# Heard of Morning Rain Publishing?



## Guy Faukes (Aug 26, 2014)

It's a small Canadian e-book publisher. It looks like a clean, small, cozy operation but I haven't heard many reviews about it. 

This might be a late question, but what are your thoughts about ebook publishing? Is basically it a glorified version self-publishing?


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## Seedy M. (Aug 26, 2014)

It _is_ self-publishing to the greatest extent. I would call the ones now taking the designation of publishers brokers. You do the entire editing, set-up, and so forth, they run it through a program to facilitate distribution. That is what a broker _does_.


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## Greimour (Aug 27, 2014)

If you are going to do E-Reader publishing, I recommend doing it yourself.

Morning Rain is for people from Canada only, so with you being Canadian it could be worth looking into. Personally though, I have an averse feeling toward small publishing houses. My biggest aversion are to small press companies created by authors, for authors. Of them all, they are usually the worst ones to approach. At a glance it seems Morning Rain is also 'by authors for authors' but unlike most, exclusive to Canadians only. Proof of that is in whose work they are selling. Most are by the same author(s).

Many start out as a normal company too, but quickly turn into a Vanity press. Currently, they are not a vanity press so seeking help from them may not be an issue, just be sure to check your contract carefully if you get that far.

Things to watch out for are their royalty clauses and locking up your future work to their company. If either of those make you wary, you may want to back away.

~~~

Besides editorial advice and cover work, they don't seem to offer much. Just getting your work out there on things like E-Readers, which you can do yourself. 

If it were me, I would probably go to them and work out what the score is... mostly with the mindset of a window shopper: 'See what's on view with no money in my wallet.'

... There is no harm in looking. Just don't sign any dotted lines until you are 100% convinced. And even then, use all the information you have to get the opinion of a third party before actually agreeing to anything.


~Kev.


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## Seedy M. (Aug 27, 2014)

When a "company" features only one or two authors, it is a publicity stunt, usually. I have been approached by no less than four people who wanted to start an internet company to recommend "higher quality" works. They wanted to start by posting their work and mine!
That was after _Heku_ was nominated for an award. I replied that (at that time) I had published more than a hundred twenty books. It would be a poor site with the ones I would select for exhibition made the site._ Heku_, maybe _After the Old Gods_ and _Bottleneck._ None of them had work I would put on such a site. Maybe I would be interested in starting such a needed thing - but no one associated with the company could have work on it.
Funny. I never heard back.
Perhaps a company with an area restriction would be a good idea. That would be if anyone working for the company could not have their work featured. I know nothing of Morning Rain and am not saying they are such a company. I'm simply saying, "Investigate."


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## shadowwalker (Aug 27, 2014)

I think a correction is needed here. E-book publishing is definitely not "essentially" self-publishing. Trade publishers do ebooks along with print and audio; indie publishers do ebooks along with print books; and there are ebook-only indie publishers. None of these are self-publishing. Self-publishers use the ebook format because it's much easier to get their books out to the public than going with a print format. Do not confuse format with business model.

That said, one should always look at the qualifications of the people running small and/or new publishing companies. A publishing company run by former (ie, experienced) industry professionals obviously has a much better chance of getting the job done well than one run by writers, English professors, or people who "have always loved reading". One also needs to see if the company charges for _anything_. If they do, they are either a scam or a close relative, the self-publishing "service provider". The former will take your money and do basically nothing; the latter will actually provide various services, but they are all things the SP author could do for themselves and probably just as well.


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## Seedy M. (Aug 27, 2014)

Shadowwalker - Trades and POD offers are generally self-published, such as Lulu _et al_. I have most of my books on Lulu, also. They are printed, but are self-published.


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## Guy Faukes (Aug 27, 2014)

Greimour said:


> Morning Rain is for people from Canada only, so with you being Canadian it could be worth looking into. Personally though, I have an averse feeling toward small publishing houses. My biggest aversion are to small press companies created by authors, for authors. Of them all, they are usually the worst ones to approach. At a glance it seems Morning Rain is also 'by authors for authors' but unlike most, exclusive to Canadians only. Proof of that is in whose work they are selling. Most are by the same author(s).



