# Deciding between two small presses



## peterscrown (Jun 11, 2018)

I have offers from two small presses for my Fantasy novel: The Wild Rose Press and Pandamoon Publishing.

 I have no idea which one is better. My novel is more Fantasy than romance, but it’d be published through The Wild Rose Press Fantasy line. 
And, obviously, I don’t have much time to decide. Any suggestions, pros and cons?


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## Ralph Rotten (Jun 11, 2018)

googling...


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## Ralph Rotten (Jun 11, 2018)

1) Are they asking for any money?
2) Are they actually promising any real marketing for your book, or just a service that formats ebooks and has a web site?  You can build your own e-book, so going with them they must be offering something more.
3) What commission split are they offering? You can get your own 70/30 split with Amazon directly.
4) Are either of these publishers even real?  All I found on the internet was your alts posting the same question. 
5) Who is John Galt?
6) Who is PetersCrown?


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## Jack of all trades (Jun 11, 2018)

peterscrown said:


> I have offers from two small presses for my Fantasy novel: The Wild Rose Press and Pandamoon Publishing.
> 
> I have no idea which one is better. My novel is more Fantasy than romance, but it’d be published through The Wild Rose Press Fantasy line.
> And, obviously, I don’t have much time to decide. Any suggestions, pros and cons?



Pandamoon info : https://duotrope.com/listing/20807

Their website mentions author training. I wouldn't like that.


The Wild Rose Press info : https://duotrope.com/listing/2373

Apparently errotica. If that's not what your manuscript is, you should pass.


Personally neither seems like a good idea to me. Especially if they are insisting you give a quick answer. I never trust pressure salesmen.


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## peterscrown (Jun 11, 2018)

Thanks John. I didn’t notice the author training. That’s… weird.

I have no idea which ‘alts’ Ralph's talking about. I use the same username in other forums, but I never asked this question before. Peter’s Crown is not a real name (I’m a woman), and I was under the impression this was an anonymous forum. If I’m mistaken, I can delete my posts.


No idea who is John Galt, but after googling I learned that John Galt is a character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged. Since I’m not a fan of Ayn Rand, I don’t see the connection here. Why do you ask?


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## PiP (Jun 12, 2018)

Okay, moving on.  Welcome to WF.



> And, obviously, I don’t have much time to decide. Any suggestions, pros and cons?



I urge you to take time to decide. Did they contact you?

Please take a moment to read The Good the Bad and the Ugly board where members share their experience.

Here are a few articles that could be of interest.
https://justpublishingadvice.com/new-authors-beware-of-scam-agents-and-publishing-sharks/
http://theworldsgreatestbook.com/self-publishing-scams/
http://www.helpingwriters.com/special-reports-articles/publishing-scams-and-schemes


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## Bayview (Jun 12, 2018)

You may want to check out the Bewares & Background Checks section over at Absolute Write Water Cooler - there are threads on both publishers that may help you decide.

You used to be able to check out publishers' Amazon performance at salesrankexpress but it seems to have stopped working too well (doesn't come back with the results it should) so you may want to search for some of the publishers' new releases at Amazon and see what the ranks are yourself. I looked at four WRP books from their new releases and three of them were ranked pretty badly (two in the 300 thousands and one near a million, which means only a few copies have been sold) but there's another one that's at 17K, which isn't outstanding by any means but isn't brutal.

I had trouble finding new releases on the PandaMoon website, which is worrisome - reputable publishers generally set up their websites to sell books to readers, while scam publishers set up their websites to sell services to authors. Those I did find (they don't seem to have many published this year?) were poorly ranked at Amazon.

I have no personal knowledge of either company, but based on what I've seen, if I had to pick one of them I'd pick Wild Rose.


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## peterscrown (Jun 12, 2018)

Thanks for the info. I didn't know about duotrope.com, is it better than querytracker?

I have decided to go with Wild Rose Press. They seem to have more experience. Thanks for your help!


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## Ralph Rotten (Jun 13, 2018)

Id run away from these guys if I were you. They seem sketchy.

Apologies for implying you were an alt, we see all kinds of folks sign up, post an ad for their service or book, and flee the scene. Since you had 1 post to your name at the time, you seemed a bit suspicious.

And the John Galt thing...just watch the movie and you will understand (the 2nd movie in the series, the 1st sux bad.)


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