[Publisher] Scout Media

[h=3]A home for aspiring authors and musicians to present their work to the world without all the hassles of major publishing companies or record labels[/h]
In other words, aimed at authors, not readers. Also music publishing and book publishing are two very different businesses; I don't know of any companies that successfully do both.

I couldn't find any information on who's running the company and what their qualifications are, although the only novels they've published so far are by someone named Brian Paone. I would guess that he and the publisher are the same person. They've also published a few anthologies. They aren't taking novel submissions at the moment.

Their covers are pretty lackluster. They don't inspire a lot of confidence. I'd wait and see with this one.

Scout Media is all about the reader as much as it is for the author. Brian Paone and his business partner run Scout Media. They aren't accepting novels because they want to focus on their anthology which gives author's an opportunity to be traditional published. The short stories in A Matter of Words and A Journey of Words are of high quality and well edited, which prove to be an enjoyable read. As for music, so far it is only Brian Paone's albums, but in the future once Scout Media is more established they'll branch out to provide services for music artists.

The company offers editing services for a fee, which is a conflict of interest, and then goes on to conflate copy-editing with proofreading and house style in the service description.

I'm just going to leave a link to this super-helpful post here.

VeryBigBeard said:

The company offers editing services for a fee, which is a conflict of interest, and then goes on to conflate copy-editing with proofreading and house style in the service description.

I'm just going to leave a link to this super-helpful post here.

Click to expand...

I had hired him for copy-editing for my self-publish novel. It's a service they also have in addition to publishing. I have submitted to their anthology, and wasn't required to pay any money for editing, or anything. I know author's who's stories made it into the first two anthology's and they recieve royalties and weren't charged any money for editing. So I'm not sure where the conflict of interest is.

[h=3]"present their work to the world without all the hassles of major publishing companies"


I'd love to know what kind of "hassle" an Author would want to avoid, with a major publisher. Like those annoying advances, the problematic marketing?[/h]

WritingGenie said:

I had hired him for copy-editing for my self-publish novel. It's a service they also have in addition to publishing. I have submitted to their anthology, and wasn't required to pay any money for editing, or anything. I know author's who's stories made it into the first two anthology's and they recieve royalties and weren't charged any money for editing. So I'm not sure where the conflict of interest is.

Click to expand...

Just because you didn't experience the negative side of this conflict of interest doesn't mean it isn't there. Because the publisher offers both editing and publishing services, there is nothing stopping them from conflating the two. The best option for such a set-up is to have two entirely separate companies or, at the very least, state that they won't publish those works they've also been paid to edit.

This combination of editing services/publishing is a common red flag for problem publishers, and is apparent in many of the greyed out publishers in the Absolute Write list (the greying out meaning they went out of business). And the fear is that if the publisher can't support itself on publishing, then it might fall back on editing in a way that might take advantage of writers.

Again, your experience was good. Those of people you know was also good. Still, this combination remains a conflict of interest.

Thanks for explaining the conflict of interest, Twick.

The thing about going out of business is really, really critical for new and small publishers without much of a backlist and no obvious capital assets to ward off the harder times.

When a publisher goes out of business, it frequently takes the rights to authors' books with it either because the owner just doesn't bother reverting them or because they get tied up in creditors.

Without those rights, that book is dead in the water. It can't be subbed to other publishers who might take reprint rights or re-publish a book. It can't be self-pubbed on Amazon. Books can often earn a small but meaningful amount of money for writers long after they're written. Even if it's a small amount, it's better than the book being, effectively, gone from the universe.

That's why we get so skittish about publisher's who are new, have possible conflicts, or that just don't seem to be operating by normal procedure. Far more likely to fail, and authors lose the most when publishers fail.