Outer Banks Publishing Group

[aliceshortcake]

The publishing industry is undergoing a paradigm shift that is catastrophic for the industry. The old business models, born out of The Great Depression, and still in use today no longer work with the onset of the new digital printing technologies, social networking, and the Internet.
What it means for you as an author is that your dream of being published by traditional publishing houses is more difficult because the houses can no longer afford to take as many risks with unknown authors.

http://www.outerbankspublishing.com/about/

Take that, o dinosaur publishing industry!

Outer Banks Publishing is the brainchild of one Anthony Policastro. From a 2010 Publisher's Weekly article quoted on the OBP website:

Anthony Policastro, a former business analyst at self-publishing vendor Lulu.com, has launched the Outer Banks Publishing Group, a new publishing venture that will focus on digital publishing and the use of social media to build an audience for POD print releases.

Outer Banks Publishing offers a different model than Lulu.com. Policastro said OBP is not a self-publishing vendor like Lulu, but a hybrid publishing model that combines selective editorial content with new media publishing and promoting platforms. Policastro said he solicits manuscripts like a traditional publisher and is selective about what he publishes. However, OBP does not offer advances. Instead, Policastro says he offers writers the chance to publish their books in e-book format and his experience and expertise in using a wide variety of social media and viral marketing strategies and technologies to promote and market the book online.

http://www.outerbankspublishing.com/what-we-do/

This was hardly a novel approach two years ago, despite OBP's claim that

Outer Banks Publishing Group

is one of the first publishing houses that treat you, the author, as a partner in the promotion and sale of your book.

They offer the usual POD services:

Provide editorial guidance to make your book the best it can be
Actively solicit your input in the design of the cover. After all who knows your book best.
Publish your book as an eBook on various retail eBook sites including the Amazon Kindle
Publish your book as a trade paperback and distribute on Amazon and book retailers internationally if it qualifies.
Set up a Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking site accounts if you do not already have them
Send press releases to appropriate media
Actively market your book in as many channels as possible for maximum exposure

Who provides the 'editorial guidance'? I hope it isn't Mr Policastro himself. He's the author of two novels published by OBP, both of which were found wanting by reviewers on Amazon:

I'm nearly finished this book, but only because I finish things I start. Perhaps it's the English teacher in me, but the abundance of errors in this book is a definite turn-off.

I would highly recommend that this author employ a copyreader. He has a COLLEGE degree in creative writing, but this reads like it might have been his rough draft. Not only does he omit many of the articles (a, an, & the), but he does not follow the rules of paragrahing for dialogue -- you know, start a new paragraph each time the speaker changes.

In addition, I found it laughable that instead of using the correct term for the veins in the neck that drain blood from the head, brain, face and neck and convey it toward the heart which, by the way, is JUGULAR, he used the word "juggler."

If I were grading this as I'd grade a secondary English composition, I'd give it a D -- only upgrading from an F for his effort to produce a book-length document. Having a degree in creative writing may have its merits, but without a thorough editing, attempts at writing come across, in my opinion, as that of an uneducated person.

The English is bad. I don't know how many of you care about bad grammar, but I am put off when a book -for which I paid- contains all sorts of "you're" vs "your", "it's" vs "its" and that kind of mistakes. Example? "You're name must be a magic word like open says me" (literal), or "peddling" instead of "pedaling". Yes, the writing is THIS bad. Same for punctuation. Same for back-references.

Let me run that by you again: "You're name must be a magic word like open says me".

Oh dear.

Outer Banks Publishing Group was created with the same innovative and pioneering spirit displayed by the Wright Brothers who achieved the first flight more than 100 years ago. Hence, the name seems appropriate for what we hope to achieve in the publishing industry.

No more waiting 12 to 18 months for your book to be published and distributed to the marketplace. We can have your book ready for sale in 6 weeks or less.

I'm sure many newbies would jump at the chance of having their book ready for sale in less than six weeks. Personally I'd be terrified - how much 'editorial input' can there possibly be in this time frame?

 

[shaldna]

Sooooo, basically you can get 'published' with these people, who will 'advise' on edit, and then will produce an ebook for you to promote the shit out of Facebook?

Am I right? Because I'm not hearing much about what they will do for you.

As a side note, I think we need to add 'paradigm shift' to our publishing bingo cards because I'm hearing it more and more lately, and it sounds stupid every time.

 

[aliceshortcake]

As a side note, I think we need to add 'paradigm shift' to our publishing bingo cards because I'm hearing it more and more lately, and it sounds stupid every time.

Absolutely. It's the publishing equivalent of the New Agey use of "quantum".

 

[DreamWeaver]

Paradigm shift was a cliche in the 90s. What's next, extolling the virtues of Total Quality Management?

ETA: Open says me? Is this common as a mistaken transliteration of open sesame? 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy. No, that one over there, not the one running a grammar-challenged POD operation...

 

[Filigree]

Oh, dear. I think that excerpt made my brain bleed.