Satya House Publications

[Raleigh]

Priceless,

How about Satya House Publications--are they POD also? Thinking about submitting to them. What's the little guy supposed to do?

 

[Raleigh]

Does anyone know anything about them?

 

[Raleigh]

Does anyone know anything about these guys? Thinking about sending them a proposal.

 

[batgirl]

Website: http://www.satyahouse.com/

Some press releases here. On the good side, the website seems to be geared to buyers rather than writers, and they don't have a huge catalog of titles (so they aren't overextending). It depends what you want.
Ah. On the other hand, there's a page where you can download presskits and cover photos, which looks more than a little do-it-yourself-publicity. Again, depends what you want.
-Barbara

 

[batgirl]

I should probably add the usual cautions!

Satya looks new. Wait a couple of years to see if they crash and burn, or if the founder(s) have personal crises that interfere with the business. I don't see any mention of their experience, and you don't have to read far in these boards to see micro-presses running into trouble from a lack of experience.
In the meantime, approach other small presses.

I'm betting they don't pay advances. They almost certainly use print-on-demand technology, so the prices of individual books will be somewhat higher than the equivalent books from a major press.

It doesn't look as if they have distribution, if they have downloadable presskits on their website. I haven't checked Amazon or B&N for listings, but you'd want to check into how available their books are from online retailers as well as whether they show up on bookshelves anywhere.

They don't immediately look like a scam. But you'd want to be clear on what they can offer you, and whether it's all you're looking for.
-Barbara

 

[victoriastrauss]

The books are available via Amazon, but the pub dates are interesting--their first book was pubbed in mid-2003, then no more publications till early 2007, and then 7 books pubbed since, at a rate of 3 per year (plus one so far this year). You don't want a small publisher to over-publish, but you don't want them to under-publish either. Three books a year is a pretty slim output.

The pub dates reveal that they aren't exactly new. While it's good that there don't seem to be complaints or other negative info floating around, the low output suggests that the publisher is a part-time endeavor. I'm also concerned by the fact that the website includes no "About Us" info at all.

But looky here--what's this? Satya House is also a "provider of creative services" to artists and entrepreneurs (spelled wrong twice on the opening page of the website). There we learn that Satya House is run by Julie Murkette, founder of a small-press poetry publisher.

- Victoria

 

[jamurk]

I purchased Satya House Publications when it only had 2 titles. That was in 2007. Thus the gap in publishing. I have worked in the publishing business since 1976. Satya House is my second publishing company. The first one was solely poetry. Yes, there are two sides to Satya House: the publishing side and the creative services side. However, there is no intermingling of the two. Satya House Publications is not a subsidy or vanity publisher. We have distribution that ranges from Ingram and Baker & Taylor, to niche distributors that only service specific titles. (Alpen Books distributes The Bicycle Book, for example, but none of the other titles because they only carry sporting goods books). We use a combination of Print-On-Demand (not publish-on-demand) technology and offset printing because it is cost-effective. It has no bearing on the quality or type of books we select for publication. We only publish a few titles per year to enable us to provide full support to the author and the book. I hope this addresses your concerns. As always, do your homework before submitting. It's really no different than doing a background check on a potential employee.

 

[M.R.J. Le Blanc]

Very true, but if I may make a suggestion it would be nice to not only read who exactly is behind the company on your website, but also what your publishing experience is. If you spend more than a few seconds around here, you can see most of us are kind of sticklers for knowing who is behind what and if they can do the job - after all, you wouldn't hire a contractor before making sure he's got the skills necessary to work on your house right? It's nothing overly personal

Although, from a writer's point of view, seeing a publishing company that's doing more than one thing can give the impression that you rely on the other service in some way to support you. It's no different from agents who do the same. Agents should be making their living by selling books to publishers. Publishers should be making their money from selling books to the public. Seeing another service would make me question just how well your company does that. And even if your company doesn't rely on it - which I'm not saying one way or the other at the moment, just looking at it from all angles - I'd still wonder what the point would be. It's time taken away from the publishing side, and writers want to know you're putting all your efforts into it. Knowing your running another service makes me doubt that, simply because it's another demand on your time and energy. Plus you can surely see how easy it would be for that sort of thing to be abused, and in fact has by other companies. Hence why it's got such a bad rap, so it's almost like guilt by association even though you may have very noble intentions with both. My two cents, anyway.

I do have one question, purely curious since you mentioned your distribution channels. Who sells your books to bookstores and other buyers? Do you have an in-house sales team?

