Crooked Cat Publishing

It's a husband and wife team, neither of whom have any previous publishing experience (and a HE in Creative Writing is not publishing experience). I can't find any professional editing experience for either of them either (but my Google-fu may be off).

They started in December 2011 and are already releasing books. I haven't heard of any of the books released beyond what's on their website, so there isn't a huge amount of marketing and promotion being done for them. In one case the website links to positive Amazon reviews, which is always a sign of an amateur operation IMO. In any event, they're publishing across a wide range of genres, which means that they won't be able to focus their marketing activities.

They're a royalty only publisher paying 40% net, which is pretty standard but I'd still want clarification on how net is calculated.

The cover art is okay.

Personally, I'd say see what they're doing in 2 years time and what type of royalties the authors are seeing on average.

MM

What's an HE?

It should have been a HEC (or Higher Education Certificate) but I missed off the C to test people ... or something ... )

Aaah, thanks.

They have Lorraine Mace writing for them under the pseudonym Frances di Plino, which I'd view as encouraging. She's the dept ed of Words With Jam (amongst other things) and while I don't personally care for it, I've still been reading it since issue two (hey! it's free online! I like to procrastinate!). It's a solid mag which has grown well.

In their submission guidelines there's not a mention of a wordcount window, or even like some more vague-minded outfits anything along the lines of "we accept novellas and novels" or "everything from superlative short fiction to an epic" etc.

Apparently you're just supposed to go in querying blindly. Or wait until they've published their first score of books and then research the wordcount range there.

Maybe they're trying to fencewalk - look like they are open to general submissions, for the future when they really are - but for now only take people they already know?

Whatever

Why does the name of this publisher send chills up my spine?

I've heard rumblings that their e-books have layout problems and editing issues, but as I've not read them myself I can't be more specific.

There are many encouraging signs, but things like payment and contract details shouldn't be spread over several pages. They should all be covered on the submission page. Having part there and part on the About Us page makes things more confusing than they need to be.

They've just opened a short submissions window and they do historical (which is my thing). Any more up-to-date comments?

They kept popping up in my Twitter timeline/feed for whatever reason, so I gave them a look. No mention of them on P&E, so I immediately checked B&BC.

Seems they're closed to submissions until 2015 at the earliest. On the bright side, they've narrowed their scope regarding genre and word count, according to their Submissions page: http://crookedcatpublishing.com/submissions/genres/

Otherwise, I got nothin'. Hope the info's useful to someone.

Did anyone else read this outfit's name as Cooked Cat Publishing?

Now I am. Thanks.

Just for that, I'm sharing the Weird Al song earworming in my head.

www.metrolyrics.com/cats-in-the-kettle-lyrics-weird-al-yankovic.html

All joking aside, I wanted to give CCP a fair look. Their site took too long to load, multiple times. It's good that they're at least trying to streamline operations.

Does anyone have any idea of their turn-around time on submissions? They've had my query plus first chapters for three months now. I nudged a couple of weeks ago and didn't get a reply.

I submitted mine April 1 (the day they opened submissions) and got a response (rejection) on May 10th. Maybe yours is going for a deeper review?

In case you are interested, the rejection:

Dear Christy,

Many thanks for your submission of Better To Have Loved and your interest in Crooked Cat.

We have now had an opportunity to read it, however, on reflection, we have decided not to take this any further. The plot is interesting and varied, and we have no doubt you will find the right publisher for the story.

Crooked Cat wish you all the best in your quest in seeking publication for this novel.

Kind regards,

Stephanie Patterson
Crooked Cat Publishing
www.crookedcatpublishing.com

Thanks! There's always that possibility. I usually tend believe in the rejection that somehow got lost. Crossing fingers anyway.

Turnaround time

JaneD said:

Does anyone have any idea of their turn-around time on submissions? They've had my query plus first chapters for three months now. I nudged a couple of weeks ago and didn't get a reply.

Click to expand...

Sent them a synopsis and 50 pages on 1/14/17 and just got a request for a full mss on 1/29/17. Thought that was impressive.

I wouldn't go near Crooked Cat and I'll tell you why. I asked on their FB page, maybe a year or so ago, if they accepted literary fiction. Their reply was 'not if we can help it'. I thought this was beyond rude and unprofessional. It's such comments that can put a person off for life and they stick. I have been writing for over 40 years and am a hybrid author, having been trad published, small press published and now indie published so I know what to expect from publishers.

Do you know what genres they take? It may be that they're simply not a lit fic house.

There are lots of publishers who don't take science fiction, fantasy or erotic romance. They might snark about their reasons...but I don't take that as a personal insult against me or my writing. In fact, I'm grateful they show their preferences. It saves me from querying completely unsuitable publishers or agents.

@ Filigree

It doesn't matter what they take or don't take. I have years of submissions to publishing houses big and small. If you don't publish literally fiction then simply say no, we only publish genre fiction, or words along those lines, as most professional pub houses would. I don't take it as anything against me - I take it as a bad mark against them! Most publishing houses do list what they do and don't take. Maybe I should have gone to their website and not their FB page. But even so, a FB shouldn't be an excuse for rudeness.

Don't you have to send a photo in to submit? Or maybe that was another pub.