The Disastrous Mistake I Didn’t Make: A Cautionary Tale about Small Presses

woman in rollersI have been doing research lately on small presses, hoping to find the best place for my YA fantasy novel, Severed. I came across the Zharmae Publishing Press, a publisher that appeared to be an excellent fit. I was excited!

Then I did a quick Google search, and I found this.

The posts on this forum point out some huge red flags about TZPP. The writing on the website is terrible. The founder has had no previous publishing experience. The qualifications of the staff members aren’t posted on the website.

The founder of Zharmae has responded to the comments on the forum, saying, “…my Assistants are not able to look over my work right now while these response are going out, I have a terrible habit with typos.”

As I’m sure my discerning readers have noticed, “assistants” is mysteriously capitalized, the singular “response” should be a plural, and the sentence is a classic comma splice. If this sentence appeared in a freshman composition essay, I would break out in hives. All I could think was, Who would trust their book to this person?

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Another ten seconds of research landed me on the Preditors & Editors website, where I found Zharmae listed as “not recommended” because of the poor contracts they offer, and on Writer Beware, where I also found a comment about TZPPs poor contracts.

I’m not saying Zharmae is a scam, but I am saying they are absolutely not a publisher I would go anywhere near.

It took me less than a minute to avoid what could have been a disastrous mistake—and it reminded me how easy it is to fall into traps when you’re trying to get published.

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Living through the challenges of the writing life can make us feel a little desperate. Unfortunately, there are scores of publishers, editors, manuscript-evaluation companies, fee-charging literary agencies, and others that exploit the fear, frustration, and naivete of struggling writers. Some are merely incompetent. The worst are fraudulent.

Fortunately, there are also resources that will help writers avoid falling into traps. In this post, I’ve mentioned three of the best: AbsoluteWrite, Preditors & Editors, and Writer Beware.

Have you ever fallen prey to a scam or gotten involved with an incompetent editor or agency? What steps do you take to protect yourself? Do you know of resources I haven’t listed here? Let’s share ideas. We writers need to watch each other’s backs!

18 comments

  1. I have a small press myself, and it’s always so disheartening to see how others take advantage of writers. Preditors and Editors and Writer Beware are both such great resources for folks who are beginning this kind of research. Good luck to you in your search for the right home for your book!

  2. When I was first looking to publish my book, I looked at small presses, too. With enough mindful research, you learn to spot the ones that are less than credible. I think authors should take the time to find a company that fits their goals. I ended up self-publishing with CreateSpace which is affiliated with Amazon.com. I love them! I had a great experience and enjoyed doing a majority of the work myself.

    Thanks for this cautionary tale. Education is important.

    1. Thanks for sharing your experience, Fanny. You make an excellent point about authors finding the right company for their specific goals. Congratulations on the publication of your book!

  3. I was taken in by Eternal Press this past year. Signed two manuscripts with them because I was too anxious to get published. Monumental error on my part. These are stories I’d written in the past couple years, but that are a part of a fictional series I’ve been developing for over 20 years.

    Eternal Press’s editing turned out to be a hatchet job of “company policy” edits and misplaced additions – putting in commas where they don’t belong, removing sentence-starting Buts (thus changing the sentences from contrasting statements to supporting ones). After it became clear they intended to markedly alter my prose and damage my book with poor editing practices overall, I asked to be released. The owner’s response was, “The answer is no.”
    I have no intention of supporting them going forward, and I am also looking into reporting their other suspect activities (such as continuing to sell books after their contract expires, despite authors asking them to stop). I’ve also decided I’m going to write a short book about them and their ways, as a warning to others, hopefully. God knows there’s enough about them on the Web already (if only I had taken the time to look), so not sure how that will go. But this is definitely a company that abuses its authors and should be put out of business.

    1. What an awful experience. Thanks for sharing it and warning other writers away, Bill. It seems there are too many people out there ready to take advantage of writers.

  4. I’m an editor and have been employed at my current job for over 2 years. Back when I was job hunting, I made a profile on Indeed.com, complete with a resume and list of interests. This morning, I received an email from someone named Travis who claimed to be responding to a resume I had sent him. This of course was a complete crock, as I haven’t submitted a resume to anyone in over 2 years.

    So, on top of what everyone else has already said about this company, I would like to add that they will also steal your information off of job boards and spam you with entry-level, part-time job requests.

  5. I’m with Zharmae currently working on my first novel with them. I’m not sure how much you’ve looked into them, but many of their titles do quite well based on the number of unique reviews they get on Amazon and Goodreads, two sites (yes I know, both owned by the same corporation) which takes pains to limit “fake” reviews. Several of their titles have also been listed, again on Amazon, in best selling categories.

