From: Karen Knows Best ~ “I have a complaint and wish to let others know not to submit to Mundania Press.”

I do not feel too badly about staying away from these guys for as long as I have. They just never seemed to participate or seek out reviews of their eBooks or do anything for their authors beyond just being a group of eBook publishers that did not do much of anything for their authors. Mundania LLC was started basically by two guys to sell a Piers Anthony POD book “Pornucopia” online from what I have read about them so they never struck me as “gay friendly” or “romance oriented” just sorta pervy. Not that there is anything really wrong with pervy in a Boogie Nights way but I am trying to be honest here.

So let’s take a moment and think about this… no surprise they are doing even less these days since changing owners and payment plans and merging together in a big mess and their authors seem to be the only ones that know about it because as a group each of these ePubs never really put their name out there to begin with or added any value to their products. So I guess that means as a group you can never count on being one of “the quiet ones” to be a good sign for an ePublisher either.

Before Mundania bought Awe-Struck, I notified the original publisher 90 days ahead of the end of my first contract that I didn’t want the contract automatically renewed. Without notifying me, they immediately pulled down all advertising on my novel. I posted an angry note on the authors Yahoo group so others would know, but I felt for me it was good riddance. They obviously felt the same about me.

I hope I have the right email for Karen Knows Best. I have a complaint and wish to let others know not to submit to Mundania Press. I was an author with Hard Shell Word Factory who Mundaia Press bought out in the fall of 2009. To date, I have seen only the 4th quarter 2009, 3rd and 4th quarter 2010 royalty reports. Nothing for the 1st and 2nd quarter 2010 or 1st quarter 2011.

I bet any REAL issues here will not show up on Piers Anthony though. Just a bet I have with myself for no reason in particular.

In order of quality of publishing and dependability in reader experience.

#1 Samhain Publishing
#2 Loose Id
NOTES: Given a certain time of day or a certain author and these two ePublishers can change position easily. Good cover art and great editors and good writers and they just seem to always pay attention. Loose Id takes chances while Samhain seems to maintain a good customer appeal. I see the outcome in their products which keep a rather high water mark for unique and well written Romance stories be they Gay or Straight.

#3 Liquid Silver Books
#4 Amber Quill Press
#5 MLR Press
#6 Cobblestone Press
#7 Aspen Mountain Press

Anyone not appearing on this list or the rest of the sordid tale of woah…

Ellora’s Cave
NOTES: I like Ellora’s Cave I just wish their authors still did. I stopped recommending them when authors started reporting pay and contract issues. I still stay away unless I know the author is happy and then I will buy but that’s not all that often these days. Their editing is still decent but their story selection has fallen in quality with the loss of several of their top eAuthors who ran screaming for greener pastures but I am no contract lawyer. Oh well, still a viable shopping place to play back catalog treasure hunting because at one time they were the best you could get.

Changeling Press
NOTES: Quick poll who has worse cover art MLR Press or Changeling Press? You decide!
I like Changeling Press but I hate serialized eBooks so their format sucks for me and I prefer Cobblestone Press with their whole short story format better for some reason but the editing I have found is similar and decent to that ePublisher. I just could not get away from feeling after I bought a whole series I only got the effect of buying a whole eBook which feels like the literary equivalent of Chinese take-out to me. Still I might buy from here on the off chance something not reminding me strongly of a Furry Romance catches my eye and does not make my Poser allergy kick in.

Carina Press
NOTES: ePub Format eBooks only with no print book format available and likewise no print distro services at all severely limiting a potential customer base for any authors looking here. Good cover art but it’s not included in the eBook unless you use iBooks/Adobe Digital Editions DRM oriented readers to view the eBook so what good is that and strong editing policies since all they are selling is a single formatted text file that’s a good thing and takes Gay Romance so that can be a draw for a new author who might not know any of the better customer oriented services Top ePublishers provide.

I would buy only cheap eBooks from here though knowing I would have to convert them myself thus getting mangled formatting and no cover included in the price of purchase. JOY!

Because they are cutting cost or because they are just a front company, an expensive toy run by the big H to see what works it’s really too bad I thought they were trying to be better than not just as bad as. I would rather buy from Harlequin directly when I can catch big savings from those sales they constantly run and I don’t care if it’s just ePub format without a cover because I did not spend top dollar for any eBooks in that bundle. I would not want to be the author that got their eBook treated like this though. Imagine starting out being treated like you are already in a sales bin at half price yeah that’s what I want to write for mediocrity and discounts.

I would review that new Josh Lanyon book they just published but I feel sorry for Josh after seeing what I got for my money and knowing that book looked better as a PDF from the last ePublisher it was at and at least it did not get sold to me as a broken file format. This might be a better ePub “brand name” but the old ePub was more honest with their services and their products and notice who is on my Top ePub list and who is not so that honesty and having your heart in the right place is still rewarded in my eBook checklist.

