Behler Publications

Would that mean distribution into Canada (i.e. Chapters-Indigo-Coles)? It's a moot point, since I'm Canadian and can't submit (wahhhh!) but American authors might be curious.

Yes, Chumpie, it means Canadian distribution, and because of this, we're considering opening up queries to our northern cousins.

mdin said:

Lynn Price, the owner of Behler is a semi-regular contributor to this forum. A few of their authors post here, too.

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As he himself seems not to have posted in this thread, I will for him: Ray Wong (aka Maestrowork) had his first novel published by Behler. I have a copy, have read it, and found both it and the quality of the physical publication very good.

Now he owes me a beer.

priceless1 said:

Yes, Chumpie, it means Canadian distribution, and because of this, we're considering opening up queries to our northern cousins.

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OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY!

blacbird said:

As he himself seems not to have posted in this thread, I will for him: Ray Wong (aka Maestrowork) had his first novel published by Behler. I have a copy, have read it, and found both it and the quality of the physical publication very good.

Now he owes me a beer.

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I also have an autographed copy which I won online and enjoyed very much, then I dropped it in a puddle and freaked out but it was okay. Especially Ray's signature!

Congratulations, Lynn, on "taking your first step into a larger world!"

(Shoot up a big red flare if you ever decide to start publishing fantasy novels!)

Lynn, that's fabulous news. I'm so glad: for you, for Behler, and for your authors. Yay!

They want us to come back to Minnesota Jan. 17 and meet the gang and sales teams. My thoughts (being a S. Californian) "WHAT? You're hovering at -3 and have mounds of snow!" Gah.

"They want us to come back to Minnesota Jan. 17 and meet the gang and sales teams. My thoughts (being a S. Californian) "WHAT? You're hovering at -3 and have mounds of snow!" Gah."

Reminds me of a friend of mine, who has to attend an industrial trade show each year in January in Chicago. I'm assuming their industrial trade organization gets excellent rates on venue space and hotels. He lives in Texas and just doesn't handle blizzards well.

priceless1 said:

They want us to come back to Minnesota Jan. 17 and meet the gang and sales teams. My thoughts (being a S. Californian) "WHAT? You're hovering at -3 and have mounds of snow!" Gah.

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Oh, come on. I grew up there. Minus 3 is T-shirt weather.

Sounds like Consortium is in the Keg House in the Northeast Minneapolis Art District. Could be a fun visit.

T, with all that snow and freezing air, no way will we be doing any touristy stuff. We'll be in and out. Now, their sales meetings in New York is a whole other batch of cookies...

priceless1 said:

Now, their sales meetings in New York is a whole other batch of cookies...

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These days, wouldn't that be cupcakes?

Hi everyone. Lynn recently requested a partial from me. (Yes, I'm blushing. Yes, I admit to my BP crush. And yes, I'm praying she makes it past the proposal to the stunning sample chapters).

However, I admit I'm torturing myself with anxiety as I wait for a response.

This morning, while playing Connect Four with my daughter, she looked at me and asked, "Abba, why do you keep biting your nails?"

"I'm nervous."

"Why? It's just a game, Abba. Don't be nervous."

"No sweetie, I just sent a part of my book to a publisher I like, and I'm anxious to hear back from her."

"To see if she likes it?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you email her and ask if she likes it?"

"No," I said, grinning, "you can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because then her beagle will eat my pages."

She looked at me, seemed to accept the explanation as reasonable, and then went on to defeat me.

In other words: does anyone know how long Lynn takes to respond to a partial?

My daughter thanks you.

The Troubadour said:

Hi everyone. Lynn recently requested a partial from me. (Yes, I'm blushing. Yes, I admit to my BP crush. And yes, I'm praying she makes it past the proposal to the stunning sample chapters).

However, I admit I'm torturing myself with anxiety as I wait for a response.

This morning, while playing Connect Four with my daughter, she looked at me and asked, "Abba, why do you keep biting your nails?"

"I'm nervous."

"Why? It's just a game, Abba. Don't be nervous."

"No sweetie, I just sent a part of my book to a publisher I like, and I'm anxious to hear back from her."

"To see if she likes it?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you email her and ask if she likes it?"

"No," I said, grinning, "you can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because then her beagle will eat my pages."

She looked at me, seemed to accept the explanation as reasonable, and then went on to defeat me.

In other words: does anyone know how long Lynn takes to respond to a partial?

My daughter thanks you.

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Hi, The Troubadour!

Hang in there and hand your daughter the Monopoly set (although, I'm a particular fan of cribbage is she's ready for it). Behler's response time is three months (give or take) at the moment.

Good luck!

GB.

The Troubadour said:

Hi everyone. Lynn recently requested a partial from me. (Yes, I'm blushing. Yes, I admit to my BP crush. And yes, I'm praying she makes it past the proposal to the stunning sample chapters).

