Wandering Sage Publications (formerly Emerald Falcon Press)

IceCreamEmpress said:

Please think about at least bringing in a short-term consultant with some publishing experience--it will help your company and your authors.

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*Grin* We've got some very intelligent and successful people who mentor us. I'm not going to name drop, but, you right in any company needing some guidance from those who have come before us. Dave is pretty much like a Bard, he has an uncanny ability to make high profile contacts and friends, and it's from those people that we do get guidance from.

Michael said:

And as DecemberQuinn pointed out, she doesn't believe WS is a scam and neither do I. It just looks like an inexperienced company that doesn't have all its cards on the table - not because it's hiding the hand, but because it doesn't actually know which cards to show. There have been a few small presses that had nothing but good intentions and even good ideas go under recently, and their authors were hit pretty hard because of it. So you can understand why I might be reluctant to submit to Wandering Sage right now, can't you?

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I totally understand, and if you're going to judge a book by it's cover (a company by it's website) you may miss something very good! That website you see there is a COMPLETE mess. That's why we're working on a new one that I'm hoping (after talking to the developers an hour ago) we will be able to publish here within the next few weeks.

I'm not a web design guy myself, but there are plenty of things on that website that need to be overhauled. Apparently, it's not something that can be fixed in the course of a few overnighters. But if you just look at our website now, yeah, you'd be put off, heck, I'm put off by it. But like I said, you shouldn't judge us solely based the website. You want to know what kind of a company Wandering Sage is, you want to submit something to us, you need to talk on the phone with Dave.

Thanks

John

New Website!

Okay folks, as I've been saying for a while now, we're working on a new website and such. It's not ready yet, but I'm rather interested in hearing some opinions from everyone of what the new publishing site is going to have on it.

The new publishing site is going to be STRICTLY for publishing, not for sales of books and merch or anything else. It's still in development, and unfinished, but I would like to ask you all to take a look at what has been done so far, and to offer come of your critiques.

Please refrain from replying about how we only have three authors listed, we have a picture missing here or there, and keep in mind it's still under development. But what I would like is some thoughts and comparisons on if we are on the right track with the new site, the layout, the information it contains, ect.

So please take a look at it at the following link.

http://www.millerwebtech.com/wanderingsagepub/

once the website is completely finished it will be transfered to our domain name, and not our web development company's domain.

So, please take a look and let me know what we are doing right, as well as wrong, in your eyes, please.

Thanks everyone

John

John Dexheimer said:

That is part of what separates us from the rest of the pack, is because we are not your traditional style of publishing house. That is what gives us an edge beyond the others. Great works of art and literature do not simply come from one genre, and we will not limit ourselves to only accepting works from just fantasy or sci-fi, though that is the company's bread a butter. But again, we've proven the normal business model wrong thus far by doing it 'their' way, but 'our' way. And we will continue to do so.

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You're right, great works don't come from just one genre. But selling good fantasy isn't the same as selling good romance; those are two very different markets. I've yet to see a publisher who succeeds at putting out works in every genre.

John Dexheimer said:

Simple, we work hard, are devoted, and we think outside the box. You're comparing us to existing publishing houses that are set in their ways and that have ran the publishing industry a set way for many many years. Why is it so hard to believe that by working in a different mannor outside of the norm, that it's bad? It's not, it's just our way, and again, I point to the fact that it has worked thus far.

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I'm not saying it's bad - I just question whether it's actually going to work. Existing publishing houses do what they do because it works. Otherwise they wouldn't still be in business. And to be honest, my inital thought when I saw your website was not that whatever you were doing was working - in fact quite the opposite. To me, it appeared more that you were trying to keep the money coming in in whatever way possible. Seeing things other than your published authors on your site did not and still doesn't say to me that it is a great focus on your part. Bear in mind I'm not accusing you of this, I'm just saying the impression it sends out to me at least. I don't want to work with a publisher and feel like I'm competing with lord of the rings merchandise.