Torquere Press
NOTES: These guys give away more junk eBooks than anyone in the whole Internets but their total lack of professional editors or graphic artists is criminal and they were caught using the author/owners to edit themselves to save a quick buck on those multitude of anthologies they constantly crank out. These guys work on the principal the customer is a fool theory of merchandising so who cares what crap we sell them. Gave up buying any of their eBooks after finding editing notes left in the eBook I bought and even worse they never followed up and corrected the errors noted. Junk! I would rather read free fan fiction. It is cheaper and with less fanatic cult like idiots involved.

Dreamspinner Press
Total-E-Bound
NOTES: The tip top of what I term the Candy Wrapper Crew or why I buy eBooks at All Romance eBooks because I trust they use strong SSL credit card pages. What if you hired a good graphics artist instead of a good editor? The cover art just got better than Torquere Press or Changeling Press but that does not mean you could edit your way out of that brightly Photoshopped bag you created for yourself. Anyway, the story choices will still suck ass unless it is an author you are rooting for and then you feel sorry for that author as in… too bad you are not on Samhain or Loose Id getting better money and editing and guidance to become a more marketable writer instead of wasting your time here with people who dress funny and like posting suggestively posed pictures of their Hot Topic doll collection on their blog.

At least that is what I am thinking when I talk to authors toiling for these dim witted shysters.

Gay Romance is not interchangeable to Gay Fiction sorry go back to fanfiction darkfiction twincestfiction rapefiction bloodyanythingfiction “I made this label up yesterday on a whim fiction” discussion groups and waste your time arguing with the other Live Journal idiots making excuses for not writing worth a damn because if Harlequin would not print it based on the plot line despite the gender of the people involved in the story then you have your answer you fucking half witted hack. Romance is Romance folks anything else is SOL and does not sell to me for a good reason. Learn the rules and figure it out or stop labeling it what it is not just to sell me another eBook I won’t read all the way through because it sucks along with your taste in possible romance stories!

They probably hired their editors from some chat group based on spec and are now realizing they could not afford it. I have tended to stop buying from these guys over time since I want something more complex than slightly elaborated outlines of failed fan fiction stories “their friend said was so great and you really ought to be a writer” for my eBook purchase when I can go buy a Harlequin bundle for pretty damn cheap really you fucktards. Oh, and I like my character names to stay the same spelling throughout the entire story. My bad if that is so hard to understand oh guru editor jack ass.

See that is the problem here. If you are not as good as Loose Id or Samhain and don’t have the successful eBooks to back up your smart ass mother fucking mouth and have no reputation for shit to speak of why do I constantly get more attitude and snotty remarks from these creeps & clowns? I mean as a reader who actually buys Gay Romance eBooks and knows what I like instead of a hack ePublisher that sells turds and calls it gold. Oh that’s right Torquere Press taught you editing is not needed and the customer is a fool who will buy anything… right! Good luck with that.

FINAL NOTES: Same old, same old, oh have you heard about these guys because my friend wants to become a writer but is scared of having to actually write something good ePublishers…

Or as I call them the rest of the also ran a Candy Wrapper ePublisher Crew that if you have to ask about them you could probably already tell me what their issues are.

Amira Press
Noble Romance
Silver Publishing = When the server is actually up and running that is.

For those of you reading this who feel Romance is beneath you anyway so what does it matter who gets ripped off here might I suggest you take your supremely qualified literary ass and find the literary hovel you want to squat in for the rest of your poor career choice because arguing your “better than thou” approach to literature while starving is so last century and I find it hilarious to boot. Pop won the culture wars darling! Great literature is for comic book remakes and everyone else wants to know how Harlequin is so bad economy proofed.

This is exactly why I take a “wait and see what happens” stance with these new ePublishers that show up.

Decadent Publishing “looks” like a nice ePublisher and all that and their website is functional BUT then things like this happen…

From: EREC ~ Bulletin

From: Dear Author ~ Thursday Midday Links: Authors & Publishers Behaving Badly

Anyway, to read the full story go read The End is Not the Final Word their last two posts and comments are eye opening.

Word on the Absolute Write thread is Dorchester is now eBooks only. I wonder if their rates are anywhere near as good as Loose Id or Samhain? Since the traditional publishers are now entering the realm of the ePublishers who have been successfully running this type of business model for a while now.

From: E-Reads ~ IPDF eBook Wholesale Figures From November 2009

Listen, I was over at Target in beautiful downtown WIlmington yesterday (Not the hotbed of Electronic trends you know.) and some Granny was dragging her husband to look at the Sony eBook Reader so… These figures do not surprise me. Check out that link wholesale has remained steady at triple the 2008 sales figures for all of 2009.

