Hello everyone. My name is Sarah Bredeman, and I am co-founder of Ant Colony Press. I appreciate the concerns, and also your thoughtfulness to share those concerns here. I hope I can help clarify some of the questions that have been raised.
First and foremost, to answer eqb's questions posed to Ian- we pay out 40% royalties and have been focusing on wide distribution for both ebook an print (Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBooks, etc., all through Draft2Digital. For print, we use one of a couple different POD distributors, depending on genre or size of the project, in addition to other factors). I'm not sure what you mean by what kind of editing we have. I do the bulk of the editing. You are more than welcome to read
When Shadows Creep (the first release of which I edited) to see for yourself. If you're asking if we edit, then yes, we do. I tend to lean towards the Chicago Style Manual, but take into account the authors wishes, stylistic intentions, voice, and genre before I edit. Marketing? That's a tough one. It depends on the project and how involved the author is/wants to be.
As for Pico Sour's secondary concern about good intentions- that's fair. We're not for everyone by design. The authors who have signed contracts with us have had to lay a good bit of trust at our feet, and I take that very seriously. I am a student of the industry, and not just the craft of writing, and would say that I know a great deal about publishing small-- that is, Independent Publishing-- after my own failed attempts at finding an agent, then trying hard to do all of the work of self-publishing and finding that it was not only exhausting, but also extremely lonely. I prefer to keep it small (versus Big-6 or the agent-track) because I believe that the old school publishing track is futile, but I also know that you don't have to do it alone, and in fact, shouldn't. That's the entire idea behind Ant Colony Press; that those who make it "big" are the exception to the rule, not the rule, and you need a support system. On the other side of the coin, Jordan is in
The Business of publishing and has been for many years after his own disastrous indie publishing experience (he had to buy back his rights, it's a story for another time).
If you'd like to speak more about our process, who we are, why we do this, how we came to be, etc., I'm more than happy to talk off forum.
[email protected] attn: sarah