[Critique] The Queue

Sounds dodgy to me, too. Two pubs who operate out of the same building?

Shove your dollar bills firmly into the bottom of your pockets and run, I say.

As Ben pointed out, the Queue is a "sister organization" (their term) of Scarletta Press, an indie publisher founded in 2005 that has as yet published only 12 books (that's according to Amazon; its website shows only seven). It did only two or three per year from 2005-7, but appears to be stepping up its production schedule in 2008. It has distribution through PGW.

Without knowing more about the degree of the interrelationship between Scarletta's publishing program and manuscripts selected for "publication award" by the Queue (i.e., what percentage of Scarletta's acquisitions come through the Queue?), it's hard to draw any conclusions. But there is clearly a potential here for conflict of interest, as well as some hefty questions. If Scarletta will publish manuscripts that the Queue has selected for a publication award, what incentive does the Queue have to "help market your manuscript to fellow publishers," as it claims to do? If Scarletta can make acquisitions (and money) through the Queue, how motivated will it be to acquire books submitted through other sources?

Even if Scarletta only acquires some of its books through the Queue, this still seems to edge a bit too close to fee-based publishing for me to be comfortable with it. I'm also concerned about the fact that Scarletta recommends the Queue on its website, but doesn't acknowledge the connection.

- Victoria