There are several very big problems with McFarland. First, they overprice their books which crushes sales. They don’t care about this because their primary market — in fact almost exclusively — are libraries. As long as they sell a couple hundred copies they are satisfied, and move on to the next manuscript. Second, at best, you get absolutely no editing or even proofreading from them. At worse, you get a glorified proofreader who thinks he/she is an editor and makes horrendous mistakes changing words in your work that you have to undo during your reading of the proofs. Example: The abbreviation for Patrick Air Force Base (AFB), became Patrick afb. A “two-story building” became “two-storey building.” Thirdly, as best as I can tell, other than distributing their catalog to some libraries they do nothing to market your book. Another big problem involves images. Despite inserting place savers into the manuscript, they managed to put several of my images in the wrong place with respect to the narrative. If they had a question they should have contacted me, or at least read the manuscript to see the context for the picture. When you point this out to them they are not very keen to make corrections. Mind you, they only give you about ten days to read the proofs and catch their screwups. Will I publish with them again? No.

My book is a play entitled “The Trial of Phillis Wheatley,” and he suggested I query McFarland. I checked them out and they do fiction only in rare instances. Still I sent them an e-mail just this week and have not had a response.

I would be interested in your opinion on self publishing. My first book ” A Song of Africa,” was republished on createspace after the original publisher went out of business..

Thanks

Ronald Wheatley
Treasurer Sons of Union Veterans Post Scituate, MA

Even if I had the most parasitic agent on the planet he would only take 25 percent!

McFarland will almost literally publish anything. One of their books is “Jewish Chess Masters On Postage Stamps!” What’s the worldwide demand for that book? 100 copies perhaps less?

The problem with Osprey is that you’re limited to 12-24,000 words, and they own the copyright, since everything is done as work for hire. Casemate specializes in World War II and British stuff, which makes sense because David Farnsworth, the owner, is British. It was not an especially friendly niche.

Eric

They seem to have much more aggressive marketing than McFarland, which does seem very user [writer] friendly…