Parvus Press

I agree, they seem to being doing things correctly with no major red flags. It is much better to have fewer books that show good or outstanding performance, rather than dozens or hundreds that show weak or non-existent returns. I don't see that they have touted bestsellers on their list. They might not have felt it important to say so. Colin has a nice little video about the submission process, and you don't see that very often. Kind of a homey, "here I am, in case your curious." Just guestimating in reference to their sales ranks on Amazon, I would think that they have no probs with paying for the production of their books. But I sure do wonder where a fairly new small press gets the $500 to $1,000 advance allotment to pay their contracted authors. Perhaps they had startup capital. I dunno, I''m intrigued by them. They're one to watch.

According to a note in today's Publishers Lunch, they now have distribution through Baker & Taylor.

I just saw that about 15 minutes ago.

Heaven help me, I'm sliding under the wire to make a last ditch and final submission. The open period expires in two days. This time I'm handing over an urban ghost fantasy. The other two rejections was a distopian and another fantasy. I like them. They are very fast and selective. I can truly say I've given them my all. I just wish ALL form submissions were as easy as theirs. And so it goes.

Good luck, Tri! I hope your book gets accepted ;D

They do seem like a good publisher. I've sent in my one completed fantasy novel in just to see. I'm betting on a rejection.

I was interested in them until I saw they don't want sexual content. Not all of my stuff has erotic content, but I want it as an option

I saw that too, Filigree. I had to make sure my stuff was light or behind-the-door before considering sending it off. I really don't like that stipulation either. I sure would like to know to what degree will they tolerate any passionate scenes.

Hi everyone!

My name is Colin and I’m the founder / publisher of Parvus Press. I’m sorry I didn’t pop in sooner; we’ve been VERY busy.

Some great questions here and I want to take a moment to answer. I will also say that we always open for a soft submission period (not really advertised and for a short window) during and after the Nebula Conference. So if you have work to submit, you will have another chance in May.

Thanks to everyone who shared kind words about us and the work we do. Im going to try and hit each of the recent questions, but forgive any goofs as I’m on mobile at the moment.

1) Why only five books so far?

When I started Parvus, it was with a conservative growth plan. I talk about it on an episode of the Ditch Diggers podcast and again on the Hybrid Author Podcast last year. Sorry that I don’t have links at the ready.

The basic idea was 1 Book in year 1, 2 in 2, 4 in year 3, and then go to what I call “full time Parvus” with the company releasing two seasonal calendars of books.

This plan was designed to give us time to learn from our mistakes and to make sure we weren’t accruing costs faster than we could recover them via sales. At times, this measured growth has been frustrating, but it’s also given us very tight control over finances and that’s a very good thing.

We deviated form the plan last year and only released one novel because we moved from being a digital press to a nationally distributed publisher with Baker & Taylor Publisher Services. This meant putting our entire catalog on hold for a year. But it means we are releasing SIX books in the next eleven months.

So, we are growing and it’s awesome.

2) Secual content - We aren’t interested in explicit sexual content that approaches erotica. We’ve got nothing against sexual content. It’s fun! We’re all mature adults! But it isn’t right for our catalog.

3) How do we maintain a team with so few releases?

Parvus is a business and businesses often have to staff ahead of growth. This is NOT a hobby for any of our four owners. It is a long-term investment. Most of the funding for the first three years of operations came from Eric and myself, as we’ve been fortunate to have success in our primary careers. However, we do have outside investors and our Kickstarter for our anthology, If This Goes On, definitely brought in some funds as well.

It also doesn’t hard that our books sell well!

We have a very active ownership team who puts in the lion’s share of the effort at Parvus. But we also have one part-time employee, a marketing and PR consultant, and a whole ecosystem of independent contractors that work on our titles.

We are a very big small press.

4) Questions in the future?

Email me! [email protected]. I try to be as open and accessible as possible. Our success relies solely on trust and the writing community is also our readers. If I can answer any questions down the road, don’t hesitate to ask!

