Too bloomin’ difficult

[erastes]

I’m beginning to think that Torquere don’t WANT to sell books. An author contacted me a little while back to inform me of her new gay historical, and I said that was great and I’d put it on The List.  I asked if I could have a review copy.  She told me that Torquere don’t like authors sending out their own copies for review (yeah, because I bet that Torquere send their copies to the 100’s of review sites) but she’d ask them to send me a copy.

Unsurprisingly, they haven’t sent me one. So, undeterred, I go to their site and try to buy it, and five or six other new historicals that are on their books, amounting to about $20.

And they STILL don’t take Paypal!  What is WRONG with these people?  So I’ll have to hope that these books appear on Fictionwise and buy them there – which probably means the author will get less royalty.

Publishers – why do you make it SO DIFFICULT for people to spend their money?

- - -

Comments

[changeling72.livejournal.com]

What made you want to write gay fiction?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

heh - it's nice to get a question!

I'd always wanted to write, and had started three or four things that had just puttered out - YA, fantasy, kid's books - but didn't know what i wanted to write. And then one day after reading the latest Harry Potter, I was idly cruising the net looking for anything about Severus Snape who I had a bit of a crush on, and I found a slash fanfiction archive - seriously, I'd never heard of fanfiction in my entire life - god knows how the phenomenon had passed me by - and I sat there, amazed - my chin on the desk. Here was Snape having sex with every male character in the books! I clicked on one story, and that's the crunch point, a real time in my life when everything could have gone down the wrong trouser in time. If I'd read one of those dreadful bad fics written by a 14 year old wannabee I would never have got hit by inspiration, but LUCKILY for me, I read something called "Clandestine" by Chaos Rose who really can write. And I was literally hit by inspiration (never happened since!) which kept me awake, and felt like speeding. I bashed out a 66k word Potter novel in about 3 weeks. Then sat back and thought "well, that was fun, but I can't sell it."

The idea was to convert that story and try and sell it, but it didn't work, and it felt wrong--so I started to write Standish instead.

At that time (2003) I had no idea that there was almost no gay romance out there at the time, but when i finished the book I soon found this out, Alyson weren't publishing it, Gay Men's Press had just folded here in the UK, and I thought "oh bugger, I have written something that no-one wants" but i was CONVINCED that gay men would want romance - i mean, why not? I had no real idea at the time that women would be interested in it, despite the fact that I liked it.

So I just kept going, started another novel (Transgressions) and kept trying to sell Standish - I was just in the right place at the right time (very very rare for me) and in the 18 months that it took to sell Standish the market grew, small publishers were taking on gay romance and I found a home for it. After that I was hooked.

I don't see me changing genres in the future--I may write less "Romance" as I find the insistence on the HEA hugely restricting--but there are so many eras of gay historicals to be tapped and explored, and so many that no-one's touched yet, it's very exciting, really.

Thanks! :D

[lexin.livejournal.com]

There are several books that I would buy in an instant if Torquere took paypal. Seriously. But they don't even want my credit card, I've tried.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

The authors should get together and complain. I certainly would!

[storm-grant.livejournal.com]

Unlike other e-publishers who prefer to pay their foreign authors via PayPal, Torquere won't pay by PayPal either, saying their accountant wants a paper trail. On the other hand, they do send me very nice cheques on a regular basis so...

I like publishing with Torquere, but if they're driving their buyers to third-party sites who take a cut, that's a damn shame.

[meredith-shayne.livejournal.com]

Torquere won't pay by PayPal either

This has not been my experience. I'm a foreign author, and they paid me by PayPal. Although it was a flat fee rather than a royalty payment, so maybe it's different for larger amounts and/or ongoing payments.

[storm-grant.livejournal.com]

Huh. They told me that just last month. I thought they'd be delighted I finally opened a PayPal account for that purpose. Perhaps it was an antho that was independently edited?

[meredith-shayne.livejournal.com]

It was an anthology, but it was edited in house. It may just be an issue related to tax thresholds - my one-off payment for an anthology story last financial year was never going to put me over the threshold for paying tax in the US, but if you're earning royalties on several publications you're probably nearing the threshold, so they need a paper trail for you. I can't think of any other reason they'd refuse to use PayPal in some cases and not others!

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Er... I'm sorry, but you can haz a paper trail with Paypal. It's called "print screen." Easy as 3.14159...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I have to say that I was a bit confused about that comment too- all my transactions are listed for as long as the account has existed, what the payments are for, who to, who from etc etc!

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Same here, though I am always wary of records that exist only on some corporate website. If I think I may need to verify a Paypal transaction at some time in the future, I save their notification email to my files. If it's really important or lots of $, I make a print copy.

