Wayward Ink Publishing

[meg_b]

Has anyone had any dealings with Wayward Ink Publishing yet? They are a new publisher for GLBT stories. Their website looks quite professional, but so far they've only had two releases.

http://www.waywardinkpublishing.com/

 

[Unimportant]

Gosh, I think their website is pretty dreadful! The images evoke horror, not romance; the font looks unprofessional; black text on a nearly-black background is impossible to read (until the background inexplicably switches from a black building/alley to a whitewashed stone wall); and though they say they're a GLBT publisher all of the language on the website says 'gay men' and 'lesbian' or 'gay women'; nothing at all about B or T.

They don't specifically say what rights they buy, but from the language I'm inferring they take all rights. There's no info about who owns the press or who the editors are. The website is registered via a proxy.

A bit of googling suggests that Lily Velden is a WIP author and editor and executive director.

Editing to add: Ah, the other co-founder is Andrew Gordon, another author. I can't see that either of them have any prior experience from the publishing side of the industry. Both seem to have previously published with Dreamspinner.

Aside from her writing credentials, cofounder and Executive Director, Lily Velden, holds a degree in Fine Arts and a Diploma in Accounting. In addition, she has started, run, and sold several successful small businesses, and for several years headed the Financial and Administration department of a large multi-million dollar corporation. Lily is using the business management skills she learned through practical experience in conjunction with her Fine Arts degree to bring a creative, yet professional eye, to Wayward Ink Publishing.

Wayward Ink's other cofounder comes equally skilled. Andrew Q. Gordon is a lawyer by day and writer by night. He's also been a successful investor for more than fifteen years.

So, my guess is author(s)-turned-publisher. As usual, I'd suggest giving the press a few years to see how it's going to do.

It doesn't impress me that the first sentence in Ms Velden's story in WIP's first published work has a typo in it..... ("My gaze rake over him as he enters my bar.") Ditto for Mr Gordon's GoodReads page ("Wayward Ink is publishing it’s second anthology, Love, Loss, Laugher and Lust).

 

[BWretched]

I haven't been able to find much information about this publisher so I'm wondering if anyone more savvy at looking into these things could yea or nay them for me?

Looking at their site, I think it needs work. It's very clunky and unappealing. As well, I found their twitter and they're nearly following as many people that follow them. Most of their posts are ignored. It looks like one of those pages where someone spam follows everyone in order to get a follow back.

I don't know how their sales are doing. I see a few books from them on Amazon have good public rating, but very little views.

I'm getting the feeling that if they accept my MS and I agree to publish with them that my MS will end up mostly unseen if I don't do incredible amounts of work which essentially ends up somewhat like self publishing, does it not?

And also, it looks like EVERY book they publish gets "A Wayward Ink Anthology" at the end of the title. That's a turn off.

I know it sounds like I've written them off myself, so I suppose what I'm really asking is despite all these issues I see, does WIP have any pluses I might not be seeing that would make publishing with them a benefit?

Thanks for any input guys.

 

[CaoPaux]

Site gone, no activity after '16.