwise have a voice in the world of publishing.”

All in all, it has a whiff of POD. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, but….
It's possible they are a POD, but their two titles are returnable. I just checked with Ingram. There are only two titles on hand. In looking at their message board, the only two books that are published appear to be from the owner, Jack Allen. The first post on their board is dated Dec. 23, '04. Could be a new company. Red Press doesn't come up for me, either. They aren't members of PMA, which isn't a crime. But most of your publishers belong to PMA http://www.pma-online.org/memdrct.cfm
 
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victoriastrauss

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It looks to me like a self-publishing operation that's expanding. Mr. Allen published his earliest book, Change of Heart, through Xlibris. The covers are very unprofessional-looking (to me, anyway) and I wonder, as I always do with people who self-publish, how much knowledge there is here about book marketing and promotion. Also, sometimes the return arrangements that little publishers offer are so restrictive that bookstores don't find them attractive.

I know I probably seem hard on little hobbyist publishers like this. But they are (literally) a dime a dozen these days, and with most of them, you probably would get a similar amount of exposure by printing your book at Kinkos and handing it out on streetcorners.

Many really stinky publishers are members of PMA. Not saying that PMA is bad--in fact, it's a great organization for its members--but membership is irrelevant to professionalism or legitimacy.

- Victoria
 

Literary Lola

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victoriastrauss said:
Many really stinky publishers are members of PMA. Not saying that PMA is bad--in fact, it's a great organization for its members--but membership is irrelevant to professionalism or legitimacy.
- Victoria
Thank you, Victoria. You said much more elequently what I attempted to impart. After all, PA is a proud member...
 

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thanks for the responses. i'm thinking about contacting them with some questions about their marketing, placement, returnability, etc. is there an article on the kinds of questions you should ask a small press publisher to be sure they're offering a service on par with the bigger guys?
 

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book_maven said:
I have been a book design judge for PMA's Benjamin Franklin Awards for five years now. And I was quite surprised to see Lola say that PA is a member. Just to be sure I checked PMA's membership roster before posting, and it does not show them.
Just to be certain my eyes didn't betray me, I went back. Lo and behold PA is listed near the bottom: http://www.pma-online.org/scripts/showmemlist.cfm?letter=P

I agree that PMA seems to be a great outfit of high integrity. But, let's face it, you pay the fee, you receive the membership. They can't possibly investigate everyone who wants to join.
The books I received for judging (primarily in the Arts and Coffee Table/Large Format categories) are usually of the highest quality. (In those years, I have judged about 150-170 books, and found that perhaps four were hopeless, a small number were only fair and most were good to superb.) A friend I recommended to them as another design judge this year was assigned to the Biolgraphy/Autobiograph/Memoir category, and the books she received were for the most part of good to excellent quality.
I'm certain you did only receive the finest quality of books. This is the case because PA doesn't enter contests. It costs money to enter contensts and they'd rather keep it than spend it.

But, yes, there are quite a few POD/vanity publishers that are members of PMA.
 
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book_maven

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PMA

Lola, you are absolutely right. I apologize. Somehow I missed that.

I think Victoria is right, that almost any publisher can join. Since it is an organization that helps them market their books to bookstores and bring them to the attention of reviewers, I am not sure how its membership benefits PA. It's probably more for show than anything else. (But show to whom, I'd ask if I could, since PMA is unknown to the general reading public--including PA authors.)
 

Literary Lola

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book_maven said:
Lola, you are absolutely right. I apologize. Somehow I missed that.

I think Victoria is right, that almost any publisher can join. Since it is an organization that helps them market their books to bookstores and bring them to the attention of reviewers, I am not sure how its membership benefits PA. It's probably more for show than anything else. (But show to whom, I'd ask if I could, since PMA is unknown to the general reading public--including PA authors.)
I do know that PMA has a large table at the BEA and other conventions. What, exactly, this accomplishes is unknown to me. I know they offer resources via their databases, but I don't know how integral they are to getting books into stores.
 

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Resurrected in '08. Published one book not by owner in '10. Recent releases by owner.

ETA: Now ebook only.
 
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az shea

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No further activity on main site, but plenty on their erotica page (NSFW): http://www.burpingfrog.com/bfpebooks/bfpebooks.html

Agreed, and the erotica page even has its copyright date current, fwiw. The erotica site has a blog, last updated July 2014.

The main BF page has only a few books and the copyright of 2012, making its blog slightly more updated than the (non-erotica) BF blog page... last post was Oct. 2011.

Note that whoever does the site pages doesn't format very well, with things running off the right margin... You can probably email 'em for publishing/book details -- there is no contact page per se.

They're not my cuppa wrt freelance work prospects. A bit sorry, 'cause I thought "Burping Frog" a great name. :)