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Sendak Chidren's Publishing House

Reece10

Hi Everyone,

There's a post from Sendak Children's Publishing House, Inc who want 2-3 more titles this year in the category of children's books.

The thing is I've search over the Internet to find their homepage, but only come up with Maurice Sendak.

Has anyone heard of this pulishing house? The email address ends in hotmail.com??? :shrug

Reece
PS: I am waiting for a reply from the editor
 

mammamaia

Re: Sendak Publishing?

who's/what's 'cmp' toto?

anything purporting to be a business and with only a hotmail address smells like kimchee to me...
 

Stephanie

Re: Sendak Publishing?

I saw that too, Reece. I'll be interested to hear what you find out.
 

Reece10

Re: Sendak Publishing?

Hi Everyone,

I got a response.

I'm copying who they say they are here:

"Sendak Publishing is the newest division of West Asia Distribution, LLC.

This new division will be distributing only children's titles to North America, United Kingdom and Australia. The changing face of publishing has forced us to create this new division which will be able to react quickly to new market demands and get titles into stores and distributorships before
our competitors.

Unfortunately, we do not have a website as of yet and likely will not until we have a sufficient number of titles to promote."

Hmmmm?? What do you make of this??

I did a check for "West Asia Distribution, LLC" and cannot locate it. I went to www.streetmap.co.uk and cannot locate the C/O address that's situated in Westminister, London.

Something sounds questionable :huh


Reece
 

Reece10

Sendak Publishing?

Hi,

Has anyone heard of Sendak Publishing House which is presumably the newest division of West Asia Distribution, LLC. located in Westminister, London?

Thanks

Reece
 

Stephanie

Re: Sendak Publishing?

I don't know what kimchee is, but I think something's not quite kosher here...

Perhaps you'd invite them to post a statement here, Reece - see if they could satisfy the pros on board.
 

Kathi430

sendak

I subbed to them via that link and got back a strange letter. I will post it below.

Dear Ms. Wallace,

Your book about Victoria and the monsters has generated some interest here.
The other stories you submitted need more work or don't fit our needs. We
would like to see the Victoria book illustrated before we consider it
further. Typically, art directors pair up authors with illustrators that
they think are best suited for each book. The reason for this is because
authors often hire illustrators who don't know the industry well enough to
produce marketable illustrations. The old adage, 'you get what you pay for'
usually guarantees good illustrations but not always. The editors at Sendak
have compiled a list illustrators who are reasonably priced. These
illustrators have been pre-approved for publishing by us. In your case we
don't need the whole book illustrated but 4 or more illustrations would be
best. If we decide to go forward, we will contract the remaining
illustrations with your illustrator. We DO NOT reimburse you for
illustrations done before formal acceptance unless you have had the entire
book illustrated in which case we would purchase the completed book from
you. There is no magic formula. Do what you feel most comfortable with.
I think that covers most everything. Here is pre-approved list of
illustrators for your book:

Alison Relyea www.alisonrelyea.com/newcontact.php
Jerry Seltzer www.gunchello.com/freelance.htm
Cyd Moore www.cydmoore.com/art.html
Rebecca Elliot www.rebeccaelliott.com/contact.html

I want to reiterate that although these illustrators have been pre-approved,
we may, at our discretion, use a different illustrator or ask that some
illustrations be redone. This would of course be at our expense. Also,
although we are interested in your book does not mean that we will publish
it. It only means that we are strongly considering it. We may also decide to
publish it in the following year rather than the year in which it is
accepted. These are all things to keep in mind.
By the way, Illustrations will take a few months. Don’t rush your
illustrator. From personal experience they don’t do their best work when
rushed.
Sincerely,
Linn Thatcher
Asst. Editor
 

Yeshanu

Re: sendak

I don't really know all that much about the publishing industry, but recapping what we know about this "company" seems to point me in an obvious direction.

1) They have chosen as a name the name of a well-known children's writer who has no apparent link to the company.

2) They are supposedly a division of an unknown company with an untracable address.

3) They want you to pay out something to someone before they will consider publishing your book.

4) They are very emphatic about exactly who should be illustrating your book. They tell you to go easy on the illustrators. They don't promise that your book will be published after you pay out all that money to the illustrator...

Does one plus two plus three plus four perhaps equal a scam by a group of "illustrators"? Just asking...

Ruth
 

Betty W01

Re: sendak

Read this forsome other ideas...
www.absolutewrite.com/specialty_writing/submitting.htm

Authors don't choose their own illustrators, often not even "big name" authors. They rarely meet or even exchange letters or e-mail, unless they collaborate like Bruce Degen and Joanna Cole (who even moved their families so they could live near each other!) And they certainly don't pay them when they're working with a publishing house - the house does that as part of the publishing package. This smells "scam" to me, big time.

And if it were me...
3.gif
 

Yeshanu

Writers Weekly Link

Stephanie,

Why does the link you gave lead to microsoft.com? Is it a mistake, or did microsoft hijack my computer?

Ruth
 

Stephanie

Re: Writers Weekly Link

Works for me, Ruth - I went into the post and checked it (it's a long URL)

: bang
 
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Yeshanu

Re: Writers Weekly Link

Stephanie,

It's working for me now, too.

We have a theory around our house: Microsoft is :evil .

: bang : bang : bang : bang : bang

Take that!

Ruth

(Sorry about the violence, maia, but once in a while I just have to let it out...)
 
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cluelessspicycinnamon

Re: Writers Weekly Link

Interesting, very interesting. Now I can't tell whether it's a complete scam, because the illustrators seem honestly perplexed, or if it's just a bunch of crazy people who have no idea what publishing houses really do. Weird.
 

Betty W01

Re: Writers Weekly Link

I'm gonna put a copy of this over in BC, for the edification of other confused souls.
 

HapiSofi

Re: sendak

By their nature, publishing houses can't be invisible, yet this one is: no books, no address, no mentions anywhere. It's even more impossible for distributors to thus be invisible. An invisible publishing house which is a division of an invisible distributor, and which uses a Hotmail address, has to be assumed to be a conjured phantasm, possessing no more reality than those diverse fortunes Nigerian scam letters want you to help them liberate.

Run away. Fast.
 

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The only Google hits for "Sendak Publishing" are to this thread. There's one additional hit for West Asia Distribution, LLC, and that's a copy of an ad under Telecommuting Jobs for Writers: http://www.electricpenguin.com/ohi/jobs/archives/002159.html

Their real existence ... remains to be proved.