[ePub] Thought Catalog

[metamemoir]

I am going to submit a short story to the website "Thought Catalog" which just started publishing eBooks last fall. They have about a dozen titles out. One made Kindle Singles and is doing very well (ranked #1,000 for the Kindle store). The rest rank about #40,000 to #300,000 in the sales for all of Amazon Kindle store.

I really have no idea what the services they offer would be or what their cut from the royalties would be (I'm assuming 20%, so I would end up with 50% vs. 70% if I just self-pubbed...I think that's what some of the other ones I've read about do, although these other ones seem to offer more services? idk...). Basically, the main appeal of e-publishing through Thought Catalog would be the exposure as the eBook will be listed on their eBooks page which again only has about a dozen titles at this point so not very cluttered.

What are some things I should be thinking about in making my decision?

 

[Thedrellum]

Do you mean this Thought Catalog?

http://thoughtcatalog.com/

From only a quick view of their site, I noticed two things. The first is that they seem to only publish non-fiction, so a short story wouldn't be acceptable to them. The second is this:

1.In exchange for our providing you with this platform for expression and with potential exposure to users of the site, all of which you agree is valuable consideration, you grant us a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, publish, reproduce, modify, adapt, license, sublicense, distribute, sell, perform, translate, and display the Content (including any drawings, images, sounds, video recordings, or other data embedded in the Content and including adaptations or derivative works based on the Content) for any purpose and in any manner or medium (now existing or hereafter developed) (the “Rights”). All Rights granted to us pursuant to this Agreement are irrevocable and vest immediately upon publication of your Content at www.thoughtcatalog.com. You will retain ownership of the copyright in the Content, subject to the rights granted to TEC in this Agreement. However, if you decide to republish the Content elsewhere, you agree to include the following disclosure: “Originally published by Thought Catalog at www.thoughtcatalog.com.”

That seems to be a sort of rights grab. It's non-exclusive, of course, but by publishing with them you are allowing them to do whatever they want with your work whenever they want to. If I understand it correctly (and I'm not saying I do), they can not pay you and then, at some point, charge for some iteration of your work and you would receive nothing.

That is significantly different than what most literary magazines (or e-zines) claim about a published work.

 

[metamemoir]

thanks good points, but I am submitting to the eBooks collection, not their regular site, although the eBook imprint submission page does not have a terms page a.t.m.

 

[CaoPaux]

"Long Reads & Digital Books" page: http://thoughtcatalog.com/ebooks/

 

[Weirdmage]

"Long Reads & Digital Books" page: http://thoughtcatalog.com/ebooks/

I looked at that. From the covers it looks like a series of non-fiction books, but one of them is a novelette, and a couple of other are clearly fiction from their descriptions. But it's really hard to tell with some of them. I would be a bit skeptical of submitting to them, as it doesn't seem like they seperate fiction from non-fiction in the way they present them. Anyone who scrolled down looking at the covers, would think it was all non-fiction.

ETA: I didn't read the description on the first book at once. Now that I did, I am not sure if it's fiction or non-fiction. The thr first part of the description comes right out of a novel's cover copy...the second half makes it out to be non-ficton. I have the same problem with other descriptions there. As an author, I would see that as a marketing problem. As a reader, I wouldn't buy any of the books, I like to be certain of what I was actually buying.