Enspiren Press

Went over their website. Startup. Nothing wrong with that. But...they claim to be a very aggressive marketer on one hand, and then admit that they send out absolutely NO review copies. It's up to you to buy your own books (at a discount) and do this yourself. All marketing, I'm afraid, falls on the author. And I was totally shocked at the list of genres that they DON't take. If they are specializing, then I guess that's good.

Tri

I have to agree. Marketing is difficult for a writer. Some publishing places will at least help you with marketing but for it to rest soley on the writer is tough. I would definitely look around some.

Deana

triceretops said:

Went over their website. Startup. Nothing wrong with that. But...they claim to be a very aggressive marketer on one hand, and then admit that they send out absolutely NO review copies. It's up to you to buy your own books (at a discount) and do this yourself. All marketing, I'm afraid, falls on the author. And I was totally shocked at the list of genres that they DON't take. If they are specializing, then I guess that's good.

Tri

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Reading their guidelines, I'm not sure what they WOULD accept.

Regards,
Scott

It took me awhile to find it, but they are taking romance and all its sub categories, from what I can see. I would have been easier for them to list what they wanted. Hah!

Tri

Unimportant said:

Does Enspiren Pay Advances?
Enspiren is not in a position to advance loans against royalties to authors. However, this frees the author from any legal obligation to repay the loan.

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What the fook!!!!!!

Khazarkhum said:

What the fook!!!!!!

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i dropped them a line asking them where they got that quaint notion. I doubt I'll see a reply. If I do, I'll share.

Regards,
Scott

Unimportant said:

I checked out the Enspiren FAQ. Am I right in seeing these as red flags?

Does Enspiren Pay Advances?
Enspiren is not in a position to advance loans against royalties to authors. However, this frees the author from any legal obligation to repay the loan.

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What if the publisher steals my submission? Many authors worry about publishers stealing their ideas. The best thing to do in this case is to copyright the book before submitting it.

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Yeah, 'cause we all know that is the reason publishers exist. To steal manuscripts.

Oiy. This one be

brianm said:

Yeah, 'cause we all know that is the reason publishers exist. To steal manuscripts.

Oiy. This one be

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I dunno, Brian. This one just might be that crazy manuscript thief we've all heard about.

There's a lot of weird stuff on that website. For example as part of their submission process authors are required to:

Espiren Website:
Send a blurb of the book, and a few links to your websites, myspace, or other places where we can learn a bit about you as a writer.

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How does someone's Myspace page tell them what their writing skills are?

They've also got two PDF submission guideline documents up - one which says they're looking for romance, fantasy and thriller-horror, the other saying that they're not looking for romance, fantasy or horror.

Espiren Website:
if no one knows who the author is, and cannot reach them, or find them on the web, it is very difficult for us to sell the book.

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Really? I'd have thought it would be difficult for you to sell books if you couldn't get them stocked in bookstores. There's no point in my being able to find Joe Bloggs on the web if I can't find his book in my local Borders store.

Espiren Website:
You contract those rights to a publisher for a short time, usually 3 years.

<snip>

After three years, the contract may be broken in 30 days. This is standard.

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Say what now? At least it's a short duration than PA, which takes it for 7 years ...

Espiren Website:
Authors do not receive royalties on copies they purchase.

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Even though in practice, the only way an author will sell books through this company is if they go out and do the actual selling ...

Espiren Website:
We include a kill clause. At any time, for any reason, the author or publisher may cancel the contract.

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Wow. Thanks for that contractual certainty.

Espiren Website:
We do not offer bookstore returns at this time.

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Thereby making it very unlikely any bookstore will agree to store its books.

MM

Enspiren is not in a position to advance loans against royalties to authors. However, this frees the author from any legal obligation to repay the loan.

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This is either naive or they are trying to play off the notion that advances have to be paid back if they don't earn out. Either way, bad publisher! No cookie for you!

Would someone kindly point out where she actually answers this question? By the by, the question should be, "Why do I need to pay to register the copyright?"

http://www.novel-writer.com/Submit-Publisher-FAQ

Why do I need to pay to copyright my book ?

You own the rights to your book.

You contract those rights to a publisher for a short time, usually 3 years. You license the book's production and sales rights to the publisher. Now you no longer have the right to produce and sell the book - even giving away free digital (PDF) copies. The owner of the book rights receives royalties in exchange for those rights, based on the number of books sold.

