I was vetting a book submitted via my Debut Informer form, and I thought I’d go ahead and do another Publisher Review. This time, I am reviewing Mundania Press. Here are my findings.
- Website geared toward readers or writers? – Readers. There are nine new releases front-and-center, and at first glance, the covers look pretty good. This is definitely a presentation that puts the reader first.
- Visibility of submissions link? – Visible on the menubar, but does not call a lot of attention to itself.
- Submissions – Currently closed. When they are open, they are picky about following their formatting guidelines. Selective is good. Royalty rates are generous, but I don’t know if that is off cover price or sale price.
I spend a lot of time looking at the way the site presents itself because I will only consider publishers who are looking to sell books to readers, not make money off writers. Yes, every publisher makes money off writers, but the question is are they doing it in an exploitative way? Mundania Press is definitely showcasing their writers and trying to sell them to readers.
- Does it look like a serious business venture? – Yes. Tis is a well-designed site and there is a full staff shown on the About page. Does not appear to be run by hobbyists.
- How well are they publicizing their author’s work? – Looks good. They have a nice page for each book, and someone is paying attention to the reviews because the lists of excerpts can get extensive. The also have excerpts.
A hobbyist isn’t going to spend a lot of time on the website or scouring the internet looking for reviews. In this case, I have not had contact with their editorial or publicity department, so I can only judge their publicity from their website and how much I see on the web about them from a Google search.
They have a Facebook page, and they keep an active Blogspot blog, but their Facebook widget is cut off on the right. The posts are up-to-date, but the sidebar contains dated information. The Facebook page is also up-to-date. I found an undated interview that referred to May of 2005 as being in the future.
Mundania Press seems to be well-regarded. I found announcements about them at Romantic Times Book Reviews, a few reviews at BSCReviews, and a review at Graeme’s Fantasy Review. These are all sites I respect.
- Covers – Professional or Amateur? Mixed. Some of the covers are awesome, and some look too computer-generated. Overall, I liked the covers.
- Availability of books – Available, but not timely. I could not find their most recent book at Amazon, and their second-most-recent book was missing the cover at Amazon. At Barnes and Noble, the most recent books were not available, except the Bad-Ass Fairies anthology. They have a Fictionwise bookstore, but again, their most recent book was not available there. Offers returns to bookstores, and they have distribution arrangements.
- Price of books – Good. The price of trade paperbacks is on par with major publishing houses.
- Is an excerpt available? – Yes, but not every time.
- Is the excerpt professionally written and presented? The writing is ok, but nothing held my interest. I think some more attention could be paid to the dialog.
Finally, I scrutinize the product, itself. I had a hard time finding the most recent release anywhere but mundania.com. They do eventually make it to the online bookstores, but I’d prefer to see the books available for pre-order before the publication date rather than a month or two afterward. Do they keep newly-released books exclusive to Mundania at first? It’s possible.
- Random impressions – Freebies and Calendar pages have no content. Has a large selection of books that appear to be good quality. Their reputation is clean. They were originally started to publish some of Piers Anthony’s novels, and have published dozens of authors since then. Their anthologies appears to generate some good exposure for them.
My possible ratings:
- Highly Approved – I would review one of these books.
- Approved – site meets my stringent requirements.
- Cautious – has red flags, but nothing onerous.
- Disapproved – You don’t want to associate yourself with these guys.
- Avoid – I don’t even want to send web traffic to these guys, they’re so bad.
With Caveats – This will enable me to give a higher score to a publisher, but to add a caveat.
My rating for Mundania Press:
~*~ Approved, With Caveats ~*~
Mundania Press looks to be highly selective; they are doing a great job with their presentation and their covers, and they genuinely are trying to get good books out. I’d like them to explain the delay in making books available elsewhere–even a simple statement saying something like, “For a limited time, available only at Mundania Press” would help; otherwise it looks like inefficiency. They need to fix the “under construction” parts of their site, and keep their blog sidebar up-to-date. I would be happier seeing them a little more “out there” in terms of exposure for themselves and their authors. I was only able to find their Twitter feed then I Googled the Publisher’s name, and even then, he doesn’t tweet anything. Twitter is a great publicity tool, especially since it is so easily fed elsewhere like Facebook.