I get paid to support constant development and creation cycles year after year at a major online bank. So occasionally I will stick my two cents in about website design issues and ideas I see out there in ePublisher land. So this being a new year I wanted to give mention to some good things I see happening on ePublisher websites and mention some bad. I already did Front Page designs so let’s hit the content pages…

Ellora’s Cave wins for best Book Page. Even tough I seriously hate their WIDE oversize webpage template. We are in the smart phone era change and change quickly or die. The author’s name is hyper-linked properly to a Author Page listing all the author’s books with a blurb at the top describing the author. The series is not only identified in the listing at the bottom of the Book Page you have covers of all the other books in the series. All on the same Book Page! Although the label should say something else not “Related Books”. They also explain what formats the books can be bought in. I just wish all ePublishers would treat “books in print” as just a different format and make it available on the same page. So when I review a book the page I link to on their website has all the required information. As I have stated before… Website organization is key! Always think about how you can present all the most important information on a single page to me in order to keep my limited attention span and inform me of new products. Especially if I (a fool) have taken a interest in one of your authors and want to buy (part with my money) every eBook they published! Encourage the parting of the money damn it!

Lethe Press does not even provide a Book Page. They simply send you to some page that lists out the books they have in some hard to understand order. Anyway, creating a separate page for each book and each author and each series does not take anymore effort than including it in a list if you are using the right software. Look at me blogging… Do you think I spend that much time on formatting a webpage? I don’t care what their excuse is. If you are selling from a website show at least some effort in researching how to do it right. Just sad like the frames they are using.

Samhain Publishing still does a great job on their Author Page even though I don’t know why that right hand margin has to follow me from the Front Page or why they have to list “books in print” separate from the eBook format. Anyway, they still come in first here. The Book Page has a hyper-link from the Author Name to this page. Even though they really need to integrate series information better than they are. Ellora’s Cave and Loose Id are working to make that information easier to find on their websites. And on that note…

Loose Id gets the award for Series Page this year. They started linking their Book Page into the Series Page. Now if they will only hyper-link their Author Name into their Author Page we will have a better time of finding things without so much effort. Good job guys!

So there you have it the most basic of page awards… Front Page (Right Margin, Left Margin, Header, Navigation Bar, Footer), Book Page, Author Page, Series Page. I am not going into the various genre pages because that is based on what is for sale although I want to see it listed by most recent eBooks available first. Is that so hard? All of this is simple easy to understand and anyone can figure it out by reading numerous books on the subject some even geared towards optimization of online sales. I just live this stuff daily but do not take my word for it go look it up yourself.

I get paid to support constant development and creation cycles year after year at a major online bank. So occasionally I will stick my two cents in about website design issues and ideas I see out there in ePublisher land. So this being a new year I wanted to give mention to some good things I see happening on ePublisher websites and mention some bad. Let’s start with the Front Page…

Loose Id is the winner for a minimalistic front page website design that loads quickly and gets right to the point. Selling eBooks! They are in fact almost too minimalist in some ways lacking in certain basics like OK “Do they have a newsletter?”. BUT… I love the fact they are working diligently and being extremely smart here with a less is more attitude especially for the iPhone type customer facilitated with the narrow middle screen design and it does leave room for them to adjust things. They can always add another page somewhere to give more information about something but it takes real thought about what they want to present and sell front and center to keep a focus like this.

Honorable mention goes to Liquid Silver Books. Unfortunately I think they are trying to stick too much on the left hand margin here when the left hand margin should only be used for website navigation purposes. Facebook and Twitter are not site navigation and they should cut down on the other parts in this margin. What is with the cutesy names? What does Molten Silver mean? What does Sterling Silver mean? What does Zodiac Series mean? Leave that crap on the book pages or series pages or branded on the covers of the books or whatever. Cutesy names and branding like that should be for “your loyal customers” not for the general public trying to shop on your website looking for Gay Paranormal Romance or Western Romance. Stick to the basics.

Samhain Publishing needs a rethink/overhaul. First the site navigation on the left has too much button driven junk. I HATE THAT WELCOME TO SAMHAIN CRAP! You know the paragraph you stuck below your header? Why? That’s what the ABOUT PAGE is for, not the front page. Now let’s look at the right hand margin.

Now using Graphic Buttons like this cuts down on visual garbage. BUT! What is that button labeled? Samhellion? Should it be Samhellion Newsletter or something so people who are sight impaired who depend on graphic alternate labels on images of books and graphic alternate labels on buttons can tell what you are doing? As far as the rest of your right hand margin it looks like you are filling up all available space with the information that should be found in the newsletter. There is no prudent use of “White Space” on the Samhain Front Page because you have no “White Space” left.