You can sell author copies or copies purchased at an author's discount. You may put a link on your website to sell copies from our shopping cart.

When the contract is over, Enspiren press can not print any more copies.

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Here's another question for their FAQ section.

"Why aren't you paying to register the copyright?" (Which is the industry norm.)

Publish America doesn't foot the cost either, so I guess they are just following in PA's footsteps? In more ways than one, I fear.

I did get a reply:

The advance is paid back out of the first royalties. It is a loan. Many publishers require that it be paid back. Who publishes your current books? It sounds like you have a good publisher.

Suzanne XXXXX

> To: [email protected]; [email protected]
> Subject: [Admin] Advance=LOAN?????
> From: [email protected]
> Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:51:53 -0600
>
> C. Scott Saylors sent a message using the contact form at
> http://www.novel-writer.com/contact.
>
> Where did you get the quaint notion that an advance on royalties was a
> "loan"? Nowhere in the real industry is it considered a loan. An advance
> on royalties is a carefully calculated estimate on the income for the
> author through the life of the printing of their book.
>
> Only if the author fails to fulfill his contract is the author obligated
> to return any money at all.
>
> If the publisher cancels out, any portion of the advance monies paid
> belong to the author.
>
> Regards,
>
> Scott

I sent back a lengthier note explaining what an advance really is and is not. No reply to that as yet.

i got the reply back in the early AM hours, so I suspect Suzanne is attending to publisher business outside of a day job. That's fine, but it does suggest that the business is ancillary to her livlihood.

Regards,

Scott

Did Kaavya Viswanathan ever pay back the advance? Or OJ Simpson?

If I start thinking about the number of real writers those advances could have bought, I'll get even more depressed than I already am.

Popeyesays said:

I did get a reply:

The advance is paid back out of the first royalties. It is a loan. Many publishers require that it be paid back.

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No. It's so rare that that happens that it's HUGE NEWS when it does. And when it does, it's because of an enormous plagiarism scandal or similar.

Who publishes your current books? It sounds like you have a good publisher.

Suzanne XXXXX

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Sounds like you don't work for a good publisher, Suzanne.

Khazarkhum:
Did Kaavya Viswanathan ever pay back the advance? Or OJ Simpson?

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Didn't the publisher for each accept their books? In which case it would be kind of embarrassing to ask for the cash back.

The only case I can think of where a publisher may have asked for the advance to be returned was the Joan Collins case a few years ago, which I know turned on whether the manuscript she turned in was unpublishable (the court found that it wasn't unpublishable).

Otherwise, yeah, Suzanna clearly doesn't have the first clue about publishing.

MM

The Nanny Diaries girls had to pay back the $3 million advance on their second book. There's a good recap here:

http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/columns/longstory/10330/

Google will give you a lot more in-depth stuff if you're interested--there is a LOT more to the story, lots of gossip--but the "Long Story Short" gives you the gist.

ETA: The fact that it made headlines and spawned articles in New York magazine shows how rarely authors get asked to pay back advances.

It's interesting what you find when you cruise about the Internet. A "happy" PA author is an editor for this company.

http://bookmarket.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=523145:Topic:52192&xn_auth=no

That's terrific to hear that your experience with P.A. is also positive. It really saddens me to hear some of the horrible things writers say about them sometime. For my newest novel, I've been picked up by a new, publisher in Canada called Enspiren Press. They will be putting out my new novel as trade paperback, ebook, and an audio book. You should check them out. I'm now an editor for them. I plan on letting my contract with P.A. expire. Then I will be re-writing the book a little to make it more marketable to women and then I'll submit it to Enspiren Press. I hope your sales with P.A. are excellent. Good luck and keep in touch.

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brianm said:

It's interesting what you find when you cruise about the Internet. A "happy" PA author is an editor for this company.

http://bookmarket.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=523145:Topic:52192&xn_auth=no

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That kind of goes along with my thinking that this outfit is clueless; it appears to be run by people with little or no publishing experience.

The advance is paid back out of the first royalties. It is a loan. Many publishers require that it be paid back.

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I think that she's trying to say, in a rather roundabout way, that you don't get any additional royalties until the advance earns out.