Whiskey Creek Press

Thanks for removing the log-in for authors. I didn't notice it. In fact, I only read as far as the author having to buy 50 copies. That was enough for me. Not interested.

This is from the WCP contract. They have a five hundred dollars termination fee. So if I want out (and I do, I do) I'd have to pay them $2,000 for 4 titles. Sweet. For them that is.

"The Author may terminate this agreement before the three (3) year period above by means of a contract buyout. The Author will notify the Publisher 90 days before buyout date with a certified mail notice or other receipted or traceable delivery service, of the intent to exercise the contract buyout option. All rights granted the publisher would revert to Author at the time of the buyout, if proper notification has been done. Upon this contract termination through the buyout option, Publisher will remove listing of the Work from its website and all download-based distributors and advise Books in Print that that particular ISBN is no longer in print. The exception to this termination of contract is that Publisher may continue to sell existing stock of physical formats (print books) but may not create new physical copies upon depletion of its existing stock. The Author will pay to the Publisher the sum of $500.00 (five hundred dollars) to exercise this contract buyout option. This fee must be paid to the Publisher by the Author at notification of intent to exercise the buyout option. The Author will be responsible for full payment of damages and customary legal fees as a result of legal action stemming from failure to pay this buyout clause."

They also have a Defamation clause. Ooh I wonder why?

"XVI. Defamation. Should the Author, or Author’s agent, defame Whiskey Creek Press, Publisher has the expressed right to remedy the matter in a court of law. The Publisher also has the right to terminate this agreement, in part or in full, if defamation is proven. The Author will be responsible for full payment of damages and customary legal fees as a result of legal action stemming from defamation. This does not apply to any issue between Authors."

I've had many publishing contracts and not one of them ever had anything like this before. Does PA?

"Royalties will be accumulated and paid no later than forty-five (45) days following the end of each calendar quarter. "

Hmmm...last time was in November. That's a very long "quarter." It's closer to a calendar "half."

BTW, if anyone is interested in seeing the entire contract, just PM me. I couldn't repost it here in its entirety, it rambles on for about 7 pages or so.

I have found Whiskey Creek Press to be very pleasant to work with. They did a great job editing my book, got it onto Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. The editor I worked with was very nice and easy to work with. He gave me very good advice about changes to make and I was very pleased with the result. They have a very tight authors' group that communicates regularly and now my book is available to anyone who cares to read it...
Whiskey Creek Website
My Author Website


You aren't charged any fees. The owners are a husband and wife team. The husband answered several questions I had about different things and made himself available to me, which was nice.

Their policies are clear and straight forward. If you are an author who wants to get your book into print and also have it available as an e-book online but don't have an agent yet. I would recommend WCP.

Hey Adam

I'm glad you're happy with your publisher. Could you provide us a bit more information though, like: can your book be found in bookstores? How are the sales? Does Whiskey Creek Press help promote your book, or is most of that up to you?

Also, as you can see in previous comments in this thread, the Whiskey Creek Press contract used to state that authors were required to purchase 50 copies of their books. Is this still in the contract, or did they change their policies by now?

I dunno, if you're required to purchase 50 of your own books, then I see no difference in that this is a pay to play outfit. I doubt they have a sales team, or do much of any promoting/marketing. Unless things have changes.

tri

Well, WCP is a foremost an e-book publisher. If your manuscript is accepted by WCP, it is professionally edited and formatted, an artist works with you to create a cover, and it is published and available on all the major online distributors like AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, etc. There is NO COST or FEE for any of this.

If your book sells well, and sells over 50 copies, WCP may decide to put your book into print. This is not guaranteed, though; WCP does not want to invest money to put a book into print on their dime if they do not think it will make enough money to pay for their printing costs.

If you are happy having it sell as an e-book there is no cost to you.

If you are anxious to get your book into print, WCP has an option available for you to get your book into print immediately by buying 50 copies of your book at a discount to cover the printing costs. This is only an option and not required.

That's the deal. Seems fair enough to me. I think this is a good way to get your career going and get your work out there.

This is a very small publisher in Wyoming, not a multimillion dollar operation. If you are holding out for an agent and a big advance and tons of marketing then this is not for you!

But if you have a manuscript that hasn't been picked up by literary agents that you feel is still worth reading, this is a great way to get your work out there. You will have to do your own marketing, and though your book will be in all the online book stores, it won't be in the brick and mortar bookstores unless you set it up.

That's the deal. They did exactly what they said they would do, and they were pleasant to work with, but you have to have realistic expectations about the services they provide.
Adam N. Leonard

Okay, so they're primarily e-publisher but if you sell 50 copies they'll do print? Is it just me, or does that either imply that they're just as invested in print publishing, or that most titles sell hardly any copies at all?

A commercial publisher, even a small one, should be able to sell more than 50 copies of a book or it isn't one I'd ever want to work with, honestly.

