BHC Press / Blue Harvest Creative

desdenova said:

I'm not saying you should NEVER try to sell a book at a con. I was merely responding to one of your own statements that made it sound like there was no point in going to a con if you didn't have one to sell. All I'm saying is that there is value in cons *beyond* selling your book. Being an author is about writing, of course, but it's also about planning for the future. Selling that book can be made easier through those connections you make at cons.

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At a writing con perhaps, but there are several kinds. At a 100k sci fi con for example, you absolutely are there to sell books by the pound. A writing or professional con is a different experience, and maybe you can make a connection....for all the good it does you.
Thing about 'connections,' they really have no obligation to do anything. 'Maybe' they want to help. 'Maybe' they even can. But one thing I have learned, if your business strategy depends on waiting for the phone to ring...it wont.

desdenova said:

Haven't you noticed how writing forums and Facebook groups for authors ask you to NOT promote your books? Is that ridiculous too?

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Again we're talking two different events. At a full con, with people ACTIVELY LOOKING for ways to spend money, promoting your book is absolutely the right thing to do.

desdenova said:

If you go at a con and are constantly trying to jam your books down people's throats, you'll find yourself in the same place as an author going on forums and FB groups trying to constantly self-promote. Not a good look.

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Since when is Artists Alley "not a good look?" Sorry but that's ridiculous. The ENTIRE POINT of a con is to set up a table and peddle your ware. Not only do the attendees not mind, they expect it. Why am I the only one here who realizes authors are supposed to sell books? :/
You can 'connect' and 'connect' and 'connect' and not have diddly to show for it. Connecting is merely one means to an end and isnt the final point.
The POINT of all this is selling.
Authors sell books. To whoever and wherever they can.

desdenova said:

Do you like it when someone approaches you for ulterior motives and is being very obvious about it?

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That is completely off topic. Cons dont work that way.

desdenova said:

That's the point I was trying to make about having genuine conversations with people. It shouldn't all revolve around you and your books.

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Again, I'm the only one here who realizes authors are supposed to sell...
"Genuine conversations" completely misses the point of WHY you're at the con in the first place! If you weren't trying to sell or move product then you'd be back home on your couch. Your book is paramount. Its why you're there, its your reason for showing up. "Connections" dont sell books. People giving you money does sell them.
Any moment not spent talking about you or your book is a moment wasted. This is a volume business.

desdenova said:

I'm not even sure if your experience was with the publisher mentioned in the OP?

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It was. I paid BHC for a cover and interior and they delivered. But my primary reason for posting was the question why anyone would pay money to publish a book...with my answer being as opposed to what? I had a book that Big Publishing rejected, so my choices were either drop all my dreams and die a lonely death in the street, broken and alone...or take charge and get it done myself.
Well, I chose not to give up. Who here recommends the other option?

I had a book that Big Publishing rejected, so my choices were either drop all my dreams and die a lonely death in the street, broken and alone...or take charge and get it done myself.Well, I chose not to give up. Who here recommends the other option?

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As many of us have pointed out, these weren't your only options. You made a choice (which I hope was informed), and you're happy with it, and that's fine; but representing what you did as VANITY OR DEATH is misleading to other writers in similar situations.

Keith1971 said:

You are aware that Big Publishing takes a bite out of every book sold as well? Don't claim they're doing this for free.

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Big Publisher (that really needs scare quotes for the correct effect) is a business. Small Independent Publisher is a business. A trade publisher (big or small) makes money. But trade publishers don't take money from an author. You're getting them confused with vanity publishers.

Keith1971 said:

But I need laser clarity on something because theres a great deal of fear-mongering going on here.

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There is.

Keith1971 said:

How many people actually have direct personal experience getting "ripped off," versus how many are going off of 3rd hand rumor mongering? See, "statistical outlier" is an incredible claim. You're claiming that if I go to ANY vanity, anywhere, the odds are greater than 50% that they'll take the money and run.
GREATER THAN HALF??? Really?
I'd really like some stats on that because it bears no relation to anything I've encountered. I've attended dozen of conventions in a dozen states. Thats a lot of artist alleys, a lot of new authors with their brand new book. I always talk to as many as I can. The overwhelming majority are vanity. They paid money for a cover and an interior and they got it. None of them were ever ripped off (obviously, or they wouldn't have a book to sell in the first place), none of them ever had any warnings of other authors getting ripped off.
None.

