Vinvatar Publishing

[fairiemage2015]

Another small press that has came up with the promise of stress free publishing, however its sadly been anything but. With a total of 15 authors, 3 being 1 author -- the owners mother, 9 authors have already discussed leaving the publishing house because of various reasons.

Lack of communication
No covers after several months
Poor or lack of editing
No payment for several months and being told that you have to cross a certain threshold before you get paid
An earnings statement that is very difficult to read (Which makes it very easy to confuse authors)
Missing books on earnings statements
You pay for covers and edits, even if you aren't told this up front
The business ran by a family with no publishing background at all aside from the mother who has only been an author previously


Publisher can be found here - https://www.vinvatar.com/

 

[Gillhoughly]

From the site:

• Editing (We always suggest having a book edited for grammar and spelling issues. We want to make sure your book reads well and sells Great!)

COLOR ME GOBSMACKED! A PUBLISHER WHO SUGGESTS EDITING??? WHO KNEW????

As you know, Bob, this could be revolutionary!


BTW, I've been in commercial publishing for 25+ years and know better than to start up my own house because I do not know enough about it yet. My guess is this lot thinks it's like a garage sale and that anybody can throw one.

Good freakin' grief--almost all the staff have just first names and initials for last names. What's that about? Making it harder to identify the guilty in a line up?

RUN AWAY.

 

[aliceshortcake]

From Vinvatar's FAQ page:

What type of commission will I get?
50% of the net income. Payments are sent each month after the first 90 days.

Commission? Don't they mean royalties?

Do I keep my copyrights?
Yes. The author keeps the rights. If your work is not currently copyrighted and you would like help with that let us know.
https://www.vinvatar.com/faq/

Cluelessness alert! Cluelessness alert!

 

[Dawn Reynolds]

Another small press that has came up with the promise of stress free publishing, however its sadly been anything but. With a total of 15 authors, 3 being 1 author -- the owners mother, 9 authors have already discussed leaving the publishing house because of various reasons.

Lack of communication
No covers after several months
Poor or lack of editing
No payment for several months and being told that you have to cross a certain threshold before you get paid
An earnings statement that is very difficult to read (Which makes it very easy to confuse authors)
Missing books on earnings statements
You pay for covers and edits, even if you aren't told this up front
The business ran by a family with no publishing background at all aside from the mother who has only been an author previously


Publisher can be found here - https://www.vinvatar.com/

I've read several books by this publisher and I have to say that if you are paying for editing, you need to ask for your money back. There are either missing pages, chapters, words -- etc -- in almost each book that I've read.

 

[mrsmig]

From the website:

[FONT=&quot]Even though Vinvatar Publishing offers so many services we still try and stay competitive with commissions. As of 03/2016 we use a 50/50 structure. We retain 50%, and you get 50% of the Net Income. This is all outlined in our contract. We hope this balance will hold well. Many other companies are between 25 – 45% profit to authors after costs, but we feel at this time we can make the 50/50 work. Authors are asked to stick with us for at least 2 years per book submission as we strive to get you book sales. Please review our contract once logged into the [/FONT]author section[FONT=&quot] for more information.

[/FONT]And there it is...that pesky "net" terminology again. Any time I see "net" pop up in ANY publisher's discussion of royalties, it's great whacking flapper of a red flag.

 

[Gillhoughly]

mrsmig And there it is...that pesky "net" terminology again. Any time I see "net" pop up in ANY publisher's discussion of royalties, it's great whacking flapper of a red flag.

As well it should. Bean counters know how to mess with the numbers to show no profit at all. The Forest Gump film is infamous for not showing a profit, though it sold $660 million in tickets:

Winston Groom, the novelist whose book was the basis for the film, has yet made only $350,000, part of an arrangement that also calls for him to earn 3 percent of the net profits, profits that Paramount says it doesn't yet have. -- May 1995, New York Times

Authors are asked to stick with us for at least 2 years per book submission as we strive to get you book sales.

"Strive?" For the 4 books I checked on Amazon (sales rankings in the
multi-million level, one released last January had no reviews), "strive" is pretty optimistic. Whatever the costs associated with the books, it is doubtful the writers will ever so much as break even, much less show a profit.


(I will add that if I had $350,000.00 in the bank from a movie deal I'd be over the moon.)

 

[rightcard]

Unfortunately I hadn't found this thread when I was first trying to check this publisher out in 2016 but I will say I completely agree with the first post and as an author who has been with them for three years too long but no more, I would warn others to stay away.

They don't update reports and their reports are put in by them so you have to rely on them to be honest about them
Their communication is so slow it borders on being non-existent.
They make promises they can't keep and are very shady about how they do things.

I won't go into exact details but will warn anyone that is thinking of going here to publish your books to run the other way ... fast!