Re: Tate Publishing Company?
Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2015 5:49 pm
I self-published my first book, but decided to go with Tate for my second one. Early on, the experience was great. Lots of communication, asking me for guidance, and so forth. I really felt valued.
It was toward the end that I began to have red flags popping up in my spirit. It became difficult to find someone to communicate with me, and it seemed like quite a number of different individuals were involved instead of one dedicated representative.
All in all, this is what I would say. Tate does offer the service they say they offer. However, the finished product is a mixed bag. All of the books that I purchased at my author cost were good enough quality and I had no problems with them. However, I illustrated a juvenile reader for a friend of mine, who also published with Tate, and the quality became worse with every shipment she ordered. Some copies were so streaked that she felt bad about even selling them. Another friend of mine had a difficult time even getting her royalty statements and royalty checks from them. We all could indeed get our contract money back, but after we sold a certain number of copies. The key is that those copies have to be sold through distribution channels. The copies that we purchased ourselves to sell locally did not count toward that number. We still continue to get reduced purchase offers, meaning that Tate wants to direct sell our own books to us, but there has not been a huge amount of marketing on Tate's part for any of the three of us, and the publicity is allegedly what we were paying for.
I don't regret the experience though. I do have a book in hand and it was a learning experience.
However, it was enough to convince me that I am perfectly comfortable publishing my own work from this point forward. So I started my own subsidy-and-self publishing company, and have begun not only publishing my own work but also the work of others. In my case, one of the things that frustrated me most with Tate was what appeared to be a lack of forthrightness at times. They did not necessarily lie to me, but they were slow to divulge the whole picture. And that's their right to do so. However, I did not enjoy that and I plan to keep that in mind as I work with future clients myself.
So that's my personal experience. Hopefully it will help someone else. All things aside, if a person has the money and simply wants to get the book out there, Tate is certainly capable of getting the job done. You pay them, they print your book, and sell you copies at a reduced cost. They do set up a limited number of book signings and offer other services, but I personally did not see the fruit of much of that marketing. Any additional marketing, such as ads through media channels and smart phone apps will cost extra in most cases. Just be clear that you know what you're getting.
It was toward the end that I began to have red flags popping up in my spirit. It became difficult to find someone to communicate with me, and it seemed like quite a number of different individuals were involved instead of one dedicated representative.
All in all, this is what I would say. Tate does offer the service they say they offer. However, the finished product is a mixed bag. All of the books that I purchased at my author cost were good enough quality and I had no problems with them. However, I illustrated a juvenile reader for a friend of mine, who also published with Tate, and the quality became worse with every shipment she ordered. Some copies were so streaked that she felt bad about even selling them. Another friend of mine had a difficult time even getting her royalty statements and royalty checks from them. We all could indeed get our contract money back, but after we sold a certain number of copies. The key is that those copies have to be sold through distribution channels. The copies that we purchased ourselves to sell locally did not count toward that number. We still continue to get reduced purchase offers, meaning that Tate wants to direct sell our own books to us, but there has not been a huge amount of marketing on Tate's part for any of the three of us, and the publicity is allegedly what we were paying for.
I don't regret the experience though. I do have a book in hand and it was a learning experience.
However, it was enough to convince me that I am perfectly comfortable publishing my own work from this point forward. So I started my own subsidy-and-self publishing company, and have begun not only publishing my own work but also the work of others. In my case, one of the things that frustrated me most with Tate was what appeared to be a lack of forthrightness at times. They did not necessarily lie to me, but they were slow to divulge the whole picture. And that's their right to do so. However, I did not enjoy that and I plan to keep that in mind as I work with future clients myself.
So that's my personal experience. Hopefully it will help someone else. All things aside, if a person has the money and simply wants to get the book out there, Tate is certainly capable of getting the job done. You pay them, they print your book, and sell you copies at a reduced cost. They do set up a limited number of book signings and offer other services, but I personally did not see the fruit of much of that marketing. Any additional marketing, such as ads through media channels and smart phone apps will cost extra in most cases. Just be clear that you know what you're getting.