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Mate, have a look at the rest of the Bewares forum here. Have a look at the complaints about Austin Macauley and others. Check out the number of vanity publishers that have closed and taken the rights with them. Google "vanity publishers" and "sunk costs fallacy".

Keith1971 said:

Therefore this "outlier" comment is really unprovably apocalyptic. Which reality am I supposed to believe? The one of rumor and fear-mongering or the one with authors who actually went the distance?

If "all vanities everywhere are thieves" is based only on one or two anecdotal cases, then its irresponsible. If a new author asks me what to do, and I say I've met dozens of success stories, and could even introduce them to several right down artists alley, then that would be first hand truth.

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Dozens? There are a lot more success stories from trade publishing.

But if you're happy with this model and feel it works for you, I won't attempt to disuade you. But I would like others to be able to judge the pros and cons and make up their own minds. Preferably between trade and self-publishing. Not vanity publishing.

mccardey said:

New writers do get through the slush, of course they do. And new writers are highly-prized by agents - highly prized. So don't despair.

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That's been the exact opposite of my experience. I've attended agent fairs where you have ten minutes to pitch a book before a professional agent, and its been "New author? Oh brother." Not a mention a stream of snarky passive aggression.
Agents are primarily looking for GENRE. They're aware (as I hope we all are) what the best selling genres are and if you're not pitching that kind of book to them, they'll give you half-hearted handshake and fake smile while excusing you from the room :/

Its obvious this is just a ballet of phony pleasantries. Its one thing that if in the middle of a query letter email surge, where you cut and paste several agent names onto several copies of the letter, and get one of those names WRONG, sending a "Hello Jill" to a Bob. Thats just the price of hundreds of queries.
But getting the same thing in return... getting a "Sorry Jill" when your name is Keith...

Its all smoke and shadows. Authors sending letters to people who don't read them, receiving incorrect responses the agents didn't even bother to write.
Emperor's New Clothes to the nth degree:/

Keith1971 said:

I had a book that Big Publishing rejected, so my choices were either drop all my dreams and die a lonely death in the street, broken and alone...or take charge and get it done myself.
Well, I chose not to give up. Who here recommends the other option?

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But - but you didn't do it yourself. Doing it yourself is self-publishing, and that's a perfectly valid choice. You've done the writing (and polishing): you do the marketing, you get people buying and reading your book, you (hopefully) see a fair return for your effort in writing it. Vanity publishing is when you pay someone else to do the work, and very, very few people see it, and you see (generally) no return on the effort of writing it.

Self-publishing is not the same as vanity publishing. In self-publishing the money flows to the writer. In vanity publishing it goes the other way.

Keith1971 said:

Again, I'm the only one here who realizes authors are supposed to sell...

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I can't comment about cons and it seems moot in these times, anyway. Everybody knows that authors are involved in selling their books.

Keith1971 said:

It was. I paid BHC for a cover and interior and they delivered. But my primary reason for posting was the question why anyone would pay money to publish a book...with my answer being as opposed to what? I had a book that Big Publishing rejected, so my choices were either drop all my dreams and die a lonely death in the street, broken and alone...or take charge and get it done myself.
Well, I chose not to give up. Who here recommends the other option?

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Self-publishing is another option.

Writing another book is another option.

If one failure is likely to cause such a drastic result, maybe have a think about things.

mccardey said:

*Respect Your Fellow Writer. You're dissing every trade published writer and every publisher on this site. (Also you're wrong, but we don't have a rule about being wrong. We only have one rule. RYFW.)

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That's unnecessary cynicism. That line didn't disrespect anyone or anything. On the contrary I was merely pointing out statistical necessities. If an agent tells me, directly, that she doesn't give equal time to everything in the slush pile and just randomly picks stuff out, I'm in no position to refute her because I wasn't there.
We may not like it, but thats on the agents, not us.

