The Zharmae Publishing Press

Helix · Jul 16, 2018

traveo2343 said:
If the work is consistent, I am not likely to pay freelance rates, according to the BLS the average hourly rate is $29.75 for a writer, I'm certainly not going to pay more than that. $18.75 is in my view the rate I would start any college graduate off at, and I don't think that I would pay more than $35 or so per hour.

The reference link: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/writers-and-authors.htm

From the view of a writer, would you rather be paid by the hour or by the project or by the word? Because any of those three perspectives can make any activity look poorly or fabulously paid.

My emphasis.

Oh, for goodness' sake. Average (mean) is not the same as median. I recall that we had a long convo about how to calculate percentages, please don't make me do the same over mean, mode and median.

Round Two · Jul 16, 2018

traveo2343 said:
Thank you all for the feedback. I will check back and make one final reply to this thread tonight by 8pm (Chicago Local time - about 3.5 hours from now). If there are any final comments, questions, concerns I will take them into consideration. If I do move forward on this project I will check in with AW a year into the project to let you know how it has progressed. At the present time, I still need to evaluate this venture along with a few other opportunities that I am considering. Of the feedback that has been highlighted payment to authors, distribution vs sales support, and my personal experience with books are the main focus. I will include those in my final due diligence analysis.

Truthfully, there's little point in you stopping by this thread later today or in a year. You are determined to not listen to anything anybody says about how the industry works. It's the same problem that plagued you with Zharmae. It'll be the same problem that sabotages your efforts in two years when you have another business idea and again in ten years when you do it again.

We've given you facts. We've given you the benefit of decades of combined experience in the publishing and media industry. But you insist that you've got it figured out (contrary to evidence). I don't think you're a bad guy, Travis. But I think when it comes to the publishing industry, you're a terrible businessman. Best of luck to you.

eqb · Jul 16, 2018

Round Two said:
I don't think you're a bad guy, Travis. But I think when it comes to the publishing industry, you're a terrible businessman. Best of luck to you.

I'm not sure he's "not a bad guy", given that's he's been told paying for reviewing is not ethical, and that his rates are far below industry standards, but he doesn't care.

In the end, however, it doesn't matter whether he's clueless or predatory. Working with him is a terrible idea.

traveo2343 · Jul 16, 2018

Round Two said:
Truthfully, there's little point in you stopping by this thread later today or in a year. You are determined to not listen to anything anybody says about how the industry works. It's the same problem that plagued you with Zharmae. It'll be the same problem that sabotages your efforts in two years when you have another business idea and again in ten years when you do it again.

We've given you facts. We've given you the benefit of decades of combined experience in the publishing and media industry. But you insist that you've got it figured out (contrary to evidence). I don't think you're a bad guy, Travis. But I think when it comes to the publishing industry, you're a terrible businessman. Best of luck to you.

Thanks for the feedback. If there isn't any point in stopping by AW again, then I won't. But I do listen to everything that everyone tells me, and were possible I do make changes if I can integrate them with my broader goals. I wish everyone here the best of luck and success. And if my path crosses with anyone here that the experience is fruitful.

Old Hack · Jul 17, 2018

traveo2343 said:
Generally, the average experience is 3-7 years, with some having as much as 20+ years. Again, while I have a range that I target, I allow contractors to offer a price they are comfortable with based on the project scope, and I contract them in order to lock in that price point for a given project or series of projects, or time period.

There are lots of people who have a decade or more of experience in editing who aren't good editors, though, Travis. They'll charge really low prices for the work you're asking them to do, and when you couple that with the low prices you're paying for the writing you can guarantee that you'll end up with really bad books.

You seem to think you're creating a new way of working, which has never been done before: nope. Do you remember I mentioned a book packager I worked for in 1993, 1994? While I was there that book packager bought out another packager which worked in exactly the way you're describing. It was almost bankrupt but it had a few assets which were useful to us. The quality of the books it had published was disgraceful. Really embarrassingly bad.

There's a reason publishing people don't work in the way you're suggesting. It's because it results in bad books, poor sales, and no money.

AnonIntern · Nov 19, 2021

This thread is a bit old now, but I wanted to add details to it as someone who used to work on the publishing team at TZPP around 10 years ago (now that it finally feels career-safe to talk about it).

As far as I remember, when I was there in 2012 about 100% of the people working there were unpaid college interns--myself one of them. There may have been a full team behind the scenes, but I don’t remember interacting with any other members of TZPP if there were any. We only spoke with Travis and his head editor, Anna McDermott a.k.a. his actual mother.

I was part of a 6-intern team tasked to make this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937365107/?tag=absolutewritedm-20
The "Max Avalon" editor listed on the cover is actually Travis, which you can confirm if you look at the book's Goodreads page where he uses this name handle. But the truth is this product was almost 100% intern-driven.

