Hi,
EFortin, and welcome to AW.
EFortin:
As to our legitimacy, several of us have been involved in the publishing industry for a quarter of a century.
I've been through your website and couldn't see any detail to support that beyond the fact that you and Laurie cite experience as professional editors (without supporting details for you've worked for). Could you let me know what precisely you and your colleagues' involvement has consisted of? It's not so much a matter of establishing legitimacy as relevant experience.
EFortin:
They say it's who you know...and we not only know many key players, such as a personal friend who has worked for a distributor for decades and a group of friends who started a very successful publishing company a decade ago.
Are these friends formally working for or consulting with your company? What type of help are they actually giving? Which companies do they work for? How reliant will you be on your friends in the short term?
EFortin:
Yes, we do pay advances, and yes we do award free books to authors and all the other industry standard procedures. We will be publishing in e-book, trade book and hard cover formats.
That's good to know.
What kind of distribution do you have in place? Are you looking to put books in stores nationally or are you going to focus on particular regions in the US first and then branch out?
Also, could you let me know whether you will be looking to take US rights only or worldwide rights?
I note that Tell-Tales is split between 4 imprints although there seems to be an overlap between some of them (e.g. Dahlia and Stargazer both feature steam punk and urban fantasy). Given that you're going into some competitive markets (e.g. urban fantasy, young adult and romance) how do you plan to separate yourself from your competition?
The reason I ask is because many new publishers find it better to start in one particular market so they can focus their marketing efforts and then slowly build into other markets. My concern is that given your staff seems pretty small, you won't have the personnel to effectively market in all of the markets that you're covering - particularly if those same staff members are also involved in your sister company, Wise Words as the non-fiction market is even more fickle than the fiction market.
EFortin:
As one of you noted, we do have a sister company that publishes nonfiction works.
That was me.
I note that again, you're running a couple of imprints here - one on motivational/inspirational works and the other on academic texts. To me that seems like a very broad church and to repeat, I'd be concerned as to how you're going to manage that business in conjunction with Tell-Tales because you're going for different audiences there, which means there won't be a massive opportunity to cross-market and I do worry that you'll find yourself spread too thinly.
EFortin:
Currently we are working with highly published authors of our acquaintance on works we ourselves solicited
Can you say who these authors are? I note that you have a testimonial from Thomas Sullivan on both web pages. Will he be one of your first authors?
I think that the idea of published established 'name' authors with new authors is sensible.
Can you share how many publishing slots will you have for each imprint per year and how you plan to divide these (e.g. will they be 50% new authors and 50% established authors or some other ratio?)
EFortin:
please do not hesitate to submit contest entries. What have you got to lose?
Speaking personally, the reason why I get concerned at seeing new publishers run contests is because if that publisher has no track record (which Tell Tales doesn't, notwithstanding your personal connections) then there's a risk of the author losing their book. Therefore the prize has to be something more concrete than just the "chance" of publication. I would want to know exactly what it is that I'm getting into because otherwise there's a concern that my book becomes a guinea pig for the publisher to try out their ideas on and that's no good for me - especially if I've spent a long time working on it.
In addition to these general concerns, there are additional points within your contest rules that would make me pause:
Tell-Tales Competition:
One (1) paragraph providing the title, full word count and very brief description of the work and the first two (2) consecutive chapters of your completed, book-length work of Steampunk, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal or Horror adult fiction.
Is the competition going to be run in stages? I ask because there is no way that any publisher could seriously consider offering a publishing contract on the strength of 2 chapters. What would make sense is if there is a sifting process - start with the opening and synopsis and then use a second stage to review manuscripts.
I note that the deadline for entries is 31st March but there's no information on your blog as to when winners will be notified. There should be in order to provide entrants with certainty. If you're going to require that people have a completed manuscript as a condition to entry, then you need to make it clear how those are going to be evaluated.
Tell-Tales Competition:
Contest Eligibility
1. Mention and link to this contest blog twice through your social networks (blog,
Twitter, Facebook, etc.).
2. Or, mention this contest and link this blog to your blogroll (
http://www.tell-
talepublishing.com/writing-blog.html).
3. Provide links so we can verify eligibility. If you do not meet this criteria, your
entry will be disqualified.
Forgive me for saying this, but you essentially want your entrants to promote your company for you. This should never be a condition to entry - if you're serious about wanting good manuscripts to consider, then surely the focus should be on the manuscript.
In addition, asking people to promote you once is bad enough, asking them to do it twice leads me to suspect that all you're interested in with this competition is getting
your name out there. That's simply not on and it will make people question your motibvation.
Tell-Tales Competition:
6. By e-mailing your entry, you are submitting an entry for consideration in this
contest and thereby agreeing to the terms written here as well as any terms
possibly added in the comments section of the blog post.
Given that you don't have any terms or conditions set out in your blog post, I don't see how you could possibly seek to rely on this and certainly as a lawyer, I would never recommend that anyone signs up to a competition where you're agreeing to abide by rules that the organisers may decide to impose in the future.
Ideally your competition should specify that unless you're the winner, then all rights in an entrant's work will revert after X date and that if you are the winner then the prize will be subject to contract. The only way you can expect people to agree to give you rights to their works is if you post a copy of the contract you'll require them to sign (and even then, good luck with enforcing that).
Tell-Tales Competition:
The top 3 winners in each category will receive a critique of the entry by a published author or editor.
You need to specify who these authors or editors are, just as you need to specify who the judges are. I presume that this will be you and your staff members but if so then that should be made clear. Credentials are very important in establishing whether it is worth while submitting - particularly in this case where a critique is advertised as one of the prizes.
Personally, if I got a critique from a "published author" who turned out to only be self-published, then I wouldn't be impressed.
Tell-Tales Competition:
The top winner in each category will be considered for publication by Tell-Tale Publishing Group, LLC.
"Considered for publication" is not a prize because it's conditional. What would carry weight is, to put it bluntly, cash - i.e. offer a cash prize that's the equivalent of your standard advance. That way if you decide not to proceed then the author is still getting something worthwhile in submitting their manuscript.
Tell-Tales Competition:
We are not saying we have nothing to learn, or that we will ever stop learning.
I think that a big concern is that your learning curve is going to be achieved through using someone else's manuscript.
Tell-Tales Competition:
We are sincere, honest and hard working.
I don't doubt it. What concerns me is whether you have the experience and capital to do what you intend to do.
Tell-Tales Competition:
We never feel the need to belittle or throw stones. I pray we never do.
That isn't the right response if you want people to stop raising concerns or asking questions about your company.
Many of the issues and queries raised here are legitimate and are being asked in good faith. You might not like them, but if you're going to engage with people and want to reassure them that you are sincere, honest and hard-working then surely it's better to answer them to the best of your ability than to claim that people here are acting maliciously.
If you don't want to answer them then that's your right. Be aware though that your flounce and the tone of your posts will act against you.
We're very protective of writers' interests here and that's why we're so tough. It's not personal - it's because many of us have seen too many publishers come and go over the last few years, each one taking with it writers' hopes and dreams and when you spend months or years on a manuscript, the last thing you want to do is just take a chance on someone - you need to be able to make an informed decision because that's the only way you can protect your interests.
MM
