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Alban Lake Publishing / Illumen

MumblingSage

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is this the right place to post this? I got accepted in Illumen, which is now part of Alban Lake. The editor's been really nice and prompt. :)

I've also received an acceptance from Alban Lake, which went smoothly. Had a slight hiccup with one submission when I misread a line in the submission guidelines and misaddressed my cover letter, which earned me a clarification email rather than an outright rejection :e2smack: And that was just this past week, so whatever is up with White Cat, Alban Lake is still running. Perhaps it should get its own spinoff thread?
 

SaraC

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I just got a partial request for a novel from Alban Lake. This thread was the only one I could find that mentioned them, but it seemed like it was older (albiet scary) information about a publisher that had been connected with. The editor who seemed to be the source of the problems in this thread isn't listed on the Alban Lake website.
http://albanlake.com/novels-novellas-collections/

Alban lake appears to own Spaceports and Spidersilk, which is a magazine I've had two good experiences with for.

If there is a separate thread for Alban Lake, please let me know.
 

CaoPaux

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(copy/move from Sam's Dot/White Cat thread)
 

Corvid

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So I have a question: I recently got a story accepted in their Outposts of Beyond magazine. I was really excited, but then I saw that the magazine is going to be permanently closing after next July! My story would be featured in the July issue (the last one ever published).

What would you guys do? Would it look bad to have a story published in an essentially-doomed magazine? As far as I can tell, the company is doing fine: They're just wrapping up that one magazine.

Note: This isn't "my newest, favorite story" or something, so that will probably make a difference in my decision. It's one I've shopped around for a while and spent a fair deal of energy trying to place. It was accepted twice at other venues but I kept running into weird problems with the magazines. I swear this story is cursed!
 

mrsmig

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If all they take are first publication rights, and the term of those rights don't last for unreasonable length of time (you're free to republish elsewhere after a year, say), and if they pay you on acceptance (not on publication - bird in the hand and all that), then why not?

They seem to have a new URL for the parent company: Alban Lake Publishing
 

Corvid

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If all they take are first publication rights, and the term of those rights don't last for unreasonable length of time (you're free to republish elsewhere after a year, say), and if they pay you on acceptance (not on publication - bird in the hand and all that), then why not?

They seem to have a new URL for the parent company: Alban Lake Publishing

Thanks for the reply. The email said I'd receive payment along with a contributor's copy, so that sounds like a bit of a wait. But they only want exclusive rights for a year, so that's good at least. I just wasn't sure if it was a bad idea to go with a magazine that's closing, if people would think it looked bad, etc. I'm not even sure where I got this idea from, haha. It was just something that occurred to me. I'm strongly considering it for sure just because it looks like a cool little company/nice publication.
 

mrsmig

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Magazines come and go - it's the nature of the periodical publishing beast.

Unless you're looking for big money or eligibility for some kind of prize/award, and as long as the company is reputable, pays a decent fee promptly and doesn't hold onto your rights for an unreasonable amount of time - why not?
 

Debbie V

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I had a poem in Frostfire Worlds last fall. I received my contributor's copy but payment didn't seem to be in it. I e-mailed a few times and was told the editor was having the managing editor look into it. Now I see Alban Lake has changed names: https://www.branchingrealitiespublishing.com/news. I suppose I should email again, but I also thought I'd update the thread here. It's only a couple of bucks, but I like seeing checks. Anyone else having payment issues?
 

Corvid

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So I had something semi-weird happen with this publisher recently: If you scroll up, you'll see that I had a story accepted for "Outposts of Beyond" last year. It was due to be published this coming July, but randomly in March I received a copy of a magazine called "The Fifth Di" with my story in it?! From a company called Hiraeth press. After investigating for a couple minutes I found that Alban Lake had merged with? bought out? this company and was now running The Fifth Di, so that made sense--but I really would have appreciated some clarification before they just went ahead and published my story in a totally different magazine. There was also absolutely zero editing and they just kind of slapped it in there.

Honestly I have to say my experience with them has been less-than-stellar. I did receive my check for the story, however, so I can't complain about that.
 

Corvid

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I think altering the agreement without getting you to sign off is worth complaining about.
Yeah, it definitely didn't sit right with me but I figured I didn't really have any "damages," so-to-speak. I guess I didn't feel like causing a stir because while I felt like it was quite disrespectful, it wasn't that bad.

For what it's worth, I'm pretty new to all this still, so maybe it was wrong to keep silent for so long . . . This happened back in March and this is the first time I've spoke publicly about it. If they're going to start refusing to pay authors like the other person said, I'll definitely share my story and take a stand.
 
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fictionbuffet

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I had a poem in Frostfire Worlds last fall. I received my contributor's copy but payment didn't seem to be in it. I e-mailed a few times and was told the editor was having the managing editor look into it. Now I see Alban Lake has changed names: https://www.branchingrealitiespublishing.com/news. I suppose I should email again, but I also thought I'd update the thread here. It's only a couple of bucks, but I like seeing checks. Anyone else having payment issues?
I had payment issues with them too - they were supposed to pay both a standalone sum for being in an anthology (2019) and royalties off of a digital sale (2018). Neither materialized, despite multiple emails and being told "the managing editor is looking into it." At one point they tried telling me that I hadn't made any sales, and when I told them that two sales had come from within my household they reversed course and said, oh, a few sales. Then they mailed me a letter saying that they *had* paid me, and after that haven't answered my emails at all. They were very nice about it each time, but I still haven't been paid. Like Corvid said - it wasn't much, maybe it wasn't a big deal, maybe it was just me, so this is the first time I've talked about it.
 
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Maryn

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The fact that it wasn't a lot of money owed lets the author dismiss it if they need to for their own well-being, but it's good that you've shared your experience. Your fellow authors definitely want to know about publishing houses that don't pay what they owe their authors.

So thanks!

Maryn, grateful