As many people here rightly guessed, we had no prior editing or publishing experience. We did everything from choosing the cheesy title, to selecting story entries, editing at all levels, copy writing for back covers, hiring cover artists, etc. I believe we truly worked our asses off and did our best (not an excuse), but of course had NO idea what we were doing.

Travis and Anna did provide guidance and oversight along the way and to me seemed genuinely interested in helping us learn. Sometimes the concern for quality seemed to come second to appeasing the authors. Otherwise our team had full creative and editing autonomy. This book eventually came together through a lot of conference calls, a lot of Googling “is X grammatically correct?”, and in my case a lot of sending apology letters to angry authors when our edits came off too critical or ignorant or just plain wrong.

Of course the ultimate publication quality was poor. I doubt it sold more than a dozen copies. I saw TZPP selling it for $100+ out the gate for awhile on Amazon (maybe to milk $$ from the supportive friends and family?? I have no idea. We were all confused).

If you were one of the unfortunate creatives involved I’d like to personally apologize. I often had a lot of fun getting to meet with many of you and trying to help people polish their pieces, and learned a smidge about publishing, but our authors and cover artist deserved so much better than being guinea pigs for an inexperienced team. I really am sorry we couldn't have done better for you all. I'm especially sorry everyone had their time wasted by what I now see was a complete scam.

If I can give any advice to fellow writers out there when working with small publishers in the future: absolutely feel entitled to ask for your team’s qualifications!

Hoping you have all continued your craft and that TZPP wasn't the end,
Anon Intern

mccardey · Nov 19, 2021

Old Hack said:
No, Travis, that's not how it works.

Still my favourite quote from this thread..

Viridian · Nov 19, 2021

AnonIntern said:
This thread is a bit old now, but I wanted to add details to it as someone who used to work on the publishing team at TZPP around 10 years ago (now that it finally feels career-safe to talk about it).

As far as I remember, when I was there in 2012 about 100% of the people working there were unpaid college interns--myself one of them. There may have been a full team behind the scenes, but I don’t remember interacting with any other members of TZPP if there were any. We only spoke with Travis and his head editor, Anna McDermott a.k.a. his actual mother.

I was part of a 6-intern team tasked to make this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937365107/?tag=absolutewritedm-20
The "Max Avalon" editor listed on the cover is actually Travis, which you can confirm if you look at the book's Goodreads page where he uses this name handle. But the truth is this product was almost 100% intern-driven.

As many people here rightly guessed, we had no prior editing or publishing experience. We did everything from choosing the cheesy title, to selecting story entries, editing at all levels, copy writing for back covers, hiring cover artists, etc. I believe we truly worked our asses off and did our best (not an excuse), but of course had NO idea what we were doing.

Travis and Anna did provide guidance and oversight along the way and to me seemed genuinely interested in helping us learn. Sometimes the concern for quality seemed to come second to appeasing the authors. Otherwise our team had full creative and editing autonomy. This book eventually came together through a lot of conference calls, a lot of Googling “is X grammatically correct?”, and in my case a lot of sending apology letters to angry authors when our edits came off too critical or ignorant or just plain wrong.

Of course the ultimate publication quality was poor. I doubt it sold more than a dozen copies. I saw TZPP selling it for $100+ out the gate for awhile on Amazon (maybe to milk $$ from the supportive friends and family?? I have no idea. We were all confused).

If you were one of the unfortunate creatives involved I’d like to personally apologize. I often had a lot of fun getting to meet with many of you and trying to help people polish their pieces, and learned a smidge about publishing, but our authors and cover artist deserved so much better than being guinea pigs for an inexperienced team. I really am sorry we couldn't have done better for you all. I'm especially sorry everyone had their time wasted by what I now see was a complete scam.

If I can give any advice to fellow writers out there when working with small publishers in the future: absolutely feel entitled to ask for your team’s qualifications!

Hoping you have all continued your craft and that TZPP wasn't the end,
Anon Intern

This is very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I remember this thread/publisher from years ago and it’s interesting to see an update from someone who actually worked for them.

Maryn · Nov 19, 2021

I thought the same--thank you, AnonIntern, for sharing how it really was. Hope you'll stick around to meet some wonderful people who are into writing. I'll show you who.

Maryn, short of wonderful but decent

mrsmig · Nov 19, 2021

Thanks for your frankness, AnonIntern. This whole thread is an object lesson on how publishing does NOT work, from every conceivable angle.

The Zharmae Publishing Press

Helix

socially distancing

Round Two

Behind the door of a small house.

eqb

I write novels

traveo2343

Publisher at TZPP

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman

AnonIntern

mccardey

Viridian

local good boy

Maryn

Baaa!

mrsmig

Write. Write. Writey Write Write.