Prospective Press

[Stytch]

Anyone have any experience with them?

http://prospectivepress.com/

I recently met the publisher at a local book thing and he seemed nice and sane and whatnot. They're out of Winston Salem, NC.

 

[pinkbowvintage]

They seem very small, very niche. I'm not a huge fan of their covers, and their sales rankings aren't great on Amazon.

They may very well be a legit little operation, but I'm not seeing a major reason to submit to them.

 

[mrsmig]

Also not seeing any information about who's running the press. Information on the principals' education and background in publishing is always helpful. If that information isn't readily available on the site, it usually means the principals don't have any experience or education in the field that merits mention.

I'm guessing that the publisher Stytch met is Jason T. Graves, who edits their anthologies and is also one of their authors. (LinkedIn confirms this, and his resume there reflects no publishing experience beyond that of Prospective Press.)

I agree with pinkbowvintage that their covers aren't great, and it doesn't look as if they have any brick-and-mortar presence beyond a couple of small shops in North Carolina.

 

[zmethos]

I'm with pinkbowvillage and mrsmig. While I think it's nice they at least have a couple local shops willing to stock their books, that won't do much to spread an author's name and work. The covers aren't great, and I also wondered why there wasn't more on the site about WHO, exactly, ran the place. If they had relevant backgrounds worth mentioning, they almost certainly would do so.

 

[frimble3]

Why are the staff so shy about mentioning their names? Does it hide the press being a one-man operation, or that the 'staff' is the authors wearing different hats?

Also, 'Prospective Press' is another badly-named outfit - if even there was something that sounded like a placeholder name for 'actual business coming soon', 'Prospective' is it. Or, cool name for a publisher of mining tales.

 

[Gillhoughly]

Pass.

The covers scream amateur hour, which is more than enough to put off readers. I did not see a single one that made me want to look inside.

A Sept. 9 release is selling in hardcover for 38 bucks, which is ridiculous. No reviews, figure no review copies were ever sent. That's marketing 101 and they dropped the ball there.

In publishing you start at the top, not the bottom, subbing to the biggest houses on Publishers Row first and working your way down. Long before you get to a tiny outfit like this you may have a contract with a place that can pay an actual advance and has a handle on marketing and promotion.

Verdict? Don't waste your time. They have some growing to do.

 

[NinjaFingers]

I can say they're legit, I sold a short to one of their anthologies and Jason treated me very well.

For a novel, they can't really offer much more than you can do yourself.