    And you gave no evidence of what made their contract “poor”. I am not sure what type of contract many new authors are looking for, but I had several people with degrees in finance who worked with numerous different types of contracts over the last two decades read over my contract before I signed, and they all said that the terms Zharmae offered were fair. I’m quite satisfied with my contract because, also unlike a lot of people who write who know little about traditional publishing, I’m well aware that only a small number of authors are ever able to support themselves on their writing. It’s the very rare contract that will net you hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is why the typical traditionally published author is a professor at a university.

    And so far, the editing of my novel has been very professional. When it’s released, I’ll come back to this page and announce it, and you can see for yourself. By the way, your Google search link is from 2011, and if this posted date is accurate, you posted this comment in May 2015. Zharmae is only 5 years old, so it’s relatively new, and in 2011, it was basically in its 1st year. But it’s made huge moves since then, and is now doing quite well.

    1. Thanks for sharing your experiences with Zharmae, Todd. I’m very happy to learn that they’ve worked well for you. Perhaps they’ve taken the criticism they initially got and made changes–or maybe the earlier reviews were off-target. I’m sure there are huge pitfalls for anyone trying to get a press up-and-running, so perhaps their earlier problems were just the struggles of getting started.

  6. Zharmae signed me to a deal for my first novel in 2013 and it was a nightmare. The deal seemed more than fair; I was excited to get picked up by a traditional publisher. They even committed a $10,000 budget for promotion. Things went downhill quickly from there. First, they asked that I rework my short novel into a trilogy and expand the original manuscript by 10,000 words. I set to work eagerly and submitted a solid MS. Their editing team literally sent me the manuscript back having changed one sentence on the first page…that was it. Then they commissioned inept cover art and started promoting the book through press releases that looked as though a middle-school student had written them. They emailed me a proof of the final cover in which the title of my book was misspelled. They completely refused to send me softcover galleys or author copies as stipulated in the contract. They also pressed me for media contacts to whom they could send review copies…and then never sent them, destroying my reputation with a bunch of successful people in the industry. When I attempted to negotiate some of these points with the publisher, my editor said I was being difficult and that he could no longer work with me. The owner of the press said that things were in flux and my book’s debut would be considered a “soft release” with a “hard launch” coming three months later once their staffing changes were complete. That was the last I heard from these guys for almost a year.
    This past spring, Zharmae called me back. A new editor had been assigned. She called asking when my second book would be ready (the contract gave Zharmae first refusal on my next manuscript…I had sent them one a year earlier and they had never contacted me about it). I said that I wanted a real release and promotion for my first book, plus the promised galleys, before I would write another word for Zharmae. My understanding new editor was shocked to hear about what I’d been through. She said she’d work on those softcover copies and call me back the next day. Guess what? She called to say that there was a “printing ban” in effect at the publisher, but that when the ban ended I would be “at the top of the list.” A printing ban! At a book publisher! I wrote back saying that Zharmae was in breach of contract and that I would no longer work with them. Almost immediately, the owner of the press wrote back to me, threatening legal action and stating that my contract with Zharmae was for life and covered all manuscripts that I would ever write. I’m not kidding.
    I spent some time researching my options. In the end, I decided to chalk this one up to experience (with some bitterness because this publisher essentially destroyed something I worked on for two years and poured my heart into). Suing them seemed like a waste of time. I blocked all emails and phone calls from them and walked away. This summer, Zharmae Publishing Press sent me a check for $5.55…my royalty for the book that they never really released. This is very much a scam publisher. The promised promotional budget is simply a lie. They want authors to heavily self-promote while Zharmae gets most of the money for doing nothing.
    By the way, I quit my day job anyway. I’m now a full-time professional author and editor with regular clients and a book deal with another publisher. Zharmae was a bump in the road. I’m grateful for what I learned here and hope my story prevents others from getting hooked.

    1. What???! This is even worse than I imagined. These people seem not only dishonest, but ludicrously naive, with their talk of “printing bans” and life-long contracts. Thank you for sharing your experience. Hopefully, you will find a good place for your future work.

  7. Hello HWordMedia. So sorry to hear how that situation worked out for you. If it’s any consolation, this website is almost the top of the google results if you google Zharmae. Because of all of the predator publishing houses that have existed, I think any author who gets an offer from Zharmae should have a full picture of what they’re getting into, and so I appreciate your anecdote.

