Old Hack, out of curiosity, what concerns you about them signing a lot of authors? I have noticed that, as well, and just chalked it up to them growing very quickly, since they were bought out by Anthony Ziccardi (formerly of Simon & Schuster) and they are looking to expand into sci-fi and other types of horror. They seem on the level, and all the authors I've spoken to are very happy with them. I'd be interested to hear your concerns.
I don't doubt that Mr Ziccardi has professional publishing experience: but both good and bad publishers suffer because of under-capitalisation and too-rapid growth.
Permuted is a small press, but I've heard from quite a few authors who have apparently been offered multi-book deals by them in the last few months.
This means they're expanding rapidly, and rapid expansion is very difficult for businesses to accommodate--especially for small publishers.
It costs a lot to bring a book to market, and that cost has to be covered until the book(s) start to sell, which can take upwards of eighteen months or more. With a multi-book deal, those costs are going to stretched out over even longer before they show a return on investment.
Under-capitalisation kills many new publishers, even if their books are great and sell well once they're published. Once they get into debt, they often can't catch up with themselves.
On top of that profit margins are small in trade publishing, so even when the books start to sell well there's not a large buffer of cash to pay for future expansion, or to cover the costs of debts incurred while waiting for books to reach the market.
I wish them well, and hope they thrive. But I've seen plenty of new publishers take on more than they could cope with, and fail as a result. So I'm cautious.