I came across a book recently that I wanted to review for the mag. It was published by...let's call them Star Press. they had a nice website, with an email contact page. Now, I do as much as I can by email, but I do like to have a postal address. But Star Press didn't have one. What it did have was a small link to another company - let's call them Genre Umbrella Publishing (GUP).
Fair enough; after all, several small presses have imprints - Arcadia is a good example. So what was GUP's postal address?
There, in very small print on the contact page: Simon and Schuster House.
Nowhere else was it mentioned that these were imprints of a major publisher.
So does it matter? Well, it does to me, because I'd look pretty stupid when someone wrote to me saying I'd been conned into printing a review of a Simon and Schuster book in a magazine dedicated to independent presses. It also makes me wonder why they didn't advertise it as 'an imprint of S&S' - after all, since when were major companies coy about advertising themselves? What are they afraid of?
And am I being unnecessarily cynical?
...I'm still not sure.
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2 comments:
On the one hand I sympathise with a large publisher not wanting to dilute its 'brand identity' (whatever that is) by moving into new and untried areas under its own name, but what's wrong with setting up an imprint and ANNOUNCING that it's for a new and exciting form of fiction or a genre not previously under that publisher's umbrella.
S&S do have some funny habits though; remember the row about royalties in their recent US contracts?
That's scary. It's like drinking something delicious and then seeing small print on the label saying Product of Coca Cola. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
Why do people insist on trying to take over the world?
Kay has a good point, although personally I think S&S should just be happy with being a massive publisher churning out loads of genre stuff that sells and leave the more exciting forms of fiction for 'the underground'.
Grrr...
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