TriMark Press

[Honalo]

Hello all,
I'm publishing coordinator at TriMark Press in Deerfield Beach, FL. Our publisher started the business 30 years ago, publishing wealth books, then in 2008, decided to branch out to be inclusive of all types of books. View our website: www.trimarkpress.com. We publish a mix: many children's books and memoirs as well as books on various themes of self-help, a few religion, and, of course, fiction.

Yes, it will probably cost more to deal with us than to go onto CreateSpace or your general POD site; we call ourselves an "independent boutique publisher." We edit, proof, lay out, design (including cover design) assign copyright/ISBN/LCCN, post on Amazon and will do some marketing for you, at a cost that depends upon how much work is involved (judged in how many hours it takes) to make your book bookshelf-quality, or, more accurately, Amazon-listing quality, since so much is handled online through Amazon, but even a poorly crafted book will look out of place against those of more professional quality on Amazon, as I have seen.

I am myself a former newspaper editor, and while I've had involvement in book publishing for 12 years, I have worked at TriMark for only a year, having left newspapers almost 2 years ago. I can tell you that I edit the hell out of all the books I have a hand in, but as it is with self-publishing, in which the person has paid me to do the work to publish the book, in the end I am bound to do what the author wants (although on many occasions I can get them over to my side). It all depends on the skill level of the writer, of course.

So enough explaining. Our books have won awards including International Book Awards finalist, honorable mention in the general fiction category at the Los Angeles Book Fest and, recently, a finalist for an indie award whose official name escapes me, but I believe it's the Indie Book Excellence award.

If anyone has questions, please post here or message me - I can also be reached at [email protected]. Although I am at work, I'll check in periodically throughout the day in case there are questions.

Thanks for allowing this post - if for some reason, I posted something that's outside the rules, I apologize.

 

[CaoPaux]

Moved from Self-Publishing.

 

[Old Hack]

I am myself a former newspaper editor, and while I've had involvement in book publishing for 12 years, I have worked at TriMark for only a year, having left newspapers almost 2 years ago. I can tell you that I edit the hell out of all the books I have a hand in, but as it is with self-publishing, in which the person has paid me to do the work to publish the book, in the end I am bound to do what the author wants (although on many occasions I can get them over to my side). It all depends on the skill level of the writer, of course.

If you've "had involvement in book publishing for 12 years", then you must have started very young indeed. From the blog linked to in your signature (my bold):

On the professional side I'm a 27-year journalist;

Fifteen seems rather young to start a career in publishing.

[...] savvy editor and writer and currently a social media blogger and community newspaper editor. I've had articles published in numerous newspapers and magazines throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania. On the fiction side: I've been writing since I was 10 or 11 or thereabouts; kept it up at a pretty good clip until the early 1990s when I suffered some severe burn out. Took up art - painted the picture on this page - and generally regrouped. Fourteen years later, in 2005, I started up again. I'm currently editing a YA fantasy novel to shop to agents in the fall.

If you are now 27 then in 1990 you would only just have been born, and yet you were suffering "severe burn out" in the early 1990s when you'd have been two or three, after having started writing when you were ten or eleven years old. Might you have made an error there? And if so, I wonder how tight your editing skills are now.

So enough explaining. I'll let the most notable books speak for themselves - these are all on the website (if they don't come up directly on the homepage, you can search for the title):

I've had a look at some of those books on Amazon and I'm not impressed. For example, Danger At The Ballpark has a terrible cover, no look inside feature, no blurb, no quotes, nothing. There's no way to find out anything about the book other than its title, author, and front jacket. Other books have similarly bad jacket designs, and the blurbs I've read have not been good.

I understand that some writers prefer someone else to take care of publishing for them: but I'm not convinced you offer writers anything they can't do for themselves by self publishing rather than by paying you to do it for them, and with self publication the book remains in their control, rather than having your imprint all over it.

 

[Honalo]

1. You're mis-reading: Not a 27-year-old journalist ... a 27-year journalist, meaning when I wrote that I was in the field 27 years. When I left newspapers, it was closer to 31 years.

2. Book cover - opinion noted.

3. Except ... some writers are unable to edit themselves. Moreover, some writers need extensive editing but may not realize they need extensive editing. I offer a good service when it comes to editing - no, I'll go out further and say that I offer outstanding service when it comes to editing, given what the original copy sometimes looks like. People choose what they choose - if they don't feel they need the editing, then by all means, don't use the service.

 

[folclor]

No writer should edit for themselves entirely. You always need a second pair of eyes. But that's why there are freelance editors. But, regardless of that, how can we tell what your editing looks like if we can't read a sample of the books?

 

[aliceshortcake]

I have to agree with Old Hack - your books don't look professionally made. No Look Inside feature - that would put me off immediately. In most cases there's no page count either. And $39.95 for the paperback edition of A Man of Many Hats?!! Surely this is a mistake, because the book is listed on Amazon at $39.95 for a hardcover - still grossly overpriced.