John Dexheimer said:

Well you're entitled to your own opinion certainly. We believe though that you can do more than one thing at a time. That may be impossible for some, but it's not for us.

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Again, I never said you couldn't. But all at once? I've never seen it work. I'm always happy to be proven wrong, but this seems like a risk that in this economy right now isn't worth taking.

I just realizes something, I gave some wrong information about how long Wandering Sage has been up and running. I said 7 years running, and this was wrong. It was an honest mistake on my part, it's actually between 5-6 years now.

I truly feel bad for posting that incorrect information, and I apologize, I shouldn't have made that mistake in the first place, it wasn't a missed keystroke, I just got the years mixed up.

Please excuses me for that.

Sincerely

John Dexheimer

John Dexheimer said:

I totally understand, and if you're going to judge a book by it's cover (a company by it's website) you may miss something very good! That website you see there is a COMPLETE mess. That's why we're working on a new one that I'm hoping (after talking to the developers an hour ago) we will be able to publish here within the next few weeks.

I'm not a web design guy myself, but there are plenty of things on that website that need to be overhauled. Apparently, it's not something that can be fixed in the course of a few overnighters. But if you just look at our website now, yeah, you'd be put off, heck, I'm put off by it. But like I said, you shouldn't judge us solely based the website. You want to know what kind of a company Wandering Sage is, you want to submit something to us, you need to talk on the phone with Dave.

Thanks

John

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Very wrong opinion to have. Your website DOES matter. If a visitor is put off by your website, odds are really good they're not going to come back. And I say this not as a basher, but as a web designer. Your site has roughly 8 seconds to grab a visitor's attention and persuade them to stay. Can't be done with a poor website.

*puts on web designer hat*

-colours: They clash a little. The red and the yellow are very hard on the eyes and are very stark. The lime green clashes with the overall feeling, and the light blue/green highlight on the links in the top navigation bar also clash. Personally I try to stay away from using more than three distinct colours, and if I need variation I use different shades of the same colour. I would stick to white for the majority of the text, and use the colour that is used on the Welcome to Wandering Sage Publishing text for headers, like for the questions in the FAQ section as opposed to the yellow. At the moment I can't think of anything appropriate for hover link colour, but the blues don't really do it for me. That lime green has to go though. It's throwing your overall look off.

-an under construction or 404 page would be more appropriate for pages that haven't yet been finished as opposed to the text that is currently on unfinished pages now. It threw me off a bit when I first saw them.

-having two Contact Us links is redundant. I'd take it off the bottom navigation bar and leave the one at the top.

Edited to add: please don't take this as a rain-on-your-parade post, because it really isn't. I do try to avoid that overall It's purely from a designer pov

M.R.J. Le Blanc said:

Again, I never said you couldn't. But all at once? I've never seen it work. I'm always happy to be proven wrong, but this seems like a risk that in this economy right now isn't worth taking.

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*Smiles* I hope to prove you wrong too! Heh! You're right, when you start going off the old beaten path, there is more risk involved. The economy the way it is now, I really REALLY wish I had a crystal ball to see that coming! We started to expand our divisions and spread out when the economy was still working and working well! Then just to have this happen, it couldn't have come at a more worse time for us.

But even so, it's too late to pull out now and stop the plans that we have started, such as opening a retail store and having a central place of operations, and taking it from a basement operation to something much more professional.

I can tell you with the way the IRS laws are setup, one of the biggest things holding us back is the fact that the IRS says you can only do so much with a home business. That is how we started, and in order to grow we needed a brick and mortar location that would allow to be less restricted, able to do larger prints and not be limited by being only able to promote products that can be held within 15sq ft of space within your home office. That may not make since to some, but, if you know that laws, or you do some research on your own you'll find just how true that is. For all the books that we have and that we sell at places like Amazon and so on, we are not allowed to list all of our products because of that restriction. Which is why we need to open up our own store, because then we can list ALL of our books and products and have them available for sale.

