From Thomas Knowles of Darkstar Books-dot-NET
Gill,
I just wanted to thank you for your posts in defense of
DarkStar Books and Lone Star Publishing on the Absolute Write Water Cooler board, and for your kind words about me as well.
To clarify some of the questions I've seen asked by members of the board:
It has taken us almost two years since we started the
Lone Star Publishing partnership to get to the point of actually doing business—and we’re just now reaching the sustainable chain-reaction point. All we’ve put out so far is a test run for our composition, printing, sales, and shipping process, a limited edition reprint of the first volume of my Texas Ranger series. It proved successful on the limited scale of the test.
We’re actually kicking off real business in March and April 2009 with the publication of Jeff Carroll’s
Being Texan, which will no doubt be the premiere Texana book of 2009, and
NO Quarter,
Robert Asprin’s much-awaited suspense/mystery novel.
We just held a very successful launch party at
ConDFW in Dallas at which we handed out 200 cover flats and other promotional items for these books. This summer, we’re following these books with the new versions of
Darlene Bolesny’s Trail of Darkness and
Rory Harper’s Petrogypsies, and with Steve Banister’s
The St. Charles House, all of which are the first books in planned (and in some cases, already written) series.
Except in the case of the Asprin book, I personally approached each of these authors, made them offers, and scheduled their books for the initial slate for each house.
The offer of the Asprin book, made by and contracted for by Bob while he was still alive, actually accelerated my timetable for launching DarkStar by six to nine months.
Yes, one of our bottlenecks is that we have only one part-time and two full-time editors—and one of them is me. I’ve put my own writing career on hold to do this. That includes one nearly-finished and two partially-finished books in the Texas Ranger series that would sell like hotcakes to their established audience if I only took time to finish them.
We’ll add more directly and contract people as we need them, but not
until we need them, which will not be until after we’ve gotten our first real products to market. This is why we stipulated “no unagented submissions” and “established authors preferred.” We simply do not have the staff at this point to deal with a flood of submissions.
Yes, I’m not totally consistent re: the “agented only” term in the submissions requirements, but I
am consistent re: the timing required by our business plan. We’ve received a number of submissions for both houses, from agented and un-agented authors—some of whom I’ve seen posted in this thread.
We have accepted some submissions, but in each case, I’ve explained to the agents or the authors involved that the timetable for our business plan would prohibit any offer of or consideration of a contract until we’d actually launched the lines and initially marketed our first slate of books. That basically means July 2009 or even later. I repeat—I’ve made that fact
absolutely clear, each and every time, and I’ve told those involved that they’re free to make submission elsewhere while we’re waiting on that point.
I intend to build lasting, mutually-profitable relationships with newer, less established authors, but that is a future projection for our lines—my one priority is to establish our lines and make them profitable.
Something else that may be viewed as an inconsistency is our recruitment policy and the timing of contracts. I’m not going to turn down a project that will help us establish our book lines and substantially enhance our
bottom line.
For instance, at ConDFW, I was graciously offered two books by a top NYT bestseller. We’re presently negotiating contract terms. I will jump a potential bestseller like that to the head of the line above other submissions. If that makes some people unhappy, so be it.
I don’t need these companies to provide my living, but I do need them to show a profit in the next year or so. My partners and I have invested a great deal of time and money and effort in them. We’re doing it out-of-pocket, no outside financing. We could be spending that money on other things, or investing it elsewhere.
We are different from almost any other publisher in a multitude of ways.
One of my partners owns a full-service printing company that has a proven record for producing fine books for other publishers. What this means is that we can call on a full staff of artists, composition and production people, technical staff, administrative, warehousing and shipping, and sales people.
What it also means is that we can print books at cost-plus, even for shorter runs. The printing company’s capabilities include both offset and digital—the latest and best of both. We can afford to print to order—not POD, but to
order for major and independent vendors—at a cost no other publisher can match.