Even though I am getting on Samhain I had to show how things could be worse…

eXcessica
Where do I begin? The nineties called they want their frames back. Those graphics are mangled and do not even look like books which is what I am guessing they are. Half your webpage is over sized fonts so maybe you are selling fonts. AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Spencer Johnson M.D. ~ Who Moved My Cheese?
From: Penguin Putnam

This came up in the comments with LBea about that Waterstone’s article so I will let you in on the game…

I myself think this parable is a bit too simplistic especially when dealing with your typical workplace intelligence if it is used by brain dead bean counters to justify their particular corporate change no matter how detrimental to the business or the customers it is. So blah blah blah *typical do not take anything to extremes warning* followed by and remember kids “simple tools” get abused by “simple fools”.

If you look at what the author is saying I think it does speak to certain things going on today concerning publishing and the market place.

Change Happens
They Keep Moving The Cheese

Anticipate Change
Get Ready For The Cheese To Move

Monitor Change
Smell The Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old

Adapt To Change Quickly
The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Can Enjoy New Cheese

Change
Move With The Cheese

Enjoy Change!
Savor The Adventure And Enjoy The Taste Of New Cheese!

Be Ready To Change Quickly And Enjoy It Again & Again
They Keep Moving The Cheese

Angela James has just told me that she has accepted the Executive Editor position with Harlequin for their new “Digital Only” branch Carina Press.

Looks like this Harlequin team are doing some good things right off the bat since there will be no DRM and they will be Gay Romance friendly.

But… no traditional print releases like say a Loose Id or Samhain which to be honest is still what sells over on Amazon. Just check the rankings there. Let’s hope they are using that Harlequin marketing machine and talking with Apple to get in on some 2010 first of the year “Smart Tablet” hype goodness or something that will get some notice. Like a Harlequin/Carina iPhone/Android eBook Reader App that only sells Harlequin goodness? I keep telling people distribute but also own your delivery channel and brand brand brand.

Dear ePublishers,
Can I point out something? You will never have as much money or as much time as Apple does to develop web based marketing. So can I get you all to download iTunes for free and then take a look at where you should all be going with your websites? In my opinion selling eBooks or Albums is pretty much in the same realm and iTunes new iTunes LP packaging needs to be broken down and emulated by example ASAP. It is not hard to see that author branding is the way to go for future sales. That means artist promotion and packaging online or in this case author focused promotion by an ePublisher will increase recognition and sales of all their eBooks. Just look at Nora Roberts and her very slick back cover photos and go from there.

I say here is the next step and in this day and age you should not just be getting a good Editing Team but should probably put together a damn good Graphic Arts/Web Team. All Apple is doing in this case is using a good basic Graphic Artist with a web background some CSS skills, some HTML 4.01 knowledge and some Java Script programing skills. This is simplicity at it’s finest! No FLASH! Stay away from Adobe when it comes to web based design and presentation they suck HUGE ass and their automated tools are a nightmare.

So let’s break down this iTunes page.

* First, at the Left Top notice the Music > Dance > Tyrese above the title of this guys new single? Those are called Breadcrumbs and you all should be using these like a librarian uses Dewey Decimal for example an ePublisher could simply integrate something like  eBooks > Romance > Gay Romance > Josh Lanyon on an authors page. The buyer always knows where they are and by clicking one of the hyper-links in the Breadcrumb trail can go back up the search path and can more easily maneuver around your website.

* Next down is the title of this artists latest work Tyrese Gibson’s MAYHEM! right here on the artist’s webpage which is why most people will be coming here to quickly get an update on what is available and when. That’s an easy sale smack dab on the artists front page with the buy now button right below it. I’m the newest thing buy me!

* Center on the page is a photo of the artist with added artwork from the cover of the latest work integrated to the farthest Left position beside it. Now I like this, no need for a bunch of text in order to make the sale. Just strong graphics and style with only a “blurb” of what the latest work is about on this page right below the photo. Now obviously there is a sub-page for this new product if you were to click on it with further explanation and maybe even a excerpt etc but remember this is the artist’s page not the new works page now the Breadcrumbs if you went to that product page will probably look for an ePublisher like this eBooks > Romance > Gay Romance > Josh Lanyon > Series Title > Book Title.

* Bottom Center of the page from left to right is a display of covers of older works by this artist with obviously sub-pages for each one.

Now if you were going to iTunes and bought Tyrese Gibson’s MAYHEM! we could then carry on a full conversation on what the future content of eBooks might entail and how Apple is looking to change what customers expect before ePublishing even hits adulthood. Go buy it and for $1.99 it will blow your mind. I promise.