I feel a flog coming on ...
Pneuma Springs Website:
At Pneuma Springs we really love books and we are passionate about the authors who write them.
It would help if you were more passionate about selling those books to the book buying public.
Pneuma Springs Website:
When someone buys a book in reality they buy a portion of the life of the author produced in the form of words of a book.
Yes, that's precisely what all of those thousands of people who queued at midnight to buy Harry Potter, Breaking Dawn and Mockingjay were waiting for - the chance to buy a little portion of the lives of J K Rowling, Stephenie Meyer and Suzanne Collins ...
Pneuma Springs Website:
We offer a quality and personal service that is second to none.
Red alert!
Publishing is not a service. It's a consumer-focused business. Authors should never be the customers in this relationship, they should be paid suppliers.
Pneuma Springs Website:
We make the whole publishing process hassle free and plain sailing for you.
Publishing should be hassle free anyway - they pay you for the book, they provide an editor to work with you on polishing the book, they sell the book. If you sell enough copies of the book, you also bonus extra money.
Simple.
Pneuma Springs Website:
because ours is a customised publishing service you retain control over your book and maximize the profit made on sales.
Oh dear. Author control over a book is rarely a good thing (ever read a book by a commercially published author who decided s/he didn't really need their editor any more - cough-LaurelKHamilton-cough?).
And how can you maximise profit on sales if you're having to pay something up front to begin with?
Pneuma Springs Website:
Our standard publishing offer is Package A for high quality manuscripts with evidence of good marketing or promotional plan. The package is absolutely at no cost to author. We publish, manage sales and distribution and pay royalty to author.
So you have to come up with the marketing/promotional plan and in return you get royalties? What's the rate on those royalties? If you've got a marketing/promotion plan that works, why not just self-publish through someone like Lulu and then you can keep everything for yourself?
Pneuma Springs Website:
An alternative to our standard package for manuscripts of high quality but which does not qualify for Package A criteria is Package B at an agreed token fee approximately 15% of initial cost of publishing. This package is a comprehensive, affordable and excellent alternative to high cost of vanity or self publishing. Pneuma Springs Publishing funds the publication and online marketing of new books and in turn anticipates marketing input by her published authors.
What is that "initial cost of publishing"? How is it calculated? Where does the 15% figure come from?
If you're paying to publish, then you are vanity publishing. It doesn't matter how "high quality" your manuscript - the company does not believe that it's worth taking a financial risk on it.
Pneuma Springs Website:
Package C is on offer to authors of high quality manuscript. This package is designed primarily for authors who would like to retain full control beyond publication of work. This package is ideal for Trades or businesses that provide periodicals. With this package you retain your rights, and receive an agreed number of copies in a format, binding and design you specify. If you have written a book that is targeted at a specialised field, and you know where and how to sell, this package could be the answer.
This is straight out pay-to-play publishing. Why would you go with Pneuma Springs when there are hundreds of other companies that could do the same thing - hell, you could go to a local printer and keep your rights (except first publication rights of course - you lose those when you publish).
Pneuma Springs Website:
Submission requirement: (Items 1 - 5 below are required for speedy consideration)
1] What is the genre of your work? (e.g. Academic/Educational, Fiction/Novels, Inspirational & Self development, Short story collection, Theological, Travel, Other non-fiction etc.)
2] Submit an outline or table of contents of entire write-up.
3] Submit 2-3 sample chapters (including chapter 1). 4] If available, provide a brief summary of marketing or promotional plan. 5] Submit your contact information (Name, postal address and telephone number).
Why aren't they supplying the marketing and promotion plan? And who in their right mind makes a decision on 3 chapters alone?
Pneuma Springs Website:
In 2010, Pneuma Springs Publishing launched its own book promotion entity, PublishedBestsellers.com to assist authors with improving their writing, get published and become bestsellers. All our published authors automatically benefit from these initiatives.
Oh really? It looks like it's little more than a blog that does reviews of Pneuma Springs books. That's ... well it's not great promotion really. In fact, it's pretty piss poor.
Pneuma Springs Website:
Being a family run business, having common values gives us an extra sense of purpose and pride - and gives our business a competitive edge. We are continuously working on ways to promote the work of our authors.
