I am not Raconteur Press, but I have inside info on them and thought this would be the perfect thread to post it.
Raconteur Press is a new publisher of anthologies with the target demographic of young men. All well and good. Men aren't the main demographic for YA, so it makes perfect sense something like Raconteur would eventually pop up. Unfortunately, there is a problem with how they are running their business, and it's something I see a lot of in anti-woke houses.
1. They just publish the same dozen authors again and again in all of their anthologies, despite supposedly having open calls. I exaggerate a little, but really, take a look at their archive and you'll see it's the same names again and again.
2. That wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that the one thing these authors all have in common is that they are just reply guys and orbiters to the editor of Raconteur. It's not like they are published due to submitting for sure the best stories. No, they're just suck-ups who the editor recognizes. They are all very active in the Discord server, always telling the editors how amazing and based they are.
(One of those authors is in the hospital right now and I pray for her recovery. She's a good person, this post isn't meant as a dunk on any of the authors, my criticism is for the publishers lazy methods.)
3. Most of those people have next to zero social media networks. The average Raconteur author maybe has four followers on X and is unknown outside of Raconteur. So, when an anthology gets published, it's not like they can use their platform to help sell more books. How can your promising little publishing house get big in the writing world if you never publish anyone outside your tiny bubble?
4. Worse, they don't pay their authors when they "purchase" the right to their stories. Instead, Raconteur tells the authors that IF the anthology gets royalties, they'll split it like twenty ways among the authors after getting their own cut. But since these anthologies aren't really selling, you can bet the authors aren't seeing much money.
5. Even worse, Raconteur doesn't even do the bare minimum that woke anthologies do, meaning they don't give a free author copy to their authors. You read that right. They don't pay their authors, and then tell their authors they have to pay full-price if they want a copy of their own book. Gee, I guess we know where the royalties are coming from!
Well, that's it. I bother posting this here partially because I know Raconteur Press has a presence on this website. No, I won't dox or out anyone, that isn't my goal here. I am offering this constructive criticism not to sneer at a publisher that is at least trying to do something cool for boys, I offer this criticism so you can take it to heart and improve. Here is my advice going forward:
1. I know you now get hundreds of submissions every time you are featured on Horror Tree. That's a start! You need to capitalize on this by publishing a few of those bigger names that submit to you. I'm not saying stop publishing your friends. Just throw in a couple established authors per anthology to lift up your boat and the boats of your friends.
2. Pay your authors a flat ten dollars or twenty dollars per story you buy. It's not fair to your fans that all your woke competitors PAY their authors while you offer royalties that never materialize. Do you want to prove your socialist enemies right about you?
3. Provide your authors a free physical copy of their books so long as it can be easily shipped. Every woke anthology does this. No reason you can't either.
4. Trick a woke author who submits a story to you... publish her or him. No one who sees you through Horror Tree knows that you're right-wing. I know for a fact several woke women & men with hundreds of social media followers each submitted stories to you, and you turned them all down. Let me tell you something about woke women who submit to anthologies. These bitches know how to GRIND those promo spots to promote their stories. They network effectively. If you can trick a couple woke women and you purchase their stories, sit back and let them promo your book for you. I guarantee you'll actually manage to give your authors royalties then, and after your unwittingly wokester put in all that grunt work, imagine her utter dismay when she realizes she's helped her enemies.