As for the International Book Awards and the Indie Book Excellence Awards - sorry, I'm not impressed. These are vanity contests. How many other finalists were there? I suspect that every book entered had a good chance of being a finalist in one or more of the dozens of categories. And if the Los Angeles Book Fest is part of JM Northern Media's empire the awards it offers are equally meaningless.

 

[Honalo]

Reading a sample of the books still won't show what my editing looks like, since you'll have no way of knowing what's been edited and what hasn't been -- sort of like anyone submitting samples of their work for a writing job, as an example -- you never know how much the writing has been touched up/edited when they submit the sample. And I'm not going to show a before and after of a particular writer's work; that wouldn't be fair, and probably violates our contract agreement with them.

I'm not familiar with all the book publishers' websites that are similar to ours -- do others run book excerpts? If you see one, please send over the link and I'll take a look; frankly, the question of posting a book excerpt has never come up.

 

[Honalo]

"And $39.95 for the paperback edition of A Man of Many Hats?!!"

Man of Many Hats is incorrect -- we are fixing that now.
It's hardcover - $39.95

Moreover, a lot of work went into all these books and dismissing that because you're "not impressed," in one hand wave, negates the workload of editors and writers industry-wide.

But I'm not in a contest here. I'm just saying here we are, look us up if you're interested.

 

[aliceshortcake]

I'm not familiar with all the book publishers' websites that are similar to ours -- do others run book excerpts? If you see one, please send over the link and I'll take a look; frankly, the question of posting a book excerpt has never come up.

Mela, have you ever bought a book from Amazon or any other online source WITHOUT first reading an excerpt? If not, why do you think anyone would risk buying a book from TriMark?

 

[Old Hack]

1. You're mis-reading: Not a 27-year-old journalist ... a 27-year journalist, meaning when I wrote that I was in the field 27 years. When I left newspapers, it was closer to 31 years.

That's not a usage I'm familiar with, and it's certainly not clear. I'm surprised someone with as much experience you have would use a phrase as odd as that, and even if it's a colloquialism I've not come across before, I still wouldn't use it in that context.

3. Except ... some writers are unable to edit themselves. Moreover, some writers need extensive editing but may not realize they need extensive editing. I offer a good service when it comes to editing - no, I'll go out further and say that I offer outstanding service when it comes to editing, given what the original copy sometimes looks like. People choose what they choose - if they don't feel they need the editing, then by all means, don't use the service.

I don't think any writers are able to properly edit their own work. Revise, sure, but not edit. There are plenty of freelance editors writers can use if they want to self publish. So again, I'm not sure that you offer anything writers can't find for themselves.

Reading a sample of the books still won't show what my editing looks like, since you'll have no way of knowing what's been edited and what hasn't been -- sort of like anyone submitting samples of their work for a writing job, as an example -- you never know how much the writing has been touched up/edited when they submit the sample. And I'm not going to show a before and after of a particular writer's work; that wouldn't be fair, and probably violates our contract agreement with them.

I'm not familiar with all the book publishers' websites that are similar to ours -- do others run book excerpts? If you see one, please send over the link and I'll take a look; frankly, the question of posting a book excerpt has never come up.

I wouldn't expect you to show samples of your editing work. But I do note several errors in your posts here, and on your blog, and quite a lot of jumbled phrasing, which would certainly put me off using your editing skills.

 

[Gravity]

This may prove interesting ...

 

[Honalo]

Mela, have you ever bought a book from Amazon or any other online source WITHOUT first reading an excerpt? If not, why do you think anyone would risk buying a book from TriMark?

I just bought The Fifth Season (NK Jemison) without reading an excerpt but that's probably not a fair comparison. Are you talking in terms of perusing a book listing on Amazon to read the excerpts to see what strikes out at you or going on to a specific publisher's website to look at a specific book? Honestly I can't answer the question - I can't even think of a clever marketing spin as an answer for that question to make it sound worthy. Maybe we should be publishing excerpts -- you bring up a good point.

 

[Honalo]

"I wouldn't expect you to show samples of your editing work. But I do note several errors in your posts here, and on your blog, and quite a lot of jumbled phrasing, which would certainly put me off using your editing skills."

I'm just posting conversationally here -- I thought that's what we were all doing.

 

[Honalo]

And I've changed my mind -- while I don't necessarily care if you criticize me -- no, I have to be honest, I don't care if you criticize me (personally I mean) -- I don't want the books we represent exposed to it because, well, IMO, these authors should not have to suffer your criticism towards me, so I'm editing part of the post that shows our the book titles ...

 

[aliceshortcake]

And I've changed my mind -- while I don't necessarily care if you criticize me -- no, I have to be honest, I don't care if you criticize me (personally I mean) -- I don't want the books we represent exposed to it because, well, IMO, these authors should not have to suffer your criticism towards me, so I'm editing part of the post that shows our the book titles that have seen successes...

