Pandamoon Publishing

so after all that back and forth, they are vanity ? That took a while to come out....

Writerlife2012 said:

I had the pleasure of working through a contract with Pandamoon Publishing. The people there are very friendly and seemed to want to put much emphasis on marketing. We ended up on not signing an agreement, because I just didn't feel comfortable with their expectations on $$$ . What are your thoughts? Shouldn't these be covered by the publisher?


V. COPYRIGHT The Author shall secure US and other appropriate copyright to the work at Authors' expense. Copyright: The author warrants that this work is not currently in the public domain. When this work has been copyrighted, a photo-copy of the copyright registration shall be submitted to the Publisher. It is understood that all rights to print or publish Work in any form do hereby remain the exclusive right of Pandamoon Publishing. The publisher shall to the best of its ability ensure that the copyright notice shall appear in accordance with U.S. Copyright Law, showing the author (or duly assigned representative or entity) as the owner and holder of the copyright to the work.


THIS NEXT PART SCARES ME the most, because it kind of feels like I'm not only committing my time and effort into the book but ALSO $$$:
1. Net Profit is defined as retail/sale price for the Work or portion of the Work less distribution cost, commissions, fees for returns, discounts and fees including credit card transaction fees, plus agreed to production, marketing, printing, and other Fees when applicable. Agreed to Fees directly affect the Royalty percentage in this agreement. If the Author declines any of the stated fees, the Royalty percentage in Clause 1 will be adjusted to reflect that decision. Optional not to exceed costs for Production and/or Marketing may be negotiated at time of this agreement and must be indicated in the areas noted.
2. Agreed to Fees:
a. Commissions, returns, discounts and fees including credit card transaction fees: Required
b. Production: Includes actual cost of editing, cover art, formatting, and printing for the Work to all publication standards, and conversion to each publishing platform. Accept ____________ Not to exceed $ TBD.
c. Marketing: Advertising, Press Relations (PR), and general promotion of the Work. Accept ____________ Not to exceed $ TBD.
d. Printing: Print on demand shipping, handling, and production fees will apply to each book sold. Short or long print run payment will be negotiated at time of commitment. Accept_______________ Decline____________ (Please initial one choice)
e. Other Fees: ______________________________________________________ Accept_______________ Decline____________ (Please initial one choice)

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I signed with them a few months ago and haven't paid a penny. While mine also said "agreed to fees," there were no agreed to fees. We are finished with the substantiative process and almost done with the copy editing. They are also working on the cover now and once again, they are paying for everything. My experience might be different from others but I have become friends with 5 other authors who signed with them and none of them have paid anything either.

Why would they have these terms in their contract then? Confusing, to say the least.

Aren't at least some of those fees related to things that won't happen until the book is ready for sale? Returns, credit card fees, ect?

(Only asking since jacksonbaer mentioned being in the copyediting stage.)

It sounds very much like Hollywood Accounting. I bet it'll turn out there never is any "net profit" for you to get a percentage of.

Royalties should be based on cover price, and should be paid from the first copy sold. Period.

My $0.02 on PandaMoon

Just posting my two cents' worth on PandaMoon. I did not go into deep research on the pub house, but did get a reply from Zara herself when I asked about my particular genre. I just have not had the time to respond to her. The only thing that might concern me would be the editorial capabilities. As far as marketing, I've been published by indie pubs and self published and believe me most publishers no longer front generous marketing budgets. They usually have a few review sites they submit to but these days authors are responsible for getting their own work out there and hustling it themselves even at large pub houses. It's been this way since I first was published in 2009 and doesn't look like it's going to go back to those days. Also they are a new publisher and what I saw on the site looked standard to me. I know what a basic standard contract looks like and have signed them so if anything looks suspicious I'll try to let people know. For me, it might work out since I'm looking for somewhere to place my edgier, non-strictly-genre work. Like I said, it's just my $0.02!

