Tickety Boo Press

[PeteMC]

I couldn't see a thread on here about these guys:

http://www.ticketyboopress.co.uk/

From what I can see the press seems to have been set up late last year by a writer called Gary Compton, although his own book(s) doesn't appear to be published through them.

Anyone know anything about this publisher?

 

[Mr Flibble]

I don't know masses, but I do "internet know" Gary from another site. And one of his authors posts here (in fact I have her MS up on my screen right now)

I am almost 100% that he's got Teresa Edgerton doing some editing as well -- Teresa has a lot of experience as an author and also edits. I know several people who have used her services and found her fabulous. I think Gary is also reprinting one of her books?

Anyway, I don't know lots but I have heard of them. They aren't a scam etc, but they ARE new and small so all usual advice on that score.

ETA looking at their website, they really need an "about us" section. Mayhap I will suggest it

 

[Gary Compton]

Thanks for asking Peter and you are right I haven't published my own book yet but may in the future if my editorial team, which includes Teresa Edgerton, Chris Penycate and J Scott-Marryat, think it is worthy.

I am an active member of SFF Chronicles and over the years I saw some great talents going to waste so I put a team of people together to publish books.

So far Tickety Boo Press has invested alot of money in this venture.

My position is a facilitator. I read submissions and if I like them I pass over to the editors. We have had some great success so far, signing Teresa's Edgerton and her Mask and Dagger duology - Goblin Moon and Hobgoblin Night. Teresa is a multi-published author (traditional - not SP) and has joined the editorial team also. She mused so much about a submission from Susan J Boulton (Oracle) that I had no choice but to sign Susan.

We also have signed Joseph Rubas. His horror collection After Midnight is available now as an ebook. Paperback coming soon. Some great reviews already see here

We have a couple of anthologies coming out soon, first one is Malevolence - Tales from Behind the Veil and second one is Space - Houston We Have a Problem. Published authors include Toby Frost, Stephen Palmer, Teresa Edgerton and Bob Lock to name but a few.

And finally, Molly Ker Hawn of the Bent Agency had enough confidence in us to submit Jo Zebedee's Abendau Trilogy which comes out in the autumn.

We also commission original artwork for all our covers and Aty S Behsam from Iran has done alot of them for us. She's amazing!

Hope that helps and feel free to ask questions.

 

[waylander]

Could you offer us any thoughts on what sort of material you would welcome in your submissions inbox?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Just to out myself - I've signed with Gary and Tickety-boo for my Abendau trilogy. I've worked with both editors before and know their editorial approach is excellent. Teresa Edgerton edited the first book of the trilogy a couple of years ago when it was a baby and transformed it with her suggestions, and I jumped at the chance to let her get stuck into the other two, and JS Maryatt edited another book of mine, which is now agented, and I have no doubt that's partly to do with his skills as an editor.

I've found Gary very straightforward to deal with. I've had a lot of input into the cover, which is nice, and am being kept in the loop regarding timescales and such like.

Of course, it's a risk - any new publisher is a risk. But having already refused two offers on the trilogy I wouldn't have taken this one if I didn't think Gary would be putting 100% into the books, which, so far, he has.

 

[PeteMC]

Hi Gary, thanks for taking the time to come and reply. I wish you the best of luck with your venture and will add you to the future submissions list

 

[SJAB]

All I can do is echo Springs2's words.


Gary is great to work with. Honest and up front with everything.

And Tesesa's edit of my book, Oracle, well, what can I say. Straight forward and firm. I know the end result will be fantastic, all because of this lady's skill.

So all I can do is try to match them 100%

 

[Filigree]

Thanks for posting, Gary, Jo, and Susan. I'll be watching Tickety Boo with interest the next year or so.

 

[Gary Compton]

Could you offer us any thoughts on what sort of material you would welcome in your submissions inbox?

Cheers Waylander and apologies for the delay in replying. I have had one seriously ill dog to deal with. Fingers crossed things may have turned the corner!