Unless those family members worked for commercial publishers, I doubt they've got any competitive edge over other vanity publishing companies. I'm also dubious that they're working on ways to promote their authors given that their submission requirements require authors to have their own marketing plan.
Pneuma Springs Website:
Pneuma Springs is a limited liability company registered in England and Wales, Registration No. 04690406
Yes it is. Pneuma Springs Limited was registered on 7th March 2003 and its registered address is:
7 GROVEHERST ROAD
DARTFORD
DA1 5JD
On a Google search, this seems to be a residential street in Dartford. Pretty nice. Semis seem to go for around the £300k to £350k if anyone's interested.
Of course, the fact that the company's registered office appears to be a domestic address is not a great sign - when they say they're small, they really appear to mean it and this is borne out by the fact that for Companies House purposes, they're relying on the small companies audited accounts exemption, which means it meets at least 2 of the following conditions:
at least two of the following conditions must be met:
- annual turnover must be £5.6 million or less;
- the balance sheet total must be £2.8 million or less;
- the average number of employees must be 50 or fewer.
The company itself seems to be a husband and wife operation. Only 2 directors are listed - Dr Ebenezer Akinpelu and Mrs Oluyomi Akinpelu. Running the names through Google doesn't produce any previous publishing experience.
The story here:
http://www.foreignersinuk.co.uk/our_heroes-born2rule_kevin_konomanyi_makes_it_big_2075.html about Kevin Konomanyi left me feeling ill. Notice how short on actual detail the article is?
The salient ones to note (because it suggests a lot about Pneuma Springs and their business practices) are as follows:
ForeignersInUK Article:
Teenager Konomanyi received an ''undisclosed sum'' for the worldwide rights to 'Born2Rule: Memoirs of Frederick III'.
The best deal that Pneuma Springs offers authors on its website is a royalty paying one. It does not mention paying advances. If it did pay an advance for this, I'd expect to see it in the 2010 accounts (which are due on 31st December). It also says that they're taking worldwide rights - why? They're a UK company, there's nothing to indicate they're able to publish in other territories.
ForeignersInUK Article:
There is even talk of a film version.
Really? Who's talking about it?
ForeignersInUK Article:
his parents sent the story to a leading literary agent in London, who said in an email: ''My advice is that you give this story the time and space it deserves and develop it in a full-length novel, which I'm looking forward to reading...''
Why doesn't the article identify this agent? I can well believe that an agent would give personalised advice like this to a young author (my agent does it), but I'd be more comfortable knowing who the agent is.
ForeignersInUK Article:
Once the manuscript was completed, Kevin sent it to the same literary agent - who signed him on the spot.
Okay. Still no mention of who this agent is though.
ForeignersInUK Article:
Within weeks, the publisher Pneuma Springs Publishing offered him a contract.
Okay, so this is supposed to be a top UK agent. Why are they submitting it to a small self-publishing/vanity press that says it's royalty only?
ForeignersInUK Article:#
The story has also been passed to movie producers, who are ''seriously considering'' adapting it for the big screen.
Again, which producers?
Interestingly, a similarly worded version of this story also appears here:
-
http://www.ashbooks.co.uk/born-2-rule-kevin-konomanyi/ (which appears to be a book review site).
I checked out Kevin Konomanyi's website and there's no mention of his agent there (which you would expect tosee), but he does link to a PR Company - Palamedes PR who designed his website and which appears to charge for a range of services (link here for more details:
http://www.palamedespr.com/Services/). I'd be interested to know whether the author engaged them or whether it was the publisher.
Incidentally, there's a sample of the first chapter on the author's website. Given his age, it's not bad. However it is also obvious that it has not been professionally edited. It's also only 156 pages but the cover price is £8.99. That's a lot of money to pay for so short a book.
There's a certain amount of blog coverage/mention of the book and the deal - but none of those blogs are on my radar or must reads in the book review blogsphere and an obvious question is whether any of those blogs belong to friends/acquaintances of the author or other Pneuma Press authors.
All in all, I admire the lad's enthusiasm and ambition and hope that he keeps going with his writing. However I fear that this book is not going to be the success he obviously expects it to be.
HJW:
This publisher has popped up on the YWO website, a couple of very new members have posted extolling its virtues.
Ah yes. The marketing power of sockpuppets ...
MM
