Comments on: Rumblings At Torquere Press…

By: Torquere Press: The Case Of The Poison Pen Names | The Naughty Bits

Torquere Press: The Case Of The Poison Pen Names | The Naughty Bits — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:55:56 +0000

[...] Inner Circle “We’re A Family” politics. [...]

By: Darragha

Darragha — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:07:40 +0000

I just heard today that TP has high sales for its M/M stories, but never having read one of their books, or even spent much time on their website, I find this thread quite interesting. Who knew one could learn so much at Karen’s place, huh?

By: Teddypig

Teddypig — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:36:29 +0000

Mrs Giggles you forgot OWNER!

By: Publishers Publishing Themselves « Bitch Envy

Publishers Publishing Themselves « Bitch Envy — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:41:15 +0000

[...] most recent blog post is about Rumblings At Torquere Press… and I’m honestly on the fence about the whole thing. I don’t care if a publisher [...]

By: Mrs Giggles

Mrs Giggles — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:03:49 +0000

Heh, judging from Teddypig’s comment about TQ in his blog entry about good epublishers, I’d guess that SM is Sean Michael, SAC is SA Clements, and BAT is BA Tortuga, and they are all the same person?

By: Teddypig

Teddypig — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 04:50:05 +0000

*whistling* *cough*

By: Barbara B.

Barbara B. — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 03:52:02 +0000

Angelia Sparrow said-
“12 of the books by 1 author.”

I haven’t checked, but that one author has got to be Sean Michael. That dude is PROLIFIC. I’ve got almost 20 of his ebooks myself and that’s not even close to being his entire backlist.

By: Angelia Sparrow

Angelia Sparrow — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 03:10:11 +0000

It’s mostly the anthology lines that are flat fee. The royalties were so spread out and tiny that TQ went flat fee on anthologies in 2005.

The Toybox and Taste-Test anthologies (3000-5000 words) operate on flat fee. $15 and $10, respectively.

Most anthologies operate on flat fee: $40 for 10K $20 for 3-5

Some of the specialty short story (10-15 K) lines, Birthstones and Arcana are flat fee as well (~$40)

A look at the Amazon page tells the whole story on print books.
48 titles. 14 authors.
12 of the books by 1 author.
11 by another.
6 by a third
Six of the authors have only a single book.

By: Shannon Stacey

Shannon Stacey — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:46:14 +0000

Flat fee?

That’s only for a very, very short story, right?

By: Angelia Sparrow

Angelia Sparrow — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 01:34:04 +0000

I’ve been with TQ for 4 years.
In their defense, my work comes out when they say it will, and my checks arrive in a timely fashion.

That said…
My co-author has been unhappy for months, because of the above mentioned things. The clique, the Inner Circle, drives her nuts. The best way to see it in action is to watch the LJ days, and the comments left.

The flat fee payments are no great shakes. Nor are they competitive. $10-15 for a 3000 word story is 1/3-1/2 cent/word.

Too many of the novel length items are all sex and no plot. This is tedious.

A short story usually gets one round of edits. The same length of story got four rounds at another house. A novel gets more.

Lately, I’ve suspected much of my stuff–good and mediocre–gets picked up because there are slots to fill and I am fast and reliable. I have a near 100% acceptance rate there. (they rejected three things, two of which actually did need work) OTOH, so far, I have a 100% acceptance at Ellora’s Cave too.