We’ll keep books in print longer, we’ll be able afford to actually pay royalties and pay them on time, and we’ll be able minimize the time between completion by the author and shipping to market by an astounding measure.
We can print and distribute catalogs and other publicity-related materials—such as those cover flats we distributed at ConDFW—for a fraction of the cost that other publishers would pay. We’re looking at a new way to distribute audio books and e-books—I can’t talk about it at the moment, we’re negotiating—that will make Amazon’s Kindle look clunky.
The Lone Star Publishing/B&K Distributing office is housed in the printing company site; it provides a meeting facility, records keeping, physical address, telephone and fax contact, full-time ordering service, and an administrative assistant with a direct line to the partners.
Because DarkStar Books is my own imprint and is associated with B&K Distributing but not with Lone Star Publishing, I set up a separate P.O. Box address and telephone number. We’re not going to rent or build a second office until that line is firmly in the black—that’s simply not in our business plan.
Anyone who wants to check it out can send me mail at the Lone Star Publishing address or call in on the Lone Star Publishing number. If I’m not there, Donna Tinsley will direct you to me.
All royalty and financial statements and monetary disbursements for books from both lines and the distributing company will come from the same accounting firm. I’m not trying to hide anything by using a P.O. Box for DarkStar Books.
Also unlike other publishers, we warehouse and ship our own books. We’ve set up Britton & Knowles Distributing to market our Lone Star and Dark Star products to the smaller chains, independents, and the museum/gift shop markets, and to print/catalog/market products from the other small-press and gaming groups/companies that we’ve been negotiating with.
As for catalog/sales service for sales and distribution to the mega-chains, we’re contracting with the third-largest book distributor in the nation—I’ve done business with them before, and I prefer them to the bigger two distributors. This arrangement has been approved by the big chains at the corporate level. Our books will be on the shelves in Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Borders, Wal-Mart, Target, etc.
Finally ... I’m 53 years old. I sold my first work for money to a children’s magazine when I was 13, kept writing and selling my fiction and nonfiction work even as I grew up and got other jobs—newspaper editor, engineer, teacher, investor, etc. My SF short stories have hit the Nebula recommended list, never actually been nominated. I’m first and foremost a writer, and my sympathies generally lie with other writers. I started Lone Star Publishing and DarkStar Books because, while I’ve written and published critically-acclaimed, award-winning, regionally-bestselling nonfiction books, I’ve been ripped off to some extent by each and every book publisher with which I’ve done business—that includes majors that every writer would recognize. I got to the point where I couldn’t bring myself to send off any more of my books to be exploited by companies that cheated me and mishandled my work. For a while, I pretty much stopped writing because of that.
I didn’t
want to stop writing, so I decided to invest my money and time in a company that would take the publishing business in a new, more efficient, and more honest direction.
While I could afford to simply publish my own books (that distributor I mentioned would distribute to the major vendors, as they have done for me before) at a good return and not bother with anyone else’s work, I want to do the same thing for other good writers and their work as I’m doing for my own. I’m not a starry-eyed altruist, and I intend to make one hell of a profit, but I believe that our new way of doing business will be a plus for anyone who signs on with us.
I’m a professional, have been one for years, and I’m going to continue to act like a professional regardless of the situation. What all this means to writers out there is that I won’t cheat you, I won’t lie to you, and I won’t screw you around. If I don’t like something you write, I’ll tell you flat out, and we’ll either work it out or we won’t. If we don’t, I won’t publish it. It’s that simple.
Best,
Tom Knowles
www.lonestarpublishing.net
www.darkstarbooks.net
www.bkdistributing.net
.While I know that anonymity is something of the norm here, it would be counterproductive and futile in my case to attempt to hide my identity. I'm here to answer/discuss questions you may have about our publishing lines--except for whose book is next on our list to be read and considered for contract or other confidential matters--and the state of the publishing industry in general. I'm not here to advertise, so let me know if I'm out of line in any way.
