We have not censored or asked any author not to post or to delete any post.
Post #29 on page two of this thread has been deleted. The original poster deleted it and the reason they gave for that deletion is "
Requested by publisher".
A new author came on here and made some incorrect statements and you all pounced on him like a pack of piranhas. That is probably why he deleted his posts.
It's always so professional to make
ad hominem attacks, don't you think? It shows one up in such a good light.
Heh.
A second person has deleted his comments in this thread but much of those deleted comments appear as quotes in other people's posts. I see no "pouncing" in response to his comments: but I do see that he had a hard time accepting it when his opinions were shown to be wrong.
What various things have we got wrong?
All sorts of things.
How do we not have proper distribution? You can order our books worldwide through Ingrams. We have never claimed to be mass market.
"Mass market" is a format, not a distribution issue.*
Distribution, in the book trade sense, means that you have a full-service distributor working for you. This would involve you having a strong marketing plan and a budget to match (I know this doesn't seem like much to do with distribution but it's a requirement for most distributors, so worth including); having a sales force (both on the road and a telesales team) actively selling your books into bookshops; and having stock of all your titles held at that distributor so that they can deliver your books within 24 hours of ordering. You can expect to sell your books at 55-60% discount off cover price through your distributor, and will have to offer sale or return.
You don't do any of these things.
Your books being available through Ingrams doesn't mean you have proper distribution: it just means your books probably have ISBNs on them. It's completely different, and it's worrying when a publisher doesn't know this.
Where have we claimed not to use POD? We are not ashamed to use new technology!
No one has said that one should be ashamed about using new technology and it's disingenuous of you to imply otherwise.
Earlier in this thread Domoviye wrote:
They also have a fast turnaround rate novels, much faster than the market average.
Offset takes time and one has to book one's printing slot months in advance to get a good price, so your fast turnaround implies that you use digital printing: but then one of your authors wrote,
The Severed Press is not POD.
However, now you've confirmed that you do work on a POD business model, which is another indication that you are not going to sell many copies of the books that you publish.
Digital printing has a high unit cost. This high unit cost means that you can either sell your book at a reasonable cover price, or you can sell your book at the discounts that distributors and good booksellers will demand; but you can't do both. And that makes it impossible for you to have full distribution, or to get your books into enough bookshops to sell a decent number of copies.
Not only does digital printing come out very expensive per copy, when it's used in conjunction with a POD business model it means that you have long delivery times--often a week or two, sometimes longer--as the books have to be printed and bound to order. This is another clear indication that you don't have full distribution (a week-long delay on supplying copies is obviously not compatible with 24-hour delivery), and so won't sell many copies.
We understand royalties just fine. We choose not to discuss them publicly.
But you have discussed them publicly: you've mentioned them in this very thread.
My claim that you "[don't] understand how royalties work or know what standard royalties are" stems directly from your posts in this thread. Earlier you wrote,
We treat our authors very fairly and have industry standard royalty rates.
Soon after, you wrote,
Our royalties are more than double what you would get from the big 6.
It's impossible for you to pay "industry standard royalty rates" while simultaneously paying royalties which are "more than double what you would get from the big 6". When this was pointed out to you you wrote,
We do pay industry standard rates that are probably a little higher and in some cases a little lower than other small presses. As for my statement about it being double what a big publisher would give...going by James D's statement on what he receives, then I was misinformed by what I had read elsewhere and I will happily retract that statement.
You agreed right there that you didn't know what standard royalties were.
My suggestion that you don't know how royalties work came from this post:
The author I spoke with said your ebooks rates were much lower than the standard 40% most epublishers offer. He said your ebook and print royalties are the same.
It's very odd for a writer to be offered the same royalty for electronic and print editions, and if this is true it's another point against you.
This is not a debate it is more like a series of trolls.
If you're not happy with any of the posts in this thread then you're welcome to use the "report post" button, to bring it to the attention of the appropriate moderators. (The "report post" button is the red triangle with an exclamation mark inside it.)
But please recognise that asking reasonable questions and providing informed and polite opinion is not at all the same as trolling. I understand that this thread must be difficult for you; but that doesn't mean that it's inappropriate for us to ask our questions or offer our opinions.
And still not one post from any author who has had a negative experience with us.
Yes, there was a post from an author who has had a negative experience with you. It's the one I referred to earlier, from the member who has since deleted his post apparently on the request of the publisher--you.
Okay this is going to be the last time I post here...again.
Ahem:
Okay, this will be the last time I post on this forum as I don't want this to become something it is not.
[...]
That is me over and out. THX
Are you sure about that?
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* It's been pointed out to me that while mass market books are usually a specific size and therefore a specific format, mass market is at its heart a distribution issue, as mass market books are designed to be stripped rather than returned. Sorry for the confusion.