TheWordSlinger said:

As far as marketing, I've been published by indie pubs and self published and believe me most publishers no longer front generous marketing budgets. They usually have a few review sites they submit to but these days authors are responsible for getting their own work out there and hustling it themselves even at large pub houses.

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*waits for the published-by-large-publishing-houses AW regulars to correct this misconception*

TheWordSlinger said:

Just posting my two cents' worth on PandaMoon.

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Next time could you please post in the standard font? That tiny size and the odd colour was impossible for me to read. Thanks.

As far as marketing, I've been published by indie pubs and self published and believe me most publishers no longer front generous marketing budgets. They usually have a few review sites they submit to but these days authors are responsible for getting their own work out there and hustling it themselves even at large pub houses.

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This isn't true.

It's often claimed, but it isn't true.

If this were true, then The Silent Wife could not have become the hit it has, as its author died before it was published. There are plenty of other similar examples.

It's rarely a problem if an author puts on her promo-shoes and gets out there, but it's also not necessarily a problem if she doesn't.

aliceshortcake said:

*waits for the published-by-large-publishing-houses AW regulars to correct this misconception*

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*curtsies*

What Old Hack Said.

This--

TheWordSlinger said:

They usually have a few review sites they submit to but these days authors are responsible for getting their own work out there and hustling it themselves

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--is pretty common with small presses, but it's not the case at the big houses or at larger independents.

I know what a basic standard contract looks like and have signed them so if anything looks suspicious I'll try to let people know.

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I took a look at the contract terms quoted here and they are not standard. Reputable publishers don't charge production costs back to the author, or pay royalties on net profit.

- Victoria

To use a crude metaphor: author promotion is how much you whip the horse and the quality fo the writing is the genetics of the horse. But whole lot more than genes and whipping goes into determining how fast you go.

Pandamoon Publishing Information

Offered for your information, so that this thread has some detail as well as opinion. In the interest of disclosure, I am a publicist contracted for support authors at Pandamoon Publishing. I am also an author under contract with the publisher.

Pandamoon has fifteen contracted authors at this time. I am one. The company has released five books to date, the latest is Southbound by Jason Beem released today (3/31/14). Other include Eightysixed: Life Lessons Learned by Emily Belden, Rogue Alliance by Michelle Bellon, Sitnalta by Alisse Lee Goldenberg and The Earth Bleeds Red by JacksonPaul Baer.

The next books out are The Secret Keepers (April 14, 2014) and Crystal Coast: The Coven (April 30, 2014) both by Chrissy Lessey, Fried Windows (In A Light White Sauce) (May 30, 2014) by Elgon Williams (that's me).

Pandamoon is a small publisher based in Austin, Texas that currently projects released a new book just about every month throughout the next year. Unlike many small publishers there is marketing and promotional assistance as well as substantive and content editing and cover design for each book. Books are distributes through Amazon and other online outlets.

Thought I'd update this thread since Panda Moon has been popping up in my Twitter feed lately. Here're their submission guidelines: http://pandamoonpublishing.com/pandamoon/submissionguidelines.html

Based on a quick perusal, they seem to have a few talented writers and a cool logo. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine.

Curious to hear feedback from the previous posters who have released their work with them.

As with all publishers, you'll want to examine what they're providing against what you're providing or can provide, I think.

If you've worked years on a book, what do you want to happen to it? Do you want the book to be "distributed through Amazon"? Does that mean that someone uploads a file? Heck, you can probably upload a file. You'll need 1) a file and 2) access to the Upload button.

Do you want a pro cover? You can hire that done.
Do you want pro editing? You can hire that done.
Marketing? Hire.

What is it that ANY publisher can do for you that you can't do yourself or don't want to do yourself?

I signed with Tyrus Books for my first book because they're cool people and are great at what they do. I heard from many people across the country "Hey, saw you book at X festival" before the book was available. New York Times review? Yes. Publishers Weekly? Yes. Others? Yes. Tyrus is a small publisher (a large indie?) that is clearly NOT one of the Big Five. Small publishers are great.

