agent seeks author investment

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ConstancePruefrock
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agent seeks author investment

Post by ConstancePruefrock » July 27th, 2021, 9:27 am

Greetings, kindred spirits,

I am a published author marketing a collection of short stories, two thirds of which are published in literary magazines in the UK and the US.

An established publisher (THE CONRAD PRESS out of Canterbury, Kent) has asked me to send my 16 stories as a whole for them to review and consider. If they are keen, they ask my investment of just under £1,000 to publish them.
This sounds a bit odd.... and is certainly not why I wrote to them asking if they might be interested in representing me.

The only difference between the vanity press/self publication route and this seems to be that they would be my platform and I pay more than I might if going it alone.

Your thoughts most appreciated.

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J. T. SHEA
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Re: agent seeks author investment

Post by J. T. SHEA » July 27th, 2021, 1:01 pm

Greetings, kindred spirit indeed! I did a little googling and have a few thoughts.

Conrad Press is not an agency, though its principal James Essinger (a prolific author) briefly ran Canterbury Literary Agency, which sold few books, according to him, and is now defunct as far I can tell. As is often the case with hybrid publishers, Conrad Press preach quite a negative view of the publishing industry, but nonetheless believe they can do better. The hybrid/subsidy model is the only type of publishing they do, so they are not a conventional publisher.

I too would welcome the thoughts of other members.

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GaoYuQing
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Re: agent seeks author investment

Post by GaoYuQing » August 26th, 2022, 8:52 am

If they ask for your money, they are a scam. At best a vanity press, and at worse, outright exploitive.

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