Turner Maxwell Books

[JennaGlatzer]

I just got spam from Turner Maxwell Books (turnermaxwellbooks.com), a UK "co-op" publishing outfit. This sums up what you need to know about them:

We always have openings for writers who produce great literature and can sell their own books, through our website.

If that's what you want to do and have the ability to do, you have no need for Turner Maxwell or any other self-publishing/vanity publishing/subsidy publishing/"co-operative" publishing company. If you're producing "great literature," you can likely sell it to a real publisher. If you want to self-publish, you can do that, too-- and if you're successful, you'll make far better money doing it on your own than going through a company like this that can do little more than hold you back in the marketplace (you won't get bookstore distribution when the bookstore chain buyers know you're dealing with a vanity press, or any sort of press that has low standards of acceptance).

This sort of publisher will NOT get your book meaningfully stocked in bookstores or libraries. (Maybe a couple of local stores here and there, but you want better than that, right?)

Hold out for something better. Don't let your work go to waste because you're tired of rejections.

 

[Old Hack]

Not only is Turner Maxwell Books (vanity press) trying to make money out of writers at the front end of book production, it's also trying to make money from them via royalties and purchases. Check out this.

A certain James C. Harwood has written a book which forms the basis of a "shared universe". First step: buy his book to find out about the universe. Second step: write your own story, set in that universe. Third step: publish your book through, yes, you've guessed it, Turner Maxwell Books. Fourth step: pay James C. Harwood a royalty of $1.00 on every single copy of your book that you sell.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

I'm not going to touch this one with a bargepole.

 

[Old Hack]

PS: James C. Harwood won't submit your book to Turner Maxwell Books (vanity press, vanity publisher) until he's edited and approved it. I wonder if he charges for that editing? If anyone knows, I'd love to hear about it.

 

[Gravity]

PS: James C. Harwood won't submit your book to Turner Maxwell Books (vanity press, vanity publisher) until he's edited and approved it. I wonder if he charges for that editing? If anyone knows, I'd love to hear about it.

Why is when I see "James C. Harwood", I picture "Harcourt C. Mudd" from the old original Star Trek...?

 

[JulieB]

That would be Harcourt Fenton Mudd.

And it's darned scary that I remember that after all these years.

 

[Turner Maxwell]

Dear Jenna, thanks for the post, humble and best wishes, Turner.

The best short stories of the year by Turner Maxwell Books

Thirty-nine countries.
Seventy five thousand website hits
Fifteen hundred delegations.
The Turner Maxwell Books short story competition proved to the contest of the year.
Now available at £6.99
http://www.turnermaxwellbooks.com/Comp.htm
What the judges said: "This is a great book, full of wonderful literature and written by an extremely talented group of undiscovered authors. It should be a best seller. With Turner Maxwell’s marketing plans, it will be a best seller."
All enquires to [email protected]
The Best short stories of the year by Turner Maxwell Books
ISBN 978-0 9561884-1-0
The Tree by Caireen Kelley
Blood Relations by Heather Newby
The black swan by Jennifer McGrath
A Careful Man by Joanne Phillips
A person like that by Johanna Lipford
Destiny by Leela Devi Panikar
Cherry Pie and Biscuits by Marcus Mcknight
Life is a war with the trolls in the vaults of the heart and brain by Rebecca Hunt
Lena, me and the Artist by Rebecca Stonehill
My sister the sea by Ruth Dugdall
Final harvest by Sally Spedding
Cell 6 by Sean Stockham
Bullfighters and Baby-killers by Steve Wade
Diary of a Haircut by Sue Burge
The white valley by Adrian James
Turner Maxwell Books is a low cost bookstore with global distribution, exporting to over 10 countries.
No fees! No charges! Just great books!
We are a co-operative that specialises in internet marketing.
What sets us apart from other publishers is our web traffic and online sales conversion.
"It's how people buy books today."
Last year, our book sales grew by 400%.
Interested?
We require more Authors.
We pay 25% of book sales.
www.turnermaxwellbooks.com

 

[Mac H.]