Keith - I wonder if you might be wrong. You're being told the same thing by agented and trade-published writers, all of whom were once unagented debut writers. You're also being told the exact same thing by successful self-published authors who chose to self-publish because they could, or because it suited the project, or because it interested them.

Maybe just take a moment and breathe and listen.

I've attended agent fairs where you have ten minutes to pitch a book before a professional agent, and its been "New author? Oh brother." Not a mention a stream of snarky passive aggression.

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The best way to get an agent is with a query letter.

Tarring an entire profession because someone was rude to you at a con isn't reasonable.

Agents are primarily looking for GENRE.

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Agents specialize in particular genres, yes. There are agents out there for every genre there is.

They're aware (as I hope we all are) what the best selling genres are and if you're not pitching that kind of book to them, they'll give you half-hearted handshake and fake smile while excusing you from the room :/

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If this were true, nothing but romance would ever get published.

But getting the same thing in return... getting a "Sorry Jill" when your name is Keith...

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Mistakes happen. They suck, but they're vanishingly unlikely to be personal. The mistakes of a few individuals don't characterize an entire profession.

Its all smoke and shadows. Authors sending letters to people who don't read them, receiving incorrect responses the agents didn't even bother to write.
Emperor's New Clothes to the nth degree:/

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I've gone through the query trenches twice. About half my queries were ghosted. About half what was left were form rejections. Based on what I see here on AW (a pretty decent representative sample I think), my experience is about average.

Average isn't individual. I'm sorry you had to deal with rude people and clerical errors. Your generalizations from those events, however, are erroneous.

And once again have nothing to do with vanity publishing.

Keith you need to step away from the keyboard. Go read the The Newbie Guide to Absolute Write. Now.

You are both profoundly rude and profoundly uninformed, and are unacceptably rude to people who are both knowledageable and attempting to help you.

Again, if you can't be temperate, please step away from the keyboard until you can.

katfeete said:

Ok, cons are something I do have some experience with. I love cons. You get fabulous experience at them, you meet great people, they're way motivating, they're super fun. And they are money sinks. I have run a table for my comic collective for around five years and it's great, but if I actually run the numbers -- table cost, transportation, hotel, food -- and subtract it from net book income, I get a negative number every dang time. And that's assuming (as we always assume) that my time and labor are free. I spend a lot of time talking to the other folks selling (I mean, that's half the point) too, and it's not like I'm just bad at selling. There's maybe half a dozen indies making good money. Folks local to the con only have the table costs to cover, so they can usually break even or even make a little. The rest of us? We don't even add it up; we know damn well we're in the red.

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First, being in the red is part of any business start up. It takes money to make money.
Second, however you've been running conventions, you're doing something wrong. Ive been in the red after a con RARELY. The average experience is greatly enjoyable with a ton of books sold. I've paid for my table and hotel and such at least 90% of the time.
We're likely selling different products/genres/mediums so it might be an apple and oranges comparison, but with a cheap artists table and Super 8 hotel, overhead really isnt a big deal.

Besides, so what if you did get in the red? There's an ineffable quality you're missing about people reading your stuff. You wrote it, now they'll read it. Now they'll post reviews and tell their friends and give you invaluable word of mouth. You cant put a pricetag on that, but you only get it by getting out into the meat market and pressing flesh.
Yes it is a money sink, but its also part of the job. You're there for a goal. The only goal. Getting your work into the public's hands.

katfeete said:

And that's fine. But that you seem to be suggesting you can make your money back by selling books at cons, and that is... not increasing my confidence in your business sense.

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Err...but I HAVE made my money back by selling books at cons. And I'm certain I know my finances better than you do. Dont assume.

Sure the big cons cost money...but the small ones dont (You save the profit from the local cons to pay the overhead at the big cons...meaning every book you sell to the 100k crowds is profit. I can go into any amount of detail you want.)
And the money you paid the vanity is ONE TIME EXPENSE. Once you pay it off with a couple good cons, the rest of the book's life is profit. Hell even one good B&N signing is enough to pay off what I paid for my first novel.