Yes, Jaclyn Aurore, who seems to have her own website in a similar format/quality to Morning Rain and lives in the same town. The fact that they have most of their inventory "On Sale" also throws me off as well. They aren't my first option, but they are one of the few that doesn't require an immediate agent. They also don't accept manuscripts for fantasy novels (only novellas), so I might rule it out.

If anyone ever ask for money when it comes to publishing, I will tell them to !@#$ while they !@#$ !@#$, and I will definitely read the fine print. 



Seedy M. said:


> When a "company" features only one or two authors, it is a publicity stunt, usually. I have been approached by no less than four people who wanted to start an internet company to recommend "higher quality" works. They wanted to start by posting their work and mine!
> 
> I'm simply saying, "Investigate."



Yeah, I have no idea what their deal is, their revenues or how they get the word out. The market is saturated, people want to get their ebooks out, it seems too good to be true to have a small, grassroots independent publisher. I dunno. 



shadowwalker said:


> Self-publishers use the ebook format because it's much easier to get their books out to the public than going with a print format. Do not confuse format with business model.



Yeah, I was also thinking that in this new age of reading format, that there'd be newer sorts of publishers emerge. I'm not entirely sure and not remotely done writing yet much less editing. The entire process of getting published or self-publishing is a little jarring for now, and it'd be good to understand the landscape a bit more.


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## shadowwalker (Aug 28, 2014)

Seedy M. said:


> Shadowwalker - Trades and POD offers are generally self-published, such as Lulu _et al_. I have most of my books on Lulu, also. They are printed, but are self-published.



I'm not sure what you're saying here. Trade publishers are publishing companies who publish other people's books, not their own. Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, HarperCollins - those are from the Big Five; smaller indie publishers are also trade publishers, in that they publish books authored by others, not themselves. POD, like ebooks, are a format, and, although most trade publishers steer clear due to cost, are still a format that can be used by trade, indie, or self publishers.

So, no, ebooks are not "essentially" self-published, as I stated. It's a _format_, used by _all _publishers - trade, indie, and self.


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## Seedy M. (Aug 28, 2014)

The difference here, I believe, is that the traditionals are publishers and those dealing with self-publishing are brokers. It is convention to call all of them publishers, but they are not. Combining them is what causes the confusion.

Note. I notice Shadow quotes Zelazny. Have you read _Phoenix_, by Greg Banks? I had Piers Anthony read it and comment. He gave it a great review and compared Banks with Zelazny "... and apt as the late Roger Zelazny."


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## shadowwalker (Aug 28, 2014)

Deleted - computer giving me fits today...


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## shadowwalker (Aug 28, 2014)

Seedy M. said:


> The difference here, I believe, is that the traditionals are publishers and those dealing with self-publishing are brokers. It is convention to call all of them publishers, but they are not. Combining them is what causes the confusion.



It's your terminology that's confusing me. "Traditionals"? There are _trade publishers_, which includes the Big Five and smaller indie presses. There are self-publishers, which are individuals who write and publish their own work. There are 'vanity presses', now morphed into "self-publishing service providers", which charge self-published writers to do what the writer could do themselves. 

A quick and dirty: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/types-publishing-companies-43077.html

And no, I haven't read _Phoenix_.


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## Seedy M. (Aug 28, 2014)

Shows my age. "Traditionals" are the ones who pay for your work for printed books and Vanity presses that hold the copyrights and so forth. Anything before about 1985, in other words.


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## Guy Faukes (Aug 28, 2014)

Seedy M. said:


> Shows my age. "Traditionals" are the ones who pay for your work for printed books and Vanity presses that hold the copyrights and so forth. Anything before about 1985, in other words.



So... I should travel back to 1984 to get published by a straight forward company... alright


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## shadowwalker (Aug 29, 2014)

Guy Faukes said:


> So... I should travel back to 1984 to get published by a straight forward company... alright



Naw - just do your homework, as you would with any person or company you are about to do some serious business with.


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## Guy Faukes (Aug 29, 2014)

shadowwalker said:


> Naw - just do your homework, as you would with any person or company you are about to do some serious business with.



It's a strange, new world (of publishing), shadow, with all this e-booking and i-booking, and Kindle that you can't actually use as kindling without releasing toxic fumes.


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