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Squinti Publishing

BenPanced

THE BLUEBERRY QUEEN OF HADES (he/him)
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One title offered for sale. No information about who they are or how long they've been in the industry beyond the standard "we love books" spiel on the front page. Offers both "traditional" and "non-traditional" publishing services; "traditional" pays 20% royalties and "non-traditional" varies according to the package you've purchased. The cheapest is $2000 to format your book and upload it to Amazon, while you handle the marketing for 100% royalties. $12,000 gets you everything (editing, formatting, cover design, distribution, marketing) and 80% royalties. Serious misgivings/red flags and klaxons going off.
 

aliceshortcake

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It can't be a coincidence that Squinti's only book, From Antarctica to Zimbabwe, is written by Dr Quinta.

http://drquinta.com/

All I can gather is that Dr Quinta's husband is called Diondre and the couple live in Houston, where Squinti is based.

In other words, SP appears to be a self-publishing front.
 
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BenPanced

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That's what I was wondering. It seemed funny that both Dr Quinta's and SP's web sites have similar formats.
 

aliceshortcake

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Dr Quinta - real name Dr Quinta Nwanosike-Warren - has previously published one book through CreateSpace and two through Blurb:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1537324640/?tag=absowrit-20
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HCGOGIQ/?tag=absowrit-20

She has no prior experience of commercial publishing and already does what looks like a full-time job as CEO and lead consultant of her own company:

http://engrrc.com/

Also, her one book with Squinti Publishing is absurdly overpriced - $22.20 (£17.07) for a 268-page paperback. And the e-book is a whopping $12.50 (£9.61)!
 
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JetFueledCar

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It's good to come back to this site and see all the familiar faces with their wealth of knowledge that I can only nod and agree with wholeheartedly.

Incidentally, is the fact that the "publisher" added Owl itself a red flag? I can't think why a legitimate publisher would follow a writer who hadn't even sent them a manuscript yet, but then, I'm a cynic at heart, and someone who's been at this longer than I have might have a different perspective.
 

aliceshortcake

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Squinti isn't currently accepting manuscripts for "traditional" publishing, but their "non-traditional" imprint Sage Giraffe is up and running. The cheapest package:

You pay a one-time fee of $2,000 and we format your ebook and upload it to Amazon. You take care of marketing yourself. You keep 100% of royalties.
http://squintibooks.com/services/non-traditional-publishing/

How difficult is it to format and upload an ebook yourself?
 

Aggy B.

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You can even download a free template from CreateSpace that makes the formatting super-clean for D2D. And allows you to purchase print copies if that's what you want. Which means the $2k can be spent elsewhere.