Cons DO work. I know because I've made them work.

Hell even one good B&N signing is enough to pay off what I paid for my first novel.

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If you're selling $900 worth of books at a B&N signing, you absolutely have the skills to successfully self publish.

FWIW and FTR: My personal experience with self-publishing is that a hell of a lot of money flows away from me--to hire people for cover art and whatnot. I'm well in the red, so deep in the red I guess my eyes are bloodshot, but OTOH strangers are reading my book. And there are privileges to retirement... I write.

To me, it's a hobby. Like street art. There's some damn fine street art out there. Some of it even goes viral. Nice work if you can get it!

Few of us would bat an eye at someone who spends hundreds of dollars per year on their hobby (Travel? even low budget gets pricey.). If that hobby involves high-end gear, the number can easily climb to thousands per year. There's no real difference, to me, in budgeting $2,000 per year to writing than there would be in budgeting that money to, say, scuba diving. I don't scuba. But I do put money toward cover art and the like. And then measure page reads on Amazon (and compare it to my citation index on Google Scholar--the metric for scientific papers.)

Last year 134 people cited my peer-reviewed research. That was a decent year for me. There's no money in citations, of course, that's not where money comes from, in science (grants.).

And last year, over 3,000 people downloaded a free copy of Aerovoyant. I paid to advertise that it was free, and people were interested. In short, more people read Aerovoyant (fiction) than any of my 'real science.'

So, which is more successful? Or, is peer-reviewed science illegitimate, since there's no money in people reading it?

Of course not.

But, for the record and this discussion, as one of a handful of SP writers contributing to this thread... I wouldn't say money flows to me. In my understanding, writing in series and building an audience is necessary to make money in self publishing. Twenty books to fifty K.

Others here are financially successful at self-pub, for sure. But success should be self-defined.

AW Admin said:

Keith you need to step away from the keyboard. Go read the The Newbie Guide to Absolute Write. Now.

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I can only post about the writing world as I've experienced it. I have written, and made profits with, three novels. If thats not valuable knowledge then nothing is.
If I gained valuable experience in such and such a way, only to have someone here (who knows nothing about my experience) say "that's not how it happens," who am I to believe? Someone who wasnt there or my own lying eyes?

The "rudeness" on this board is give and take, with posters commenting on my finances (which they cant possibly know), my book sales at cons (which they cant possibly know), my experiences with agents (which they cant possibly know). So I hope you are applying your sternness equally. My experiences in the writing world are supposed to be equal to everyone elses.

Are they?

If you claim right now that three books and several years of writing/publishing/selling experience is worthless, then I'll leave and never come back. If that's what you really want.
Or maybe I can offer a unique perspective. Up to you.

Keith, you're not writing about your experiences. You're being defensive, and occasionally insulting, about what others are sharing. I have seen no one doubt your bad experiences, just question your using those bad experiences to come to erroneous conclusions about a very large, very diverse industry.

I'd love to hear about your positive experience with this vanity publisher. I'd love to hear about your con selling experiences - what has and hasn't worked for you.

Yes, a vanity publisher is going to be a bad bet for most people. For you, it wasn't, and that's excellent. Tell us about the excellent part.

Keith1971 said:

I can only post about the writing world as I've experienced it. I have written, and made profits with, three novels. If thats not valuable knowledge then nothing is.
If I gained valuable experience in such and such a way, only to have someone here (who knows nothing about my experience) say "that's not how it happens," who am I to believe? Someone who wasnt there or my own lying eyes?

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No one is questioning your experience. However, you came in to the thread with a defensive chip on your shoulder. It's the only place you've posted .

You haven't read the Newbie Guide.

You haven't read anything on the site but this thread. You came here angry, and are using other members as your punching bag.

You have repeatedly insulted other posters, dismissed their experience, and frankly, they have all kinds of experience.

You don't have any more right than they do to be rude.

You are in fact asserting that other members have posted things they haven't.

I asked you politely to step away from the keyboard.

You posted this semi-illiterate rant, which is on par with most of your posts in this thread; irrationally blaming us for something we aren't responsible for.

