[sparkscoffee] Re: Tate Publishing
- From: Sblumen123@xxxxxxx
- To: dryturtles@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:23:38 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 12/16/2013 12:24:30 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
dryturtles@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Stan,
I checked out John Schalestock's book publisher and I'm afraid he was
scammed.
See below article.
Scotty
Is Tate Publishing a Scam?
December 9, 2013 at 10:34 AM
I signed with Tate over a year ago and paid the initial investment (close
to $4000).
0 The first problems came with the copies of the pre-sale books and promo
materials I received for my library visits. The books were full of typos,
and my name was misspelled on one entire set of promo materials (pushcards,
bookmarks, and postcards to invite family and friends to events). I
contacted Tate right away to receive replacement promo materials and never
received a full replacement set.
As for the typos in the books I requested a PPC process-post production
changes, in which the author is charged per correction (presumably because
the fault lies in the author, who signs off on the final draft for printing).
However, as I began to correct the manuscript I realized the majority of
the errors had not been mine to begin with, and the reason I knew this was
because many of the errors were present in the foreign terms in my story
(part of my novel is set in a foreign country and also has many French ballet
terms). In other words, I was having to correct errors made by the editing
team at Tate! One example: demi-pointe was changed to semi-point. Accents
were removed from most of the foreign words, English words which should have
been capitalized (Navy [the military branch], changed to navy) were
changed. I went back to my original manuscript, and more than half of the
errors
had been created during the editing process. So I called my project manager
and insisted that they make all the corrections and not charge me; he
agreed. So my release date was pushed back about a month, but that was okay by
me as long as the retail booksellers got clean, corrected copies.
Meanwhile, I had to make multiple contacts to different departments at
Tate to prompt them to create my book trailer (which was part of the original
contract) and website (which I paid for with my batch of pre-release
order); by the way, my website just went online last week, when it should have
been up and running last spring to create interest in the upcoming release.
Anyway, to make a long story… even longer--I had my first event at my
local retail bookseller (which I scheduled-- the bookstore manager told me
Tate
had not made any contact with them at any time) and sold many copies, but…
THE ERRORS ARE STILL IN THERE!! Plus, the book was categorized as an adult
romance and must be shelved in that section, alongside bodice-rippers and
other risqué titles. MY BOOK IS A YA COMING-OF-AGE STORY!!! It now on the
shelf by books with covers of lusty couples and images suggesting BDSM and
other crazy stuff. I mean, if you are into that, that's fine; that is not
what you will find in my book, and the intended audience will never find my
book in the teen section as long as it is categorized as adult romance.
Bottom line, if you look at my (and many, many others') experience with
Tate and evaluate it by the criteria that Timothy uses, which is "if they say
they will do something and then do something else, they are a scam" then
TATE PUBLISHING IS OPERATING AS A SCAM! They don't edit their manuscripts
properly, they don't market and publicize their titles, they don't distribute
to retail outlets (my local bookstore only ordered copies because I set up
the event), they don't produce effective professional-looking book
trailers or promo materials, they don't send publicity info to the media, and
they
don't broadcast their book trailers on national t.v.
I am now convinced that they make our books available to distributors but
do not exert any effort in actually getting them into bookstore and other
retail outlets to keep sales down and avoid having to refund our
investments. I am not going to blame them if I don't become a NY Times
best-selling
author, but I do blame them for not honoring their contract and exercising
shady sales practices.
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