Cantarabooks / Cantaraville Magazine

They appear to have a blog: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=94194700

ETA: Here's the web site: http://www.cantarabooks.com/

More: Their calendar indicates they attend book fairs. I can't tell how much selling they do otherwise. Some of their titles are only available in eBook format. Submission guidelines are buried under "Cantarabooks" in the sidebar, then the link to "contact editors" at the bottom of the list of books.

A lot of posturing on that site. Publishing...not so much.

- Victoria

There's nothing to suggest that Cantara is shady or dishonest--in fact, its selection of books looks interesting. But I'm guessing that it has little capacity to market and distribute, and that sales and exposure will probably be tiny.

I also don't like the "small publisher with heart against the soulless Big Publishing Machine" rhetoric on the site. It's old, tired, and not especially accurate. For instance, this quote from Cantara's article, Writing in the New Publishing Paradigm: "Mint editions of John Grisham's first novel, which he paid to have published, are selling on eBay for upwards of three thousand dollars." Sigh. The notion that John Grisham self-published his first novel is among the most insidious and ineradicable of all anti-big-press myths. She also recycles a raft of other myths--that commercially published authors have to give back their advances if they don't earn out (they don't), and that all returned books are pulped (mass market paperbacks are pulped. Trade paperbacks and hardcovers are returned intact and can be re-sold).

IMO, you can be an interesting small press without all the posturing and breast-beating. In fact, it might leave you more time for things like marketing and distributing.

- Victoria

Shady, it might be worth asking them how they mean to distribute, specifically (store, stocked or by order, online only, online distributors, ebooks?)--and their discount and returns policies.

You didn't pick PublishAmerica, a mistake people three times your age make.

I've definitely read enough to avoid that one

How about as an ebook publisher? I happened to have an ms in the right word count range and sent it to them. I then looked at the ebook contract and I'm a bit leary about the paragraphs on editing:

D. The Publisher, through the Executive Editor, for any and all uses described under this Agreement, may have the Work edited from basic line and copy editing to major content editing provided that the Author s concept of the Work is not intrinsically altered without the Author s assent that such changes are necessary in order to improve the Work overall.
E. Should such edits or revisions be necessary, if Author s Work was not introduced to the Publisher by a recognized (by the Publisher) Freelance Acquisition Editor, Publisher may suggest to the Author that he/she
select from the Publisher s recommended list a Freelance Editor to work with. Retaining the services of such a Freelance Editor is not mandatory for an Author to be published by Cantarabooks LLC, nor does Cantarabooks
LLC receive remuneration of any type for such recommendations. Any fees incurred by retaining such services are solely the Author s expense.

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While para E. says it's not mandatory to hire the Freelance Editor (I'd have no intention of doing this), would I be in contract violation if I did not? What's the worst that can happen? Simply not epublish the book? Or, is that paragraph something to worry about? The Print contract doesn't contain this language.

My feet are getting cold on this one.

Why aim low?

Has your work already been rejected by every major publisher? Have the top 200 agents already passed on it?

James D. Macdonald said:

Why aim low?

Has your work already been rejected by every major publisher? Have the top 200 agents already passed on it?

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It's a set of related short stories of about 30K words. Untouchable by majors or agents.

Shady Lane said:

Marva--

My book is coming out first as an ebook, so I've been issued the standard ebook contract. I wouldn't worry about the editor. I certainly haven't been pressured to hire anyboyd--it hasn't even been mentioned to me. Cantara is very anti vanity publisher, and I think they'd consider any fees to be way, way below them (as they very well should).

Michael has done all my editing, and he was assigned to me from the get-go, without even the suggestion of any other editor.

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And they've had it a couple of months without saying you need to hire an editor. That's a positive sign. Be sure to keep us updated on your release date. You can PM me or continue to report here so people will have an idea of how they operate. They're not well-known.

I think the first thing that scared me is a quick and personal reply from Michael. I'm not used to that!

Marva said:

It's a set of related short stories of about 30K words. Untouchable by majors or agents.

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Yeah, I can see small press for that.

Have you made the rounds of the magazines with the short stories?

James D. Macdonald said:

Yeah, I can see small press for that.

Have you made the rounds of the magazines with the short stories?

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Seven of the stories have been published. Four in print, three on-line. I'm sure I could place more, but I'd like to have the whole set together. Same narrator, place, time.

There is still high and low in the epublisher world and many places that take collections. In working with 6 different epublishers and talking to many more I have never seen outside editing even mentioned in a contract. Editing is something the publisher brings to the table.