Vinspire Publishing (formerly Vintage Romance Publishing)

[Stephanie]

Has anyone worked with Vintage Romance Publishing?

I sent in a query for a novella (25,000 words) and immediately received a response from the editor to send in the first chapter, a complete synopsis and total word count of the completed work.

The ms would be published as an e-book, no advance.

URL is www.vrpublishing.com/submissions.php

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Yeshanu]

Re: Vintage Romance

Never heard of them before (not surprising, since I'm a newbie as far as e-publishing is concerned) but I'm very impressed by the professionalism of their web site.

And they said they'd respond to any query in 72 hours or less, and by gosh, they did.

I may give them a try myself, if no-one else has heard anything bad about them.

 

[Betty W01]

Re: Vintage Romance

I'm going to post a copy of this over on Bewares and Background Check... just to see if anyone over there has any comments.

 

[James D Macdonald]

Re: Vintage Romance

I didn't see the royalty rates. I did notice that there's no advance.

What do the reversion, option, and indemnity clauses look like?

 

[Yeshanu]

Re: Vintage Romance

UJ,

I'm assuming those would be in the contract that I'm assuming Stephanie hasn't got yet. They say they send the contract with the "Welcome Package."

In a related question: Would someone with experience please explain how e-publishing works? I have this picture in my head that they get an order for your book on their web site, payment is made by credit card, then the publisher emails the book or a code so the customer can get into the site where it's posted. So the royalties would be from that payment, right?

How does the royalty rate for such things usually compare to print royalties? Are the sales figures comparable, and are the prices of the e-books comparable?

I would think that since the publisher has less overhead, the royalty rate should be somewhat higher and the overall cost of the book lower. Am I right or wrong there? (Don't laugh, at least not out loud...)

As for the "no advance" thing, I took a second look at that too. I feel that perhaps since they are starting up, probably with minimal funds, that this is something like magazines that pay "on publication" rather than "on acceptance," and I would expect that to change once the publisher was up and running, with repeat customers and a good stable of regular writers.

But I could be way off base there, too.

I thought I might try them with some of my poetry, first, and see how it works out. Then try them with something longer if things are above board. Kind of like testing the water before you dip your toe in...

 

[pepperlandgirl]

Royalty Rates

I don't know much about E-publishing either, but I do know that Ellora's Cave pays 37.5% of gross for their royalty rates. It looks like their books tend to go for $5-$10, and the reader DLs a PDF version of the book.

I don't know how that royalty rate compares to traditional "brick and mortar" publishing.

 

[Stephanie]

Re: Vintage Romance

Ruth, I liked their site too - I read it first, got a good feel from it and then sent in the query.

But I sort of remember something I didn't like, and now I can't find it (ie., I could be thinking of another market) - as to payment. I've sent in an email to clarify and will report back.

Betty - thanks for linking this to Beware Board.

Steph

 

[Stephanie]

Re: Royalty Rates

Pepper,

Does Ellora's Cave pay an advance?

Steph

 

[veingloree]

Re: Vintage Romance

If they accept it, it would be reasonable to ask which distributors they use and what sort of sales they make.

 

[James D Macdonald]

Re: Royalty Rates

I don't know how that royalty rate compares to traditional "brick and mortar" publishing.

That's a higher royalty rate than traditional hardcopy publishing, but consider that it's probably against a smaller number of sales than traditional publishing. So far as I'm aware, Ellora's Cave doesn't pay an advance.

Still, Ellora's Cave is eligible for the RITA, which means that they fall in this group:

"A RITA-eligible publisher is defined as a non-subsidy, non-vanity publisher that has released books on a regular basis via national distribution for a minimum of one year and has sold a minimum of 1,500 hardcover/trade paperback copies or 5,000 copies of any other format of a single fiction book or a novella or collection of novellas in book form."

Other known-honest ebook publishers include Hardshell Word Factory and Fictionwise.com.

 

[Stephanie]

Re: response from Vintage Romance editor

Here's what I got when asking about: percentage, contract terms and generally "how's business?" --

I can tell you that our authors are given a percentage of the sales price of the book. As far as information regarding clauses, those are available in our contract only. Unfortunately, we do not offer our contract for public view. However, we will be glad to discuss any issues you may have if a contract to publish is made for your work.

Additionally, you asked about sales figure expected. If you refer to our current sales, though we are a new publisher, we are currently building a presence in the community and have had modest sales. We expect those figures to rise dramatically when our next books are made available for purchase. As you know, we cannot make any type of estimates as to the sales figure of any one book as it depends on a number of factors which include, author participation, promotion, marketing and quality of the material.

The last para seems fair enough - I just don't fancy writing the blasted thing, then finding out it's for 2% and I lose all rights or something.....this is a particular word count (25,000) which is why I feel rather *drawn* to this particular publisher.

Comments?

 

[Stephanie]

Re: Vintage Romance

I've posted a response from the editor on the Bewares Board for comment, if anyone's interested:
p197.ezboard.com/fabsolut...=417.topic

 

[thewritelady]

to james

You said that PA is self-publishing where the author pays for their own book, but this is not the case; i.e. their $1 advance and the royalties they pay, and money never leaves the author's hands.. with this being the case, would WD still accept it?

 

[James D Macdonald]

Re: response from Vintage Romance editor

Stephanie, "percentage of the sales price" is a code for "royalties based on net." Royalties based on net isn't standard in the world of print publishing, and is an invitation to abuse.