[storm-grant.livejournal.com]

Yes, *I* know that. I'm just repeating what they said.

[joannesopercook.livejournal.com]

Mother of God...you know, they need to revisit the notion of a free market economy...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Well, it's their choice, but it does limit who can buy - not everyone has a credit card (it won't take UK debit cards) and in this economy less people are likely to HAVE credit cards, too. It's also unfair on the authors if their books are only available to buy for people who don't have CCs on third party sites as most publishers give less royalty in that case. Plus - not every book will go up on sites like Fictionwise, particularly if it's a short story for example.

[diannefox.livejournal.com]

Leaving aside your other complaints, which I don't have answers for:

Torquere has never taken me to task for sending out review copies on my own. I think I do remember them saying that they'd prefer authors not send copies to all the same review sites the review coordinator already deals with, but I haven't heard that I'm not allowed to send copies on my own to other reviewers -- that's why I get author copies, after all, to send out as part of promotional campaigns, etc.

The review coordinator changed in the past few months. You can reach her at reviewcoordinator at torquerepress.com

I hope that helps.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I will ask the author concerned to ask TQ if she can send it out.

I'll try TQ again to go on the list of review sites, but I'm probably blacklisted because Speak Its Name does honest reviews, and TQ had a bad rep at one point with editing - they've improved a lot in the past few years, though, I have to say.

Thanks, Dianne

[josephine-myles.livejournal.com]

I had no problem with Torquere accepting my debit card last week, although I did have problems with receiving an incomplete ebook (fortunately they have sorted that out for me)

I was surprised, however, that the calls for submissions on their website were over a year out of date up until quite recently.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

oh! good news that it took your debit card - I never even thought of trying it - I saw "Visa" and thought it was going to be credit only - thanks!

[josephine-myles.livejournal.com]

You know, I've always just assumed that if the Visa sign is there then I can use my debit card, and so far I've never been proved wrong!

[meredith-shayne.livejournal.com]

I'm a Torquere author, and I've seen posts to the Yahoo group saying that we can do what we like with our author copies. I agree with the commenter above who said that they don't want us sending copies to sites they send copies to, but apart from that there shouldn't be a problem with you receiving a copy directly from an author.

(Here via friendsfriends, by the way!)

[treva2007.livejournal.com]

Paypal has a bad history for erotic romance sites which I don't need to get into. But it leaves a lot of publishers (and probably customers, too) wary of trying again. Also, yes, for accounting purposes, the paper trail is important.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll pass your comments on to the author concerned. I understand the need for concern over piracy for example, but they should know me better than that!

[meredith-shayne.livejournal.com]

Well, exactly!

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

One of my TQ books came out from under contract three months ago. Another pub expressed interest. It's still available at B&N and Sony stores. I have a piece still at ARE that has been mine for over a year!

It seems like all publishers make their sites difficult. The new Ellora's Cave Site is a pain and worse, it's not even Ellorascave.com, it's jasminejade. Phaze? I have no clue. Dreamspinner is almost easy.


This has no point. my con brain is past making a point.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I had that problem with Samhain too, the books still available in the Samhain format well after the cut-off date after the transfer to Cheyenne. Shoddy.

Yes, Jasmine Jade - bizarre. The money they claim to be making could surely afford a change of address to something more memorable.

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

Is it possible that Paypal won't deal with them? I ask because Dreamwidth lost them as a payment processor over "adult content" issues. Crazed.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Could be, but PP deal with many other publishers, so it seems odd that they'd pick on one of them.

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

I think Paypal deals with LiveJournal, but it refused DW, not because of actual content, but because of state content policy.

That's probably not it, but Paypal isn't the universal benevolent payment constant that it sometimes feels like. It wouldn't surprise me if Torquere had had problems with them.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the comments above, so apologies if someone's already said this, but that's a misunderstanding on the part of the author you spoke with. Torquere has asked that we not send review copies out blindly, since some reviewers get testy if they receive the same book more than once. I can see that -- it might feel like they're being nagged. But there's an available list (and yes, it's a fairly long one) of reviewers who are regularly offered copies, and if we want to send to someone not on that list, we're free to do so.

Angie

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I find it surreal that reviewers get testy if they receive the book more than once, really. I've heard this from Noble Romance too - and it beggars belief.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

It's weird, but there you go. [shrug] There are a number of things I'd like to do in my published-writer persona that I just don't, because of the chance of drama and wank. Most people are cool and reasonable, but you never know when someone's going to turn into a rabid weasel over the most ridiculous thing.

Angie