The question I asked, which I really think you should ask yourself, is what it is you want from a publishing contract. Can you do those things yourself? Do you want to do those things yourself?

Whatever the case, you can pay to have your book edited and have a pro cover done and have pro marketing done. OR you can go with a professional publishing house that will do those things for you and then send you checks.

I mean, crud, you worked your tail off on your book, probably for years. If you're going to hand it over to anyone -- ANYONE -- you're going to need a good case for why they should have the honor of working with you. You're the creator. You're the maker of things. Be sure you're treated like it.

/rant

I recently signed with Pandamoon. I am early in the process, but so far my experience has been great.

Here is my experience with Pandamoon, for what it's worth.

Last fall, I participated in #pitmad, an event where you pitch your book in a tweet with that hashtag and publishers or agents following are supposed to favorite your tweet if they want to see more. Zara, the owner of Pandamoon, didn't favorite my tweet, but she did follow my feed, so I took that as an invitation to send a query.

In December, I sent in a query to Pandamoon, following the instructions on their website. The next day, I got an invitation to submit my entire manuscript. Well, that was a lot faster than I expected, but OK. Nothing wrong with fast. I sent in the manuscript.

Things were a bit rough for me at this time. My mother had just been admitted to the hospital in serious condition, and she wasn't doing well at all. My wife and I were spending most of our time in the hospital worrying about her. We'd spent a lot of time in the hospital earlier in the year when my wife was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. So, all in all, we were both pretty exhausted. Trying to get my book published was one way for me to cope with everything.

On New Year's Day, I got an email from Zara with an offer for Pandamoon to publish my book. And it wasn't just an email — it was a wildly enthusiastic email, in which Zara went on about how she had decided to jump her queue and read my manuscript instead of books she'd received earlier, and how she had spent all of New Year's Day at home reading my book. And from the details she included, I believed that she had, in fact, read it.

I thought her gushing enthusiasm was a bit over the top, but all things considered, especially with personal things going on at the time, a little gushing enthusiasm felt like a good thing.

We spoke by phone the next week. Zara is an enthusiastic speaker, let me tell you. I barely was able to get a word in edgewise. Nothing wrong with that. Her enthusiasm was infectious. I got quite excited about what Pandamoon was doing, excited to be a part of it.

I thought it odd that, while Zara spoke at length about Pandamoon and herself, she didn't really ask any questions about me and my work at all, other than to see if I had other manuscripts, if my book was part of a series and so on. She asked no personal questions of me at all, not even what I did for a living. Still, that was OK.

She told me that her contracts guy, which is her husband, Allan, would contact me soon to go over the contract. She told me that they would send me the contract as a Word document with track changes turned on so I could make whatever changes I might want to see in the contract. She made a big deal out of wanting me to take my time and be comfortable with the contract.

She told me then that the only non-negotiable element in the contract was that I had to own the copyright to my book, which is perfectly reasonable.

A few days later, Allan sent me an email asking when would be a good time to call so we could talk about contract stuff. I told him I would be free after 7 that evening. Before then, I would be dealing with stuff for Mom in the hospital, although I didn't tell Allan the reason I wouldn't be available until 7.

That evening, Allan called at 6. I was still in the middle of dealing with Mom's stuff, but I broke off to speak with him. As it happened, the conversation was brief, in which he reiterated that he would send me a copy of the contract in Word with track changes on, that I should take my time and they wanted me to be comfortable with the contract.

I figured that Allan had called an hour early just because he thought we were in different time zones or something (both Austin and Columbia are Central). It wasn't a major issue.

I got the contract and read through it. The thing that struck me right away about the contract was that Pandamoon was buying rights for things other than what they needed in order to publish the book, things like film rights, foreign language rights, merchandising and such. From what I've heard in the business, that's often a bad sign. Still, it wasn't like there was a line of publishers or agents beating down my door to publish my work. I figured it would be, at worst, a loss-leader that would help me build my brand, build up an audience, even if the terms weren't all that great. I could live with it.

