Wild Rose Press

Isn't EREC solely for erotic fic authors? White Rose won't be publishing that, so I doubt if their stats would be reported there.

And is Hiatt's site "Show Me the Money" exclusive to print books? The last time I saw it, e- and small-press titles weren't welcome.

I'd love to stand corrected though--it would mean good things for some of us.

Hiatt's list includes EC, Samhain, Loose ID and others.

Not sure about EREC but it has a listing for Wild Rose Press, just not enough authors subbing numbers. White Rose authors might not submit their numbers since they're not erotic romance but it would still give you an idea of how well one segment of their press sells. It might be useful in that manner...sort of as a gauge.

The EREC site would probably not receive info from the majority of Wild Rose authors, only the Wilder Rose press publishes erotic romance. I can't speak to how well it sells, I write for the 'sweeter' Wild Rose imprints.

Show me the money? I honestly don't know how to comment. My first releases at Wild Rose were all shorts (5-10k) so the paltry looking sum posted on Brenda Hiatt's site is in the ball park...but not accurate. My full length did somewhat better and I did quite well with print book sales. I'm hoping the next release, an RWA contest winner, will do better yet. But it is a slow climb. I think it's safe to say anything in the contemporary romance genre is not going to pad your wallet, no matter which pub you're with. E-Book wise, erotica is still cleaning up...but I don't write groups or backdoor action so that counts me out.

Wild Rose hasn't even been around for three years yet, so all things considered--the terrific reviews, the award winning authors, the growing interest in e-books--the site is doing well. Plus author/ publisher relations remain excellent from my experience. I wouldn't count the garden out yet. I think they're going to keep blooming and growing.

Lainey & Maria, thanks for answering -- that does clear it up a whole lot.

Maybe you can try or wait and see the other people talk about this. Good luck!

I'm thinking of submitting my YA novel to their new young adult imprint Climbing Rose. Does anyone know anything about them or what they are looking for other than what is said on their website?

Across the presses I know of erotic romance sells better than sweet, so the erotic figures would be a slight to moderate over-estimate for other genres. I would also note that many presses are three years old or less and selling at least into the hundreds range in the first year.

Write4Life said:

I'm thinking of submitting my YA novel to their new young adult imprint Climbing Rose. Does anyone know anything about them or what they are looking for other than what is said on their website?

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I guess the first question is . . . Where else have you tried placing your YA?

It's generally a good idea to look at the big print publishers before you start looking at e-press.
This is because, (setting aside erotica, which is a specialized market,) the big print publishers pay more than e-press or POD.

That said, Wild Rose pubs lots of my friends. They are happy to be with WR and enjoy the people there.

Wild Rose clearly satisfies the needs of the great majority of their writers. That said YA, and sweet in general, typically sells poorly in ebook format. In either case it pays to know what sales you can expect and whether than meets your expectations.

veinglory said:

I would also note that many presses are three years old or less and selling at least into the hundreds range in the first year.

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Can you name some of the presses that you know of that sell in the hundreds range in the first year? I'd also be interested to know how you got the information - is there a 'show me the money' site somewhere that specializes in small and epubs?

Thanks!

Samhain, is around the same age as WRP - a few months older and it sells into the hundreds.

ETA: I only know of veinglory's erec site but this specialises in erotic romance publishers, that is not to say that all of these publishers only publish erotic romance.
http://www.erecsite.com/index.html

para said:

Samhain, is around the same age as WRP - a few months older and it sells into the hundreds.

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How do you know? Where is the information available? Are you friends with some of their authors?

The reason I ask is this: I talked to an author who told me her books with them didn't sell as well as her books with TWRP.

I wonder if the sales figures for each publisher depend on the author as much as the publisher - another friend told me her books sold very well at one epub but not as well with another - as if the fanbase doesn't necessarily follow the author, but may be centered in the publisher.

I'm thinking it may be a case by case deal.

I am indeed referring to EREC data (click "sales" on the left menu, there will be more data there soon I am doing an update this week). Piers anthony also has a little data in this area if you search through his "publish on the web" site looking for "$".

That said, erotic romance the top selling fiction genre for ebooks and those figures are not huge. So if you want to make more that that, you may want to take another look at the larger commercial presses. They may be harder to break into but the investment can really pay off.

There are always exceptions but in my data set now of over 200 recent ebooks in the same genre, publisher is overwhelming the most important factor. There is surprisingly little variation in that Ellora's Cave book selling very poorly, relative speaking, still exceed even the top sellers of most of the other publishers books. With some presses on my list even their confirmed best sellers do not exceed 50 copies in the first year, and single figure sales are not unknown.

Yes, other factors have influence, but these are additive to choice of publisher--not something that makes them all roughly equal. The reason being that romance ebook buyers from top sellign presses buy directly from that presses website. You either have that readership, or you don't. That is why Ellora's Cave can remain clearly the top seller despite while not currently selling any appreciable amount of print and not using any online distributers other than their own website. (And I expect Samhain to be challenging their position soon, but that is just my 2c prediction).

You must have posted just as I edited. I only know of veinglory's erec site but this specialises in erotic romance publishers, that is not to say that all of these publishers only publish erotic romance.
http://www.erecsite.com/index.html

I talked to an author who told me her books with them didn't sell as well as her books with TWRP.

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What was this author writing? Seems a bit odd I've spoken to a few TWRP authors who had very poor sales, less than 100 in year. I've spoken to others who were quite happy with that.

My author friend wrote sweet, not erotic, so she couldn't have gone with EC. I'd like to see sales figures for non-erotic small and epubs - I wonder how we could gather that information?

I think Samhain gets some help in its marketing by being mentioned so frequently on Smart Bitches, too. I wonder what that would be worth if they had to pay for it?

In general being mentioned by well known readers, especially those who are not and do not want to be authors, is gold.

p.s. you can see some data with error measurements here.


I strongly consdiered collecting data on sweet romance but just couldn't face the extra work. But we really could use it. Not to mention all those other genres.

Looking at the EC data, it looks like they have nearly the same sales figures for the year and 1st month... do they pull the content from the catalogue after the first month? its wierd that it seems like they stop selling after one month, which is why the one year stats are barely changed from the 1st month figures... or am I looking at it wrong?

The statistics are not really fully representative, but one possibility is that other presses pick up sales later through the use of distributors.

It seems a number of authors have recently withdrawn for TWRP?

Brindle Chase said:

Looking at the EC data, it looks like they have nearly the same sales figures for the year and 1st month... do they pull the content from the catalogue after the first month? its wierd that it seems like they stop selling after one month, which is why the one year stats are barely changed from the 1st month figures... or am I looking at it wrong?

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Brindle, they don't pull the content from the catalogue. As an EC author, I can only relate my experiences but I think the reason we have huge sales right out of the gate and then the slow trickle after is because of the volume of books EC now publishes every week. It's easy to get lost in that shuffle.

I know my sales tend to bounce between $650-1K+ the first month (depending on subgenre) and then the next month, they're in the $200-300 range and then it sort of trickles down. When I have a new release or do some heavy promo, I'll get a backlist bump.

I am published with both Samhain and TWRP in contemporary (sweet) romance. My SP titles have sold 3-4 times the WRP one.

Either way, though, contemporary doesn't sell particularly well with e-/small pubs in my experience, when you look at what erotic romance does at those same pubs.

I have a question; why do you think erotica sells so well with e-presses?

I think it is a combination of it being a popular genre, small presses serving niche erotic interested and curiosity, and ebooks being an anonymous purchase that is easy to hide.