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We will continue to spit in the face of critics and go against the grain.
Yes, that is so professional of you, Mr. Bare Nudie. The image is disgusting.
The critics like myself are going to be out here long term, watching what you do. Bad contracts will get you nowhere in the long run. The authors you have are filled with regrets.
I tried to find evidence of your marketing strategies. Guess what? You don’t have any. Where are your ads? Where is your PR? It’s on the backs of the authors.
And you continue to spout off about money. All publishers put money into their writers. You can’t expect them to sell, you have to promote them and cross your fingers.
You act as if it is something amazing that you spend money to publish your writers. Well, guess what? You are not unique.
One of the industry givens is that the publisher spends money. Not that the author owes the publisher anything, especially a return on his dollar.
Does the man who manufactures hammers expect the person he bought the handles from to pay him for making the hammers? No.
Whatever a company’s product is, the investment is from the company. You expect your authors to make you your money back, or to take it from them. That’s not right. Money flows to the writer, not the other way around.
Learn how the world of publishing works or get the hell out, Bernoudy.
How rigid is rigid? How can anyone have a ‘rigid’ schedule of book signings?
Answer: Our current marketing scheme consist of heavy internet marketing, mass emails about upcoming books, a rigid schedule of book signings, obtaining reviews, and forwarding catalogs to book stores. .
Judging from both the contents of Mr. Bare Nudie’s recent email to his authors and the above quote from his website, it’s clear that the bulk of his promotions are on the back of the authors. Book signings appear to be the main form of promotion.
Back when the Moms and Pops stores predominated book sales, signings were easier to come by.
Large chains like Barnes and Nobles have made those independent bookstores an endangered species.
When I was living in Burbank, California, not far from Disney Studios, we had a street that I often thought of as bookstore row. There were nine bookstores within walking distance of our home. Sovay and I used to poke around in them. Well, I did. She was too little to really appreciate them, but they were one of our main stops on our daily walks. Then a Walden’s went in and one by one the little stores died.
With the bulk of purchasing for the chain stores centralized, store managers have only a limited amount of freedom when it comes to what is carried on their shelves. With the rising price of gas and the dwindling number of locations for signings, the author is effectively crippled when it comes to promoting through book signings.
Now, another aspect of Bare Nudie’s marketing scheme that bothers me is the ‘mass emailings.’ It sounds like spam. Who are these mass emailings going to?
One emailing tool that continues to work is press releases. But for press releases to work, they need to be targeted and written properly. Contact must be made with the sites that are going to get them. Don’t send them out unless you have touched base with the site owners and mods first.
There is only so much that an author can do on their own to promote their books. Even with a small press, more can be done by the publisher than by the author. That is, if the publisher does his homework.
For instance, there are many UK sites that will only post information/news about British authors. They are very focused upon promoting the works of their countrymen.
There are sites that will only promote the work of women.
There are sites that will only promote specific genres.
Book Reviews? Sites that will review from a pdf are in the minority. How much money are you willing to put into sending around print copies on the off chance that you might get a review, Mr. Bare Nudie?
Just because you send out review copies is no guarantee that you will get a review. And when you do get a review, there is no way to ensure that the review will be a good one. Those things are very subjective.
‘Forwarding catalogs’ to bookstores? Again, you come up against the limiting selection allowed to managers. These are no longer the days of the Moms and Pops. You need to have a rep get in touch with the central buyers. Preferably in person.
The days of the Jobbers, who picked up cases of books they knew would sell in their area, are long past. They have been replaced by computers. In the old days, the Jobbers provided books to the local supermarkets and drugstores. Now we have big chains of those, instead of local indies. Guess what?
Central buyers.
Space is limited and books are plentiful.
Your authors are not lazy, Mr. Bare Nudie, they are hobbled by circumstances that did not exist thirty years ago.
Wake up and smell the ammonia. You’ve pissed yourself again.
Here is Blu Phi’er’s latest act of bashing the bishop. You will notice that they do not mention payment.
We are however accepting submissions of stories for the anthology, Legend of the Phi’er Lady: Volume I.
Stories submitted for this anthology will out line the origins of our company logo, a woman with a head of flaming blue hair.
Genre is unimportant. This is an annual anthology and a sufficient number of stories in the same genre may be grouped together for subsequent volumes. We welcome unpublished authors to submit stories for Volume I which will be released in late 2008 early 2009.
Hey, Mr. Bare Nudie, are you looking for more bedmates?
I recieved several copies of this from various authors at blu phier.
It was sent out as part of a group mailing to all the people connected to them.
From: phierstarter@bluphier.com
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxDate: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:36:00 +0000
Subject: Final Group Email
As you can tell from the subject, from here out I plan on ceasing with the group emails. I will send out an email each month concerning book sales and pay royalties accordingly. If you have relevant questions concerning your book, or marketing thereof, feel free to contact me.Due to many of the emails I’ve received, I have to reiterate that I need you to limit your communications to relevant issues.
Me owing you money for editing. Relevant.
Your book not appearning on Amazon. Relevant.
Your book not selling to your expectations, yet you have only done one signing in 3 years. Irrelevant.
You wanting out of your contract once your book is in print. Not going to happen.
You needing contributor copies. Relevant.