We have a submissions page on the TBP website of what we are after but we can be flexible. Basically we want page turners that will make us and the author some serious money!

Hope that helps.

 

[JournoWriter]

Covers are not really impressive - images are OK, but the text and fonts are jarring - and the typos and grammar errors on the site are pretty cringe-inducing. Overall, looks fairly amateur-level. The emoticons in one blog post don't exactly help lend a professional air.

Two books are listed as available for pre-order, with publication in May 2014. Not clear what's going on there.

Apparently, there is also going to be a retail shop, which is being promoted on the blog with what looks like a photoshopped storefront image (?).

Also, this sentence from the submissions page (http://www.ticketyboopress.co.uk/novelsubmissions/) caught my eye -

All novels over 60,000 will be offered a print contract.

Over 60,000 what? Words? Copies sold? Income?

 

[Gary Compton]

Covers are not really impressive - images are OK, but the text and fonts are jarring - and the typos and grammar errors on the site are pretty cringe-inducing. Overall, looks fairly amateur-level. The emoticons in one blog post don't exactly help lend a professional air.

Two books are listed as available for pre-order, with publication in May 2014. Not clear what's going on there.

Apparently, there is also going to be a retail shop, which is being promoted on the blog with what looks like a photoshopped storefront image (?).

Also, this sentence from the submissions page (http://www.ticketyboopress.co.uk/novelsubmissions/) caught my eye -

Over 60,000 what? Words? Copies sold? Income?

Confucius say, you can please all the people some of the time.

Some of the people all of the time.

But can't please all the people all of the time.

We are obviously not for you. (sorry about the emoticon)

The fact that Molly Ker Hawn from the Bent agency found our press to be a good enough home for one of her star client's trilogies is good enough for me.

Also all the other authors are friends of mine, like Teresa Edgerton, Susan Boulton, Joseph Rubas, the authors in the anthologies. Remember I did not start this thread asking for submissions, I just answered a question that someone else saw.

Most deals I have done I have been proactive and mostly contact the author directly as usually I already know there work.

And you are right the picture of our proposed bookshop was photo-shopped. If you were a follower of my blog on SFF Chronicles, or Facebook, you would know that I have another business within the open market and a bookshop is planned and that is how we want it to look.

Hope that helps!

 

[JournoWriter]

You are seeking submissions, which means you are asking people out in the world to put their work in your hands. You can't expect every prospective author to follow your blog on some other site and know everything about you.

Can you clarify the 60,000 question?

 

[Gary Compton]

You are seeking submissions, which means you are asking people out in the world to put their work in your hands. You can't expect every prospective author to follow your blog on some other site and know everything about you.

Can you clarify the 60,000 question?

Well considering earlier on in the same post I mention 60,000 and 120,000 words it is pretty clear that it is words. Do you really think it would be copies sold? Seems like a ridiculous idea - you'll get a contract if you sell 60,000.

Don't understand 60,000 income - if you get £60,000 income you will get a contact - ??

If you were an author that was offered a contract you would no doubt read it through, thoroughly and ask the question if not sure. In the case of Springs2 - her agent asked for clarification on many things.

On the strength of this thread alone I have had 3 submissions. First thing to do is spend my time reading and see where we go from there.

In your case best thing to do is don't submit then everyone is happy.

 

[T.Edgerton]

Gary is exceptionally stressed now with family matters, so it is not surprising that his replies are a bit heated.

However, JournoWriter, you do seem to be intent on finding fault, though perhaps that's an inaccurate perception on my part, and you may mean your criticisms to be constructive -- as indeed some of them are.

As I am sure you know, typos and grammar errors can always slip in -- and it's so easy to be blind when editing our own writing, because we always know what we meant to say -- so thanks for pointing out that there are some on the Tickety Boo site! I am sure that Gary will look into them.

When it comes to the covers, naturally that can be a matter of taste, and it's hard to judge anything when you are not looking at it full size.

