MP Publishing

[ButtonMan88]

Hi.

Can anyone share their experiences or knowledge about any up-or-downs with MP Publishing (USA).

http://mppublishingusa.com/

What I do know is that he house was started in 2008 in the Isle Of Man specifically for digital editions but seems to have bigger ambitions. Pat Walsh (frmly of McAdam/Cage in SanFran appears to be their point man in the USA. That's positive if true. However, there's a dearth of info on them both here at AW, over at P&E and generally online.

Anyone shed more light on them for me?

Regards
Buttonman88

 

[Undercover]

Yeah, I would like to hear more about them too. They look promising. I wonder if they pay advances. Their covers are really nice.

 

[dale hollin]

i sent them a sub last week. their guidelines don't specify word count, and what i sent them was a novella. not sure if they accept anything but novels. i haven't received any kind of response yet, but i didn't expect one for at least a couple months.

 

[Undercover]

What was your word count?

 

[dale hollin]

21,500

 

[justbishop]

I'm interested to know whether they want novella length stuff. I'd sub them my 24k word YA contemporary piece.

ETA: Emailed to ask before I submit.

 

[Undercover]

Yeah, they definitely take YA cause some of their books are with teen characters. I am interested too. I sent them a few questions regarding royalty and advances, if so.

No reply yet.

 

[justbishop]

Just got an email back saying yes, please submit

ETA: I did email asking for clarification on this, though:

For electronic submissions, please include a brief synopsis, author bio, and preferred mailing address in the body of the message (no more than 180 words, please).

A synopsis, bio, and mailing address in 180 words or less? o.0

 

[triceretops]

Anyone know offhand if they carry distribution or furnish an advance?

I can't find genre or word length preferences on their site.

tri

 

[Undercover]

Yeah, I emailed and asked, yes, they pay advances and have Publishers Group West as their distribution. They do hardcovers too for those who like that, (i do.)

I am having trouble submitting. I don't know if it went through or not. When you guys submit, do you get a confirmation email?

 

[triceretops]

Much thanks for the reply, undercover. That is really nice to know. Can't figure out how this one slipped past me.

I'll try a sub and see what happens.

tri

 

[justbishop]

Yeah, I emailed and asked, yes, they pay advances and have Publishers Group West as their distribution. They do hardcovers too for those who like that, (i do.)

I am having trouble submitting. I don't know if it went through or not. When you guys submit, do you get a confirmation email?

Did you actually fit a synopsis, bio, and mailing address into 180 words?

 

[Undercover]

Forget it, I got it to work. I don't think I uploaded it the first time.

 

[Undercover]

Yeah, I know. I don't know how this one slipped by me either. This sounds very promising. I'm glad I stumbled upon it. It pays to do a lot of research.

And yes, Just B, I was able to squeeze more word count on it. I think my total query with bio is about 350 and it took.

 

[triceretops]

The specified file Girl They Sold to the Moon--Chris Stevenson.doc could not be uploaded. The file is 1.58 MB exceeding the maximum file size of 800 KB.

Now, from the above warning box, after submitting, I'm thinking my full YA manuscript is too large? Is that what I'm reading here? My book runs about 68,500 words. Is this only for novella length or shorter?

Very odd.

tri

 

[justbishop]

Yeah, I know. I don't know how this one slipped by me either. This sounds very promising. I'm glad I stumbled upon it. It pays to do a lot of research.

And yes, Just B, I was able to squeeze more word count on it. I think my total query with bio is about 350 and it took.

Hmmm. I might try before I get a reply on my question about it.

 

[Undercover]

I don't know, Tri. I was having trouble too. I think I saw something about it taking .rtf too. Maybe change the file form? If worse comes to worse, I would contact them and tell them you are having trouble. I emailed them with questions and they got back to me the same day.

Good luck to you both!

 

[amergina]

The specified file Girl They Sold to the Moon--Chris Stevenson.doc could not be uploaded. The file is 1.58 MB exceeding the maximum file size of 800 KB.

Now, from the above warning box, after submitting, I'm thinking my full YA manuscript is too large? Is that what I'm reading here? My book runs about 68,500 words. Is this only for novella length or shorter?

Very odd.

tri

1.58 MB is kind of large for what is essentially a text file. The .doc file for the final published version of my manuscript is only 688 K, and it clocks in at about 70,000 words.

I'd try saving your manuscript as a .doc (rather than .docx) or an .rtf file and see if that reduces the file size.

 

[triceretops]

I might try the rtf version in single. But anyway I tried, I couldn't get it to load for a MS Doc file--way too large.

I did send them a message via the contact form.

tri

 

[justbishop]

I don't know, Tri. I was having trouble too. I think I saw something about it taking .rtf too. Maybe change the file form? If worse comes to worse, I would contact them and tell them you are having trouble. I emailed them with questions and they got back to me the same day.

Good luck to you both!

Thanks, you too!

 

[triceretops]

Ack. Complete submission failures in all modes and formats.

When I copied an 805kb file and made a new document out of it, retitled it and formatted to single space, it knocked it up to 1.58 mgs. How is that even possible? Is it counting all those blank pages that got added when I single-spaced it? The RTF version is the same huge length.

And I 800 kb is pretty darn small to begin with, eh?

I'll see if I can arrange another format option when they contact me.

Tri--the most tech-stupid individual at AW.

 

[Undercover]

Or you can just wait and see what they say. You might be able to just email them directly if they allow it.

 

[ButtonMan88]

Wow. So many jump-ons for this thread, more than I might have expected. Thanks so much to everyone who contributed thusfar. I note that we all seem to be currently engaged in some form of submissions with MP Publishing. Would be great to get the perspective of someone who got to contract stage or further with them in the past.

FYI: I submitted a partial via their online submissions form here:

http://mppublishingusa.com/content/submission-form

back in Feb 2012. I didn't send the full MS as requested because I'd not a lot of info about them to go on so I just sent a partial. After that, I heard nothing more.

Then in Dec 2012 I got an email from an editor who'd come on board in Oct who asked if I would be happy to send in the full MS. She seems to be trying to reignite the acquisitions process there and obviously went though the slushpile that had been stagnating for god knows how long.

Her twitter handle is @MSatris if you want to contact her that way.

Here's hoping we get a more rounded picture of them as a potential publishing partner in the coming weeks.

Later.
Mike

 

[Undercover]

Thanks, Mike. That's an awefully long time to hear back. I do hope you get good news back. Let us know how it goes.

 

[Filigree]

Tri, last year I had problems sending a sub to an e-publisher. Turned out that I needed to 'accept all changes' in the document to trim all my changed sections. Once I did that, the file was much smaller.