As for going with this publisher, you know what Alexander Pope said:

<blockquote>
Be not the first by whom the new is tried
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
</blockquote>

Novella and novelette lengths are very hard to place in major venues. Have you tried, though? I'd only go with an electronic publisher if I'd already exhausted every other advance-and-royalty traditional publisher on the planet.

If you come up with three other works of the same length, you might be able to publish them as a collection at somewhere like Avon (open submissions there).


<hR>

thewritelady: I'll answer in the PA thread.

 

[Stephanie]

Re: response from Vintage Romance editor

James,

Of what benefit is it for them to keep their contract and payment terms to themselves?

I'd think that practice lends itself to distrust rather than otherwise and I can't see the benefit to the publisher.

Thanks,
Steph

 

[James D Macdonald]

Re: response from Vintage Romance editor

Keeping contract terms confidential gives them negotiation room. Posting standard contracts isn't all that widespread ... I mean, if you go over to the major publishers' sites you'll see that they just say they're "competitive" and leave it at that.

 

[reph]

Re: response from Vintage Romance editor

Stephanie, it isn't clear what "author participation" might mean for an e-book. Obviously you wouldn't be doing any bookstore signings. Do they expect you to link to their site from your site, if you have one, and get other site owners to add links?

 

[Aconite]

One of the problems I have with the "we'll tell you what our terms are if we decide to make an offer" setup is that it doesn't allow me to determine whether or not the market is worth submitting to in the first place. If I submit to one of the established houses, I may not know exactly what my contract terms will be if I get an offer, but I have a general idea and I know it's worth it. With small, new publishers, especially e-publishers, they could be offering 10% royalties on net for all rights and require me to run their messageboard for six months and bathe their dog.

 

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Vintage Romance Publishing

I hear it's a pretty darn smelly dog, too.

(bump: adding name of publisher in post-move post for search purposes.)

 

[dcarrington]

Response to inquiries regarding Vintage Romance Publishing

Hi, everyone,

I just joined Absolute Water Cooler and out of curiosity, did a search for Vintage Romance Publishing as I'm the editor-in-chief. So when I found this one, I thought I would offer a response.

Vintage Romance Publishing is a traditional publisher. We do not pay royalties based on sales net, but rather based on the retail price of the e-book/print book.

At present, we have close to forty authors, and we have always worked with our authors to help them market their books as well as our company. As an author myself, I have experience in this industry and look only to promote other authors. Our company consists of two paralegals (who are also authors), a published poet, business women with combined experience of over fifty-five years in business, an English teacher who is one of our editors and more.

Now, back to the subject at hand...our contract. We don't publish our contract as it was specifically created for Vintage Romance Publishing. I can tell you it is an author-friendly contract with a buy-out clause (if you want to take your book to a bigger market), and we encourage our authors to try to get an agent, even with the book we have contracted. If they make the big time, better for them. We are also more than willing to negotiate with an author who wishes to sign with us (as one author wanted to keep some of the rights we asked for, and we agreed). We are not here to harm authors, but to help them get a leg up in the industry.

Though we know we're not running with the big dogs as of yet, we do know that we do what is best for our authors, have close to fifteen books in print at this time, have national distribution with Ingrams and Baker & Taylor and are tirelessly working to get our books into brick and mortar bookstores.

If anyone has any further questions or just wants more information, please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. I'm happy to answer any and all inquiries.

Sincerely,

Dawn R. Carrington
Editor-in-Chief
Vintage Romance Publishing

 

[victoriastrauss]

By a buy-out clause, do you mean that the author must pay you a fee to get her rights back?

Another question, if you don't mind: what does the term "traditional publisher" mean to you?

- Victoria

 

[dcarrington]

Response to Victoria

Hi, Victoria,

To Vintage Romance Publishing, a traditional publisher means we ask no fees from our authors for publication, editing or design. We pay royalties monthly, help our authors with promotion and marketing and work diligently to promote our company as well. We have moved out of the e-book market and beginning January 2006, we will be a print market only with the intentions of going mass market later on next year.

We have a small, but steadily growing, group of authors who are talented, and we believe all of them can achieve their goals. So we try to help them do that as much as we can.

As far as the buy-out clause goes, no, the author does not pay us a fee. The publishing company will pay that fee should they desire to publish the book. The author knows this in advance of signing the contract, and we have negotiated that as well. We will ALWAYS negotiate with our authors to help them do what is best for their publishing career. The only thing we expect in return is that the author promote his/her book to the best of their ability and be willing to learn how to promote if they're not familiar with that aspect.

Having said all of this, to sum it up, Vintage Romance Publishing is a company with a dedicated staff with high hopes, goals and dreams for both our authors and our company.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Dawn R. Carrington
Editor
Vintage Romance Publishing
www.vrpublishing.com

 

[pepperlandgirl]

Victoria, I've noticed that many (most? all?) e-publishers describe themselves as "traditional publishers" to make it clear that they are royalty-paying, edit the work, provide covers, etc. It seems to be a regular part of the e-publishing parlance, and not so much of a red-flag in this context.

 

[dcarrington]

Vintage Romance Publishing

I'm very happy to announce that as of January 1, 2006, Vintage Romance Publishing will no longer be an e-publisher. We will place our books in print only.

We have major marketing plans under way and are excited about the changes.

If anyone has any questions at all about our company or the changes ahead, please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. I'd be happy to answer any inquiries.

Dawn R. Carrington
Editor
Vintage Romance Publishing

 

[brainstorm77]

Vintage Romance Publishing

http://www.vrpublishing.com/index.php Do any of you know anything about this publisher? thks.