I did make a few changes in the contract, things I considered minor.

First, I'm a graphic designer, and as such, I had a few ideas about cover design and such. If you've seen the covers of the books Pandamoon has put out, you'll see that, while they aren't bad, they aren't necessarily the best, either. I wanted to put my best foot forward with this book, so I asked to be involved in the cover design process. I didn't demand final approval or anything like that. I just asked to have my ideas considered.

There was also a provision in which the author (me) agreed to make any changes required by the publisher (them). I didn't really care for that. I'm sure it's probably a standard sort of thing, but I did change that language to say that I would consider their required changes.

There was another part of the contract that I asked to have clarified that could have been interpreted to say that Pandamoon would continue to own my book even after the end of the contract.

I sent the proposed changes to Allan. We were negotiating, I thought. Sharing ideas. I figured the worst that could happen would be that they'd say no, they couldn't make those changes. I could live with that, but I had to ask. They had made a big deal about wanting me to be comfortable with the contract, after all.

A few days later, I received an email from Allan which said, "I have reviewed your requested changes with our partners, and we have decided that your request over control and oversight of cover design and editing creates a situation that we cannot agree to. As such, we have decided to retract our offer to extend a contract for your book."

Not a "no, we can't do that." Not a suggestion of how we could do what I asked for better. They went straight to the nuclear option. Apparently, all of Zara's enthusiasm for the book evaporated just because I actually did what they told me I was supposed to do and request changes in the contract, which they were perfectly within their rights to decline.

Let me tell you, this was a blow. Mom was getting better, but things were still difficult. This book offer was pretty much the only bright spot in my life at the time. It kind of helped me to hang on. Having it yanked out from under me hurt, a lot.

In retrospect, I suppose I could see this as dodging a bullet. When you take Zara and Allan's behavior all told into account, I'm thinking that maybe these aren't people I would have been happy to be involved with for a minimum of 3 years. It makes me suspect that they might be less scrupulous than I would have preferred.

I guess we'll never know, though, as they made their decision to dump me without a second thought.

So, that's my story. Take from it what you will.

hendersonl said:

She told me that her contracts guy, which is her husband, Allan, would contact me soon to go over the contract. She told me that they would send me the contract as a Word document with track changes turned on so I could make whatever changes I might want to see in the contract. She made a big deal out of wanting me to take my time and be comfortable with the contract.

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That was encouraging.

I got the contract and read through it. The thing that struck me right away about the contract was that Pandamoon was buying rights for things other than what they needed in order to publish the book, things like film rights, foreign language rights, merchandising and such. From what I've heard in the business, that's often a bad sign. Still, it wasn't like there was a line of publishers or agents beating down my door to publish my work. I figured it would be, at worst, a loss-leader that would help me build my brand, build up an audience, even if the terms weren't all that great. I could live with it.

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It's not good for publishers to grab rights they can't work with--but lots of new and small publishers do it.

In your place I would have requested that this clause be amended, so that the publisher only took the rights they were going to use. It's a basic thing in contract negotiation, and something they should have expected.

I did make a few changes in the contract, things I considered minor.

First, I'm a graphic designer, and as such, I had a few ideas about cover design and such. If you've seen the covers of the books Pandamoon has put out, you'll see that, while they aren't bad, they aren't necessarily the best, either. I wanted to put my best foot forward with this book, so I asked to be involved in the cover design process. I didn't demand final approval or anything like that. I just asked to have my ideas considered.

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I would worry about this, as an editor.

Did you define precisely what consideration you wanted your ideas to have? If not, that could be problematical. I've not looked at Pandamoon's covers lately nor do I know if they have any specific branding or not: but as an editor I would be very reluctant to give most authors any sort of control over the design of their books. With all due respect, very few people understand cover design: even graphic designers don't, if they've not worked in publishing or been mentored by anyone who has.