But getting back to the economy x-factor, yeah, it's going to hurt us, no doubt, but we are making plans and strategy's to move forward and to continue with our business. It will be an uphill battle, but anything good is worth working hard for, and we are, and we will. It'll be tough, but there is no doubt in any of our mind that we will succeed.

We are confident in our own abilities.

Thanks for the good observations.

John

From the WS site:

How many books get printed?

Standard galley-run of 50-100

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What makes this different from a vanity publishing company? How can the books possibly end up in bookstores if there are only 100 of them? I'm a newbie to understanding how publishing works so any enlightenment is welcome!

and yet, nothing about how your books get into bookstores.

other than the author purchasing them, which is what I assume Shaun does/did since he seems to hit a lot of conventions. Which is great if you have money to burn purchasing the books (even at a discount) and then renting the booth, etc.

so no books in bookstores unless you order them in. Which is impossible if you don't know they exist. Which means there's got to be a lot of promotion for a book no one knows about.

yep, got a winner here.

I'm waiting for Dave the Wandering Bard to show up and explain this to us.

oh, btw - "your" should be "you're" here - http://www.millerwebtechnologies.com/wanderingsagepub/about.php

*puts on web designer hat*

M.R.J. Le Blanc said:

(Everything you said in your post)

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Thank you. I had no idea you designed websites! That's awesome. So reworking the colors might be a good idea, I'll pass that along. 404 pages to me personally look tacky as all heck! It screams of some high school quality work. Those pages will be filled up before the site is published of course. So, those missing pages, not a big concern right now, they will be fixed.

The colors though, that's some good feedback, so thank you and we'll look into it. The two contact us, I tend to agree with you on that, we may want to axe that, so I'll talk with the guys on that front too.

Thanks for your opinion. It means a LOT to me personally, that you can give constructive criticism on this front, because I am more directly involved with the website and it's production. I may not know what needs to go into it, but as far as building it and working with our web guys, I do have some clout.

You brought up good points of view, and we'll start to work with them, because I tend to agree with you, the colors could be done better.

John

Question

I have been following this thread for a day or two with interest. A publisher like this might be something I could work with even with the low print runs.

I did notice on the FAQ page about buying books that there is a % to the author so that "Wandering Sage can recoup our half of the investment as well."

Does this mean the author must invest money to get his book published?

Sheryl Nantus said:

and yet, nothing about how your books get into bookstores.

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"I" cannot answer that question for you, you will have to wait for Dave to get here so he can explain it.

Sheryl Nantus said:

yep, got a winner here.

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Honestly, that comment, I'm not sure how to take it. Are you meaning to say that this website is better and a winner now? Or was it meant to be sarcasm? You're in the middle of critiquing other things, so, honestly I cannot tell if that was meant a genuine comment of successful improvement, or another critique. But either way, I'd just like to be clear on your opinion on that please.

Sheryl Nantus said:

oh, btw - "your" should be "you're" here - http://www.millerwebtechnologies.com/wanderingsagepub/about.php

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Good eye on the "your/you're" on the website, I sent an email off so that can get fixed. Thank you.


Thanks for looking it over.

John

I had mentioned in another post that we have artists from Marvel and such, and I'm sure some of you all would like to know more about that. So I was able to make a few phone calls and get the names. That way no one can claim that we're just pulling this stuff from our behind. We have contracts with these people and they work for us.

Billy Tackett
Katy DeHay Celebrity Artist and FX makeup specialist
Dan Harding-CCG
James Hill-Comics
Kendall Hart-Chelsea Nominee and Master Sculptor
Daniel Brannan-Marvel
Jeff Breslaur - Voice Actor from Pixar

I don't know if this means anything to anyone, but I thought everyone would like a bit more detail that me just saying "We have people from Marvel!" So there is it is.