    As of now, my experience with Zharmae remains mostly positive. I’m on the second round of edits of my novel. The editor is quite thorough. He took a month for the first round to go over the novel, and a month for the second round. After I send back these current revisions, he’s supposed to look at the manuscript one last time before sending it on to the next stage of production. I’ve been narrating the progress of my novel’s publication on another writing website site, and definitely if I hit a snag, I’ll put it out there, as well as here, for others to read.

    To date, I’ve found only one other website where two former contracted workers at Zharmae had complaints. Again, I think that’s totally fair, and the conclusion I’m drawing is that two years or so ago Zharmae hit a rough patch. As those former contracted employees’ complaints stemmed from work they did around 2013 and didn’t get paid for, which seems to be around the same time as when your novel was being published.

    I do think Zharmae is trying to resolve issues they once had. Their contract seemed fair to me and those who I showed it to who are familiar with business contracts. Again, any problems I run into in the future, I’ll definitely divulge on the internet. As of now, though, it’s been a mostly positive experience.

    Best of luck, HWordMedia, and I hope your successes in writing continue to grow!

  8. I, too, signed with Zharmae in 2014. It’s been an ongoing nightmare ever since. When I was assigned an editor, she gave me 4 partial sentences of feedback for the entire MS – things like “What does this mean?” and “I’m confused here” but no follow ups as to why. When I reached out, I got no response – a recurring theme in my relationship with them. A number of times I’d write in with questions or concerns and get no response back for months. Then my editor inexplicably left and I was assigned a new one. None of the edits I had made were forwarded to my new editor, so we basically had to start from scratch. What was described as a 6 month process turned into an 18 month process. When the book finally did come out, not only was my name misspelled on the inside cover, but an entire chapter wasn’t spaced out at all. I emailed in to make them aware, and received no response. I booked readings to promote the book and had the stores reach out to Zharmae directly for copies to sell, but no copies ever were sent. It was humiliating. Stupidly, I had submitted a second manuscript to them last year because my contract stated there was a 180 day first refusal right. The only response I received was that they’d ‘most likely take it’, which is non-committal. Then radio silence for 3 months. My old editor left unexpectedly and I was assigned yet another one without knowing whether or not the book was going through (no contract had been drawn). Then that editor went awol for 3 months, and I was left in the dark. After numerous attempts to get an answer from someone, I was told she was dealing with “personal issues” however when she resurfaced, she told me she was building a website. Needless to say she no longer became my editor, and I was assigned a 4th. At that point, since no contract had been drawn, no actual commitment had been made, I withdrew my manuscript in March of this year because of the extreme lack of communication. In May I received an unexpected follow up saying that they still wanted to publish the book. MAY! Nearly a year after it was first submitted. I told them thanks but no thanks. Then I get a phone call from the owner saying I “had to” go through with giving them the MS, and there was “no way” to back out of the contract. He claimed that the phrase “we’ll most likely take it” was commitment enough to get me to sign another contract. It was bogus. I’m currently talking to a lawyer now because I do not want to work with this company any further. If by chance they somehow get their way, that book won’t be released until 2018 – which puts my other works on an indefinite hold and my future career as a creative writing professor in jeopardy. I have two books in the pipeline ready for publication through a distributor, but they won’t be able to go through if Zharmae gets their way. Glad to know I’m not the only one out there experiencing this.

    And to the writer who is having a good experience with them, I’m glad that you are. I mean that too, maybe I just got the short end of the stick, but my experiences with them have left me sour. What makes me feel the worst is that writing is what keeps me sane, keeps me grounded, keeps me from collapsing into myself when those sleepless nights kick in and I feel like I have no control in life. This experience makes me feel like the one thing that gives me control and zen is being threatened. Art isn’t about money, it never was, but there’s a limit to what an artist will and will not put up with.

    1. What a dreadful experience! I, too, am glad to hear that some writers have had positive experiences with Zharmae. Unfortunately, I have heard from way too many who have had faced nothing but roadblocks from them! Thank you, Tyler, for sharing your experience.

  9. My experience with Zharmae was a nightmare as well. It is difficult to convey the gross incompetence (along with denial thereof), not to mention the arrogance. I’m burned out enough not to be motivated to share all the details. Working with Zharmae was a HORRIBLE experience. Better to publish the book yourself than work with these bird brains!

    1. Thank you for sharing your experiences, John. I am really shocked at the number of people who are reporting horrible experiences with Zharmae. The more people who come forward, the better for writers. I am hoping many people will read your comment and the other comments on this post and send their manuscripts elsewhere.

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