Without seeing your design work, hendersonl, I wouldn't know if you could do the work or not: and as an editor, I probably wouldn't have time to spend investigating.

There was also a provision in which the author (me) agreed to make any changes required by the publisher (them). I didn't really care for that. I'm sure it's probably a standard sort of thing, but I did change that language to say that I would consider their required changes.

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See, this I DO think is a problem. They should edit your work: but an editor's comments are only ever suggestions, not instructions. If there's ever a conflict over how a book should be edited its author should get the final say. Not the publisher. I think you did right to make this change.

There was another part of the contract that I asked to have clarified that could have been interpreted to say that Pandamoon would continue to own my book even after the end of the contract.

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Again, you did right to ask for clarification.

A few days later, I received an email from Allan which said, "I have reviewed your requested changes with our partners, and we have decided that your request over control and oversight of cover design and editing creates a situation that we cannot agree to. As such, we have decided to retract our offer to extend a contract for your book."

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I agree with them over the cover design issue. However, the editing one? Nope. That should definitely be your say. I think you had a lucky escape there.

Let me tell you, this was a blow. Mom was getting better, but things were still difficult.

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I'm sorry you found their withdrawal upsetting, but I am very glad your mother was improving. I hope you find (or have found) a better publisher for your work.

Thanks for sharing your experience, Hendersonl. Sounds like you may have lucked out, even if it didn't feel like it at the time.

That's a quick turn around, they've had my full MS for 6 weeks.

I briefly considered posting a link to this directly into #adpit, but then I looked at some of the culprits and decided not to bother. I do have a blog post about the dark side of twitter pitches - not, specifically, about Pandamoon, BTW.

http://www.cranehanabooks.com/blog/2014/06/13/twitter-pitches-in-publishing/

stormowl7 said:

I received a request from them during a Twitter pitching contest as well (#AdPit), but after reading everything here, I'm thinking that's not such a good idea

Thank you for everyone's input - I really love and appreciate this forum!

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I would suggest submitting. As I said earlier, I have had a really good experience with Pandamoon thus far, including during contract negotiations (and I'm an attorney).

If anyone has specific questions about Pandamoon, please feel free to PM me.

stormowl7 said:

In their FAQ section, there were two things that basically made me decide not to submit, since it just wasn't what I was looking for (not to mention, reading more negative reviews and comments than positive ones):


"If the book exceeds its projections, then we will consider moving to mass printing and distribution for booksellers nationwide."

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A publisher can't get a distributor to work with them for just one book: distributors don't work that way, they work with all of a publisher's titles. And even if it could, I don't think this publisher would interest a distributor. They usually will only work with publishers which can demonstrate a history of good sales for their print editions, and strong publishing and marketing plans for all of its titles.

&

"Rather than giving our authors an advance on future sales, we invest those funds into strategic marketing tools for the book, thus creating a more profitable and long-term success for all of us."

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Good trade publishers usually manage to both market their books AND pay their authors decent advances. This isn't a reasonable argument, in my view.

Old Hack said:

A publisher can't get a distributor to work with them for just one book: distributors don't work that way, they work with all of a publisher's titles. And even if it could, I don't think this publisher would interest a distributor. They usually will only work with publishers which can demonstrate a history of good sales for their print editions, and strong publishing and marketing plans for all of its titles.

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You're right. That's an impossible plan. It's disturbing that PandaMoon doesn't know it's impossible.

Their understanding of rights and copyrights is likewise amateurish.

Good trade publishers usually manage to both market their books AND pay their authors decent advances. This isn't a reasonable argument, in my view.

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What I hear them saying is that they won't make any significant capital investment in your book. Only if you've already sold enough copies to make it a risk-free proposition will they put in any money of their own -- but since they haven't given you proper distribution from the start, the chances that your sales will reach that level are practically zero.

Upshot: you both fail. PandaMoon's out nothing. You're out your book.

Don't go there.