A section on the site that tells more about Tickety Boo and the people involved sounds to me like a good idea. As you say, expecting people to know about us based on another site is not the best way to get the word out about who the people associated with the press are, or Gary's overall vision.

Of course with a brand new press there are going to be bugs that have to be worked out, and so there will sometimes be delays. I think Gary has eliminated most of the bugs now, and everything will soon be back on schedule.

I've been involved in writing and publishing for a long time now, and the fact that I am trusting Gary to publish some of my backlist books should say something about how much faith I have in him. And he has signed up some wonderful authors. But there are always risks with a small start-up press. Money can be tight. Ambitions may be too large, and may need to be scaled back for the time being. There are many things to be learned. Gary is usually quite open to suggestions, but this isn't the best time for him to hear them.

There is one final thing that I think needs to be said: Anyone who signs with Gary to publish their novel will find that the contracts are very reasonable and open to negotiation. He doesn't ask anyone to sign away all their rights or to agree to a situation where their book is tied up for years if it isn't published.

In any case, JournoWriter, thanks for your comments.

 

[JournoWriter]

That's nice and all. I wish Tickety Boo the best of luck and its people the best of times.

But when you launch a company that purports to be a professional publishing operation and solicits work from writers, I believe you should be thoroughly professional in all aspects. I'm not singling out Tickety Boo or Mr. Compton. This is the standard I apply to all firms I encounter. If given a choice between a company that proofreads its web copy and creates pro-level covers, and a company that doesn't, I'm going to choose the first one every time, all things equal. It's a simple equation.

 

[T.Edgerton]

If given a choice between a company that proofreads its web copy and creates pro-level covers, and a company that doesn't, I'm going to choose the first one every time, all things equal.

Perfectly reasonable. But what constitutes a pro-level cover is, I believe, subjective. I've picked up books at the library, looked at the cover, and thought "self-published, very amateurish" and then looked at the logo on the title page and discovered that it came from one of the biggest publishing houses. So I think, perhaps, we may have to agree to disagree on what makes a good cover.

As for "all things equal," we all have different things that we want and expect. Some are more important to us than others. Clearly Tickety Boo is not for you, and that's fair. I'm certainly not trying to convince you to submit something to us yourself. However, TBP might be exactly what someone else is looking for.

So you have my best wishes, too. May all your books be well-published and exactly as you would wish them to be.

(Speaking of typos, though, Gary's last name is Compton, not Coleman.)

 

[Unimportant]

FWIW, I buy the vast majority of my reading material at Kobo. I skim through latest releases, books with a given keyword (if I'm in a dragon mood or a witch mood or whatever), etc. I look at the covers, pull the ones that grab my eye, and read the blurb.

So, yeah, for me, covers count. I'm no artist and can't discuss the aspects of cover art design with any authority, but one thing I know does grab me/turn me off is being able to read the title and author name on the thumbnail. If it's too small to read, I move on.

Here's the Kobo page showing the only Tickety Boo novel they're selling, along with similar novels. Due to font size and what the cover image evokes, Goblin Moon wouldn't grab me, whereas the Lilith Saint Crow and Sherwood Smith covers would. My 2 cents -- use what you can and ignore the rest.

editing to add: Not sure why the book is US$3.53 at Kobo and £7.99 on the TB website? For me that works out NZ$4.07 vs NZ$15.64. No way would I pay the latter. Not even for a Stacia Kane book. Not even for a Nicola Griffith book. Just can't afford it.

 

[T.Edgerton]

Here's the Kobo page showing the only Tickety Boo novel they're selling, along with similar novels. Due to font size and what the cover image evokes, Goblin Moon wouldn't grab me, whereas the Lilith Saint Crow and Sherwood Smith covers would. My 2 cents -- use what you can and ignore the rest.