Keith1971 said:

The "rudeness" on this board is give and take, with posters commenting on my finances (which they cant possibly know), my book sales at cons (which they cant possibly know), my experiences with agents (which they cant possibly know). So I hope you are applying your sternness equally. My experiences in the writing world are supposed to be equal to everyone elses.

Are they?

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Your experiences aren't unique in the larger context; nor do they trump those of anyone else. I'd encourage you to discuss what you like about the press and your experience; instead you are emphasizing negative experiences, and not really adding anything to the conversation by your own defensive anger.

You're responding as if you were being attacked, when people were merely pointing out that their experiences do not match yours, and that you are making assertions based on incorrect information.

Keith1971 said:

If you claim right now that three books and several years of writing/publishing/selling experience is worthless, then I'll leave and never come back. If that's what you really want.
Or maybe I can offer a unique perspective. Up to you.

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No one is claiming anything of the kind.

Nor, however, is your perspective particularly unique. The problem is that you are dismissive of everyone one else's experience.

What's right for you and your book doesn't make everyone else your enemy or wrong. It means people have different choices, different needs, and different skills.

You seem profoundly unaware that there are other options; that there's nothing wrong with your choices for your books or the choices made by other people—yet you are roundly condemning other options and other choices.

You have had limited experience with trade publishing or self-publishing. You have clearly stated as facts things that are in fact not facts.

You are in a thread with members who are self-published, trade-published, vanity published, who work in publishing and in book sales. There's a lot of experience here besides your own. Stop being so defensive and dismissive.

The problem enters when you unilaterally condemn other options.

Not everyone wants to use a vanity publisher. Not everyone wants to sell books at cons. Not everyone can.

I asked you to step away and calm down. Clearly you can't do that.

I'm locking this thread in hope that you manage to rethink your presentation of self.

I'm sure you don't mean to be seen as hostile and negative and abusive—but that's exactly the way you are presenting.

Regarding only the question of BHC, I would avoid. Not going into all the details, but avoid. If you are looking for mediocre (at best) editing and a lot of empty marketing promises, then by all means, go for it. Otherwise avoid.

katfeete said:

And that's fine. But that you seem to be suggesting you can make your money back by selling books at cons, and that is... not increasing my confidence in your business sense.

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Its statements like this that lead me to tell every new writer I find to stay the hell away from absolute write. You honestly have zero experience in physical bookselling. Three years later, and I've made my money back from cons several times over. I don't know what you guys do all day, but you obviously know jack squat about cons.
I've been there, I've made the money.
If you've never sold books that way, please be adult enough to admit it before giving uninformed advice.

Inksalot said:

Regarding only the question of BHC, I would avoid. Not going into all the details, but avoid. If you are looking for mediocre (at best) editing and a lot of empty marketing promises, then by all means, go for it. Otherwise avoid.

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For an alternative opinion, BHC gave me a great cover and fantastic interior design.
There's a great deal of fear-mongering on this thread, obviously born of suspicious cynicism than of any first hand experience. BHC did good for me, and I have the finished book to prove it.

For all the naysayers on this thread, I just got back from another three day sci fi con of breaking my records for sales with profit in the bank.
The fear-mongering and outright ignorance on this board is beyond the pale. I warn every new write to stay away from absolute write for this reason. You're stuck on outdated MOs and third-hand scare tactics, never having put in a day of real book sales. Since I last posted I've made all my investment back several times over. Had I followed the chicken little advice here I'd have accomplished nothing.
People, no one is coming to save you. Either you get out and SELL or you don't.
I have hundreds {probably thousands} of my books in print by now, in peoples hands, being read. Even if I didn't make a profit {I have} it still would have been worth it.
Stop waiting for a fairy godmother to fall from the sky and actually do something.
I was right, you were wrong.

Welcome back! Congratulations on your sales and success!

I hope you haven't been carrying your rage for a year and a half.

Having to personally go to a con to sell my book is enough reason for me to avoid this publisher. Thank you for sharing your experience, I'm glad it worked out for you.