Turner Maxwell ...

Your post is really, really poor marketing. The judges of a literary competition said "With Turner Maxwell’s marketing plans, it will be a best seller." !?

The stories may be great, but that blurb sounds like a bad parody of an infomercial. Were these literary judges judging literature or being a cheerleader for a product !?

And your marketing campaign so far has been so successful that a google search for ["The best short stories of the year" "Turner Maxwell Books"] doesn't even bring up your own website!

What you are doing is NOT viral marketing. Viral marketing is when you marketing itself gets passed from reader to reader, before a single product is bought .. or even cared about. So the link to 'Subservient Chicken' was viral, because those who saw it wanted to pass it on, even though they didn't really care what the product was.

Your marketing stategy seems to be:
1. Produce a long, mundane webpage
2. Rely on your authors to pass the link to friends.

That isn't viral marketing. You need to put something on the there that makes the friends pass it on. What you've done is embarrassingly amateur.

Mac
(PS: How did you value the publishing agreement as being worth over £1000, when you normally charge the authors ?
Does that mean you are guaranteeing each author will get over £1000 ? Did you value it by considering the past royalties, or did you make up the number?)

 

[TheRightEyedDeer]

We pay 25% of book sales.
www.turnermaxwellbooks.com

I can't see anywhere on the Turner Maxwell web site that they provide any kind of editorial services. This means that any writer could make him/herself a better deal by self-publishing via Lulu than by signing up with Turner Maxwell.

Respected, legit publishing firms offer way more to a writer than just banging out unperfected product, telling the author to go do their own marketing + distributing and then keeping 75% of any sales.

 

[TheRightEyedDeer]

PS: James C. Harwood won't submit your book to Turner Maxwell Books (vanity press, vanity publisher) until he's edited and approved it. I wonder if he charges for that editing? If anyone knows, I'd love to hear about it.

Reading through this:
http://www.writers.net/forum/read/6/12700/12694Vf


I would surmise that James is just trying to help more writers get exposure with their words. Obviously, he's a proponent of the self-publish/self-market school.

I spent about ten years submitting manuscripts to traditional agents and traditional publishers, collecting a pile of rejection slips. NONE read my material. It was rejected without anyone opening the manuscript to read it. My contact letters failed to get them to go that far. Contact letters can make a difference. But don’t ever waste your time and money on services offering to read and review your manuscript for a fee. Finding the right words to put in a contact letter to open that door can make a difference, and has nothing to do with your ability to write what should be a best selling novel. Writing an effective contact letter has nothing to do with writing. It is about selling a product. You might be better off taking your product to people who are experts in advertising and marketing and have them present it to major publishers. That would be worth it, if you can afford to do that, and if you really do have a good product.

 

[M.R.J. Le Blanc]

You might be better off taking your product to people who are experts in advertising and marketing and have them present it to major publishers. That would be worth it, if you can afford to do that, and if you really do have a good product.

Would a publisher actually consider this? I've never heard of a marketer pitching to publishers.

The paragraph has some great advice, but with all due respect to James this sounds like another person who's a little bitter because he didn't get picked up and is putting the blame on agents and publishers. For someone who speaks about the importance of a good contact (query?) letter, it doesn't sound like he followed his own advice. Or at least tried to seek out opinions on it. Maybe with an improved letter he could have gotten further in the query process. It just seems like there's a lot of people cropping up lately that instead of looking at their own work they're blaming the industry.

 

[TheRightEyedDeer]

... with all due respect to James this sounds like another person who's a little bitter because he didn't get picked up and is putting the blame on agents and publishers.

Yup. That's the point I was trying to make.

 

[BenPanced]

How many copies has your highest seller sold?

 

[CaoPaux]

'Tis gone. Last book pubbed Jun '11, with Tw activity ceasing July.

 

[thothguard51]

RIP...