That's not the Tickety Boo cover (which is similar, but much nicer, I think). That's the cover of the self-published edition, created when I had embarked on a course of bringing out my own backlist. Then I decided that Tickety Boo might do a better job of publishing and selling the book for me. Their edition will be out soon and the other will disappear.

But if the cover image does not appeal to you, perhaps the book is not for you. Who knows? Better the book should go to readers most likely to enjoy it (and spread the word to their friends) then to someone who would wish they hadn't bought it just because they liked the cover.

The quote on the Tickety-Boo website is for pre-orders of the upcoming trade paperback. I assume that what you are seeing at Kobo is for the ebook -- it must be the ebook published through Smashwords, because that and the Kindle edition are the only ebooks for that title that are available at the moment. I don't know what Gary will be charging when the new ebook comes out.

 

[Unimportant]

Ah, ebook vs paperback, got it. Sorry, I missed that! The ebook will be L2.99, which sounds reasonable.

ps Tickety Webmaster, PLZ TURN OFF BLARING REPETITIVE MUSIC ON THE "READ A SAMPLE" BIT!

And

vs

-- yes, side by side I can see some differences, though they're subtle to my non-artist eyes.

 

[T.Edgerton]

The music is loud, isn't it? I thought that was my computer. I solved it for myself by turning down the sound on my computer, but if you are hearing it as loud, too, I will talk to Gary.

 

[Gary Compton]

Goblin Moon wouldn't grab me, whereas the Lilith Saint Crow and Sherwood Smith covers would. My 2 cents -- use what you can and ignore the rest.

I don't like Teresa's Goblin Moon cover either, Unimportant. I love it.



Teresa wanted a newer version of the cover because there is a story attached to it. The swordsman is a very good friend of hers and Teresa, her husband and Daniel Martinez spent alot of time photographing at the top of a local hill to get the right image.

So far we have had some very good feedback from her fans and for the new Hobgoblin Night cover which is below. But like Teresa says, there will be people who don't like it.

Everyone of our books has had an investment of £1500 from the Tickety Boo investors. The author does not pay one penny and that is the way it should be. That includes editing, covers, copy-edit, formatting, title setup and a dedicated author/book website.

Remember, as I said earlier in the thread, I am not the editor, I am a facilitator - I run a team of people.

We are running an ad soon on Sff Chronicles on the home page. Till now no-one has had that privilege. We also run targeted Facebook ads as well for each book. We will have spent 2K on each title before we get a penny back.

Each new title is edited by either J Scott-Marryat or Teresa, then copy-edited by Chris Penycate, we then have Beta-readers. Also, we are paying alot of attention to formatting of the paperbacks. Widows, orphans, rivers, justified text, footers, headers, gutters - get alot of work.

Some of our covers are original art created by Aty S Behsam which I hope you agree are amazing.

Like I said we can't please everyone, no-one can, but all we can do is give 100%. So far, all our clients are happy so that is all that matters.

And finally, Unimportant, PM me and I will send you and Epub or Mobi for FREE of our first 3 books as they come out. Same for anyone else on the thread.

Proof of the pudding is in the eating.

 

[CaoPaux]

We have an image size limit of 400 x 400. Please reduce your image.

 

[Gary Compton]

We have an image size limit of 400 x 400. Please reduce your image.

Apologies. That has been corrected.

 

[CaoPaux]

Gratzi. Best of luck with your endeavor.

 

[Old Hack]

I think there was a press called Tickety Boo before, which shut down leaving authors stranded. I might well be wrong and I apologise if I am: but do you have anything to do with that press?

I find the titles on some of the books difficult to read even in the size they're given on the TB site: when they're shrunk to thumbnail-size they're going to be even more difficult. That's the problem with those fancy fonts, with all the curly business going on.

I haven't looked at any of the samples because of the reports that clicking on the links automatically plays music. I won't put up with that. (Yes, I am grumpy.)

I'd like to see an "about us" page on the website: I can't find any information about the publisher on its own website, and that's a problem.