[ePub] Verb Noire

Hmm. A start-up epublishing company run by people with no industry experience, that has yet to release a book as far as I can see. That's not a lot to have heard of.

I suspect this publisher effectively does not exist?

Also: http://community.livejournal.com/verb_noire/11835.html -- is informative.

I wouldn't give them a second look, having followed the principals online for several years.

They're doing raw text dumps from word processor files. They have no distribution worth looking at, and it's POD.

They've successfully managed to disenfranchise and abuse some of the people I most admire in SF publishing.

Verb Noire was formed due to the events of RaceFail '09, so expect some heated opinions in both for and against directions. If you're worried about all that, you can Google it and make up your own mind.

From a business point of view, it'd be wise to wait and see what happens with the first book release.

Technically they already had that, the book then had to be withdrawn and one of the two co-owners left as a result.... I have never heard of them before but they are not looking like a thriving viable press.

Just look at the cover art; it pretty much says it all.

Hmmm google reveals a bunch of posts with chipin counters. I wonder where that 10K has gone?
http://ellen-datlow.livejournal.com/167766.html

The community seems to have gone very quiet and the founder/editor? blog does not make any mention of verb noire. Half the links on the website don't appear to work. The editor's bio is not the kind of thing I want to be reading if I was looking for a publishing house.

As with any other publisher, start-up or not: Have you personally read anything they've published? Has anyone you know read anything they've published?

I agree with what others have said. It seems they started with good intentions and no experience-- and never really managed to do anything with it. Particularly as an e-pub, I would think they would have managed to have at least a couple of books available. (Barring the now discontinued anthology-- all they have is a single novella.)

para said:

Hmmm google reveals a bunch of posts with chipin counters. I wonder where that 10K has gone?
http://ellen-datlow.livejournal.com/167766.html

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Interesting question, I wonder as well.

Their categories strike me as a sign of taking on too much as well-- 4 different genres, plus YA, poetry, and nonfic. That's a lot to manage, even if one has experience in all of those genres (which doesn't seem to be the case here).

Most ebook publishers don't stick to a single genre. Even the erotic romance only publishers issue a broad spectrum of material under that umbrella category.

To quote the book Melody Music of India, they came on the scene like a meteor and disappeared also like a meteor. Another edifying lesson in why "publisher" is not an entry-level position.

michael_b said:

Most ebook publishers don't stick to a single genre. Even the erotic romance only publishers issue a broad spectrum of material under that umbrella category.

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Point taken. Though I'll add that as far as I know, YA does not do well at all in e-book format. Feel free to correct me on that if I'm wrong.

YA books are still primarily sold to libraries, so, no, not so much with the ebooks.

polleekin said:

Point taken. Though I'll add that as far as I know, YA does not do well at all in e-book format. Feel free to correct me on that if I'm wrong.

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I have no experience regarding YA at all as author or publisher so I can't offer any statistics on YA ebook sales. I know there are quite a number of ebook publishers who do sell YA. I can't imagine they'd take on YA books if none of them ever sold well enough to justify the cost of production.

Verb Noire can still bounce back from its Nov. '09 setback. It had a lot of buzz and support after RaceFail '09.

It's due to put out Kelly Jennings' Martin's War early this year, btw.

BlankFail support can be fickle. Especially once you have sunk $10,000 into it with no obvious results. But I suppose we shall see.