Being a finalist or getting an honourable mention in the vanity contests you mention is every bit as impressive as winning first prize. In other words, not impressive at all. No well-informed person takes them seriously, and authors who buy stickers from these outfits with which to deface their book covers merely look desperate.

 

[Honalo]

Being a finalist or getting an honourable mention in the vanity contests you mention is every bit as impressive as winning first prize. In other words, not impressive at all. No well-informed person takes them seriously, and authors who buy stickers from these outfits with which to deface their book covers merely look desperate.

Is that an industry-wide consensus? Or the consensus of this forum? I'll have to research.

 

[Perks]

Is that an industry-wide consensus? Or the consensus of this forum? I'll have to research.

It's consensus among people who know about publishing. Of course, readers won't know that these awards don't mean much.

 

[Honalo]

Is that an industry-wide consensus? Or the consensus of this forum? I'll have to research.

Never mind -- I just got my answer on Writer Beware. Good to know for future reference.

 

[Old Hack]

I just bought The Fifth Season (NK Jemison) without reading an excerpt but that's probably not a fair comparison. Are you talking in terms of perusing a book listing on Amazon to read the excerpts to see what strikes out at you or going on to a specific publisher's website to look at a specific book? Honestly I can't answer the question - I can't even think of a clever marketing spin as an answer for that question to make it sound worthy. Maybe we should be publishing excerpts -- you bring up a good point.

It's common to use the "look inside" feature on Amazon, and to provide some sort of selling blurb on the listing, too. Look at how the bigger publishers do it. You should definitely be doing this.

"I wouldn't expect you to show samples of your editing work. But I do note several errors in your posts here, and on your blog, and quite a lot of jumbled phrasing, which would certainly put me off using your editing skills."

I'm just posting conversationally here -- I thought that's what we were all doing.

It is, to some extent. But you're representing your employer in this thread, and so it gives us a look at your professionalism (and honestly, well done on dealing with this thread with such grace: it's more than most do). And when I see repeated errors they indicated a pattern, and those patterns do affect how we edit the books in our care (and yes, I've edited for a while). (And yes, you can see that one of my weaknesses is an over-reliance on parentheses.)

And I've changed my mind -- while I don't necessarily care if you criticize me -- no, I have to be honest, I don't care if you criticize me (personally I mean) -- I don't want the books we represent exposed to it because, well, IMO, these authors should not have to suffer your criticism towards me, so I'm editing part of the post that shows our the book titles ...

I'm so sorry if you feel personally criticised. This is not personal. We are talking about the publisher you work for, not you, personally.

As for the books you publish, I understand your reasoning for removing that portion of your post. But bear in mind that when books are published they are out there, and will attract criticism. Even the best books do. So if the books your company publishes aren't up to scratch, those books are going to attract more criticism, and that's going to be painful for the authors and difficult for the publisher.

 

[Honalo]

Thanks Old Hack for your advice. While I can take the criticism, dragging our authors, and by association, publisher and co-workers, through the mud in such a concentrated arena, was not my intention. While the books are "out there," here they are under a microscope -- it was short-sighted of me to publicize the work without considering the ramifications.

We have just hired a new marketing person and I have suggested, from the posts here, that we include inside text on Amazon -- honestly, I've been so busy in the past year with editing (we are a small office) that some of the finer details of marketing escaped me.

 

[Old Hack]

Thanks Old Hack for your advice. While I can take the criticism, dragging our authors, and by association, publisher and co-workers, through the mud in such a concentrated arena, was not my intention. While the books are "out there," here they are under a microscope -- it was short-sighted of me to publicize the work without considering the ramifications.

It's your publishing business which is under examination here, not the books you publish. But those books do have to be considered: not the content of them, necessarily, but how well they've been produced. And from what I've seen so far, production values at your publisher are not very good. If I were looking for publishing services I would not consider your company because although you are dealing with this thread with good grace, I've not seen much evidence of experience, knowledge or skill from your publishers. I might have chosen to look at books which were problematical to publish, of course. But I don't see anything you're doing that authors couldn't do for themselves, with a little bit of research. It would help if your prices were on display, by the way, so we know what people would get for their money.

We have just hired a new marketing person and I have suggested, from the posts here, that we include inside text on Amazon -- honestly, I've been so busy in the past year with editing (we are a small office) that some of the finer details of marketing escaped me.

Things like enabling the "look inside" feature on Amazon, and including the sales blurbs in your listings there, are not "some of the finer details of marketing", though: they're really basic things which should have been done automatically. This does not give me much faith in the quality of your services.

 

[aliceshortcake]

There are four pages of TriMark books on Amazon.com, and only two of the print versions have a ranking. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't no ranking = not a single sale through Amazon?

 

[CaoPaux]

Correct.

Mela, could you please elaborate on the "30 years"? TriMark was founded in 2003, and the principals' previous venture was E-Z Legal Forms/Marketing, yes? What books did they publish?

 

[CaoPaux]

*cricket, cricket*

Site now claims 25 years of expertise. I wonder if somebody left.