 

[priceless1]

Hi Julie,
Thanks for stopping by. I looked up your titles on iPage, and it verifies that you don't appear to have an outside sales team selling your titles to the stores. You don't mention having an in-house sales team, so it's hard to determine how you get your books on the store shelves. As a small commercial press, I can attest to the hard work it takes to accomplish this - and we have a distributor with sales teams repping our books. This means that you must have a good marketing and promotional network in place, and this is what authors need to see in order to feel confident their books have a fighting chance in this tough marketplace.

But you haven't mentioned any of this, so perhaps you could let us know what all you do for your titles. Being listed with Ingram, B&T, etc. simply makes it easy for stores and libraries to order your books. It's a database. They don't have sales teams pushing your titles.

I'm sure your publishing and creative services sides are separate, but this industry is filled with folks with less than stellar intentions, and it's a good idea to keep tongues from wagging. These two sides, in my opinion, have wagging toungue potential because we've seen this stuff before - and none of it worked to the authors' benefits.

We use a combination of Print-On-Demand (not publish-on-demand) technology and offset printing because it is cost-effective.

Print on demand/publish on demand is a business plan whereby sales of books are done by the authors because the publisher has no marketing staff or sales teams pitching their titles.

Digital printing is what you're referring to, and it's simply a technology for digitally printing a smaller run of books. Thar be a huge difference.

It's tough to tell where exactly you fit in this scenario because it's not clear how you get your books on the store shelves and who does the primary promotion for those books - you or your authors.

 

[Raleigh]

ipage

I'm just wondering what is ipage and why do publishers hire these people?

http://www.ingrampublisherservices.com/default.aspx

 

[priceless1]

I'm just wondering what is ipage and why do publishers hire these people?

http://www.ingrampublisherservices.com/default.aspx

iPage is part of Ingram services and lists the title, publisher, number of books at each of their warehouses, backorders, number of units sold, etc. It also lists who distributes a publisher's books. Bookstores, publishers, and indie distributors use this information when placing orders.

Publishers list their titles with all the warehouse distributors to make it easier for bookstores or libraries to order books. Ingram does have a separate distribution company that has sales teams who pitch their titles to the genre buyers, but that is separate from the wholesale distribution arm.

 

[Raleigh]

Satya House

After reading all of these posts I am just curious of how do they get their books on the store shelves?

 

[priceless1]

I had a friend who just signed a contract to produce some sort of non-fiction reference book. He is not being paid any advance, he has to do the marketing on his own, and has to get his own reviews. What then would be the advantage of going with this type of publisher?

Are you saying he signed with Satya House or some other publisher? Either way, it sounds as though it's a typical Print On Demand publisher. This business plan usually offers little or no advance, zero distribution, zero reviews, and zero marketing on the publisher's part. They simply print the books and make their money off the backs of their authors who are their unpaid sales force.

I am just curious of how do they get their books on the store shelves?

They don't. They have no sales force to pitch their books to the genre buyers. They do small digital print runs, and that's not enough to meet a purchase order of thousands. Publishers need to have their stock in their distributor's warehouse so they can ship out at a moment's notice.

Print runs are very expensive, and POD publishers don't have that kind of capital. They also have to worry about returns. What goes out can come back, and they still have to pay for the print runs. That's why any books that go on store shelves must have active promotion and marketing going on in order to create demand. All of this costs money they don't have.

Independent distributors won't usually sign POD publishers for these reasons, and this is why you see very few POD publishers' books on store shelves.

 

[Raleigh]

Satya House

No he didn't sign with Satya House. It's all very interesting and at the same time very frustrating! I would like to reach 10-speed press and Hyperion but both require an agent. I will keep searching.

Are you saying he signed with Satya House or some other publisher? Either way, it sounds as though it's a typical Print On Demand publisher. This business plan usually offers little or no advance, zero distribution, zero reviews, and zero marketing on the publisher's part. They simply print the books and make their money off the backs of their authors who are their unpaid sales force.


They don't. They have no sales force to pitch their books to the genre buyers. They do small digital print runs, and that's not enough to meet a purchase order of thousands. Publishers need to have their stock in their distributor's warehouse so they can ship out at a moment's notice.

Print runs are very expensive, and POD publishers don't have that kind of capital. They also have to worry about returns. What goes out can come back, and they still have to pay for the print runs. That's why any books that go on store shelves must have active promotion and marketing going on in order to create demand. All of this costs money they don't have.

Independent distributors won't usually sign POD publishers for these reasons, and this is why you see very few POD publishers' books on store shelves.

 

[priceless1]

No he didn't sign with Satya House.

Ah. Then your question and my reply should be moved, as it has nothing to do with this particular publisher. Maybe a mod can do this.

 

[Raleigh]

Modification

I deleted my original question. These posts are very interesting about POD.