Kaitie,

Hey- it is what it is. If you don't like it, then pursue other avenues...

Adam N. Leonard said:

Well, WCP is a foremost an e-book publisher. If your manuscript is accepted by WCP, it is professionally edited and formatted, an artist works with you to create a cover, and it is published and available on all the major online distributors like AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, etc. There is NO COST or FEE for any of this.

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The trouble is that this is EXACTLY what a publisher SHOULD do. If there is a cost or fee for any of these things, you would be well advised to run very quickly in the opposite direction. A publisher is not worthy of being praised for doing their job.

If you are anxious to get your book into print, WCP has an option available for you to get your book into print immediately by buying 50 copies of your book at a discount to cover the printing costs. This is only an option and not required.

That's the deal. Seems fair enough to me. I think this is a good way to get your career going and get your work out there.

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If you want your book in print, Createspace and Lulu are POD services which don't cost anything at all - you don't even need to order a copy for yourself if you don't want to.



Part of BBRBs remit is to help people make informed choices about their work. What would you say they've done for you that you couldn't have done yourself self-pubbing?

A commercial publisher, even a small one, should be able to sell more than 50 copies of a book or it isn't one I'd ever want to work with, honestly.

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I agree.

I agree, Theo. I didn't even go into the fact that it's still essentially vanity publishing to ever have to buy copies of your book. For curiosity sake, how does one even go about buying 50 ebooks anyway? Or is it a commitment to buy them in print? Because if so that's not even a parallel. How much is the price difference between the two?

I dunno...there has to be something seriously wrong with a publisher who can't sell 50 e-books. If that's the cutoff. My publisher, two books ago, sold more than 70 copies in the first week on sale, and it's less known than WCP.

kaitie said:

I agree, Theo. I didn't even go into the fact that it's still essentially vanity publishing to ever have to buy copies of your book. For curiosity sake, how does one even go about buying 50 ebooks anyway? Or is it a commitment to buy them in print? Because if so that's not even a parallel. How much is the price difference between the two?

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I think the deal is you have to sell a certain number of ebooks before they consider releasing a print edition, THEN you have to buy 50 copies of the print edition.

I recall previous issues with WCP releasing books in print and not paying authors royalties on copies sold when they didn't bite on the 'you must buy 50 copies deal'. (See upthread, I'm sure the exact info is there, it's also on the Hi Piers site too, if I'm not mistaken.)

Theo81 said:

The trouble is that this is EXACTLY what a publisher SHOULD do. If there is a cost or fee for any of these things, you would be well advised to run very quickly in the opposite direction. A publisher is not worthy of being praised for doing their job.




If you want your book in print, Createspace and Lulu are POD services which don't cost anything at all - you don't even need to order a copy for yourself if you don't want to.



Part of BBRBs remit is to help people make informed choices about their work. What would you say they've done for you that you couldn't have done yourself self-pubbing?




I agree.

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Okay. Here's my last thoughts regarding WCP:

I have read books that were self published and I found most of them to be full of typos and grammatical errors. Plus, some require you to create your own book cover and have strange formatting. Now, please don't get me wrong, I have also read self published books that were really well written and edited with amazing book covers- an example of well put together self publishing would be some of Amanda Hocking's original self published books.

However, Amanda Hocking has also complained publicly that this took a huge time commitment from her, usurped her writing time, and is why she has chosen to publish her books traditionally.

In my case with my book, The Rift Riders, I was very pleased with the editing and cover artwork that was performed by WCP staff. They were nice to work with. That alone is a huge advantage, in my opinion, over some of the self-publishing outfits.

I am trying to simply say to someone that is contemplating publishing through WCP that there are many authors who are happy with their books published through WCP and that find them to be a reputable outfit.

It bothers me that there are so many people speculating this or that and bad mouthing WCP who have not dealt with them directly. I have, and I was satisfied with their job on my book.

I plan to publish the sequel to The Rift Riders through WCP, and I feel confident that they will do a good job editing it, creating cover art, and getting it into multiple online book distributors. I will most likely publish it as an ebook only which will cost me the sum of $0. I will not have to do everything myself- and I know that professionals will be doing the work on my behalf which gives me free time to keep writing. Win-Win.


Sincerely,
Adam N. Leonard
http://www.adamleonardauthor.com/

Adam N. Leonard said:

Okay. Here's my last thoughts regarding WCP:

I have read books that were self published and I found most of them to be full of typos and grammatical errors. Plus, some require you to create your own book cover and have strange formatting. Now, please don't get me wrong, I have also read self published books that were really well written and edited with amazing book covers- an example of well put together self publishing would be some of Amanda Hocking's original self published books.

However, Amanda Hocking has also complained publicly that this took a huge time commitment from her, usurped her writing time, and is why she has chosen to publish her books traditionally.

In my case with my book, The Rift Riders, I was very pleased with the editing and cover artwork that was performed by WCP staff. They were nice to work with. That alone is a huge advantage, in my opinion, over some of the self-publishing outfits.