I don’t check AW as often as I should, but I live in my email and will gladly come back to answer any questions on the forum if you ping me.

Also, I just did an appearance on the hybrid author podcast which you may find of interest: http://hybridauthorpodcast.com/episode-74-parvus-evolution/

Thanks!

- Colin

Thanks for popping by and answering questions, Colin. The podcasts are nice and personable. The best of luck to Parvus.

Thanks, Colin. Wishing you and Parvus the best.

Oh that's disappointing to hear. Parvus is one of my reach publishers... (in minuscule, parvus-like part because, teehee, I have a long history working with bacteria with the species name 'parvus.')

I'd love to work with them and hope they find another distributor.

Anyone who has experience with Parvus have anything about response times? When I submitted, the automated email said if I hadn't heard anything in 90 days to send them a nudge follow-up. I did that after 90 days... which was a month ago. I haven't heard anything back, so I wondered if anyone could speak to any experienced response times.

I'm 100 days into them. No word.

I subbed at the very end of January--no response on my end either. Sent a follow-up email today. Of note, their site shows they're open to submissions again--no idea if that correlates in any way to responses (or lack thereof) on outstanding subs.

Received a response to my submission status request last night: they are still working through submissions from their last open subs period and told me my MS is still under review.

Thank you for everyone who chimed in! It's somewhat good (?) to know I'm not alone in long-wait land. It does seem concerning not to have finished the last round of submissions before opening up again, if they are quite behind, but alas. I'm on 134 days outstanding right now. My nudge email was sent 43 days ago, so perhaps I'll get an answer soon.

Anyone hear *anything* from Parvus?

(Colin? Are you still poking in now and then?)

Patty said:

Anyone hear *anything* from Parvus? (Colin? Are you still poking in now and then?)

Click to expand...

According to his AW profile, the last time he was active on AW was on 03-09-2019 . The day he “popped” into this thread.

I got an initial response to my status ping back in mid-June that said my MS was still under consideration and they'd be getting back to me in a week or so. Two months later, it's still crickets so I'm guessing they are severely buried under subs.

I nudged and didn't even get a response as to the status of my manuscript. I'm considering this one CNR, as it's been over 6 months, but who knows?

My experience with Parvus is pretty old, but I saw the name in the thread title and thought I would share. I submitted one of my MS after seeing them on reddit in 2016. I received a very personalized response from Colin less than a month later that included the editor's notes. It was very kind and emphasized they wanted to see future work from me. I haven't been down the small press route again for later manuscripts, but they are definitely on the top of my list if I decide to try that!

I've lurked periodically on Colin's twitter timeline and he seems very focused on promoting a few books that they've put out. That's fantastic, it is, and I mean it sincerely. And in that context, I'm not sure that Parvus gives new submissions the kind of attention you saw in 2016, anymore, since all of us that subbed last spring (according to this thread) have heard nothing at all regarding reject/pursue. The submission page guaranteed a response in three months.

It's hard to imagine that they're seriously considering pursuing 100% of the people on this thread that subbed this year--so it's more sensible to conclude that they aren't responding.

My guess, just a guess, is that something (or a few things) has/have changed since 2016. Maybe they're getting way more subs now, or something to do with staff, or who knows what.

Yes, I would expect they are much busier now with many more subs! I wouldn't take my timeline as an indicator of current response times, simply sharing my experience with them. Also even at the time he mentioned in his email that they usually send a more generic form response.

All right. I think it's past time to CNR on this one, despite them saying a 90 day response.

Subbed in February, didn't hear much, finally nudged September 14 because of their policy to 'nudge if you don't hear' in 90 days,' and they'd had twice that...

... no response to nudge, three weeks out.

I'd really like to have worked with this press. This and one or two others, despite being small, seemed like good outfits. So this silence from them really drives the point, to me, I think, of what some of y'all say that it's kind of a rough business. Competitive, things don't always work out, and so on.

=sigh=

ETA their website needs some updating too.