John

John Dexheimer said:

Thank you. I had no idea you designed websites! That's awesome. So reworking the colors might be a good idea, I'll pass that along. 404 pages to me personally look tacky as all heck! It screams of some high school quality work. Those pages will be filled up before the site is published of course. So, those missing pages, not a big concern right now, they will be fixed.

The colors though, that's some good feedback, so thank you and we'll look into it. The two contact us, I tend to agree with you on that, we may want to axe that, so I'll talk with the guys on that front too.

Thanks for your opinion. It means a LOT to me personally, that you can give constructive criticism on this front, because I am more directly involved with the website and it's production. I may not know what needs to go into it, but as far as building it and working with our web guys, I do have some clout.

You brought up good points of view, and we'll start to work with them, because I tend to agree with you, the colors could be done better.

John

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It's something I'm working on getting back to. You want your layout to flow nicely, have everything tied in together. I can see where your designer pulled the light blue from, but in the overall look it does't fit. Because the nav bar is a lighter colour, you might be able to get away with black if nothing else works. You want the site to have as much of a professional air as possible while still retaining the character of your business. Stark colours work against that.

404 pages are actually growing in use and popularity in the web design community, or at least appears that way. I tend to agree with using them, as they're more versatile and they often better explain why the page is not there as opposed to the IE cannot display page, which really doesn't tell you if it's because of your machine or the website. I've seen some good custom ones. I think it depends on how they're made, but they are coming off as a more professional thing to have.

John Dexheimer said:

*Grin* We've got some very intelligent and successful people who mentor us.

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Are these people who have specific hands-on experience in the book publishing industry, though?

Note: authors don't generally know the nuts-and-bolts of things like book distribution and wholesaling; the comic publishing industry is very different from the book publishing industry; the movie and TV industry is even more different from the book publishing industry.

Very intelligent and successful people can offer advice with the best will in the world, but if they aren't familiar with the specific details of the specific industry they're advising on, their advice won't be very helpful.

allenparker said:

I did notice on the FAQ page about buying books that there is a % to the author so that "Wandering Sage can recoup our half of the investment as well."

Does this mean the author must invest money to get his book published?

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What FAQ page? I clicked on the link and there's nothing there.

Do you guarantee a number of sales per year?
No, however, we have an in-house agency and our goal is high volume sales.

Writing a book is hard work but marketing a book is harder. We work with you to help train you to market yourself, because all authors need to learn to market themselves. We also have an in-house agency that works exclusively with our publishing house and no others; and is there to answer your questions, work with you, book you and so on.

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That's a huge red flag.

M.R.J. Le Blanc said:

That's a huge red flag.

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which goes back to - who's buying the books?

if the author is buying the majority of the books, as it seems to present itself here, then it's nothing more than an author mill looking to make money from the author and not the public.

without a distributor and a plan to get books into bookstores and onto the shelves it falls back on the author to make the major financial investment.

as I've said before - I may not have gotten into writing to get rich, but I sure as heck didn't get into it to become poor!

That and I would question whether the agent is really looking out for my best interest or the publisher's.

Thanks, Cao - I still can't get the FAQ to load, and now the site won't even load for me. This appears to be a Print on Demand company, which is what I think we all suspected in the first place. Sure took a long way to get that out.

IceCreamEmpress said:

Are these people who have specific hands-on experience in the book publishing industry, though?

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Yes.

M.R.J. Le Blanc said:

That's a huge red flag.

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Red flag or not, that is how we operate. When we expand and we have more resources available to us, we'll be able to offer more of the same kind of services that you might expect from a 10 million dollar publishing house. But for right now, you shouldn't expect us to be able to comp your hotel stays, and fly you across the country, or pay Opera's $5000 fee for her to even consider looking at one of your books. Again, we're not huge, we're small.

Sheryl Nantus said:

which goes back to - who's buying the books? without a distributor and a plan to get books into bookstores and onto the shelves it falls back on the author to make the major financial investment.

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Yet again, I'll say it, we have distributors, and our books circulate world wide. We do not function off the investments of our authors.