Since I may have simply caught the publisher at a bad time, I’ll revisit it in six months or so.
I would review one of their books, but only if I liked the excerpt and if the publisher sent the book (which demonstrates commitment on the part of the publisher). I do confess that I don’t like their name. It makes me wonder if the books they publish won’t be . . . well, mundane.
Check them out: Mundania Press.
Thanks for this informative pulisher review. Now I have to have a deeper look at the Mundania Press catalog in order to find out if the publish books I would like.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the name of the press. I was wondering about a Piers Anthonoy connection even before you mentioned that this press started with him. “Mundania” is the name for the real, non-magical world in Xanth, his most popular fantasy series. {Smile}
Anne Elizabeth Baldwin
I read his Adept series, but I never read the Xanth books. So I missed that connection completely!
It isn’t as obvious as naming it “Xanth;” you have to know the books somewhat to get the reference. {Smile}
Personally, I like that it is “correct” in that Mundania is our world, while Xanth is a neighbor. {Smile}
Anne Elizabeth Baldwin
Mundania opens to Submissions in June and I will submit Sugar Rush then. I’ve heard good things about them and like most of their cover art.
Yes, the cover art is good, for the most part. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for Sugar Rush!
I read one of their books about a year ago (I think the title was Shadow, although I can’t remember the author–Ann something?), and it was flat out terrible. I don’t mean it didn’t hold my interest or had some clumsy transitions in the writing, I mean it was 100% amateurish–it should never have been published without heavy editing and rewriting. I haven’t bought any of their books since. Maybe that one was their one bad book, but as far as I’m concerned, their standards are not all that high.
The Shadow series, by Anne Logston, is actually a reprint. It was original pubilshed by Ace I believe and was on the NYT bestseller list back in the 90’s for three in the series.
Hi Tia, thanks for the review. Any books you would like to review, just send a note to books@mundania.com and we’ll get copies out to you. The delay that is seen from posting new books on our website to showing up in Amazon is usually a week or two. Blank images seems to be some hit or miss thing with Amazon. They get the feed from Ingram, but neglect to pick up the covers occasionally. We do go in and post covers as we find them missing, and eventually Amazon picks up the cover from Ingram.
Mundania published my first novel. I had offers from two other legitimate publishers, but went with Mundania. They did what they promised. The book was positively reviewed by major and mid-major review sites, and it sold well. It was not an NYT bestseller but it sold well. It would have sold better, if I’d been willing to do more book signings and other appearances. But I have a rewarding everyday job that takes up most of my time. Mundania was understanding and flexible. That may have been because they made money off my book. Regardless, they were good enough that I’m going to work with them on my second book.
You may find the review of Mundania Press at Piers Anthony’s website helpful.
Needless to say, they seem to have a long way to go.
http://www.hipiers.com/publishing.html#M1
It seems that way, but what’s funny is that since Piers is an investor in our business (he doesn’t own any part of it, but has an investment in it), he has told me that he’ll be very tough on us so it won’t seem like he isn’t showing any bias. He did the same against Xlibris, although his investment in that was bought out. We have our ups and downs, just like any other business. Publishing can be slow at times, because most who work for us are freelance people and they come and go, or have problems in real life that causes delays in editing or artwork, or other. We are now a company with four imprints: Mundania Press, Phaze Books, Awe-Struck Publishing, and Hard Shell Word Factory. We have over 650 authors and 3,000 books published. With that much volume, there’s always something happening for Piers to ding us. That makes him happy, so we’re happy too. Everyone deserves to be taken behind the shed for a good switching once in a while and that includes us. The important thing is we work hard to fix any problems that do happen. We’re in our 9th year of business and that’s pretty good for a small independent publisher.