However, I admit I'm torturing myself with anxiety as I wait for a response.

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The real question is, are you going to be one of those unfortunate queries she rants about on her blog, and makes into...oh, no...An Example?

Just kidding. She knows her business and is a real sweetheart. Well, if you pay attention to the query instructions, that is.

Hi Giant Baby. My daughter actually loves Monopoly—perhaps we'll break it out. And thanks for the info. Three months response after a partial request. Okay. Got it.

And a blog example, tbrosz? I keep checking, and haven't been made famous yet. So all is clear on the beagle front so far.

Had a really unprofessional exchange with Lynn at Behler today. This is my first dealing with this company, and I will never recommend these people to anyone despite the cheery posts previous here.

I read the submission guidelines on their site: http://behlerpublications.com/submissions.shtml. It lists some fiction they don't want and mentions a focus on non-fiction now. So I sent them a quick query to see if they might be interested in my novel since it wasn't any of the types listed that they don't want.

I got this reply from Lynn Price:

"It’s always a good idea to visit the publisher’s website – we haven’t accepted fiction for over two years. Best of luck to you."


Weird... I did and read it thoroughly. Okay, so I sent a message back saying thanks and that they might want to update that on their submission page. Lynn Price then quickly wrote back:

"You're right - they probably aren't clear enough:


PLEASE READ THESE GUIDELINES CAREFULLY -
WE PUBLISH NONFICTION ONLY. ALL FICTION QUERIES WILL BE EATEN BY THE BEAGLE


The first paragraph of our guidelines. http://behlerblog.com/submissions-guidelines/


Excellence in memoir/biography
On our About Us page. http://behlerpublications.com/about.shtml



Lastly, I mistook you for a professional. Given your behavior, I can see I was in error. Again, my mistake."

Wow.

Apparently they have a blog, too, that I a) was not aware of even though I read the site and b) can't access. My main source of Internet comes from my work, and a lot of frivolous, profane sites are blocked.

As we all know, professionalism is either saying, "thanks, but no thanks" or nothing at all. Lynn Price is apparently incapable of this. Pass on this company, IMHO.

Update: I'm currently embroiled in quite the heated e-mail exchange with Lynn Price now. I'll post the details after it's over. It's pretty much me asking why she's angry and that I just made a suggestion and her flinging insults at me. Funny stuff! We've got a psycho here, folks. Stay tuned.

CaoPaux said:

Uh huh. Just be aware that you're approaching this from a position of poor reading comprehension, and others may interpret the exchange differently.

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Also? There's the whole thing about not responding to form letter rejections. Doing that right there is, in and of itself, often considered to be a sign of lack of professionalism.

The blog submissions page is very clear about being non-fiction only, but it looks like the main website is out-of-date. The main website submission page says they don't take genre fiction, and that they're concentrating on non-fiction stories. I'd have also read it as meaning they occasionally take on a compatible fiction project (as long as it's not genre fiction and it's above a certain word count).

I don't know who said what in the private exchange... but I can see why it'd confuse people.

Polenth said:

The blog submissions page is very clear about being non-fiction only, but it looks like the main website is out-of-date. The main website submission page says they don't take genre fiction, and that they're concentrating on non-fiction stories. I'd have also read it as meaning they occasionally take on a compatible fiction project (as long as it's not genre fiction and it's above a certain word count).

I don't know who said what in the private exchange... but I can see why it'd confuse people.

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The first submissions page linked to above doesn't seem to be accessible from the Behler site. When you click 'Submissions' on the home page, it goes to the Submissions page on the blog. It might be a rogue page that someone forgot to remove from the server and can now be accessed only via a search engine. So, yes, someone at Behler needs to look into and take care of that.

But arguing with a form rejection letter is just never ever a good idea.

spentastico said:

Update: I'm currently embroiled in quite the heated e-mail exchange with Lynn Price now. I'll post the details after it's over. It's pretty much me asking why she's angry and that I just made a suggestion and her flinging insults at me. Funny stuff! We've got a psycho here, folks. Stay tuned.

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Free advice - you're not coming across as mature in this post. In fact you're looking like a whiny little kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Psycho" isn't a good word to be using. If you continue to post you might want to tone back the hysteria and be as professional as you can be.

Others read these posts. Other publishers, agents and they might not want to enter into a relationship with an immature author bleating across the 'net.

Just my two cents.

spentastico said:

As we all know, professionalism is either saying, "thanks, but no thanks" or nothing at all. Lynn Price is apparently incapable of this.

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It's true, the submissions page you linked to could be clearer. But getting involved in a "heated e-mail exchange" and calling a publisher a psycho probably isn't the best way to go about taking the high ground.