Over the past year and a half our author base has nearly trippled. We’ve gotten some great authors and great people out of the deal. That being said, we’ve also gotten some assholes. I have no problem dealing with assholes I do it on a daily basis. However, many of you are older than me and have children of your own. I should not have to babysit adults. Especially when the adults are COSTING me money as opposed to making any.
Only two authors we currently have in print can say they responded to ads I placed in 2005 looking for new authors. Only one author can state they have sent a dime towards the publication of their own book. Everyone else, has asked me to spend my money to publish their books.
Some of you work your asses off and make decent book sells. Some of you think because you wrote a book the sells and money just automatically roll in. You feel that if the money is not rolling in, apparently I’ve done something wrong. The simple fact of the matter is, many of you are lazy.
Over the past several months I’ve come to the conclusion that some of you just can’t be helped. That being said, I still have valid contracts with you, I still have expended substantial funds towards your books, and we will continue or efforts. However, if you aren’t going to lift a finger to promote your own book so be it. Technically you’re in breach of your contracts, but I’ll just chalk it up as a loss.
For those of you who are trying, feel free to contact me and I’ll help in any way I can. Many of you have asked for copies on consignment and when the fees were available we have provided. I can’t think of anyone who has asked for money for marketing or had a valid idea we have refused. I will continue to do what I can to support you productive authors.
For you upcoming authors, think carefully about what you are doing with requesting us to publish your books. Once your book is in print we are in bed together, for better or worse.
MLBjr
I want to examine the timing on this because I do not believe that the entire truth has been brought out concerning Chris Manning’s connection with Blu Phi’er.
To make this easier, I am going to use AW as an abbreviation for Absolute Write. All actions take place at the Absolute Write forums unless otherwise noted.
Absolute Write Blu Phi’er thread
The Rusty Nail thread with Chris’s comments
Yesterday, July 28th
1:02 PM Chris announces that he’s the new Marketing Director for Blu Phi’er.
2:14 PM Victoria Strauss expresses her alarms concerning Chris’s decision.
4:05 PM I asked him about the rights to Jane Baxter’s novel
4:11 PM, I get a notification that Chris has sent me a PM from AW.
When I try to reply, I find that Chris has blocked all private messages.
4:37 PM I get an email from Chris, using the marketing email address at Blu Phi’er.
5:28 PM, Victoria Strauss posts a question as to why Chris has his private messages blocked.
6:29 PM, chris posts a comment to TRN about being threatened and now just being a writer for Blu Phier.
6:47 PM Chris says that the warnings from Victoria came after he had been threatened, not before in comments at TRN
7:56 PM, JimmyD1318 posted an announcement that he received an email from Chris claiming that Chris has been seriously threatened at his workplace. The threats were recieved by phone.
Jimmy asked Victoria to lock the thread.
So, in an hour and a half’s time, (the time between when Chris made his post and Victoria replied) Chris had apparently gotten enough threats to make him reconsider being their marketing director.
I can understand people making threats in regard to the fact that Chris would be working for a convicted sex offender. However, I cannot imagine disgruntled authors going to the trouble to locate his private information (unless they had it earlier because they are known to him personally), and then make calls that were threatening to Chris and his family.
Do the math, folks. What is Chris and Bernoudy not telling us?
If anyone has more information to add to this timeline or otherwise, I will be very happy to hear from them.
Apparently, Eric Enck was hired as marketing director for Blu Phi’er. And now he’s been fired, but continues with them as an author.
Our former Marketing Director had great intentions and proposed a number of projects. Without the authority of upper management contracts were sent to numerous individuals. None of these contracts were official whereas they did not bear my signature. Nevertheless there were a number of people out there who mistakenly believed they had contracts with us. Many of them are angry and we’ve done our best to try to appease them. However, we won’t put books into print if it is not in the best interest of the company, no matter how many negative threads are started online.
I have just one question:
WHY THE HELL WAS A MARKETING DIRECTOR, WHOSE JOB IS SALES AND ADVERTISING, SENDING OUT CONTRACTS?
Since Bernoudy has been caught in numerous other lies and semantic games, what was Enck’s real position with the company?
And, before I forget, I would like to point out to Bernoudy that a marketing director at major publishers IS upper level management.
Blu Phi’er informed my friend that it cost him $149. to get the book out through Lightning Source.
Not hardly.
The initial digital set up costs $75. The initial proof copy costs $30.
Tell me, Mr. Bernoudy,
The chair leg of truth wants to know.
When did 75 plus 30 come to equal 149?
Bernoudy has just expanded his rant. In it, he claims that he generously gives the author 1/3 of the profits. Sounds great compared to 10% of cover price that is industry standard.
But do the math
Take for instance a $15 tradepaper book produced through LSI. (That’s where Bernoudy gets his books printed PoD style)
Distributors want 55% discount on the cover price
Bookstores want 40%
Basic cost per book at LSI is usually $3.50 to $4.00
Author gets 10% of cover price
Do the math and tell me which author gets the most money?
Industry standard or Blu Phi’er?
Let’s see.
Cover price $15
minus Distributor discount, we are down to $6.45
minus basic cost (taking the lower figure), we are now down to $2.45
Author gets 10% of cover price, ($1.50)
The publisher can pocket $0.95
Now, with the generous 1/3 profit, that $2.45 that the book earned gets the author gets about 82 cents.
Very generous of you, Mr. Bernoudy.
