Does anyone have experience with the publishing company Science Thrillers Media? I can't seem to find anything online about them except for their webpage. Thanks!
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[Publisher] Science Thrillers Media
- Thread starter KVScruggs
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Adding link: http://www.sciencethrillersmedia.com/
Flags all over the place for me, starting with the information page on Hybrid Publishing, which uses a 2014 Forbes article to justify itself and asks this pertinent question: "Reversion rights: do you want to limit the number of years that ScienceThrillers Media can publish your title to less than the industry standard of life of copyright?"
I can't find any information on the people behind this. WAIT. HOLD ON. I WAS TOO EAGER. Found this page with a video of Amy Rogers, the founder and publisher. And the contact tab at the top of the site is actually the Contact & About page that has a long bio of Ms. Rogers. Her first book was published by Diversion Books, the Waxman Literary Agency offshoot that already has a thread on AW. Her second book is being published by Science Thrillers Media.
If I was looking for a publisher, I'd be wary of them because of this language:
She seems to have a lot of enthusiasm and clearly has a very slick website (which is a lot more than most start-ups). I'd still give the company two years before trying them out with my own novel.
ETA: Seems like the publisher was set up in 2014, though the parent site sciencethrillers.com began in 2010. So the seeds of the publishing company have been around for a while, and the company itself seems a direct offshoot of the interest sciencethrillers.com has garnered.
ETA2: She doesn't seem to completely understand trade publishing, as evidenced by this quote about marketing:
That implies that for most authors published by the big publishers, the marketing is up to them, and whether their books sells or fails to sell is also up to them. This is a common self- & hybrid-publishing fallacy.
Flags all over the place for me, starting with the information page on Hybrid Publishing, which uses a 2014 Forbes article to justify itself and asks this pertinent question: "Reversion rights: do you want to limit the number of years that ScienceThrillers Media can publish your title to less than the industry standard of life of copyright?"
I can't find any information on the people behind this. WAIT. HOLD ON. I WAS TOO EAGER. Found this page with a video of Amy Rogers, the founder and publisher. And the contact tab at the top of the site is actually the Contact & About page that has a long bio of Ms. Rogers. Her first book was published by Diversion Books, the Waxman Literary Agency offshoot that already has a thread on AW. Her second book is being published by Science Thrillers Media.
If I was looking for a publisher, I'd be wary of them because of this language:
She seems to have a lot of enthusiasm and clearly has a very slick website (which is a lot more than most start-ups). I'd still give the company two years before trying them out with my own novel.
ETA: Seems like the publisher was set up in 2014, though the parent site sciencethrillers.com began in 2010. So the seeds of the publishing company have been around for a while, and the company itself seems a direct offshoot of the interest sciencethrillers.com has garnered.
ETA2: She doesn't seem to completely understand trade publishing, as evidenced by this quote about marketing:
That implies that for most authors published by the big publishers, the marketing is up to them, and whether their books sells or fails to sell is also up to them. This is a common self- & hybrid-publishing fallacy.
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I published with ScienceThrillers Media November, 2015 and have been very happy with the publisher. The company is still new and growing, but Amy Rogers is committed to publishing quality thrillers with science themes. She offers both hybrid publishing and traditional publishing so that the author can choose how involved he or she wants to be. As with most small presses (and probably the big publishers too), the author shoulders the bulk of marketing, but I was used to that from my first book and it didn't impact my decision to sign on. Communication with the publisher has been great, and I think she put together a great product with tight editing and solid formatting. I would not hesitate to publish with them again. Hope that helps!
According to the standard definition we use here on Absolute Write, that makes STM a vanity press. Not that this means it can't (or didn't) work for you, but that their accepting of both pay-to-play authors and the traditional arrangement means there's possibly a conflict of interest.
This is not true, at least not among reputable publishers.