I am trying to simply say to someone that is contemplating publishing through WCP that there are many authors who are happy with their books published through WCP and that find them to be a reputable outfit.

It bothers me that there are so many people speculating this or that and bad mouthing WCP who have not dealt with them directly. I have, and I was satisfied with their job on my book.

I plan to publish the sequel to The Rift Riders through WCP, and I feel confident that they will do a good job editing it, creating cover art, and getting it into multiple online book distributors. I will most likely publish it as an ebook only which will cost me the sum of $0. I will not have to do everything myself- and I know that professionals will be doing the work on my behalf which gives me free time to keep writing. Win-Win.


Sincerely,
Adam N. Leonard
http://www.adamleonardauthor.com/

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Adam, one of the things BRBC aims to do is help writers to make informed choices about where they are sending their work. We all have different ideas about what we want and what we are prepared to compromise on.

If all WCP could do for me as an author was edit and provide a cover, I, personally, wouldn't see why I'd bother with that. I could hire an editor myself, hire a cover artist myself and keep a larger percentage of the profits than I would get from them. Unless WCP are actively helping with my promotion - and by that I mean stuff like getting my foot in the door and giving me leads because that's the time consuming bit you don't get paid for - it's no good to me.
That doesn't mean its a bad press, or a scammer, or a clueless fool, or anything else negative. It means it's not what I want.


That they want an author to buy 50 copies of the book in order to get the book into print is a massive red flag.
For a start, 50 copies is not many. If they can't sell 50 copies, they have big problems.
Second, if the author is willing to buy 50 copies, why would WCP go out and TRY to sell the book? Their job as a publisher is to SELL BOOKS. YOUR book. Why would they do that if you will buy it without them doing any work?

There are a lot of presses out there. The bit I don't understand is why you'd go with WCP over a different small press or self-pubbing when they have this desperately skewed business model.

That said, I'm glad your happy and I hope you don't take offence that I'm asking these specific questions. A lot of people don't know anything about publishing (if they did, PA would be out of business). All we try and do here is make sure people understand what they are getting into and help the to sort the normal (they sell books, they pay for editing and cover art) from the abnormal (you have to buy 50 copies of your own book in order to have it put into print). As I said before, I'm not going to praise a publisher for paying for the editing any more than I'm going to praise them for spelling my name right.

I'm a bit mystified as to why an author would sign away print rights if the book has to meet a number of preconditions before the publisher would exercise those rights. If I fell in love with a publisher with this business model, I'd line out the "print rights" clause and return the contract to them -- it just feels like a rights grab to me, with no guarantee your book will ever reach print even if you give WCP the right to print it.

Thoughts on this?

Adam N. Leonard said:

In my case with my book, The Rift Riders, I was very pleased with the editing and cover artwork that was performed by WCP staff. They were nice to work with. That alone is a huge advantage, in my opinion, over some of the self-publishing outfits.

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Please know I'm not trying to be snarky in any way but being "nice to work with" doesn't mean diddly if they can't help you produce a book people want to buy.

I'll them props for the cover but the blurb and sample chapter on the WCP site pinged so many buttons of my inner editor that I wouldn't purchase it despite the interesting premise.

Admittedly this is subjective but I'd advise you to seek out other publishing options as well to help get your name and work out there and to see what others offer their authors.

I was thinking of submitting to Whiskey Creek Press, but since I've read this thread and come across the following report, I've changed my mind. http://reportsonwhiskeycreekpress.blogspot.ca/

Adam, no one is being rude. They're giving you facts and reasons why. If you disagree with either those facts or reasons, I can see why you might think them rude, but the truth is that they're answering you from experience.

We already have a thread on this company.

Another example of the shoddy work ethics prevalent with some small indie publishers.

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That's incorrect, there are plenty of brilliant indie publishers out there (and the bad ones usually have threads here warning other writers).
But you didn't submit to a indie publisher. Going by the linked thread, Whiskey Creek are a print on demand publisher. Independent/small publishers don't take money from you.

You say 'shoddy' but I assume you still have a contract with them? Perhaps you should speak with WCP and clarify the situation before lambasting them in public.

JM2C

Gordon Osmond said:

And maybe you should read my post before commenting. I was offered a contract but, thankfully, don't have one now. And as for speaking with them, lots of luck.

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I did read your post Gordon.

You are currently being very rude, however. One would suggest that, when trying to negotiate with your publisher, that you don't talk to them the way you have spoken to folks here.

I wonder whether there are updates available. I had once been offered a contract, which did not read like a POD, instead like a normal e-book publisher which leaves the door open for a printed copy. In my contract was no such thing as having to buy copies, only if you insisted on having printed copies, you would have to buy them, or you'll wait for them to offer printing on their own dime.
Any news or later experiences?

They are an epublisher primarily. I don't know the basis for their print offerings at this point.