Jun 25 2006

REVIEW: Ebook Weekly: Changeling Press, LLC Review

By Jayne • Bookstore • • Tags: , , ,

DISCOUNT! Changeling Press is offering DearAuthor readers a discount. The promo code is DearAuthor06 and is for 5% off a total purchase, good only once. Check out their offerings and save some moolah while doing it!

Changeling Press, LLC opened its edoors in 2004. It publishes erotic short stories and novellas. It also has an Ezine (A Cheeky Changeling) with information, contests and giveaways, and two yahoo groups (one for a newsletter and one for a reader’s loop).

There is a link to an author information page which has bios and further links to individual author pages.

Goodies-There is a ‘first time visitor’ link which shows available discounts. CP has an affiliate program.

Books in print- CP sells some of its books through Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

CP does not sell any other epublisher’s books at its site.

Submissions- CP encourages submissions from both published and unpublished authors.

There is a ‘help link which appears on almost every page of the website. It answers FAQ and has a contact link. The contact link lists snail mail and email contact information along with a list of contact people.

  • Navigation-by author name, theme, book title, genre, recent releases and upcoming releases. You can also type in author name or book title into the search function.
  • Excerpts-CP lists short, one page excerpts for its books. It also has warnings as to sexual content and language.
  • Reviews-CP allows buyers to rate purchased books and write reviews. You can see individual rankings and average rankings. It posts short excerpts from reviews at other sites.
  • Series-CP does note which books are part of a series
  • Word Count- books have ranges. When checking this, I was confused. In its submissions section, CP states that it accepts MS from 10-25K yet one book I bought states the length as 28-35K.
  • Wishlist- I did not find a place to store information about books I might be interested in buying later.
  • Bookshelf-Past purchases are saved in your account information section. It appears that you can dl them again.
  • Payment-credit cards and mail orders. CP has secure online ordering and does not store cc numbers at its site. You can set up an account and deposit money for future purchases with credit cards or Paypal and Paystone. CP does not accept payment from Paypal due to Paypal’s restrictions on adult themed purchases.
  • Downloads-Once you have completed your purchase, you will be taken to a page which confirms your purchase and has a download link. Click on the dl link and you will be taken to a page with your order history. It will allow you to dl a book or email it to yourself.
  • Confirmation-no confirmation email is sent. Instead, see above under DL information.
  • Formats-PDF, LIT, HTML-zipped, PDF for PDAs, PRC, HTML-self extracting (note: MAC users should not choose this format).
  • Irks- well the main one would have to be the price. The cheapest offering is about $1.99 for 3-8K.

I emailed the owner, Margaret Riley, with some questions about Changeling Press.

Thanks Jayne! I’m so glad to have this opportunity to talk to the readers at Dearauthor. Hehe. Love the name!
1. What is your niche in the publishing market?
I’m glad you mentioned Niche — to me that’s what E-pub’s all about. We’re here to bring you what you can’t find anywhere else — if it was mainstream enough to be sold it mass market paperback, we’d all ready be board with it.

Changeling features romantic Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Futuristic, Paranormal, and Action Adventure for women. Not strictly speaking Romance, as we don’t like to follow much of any rules, but we like a strong romantic element. We sell short stories and novellas, many of which are series or serials — episodic fiction. Think Space bounty hunters, shifters, futuristic BDSM, Elves in the future, werewolves, vamps, space vamps… M/M vamps… And hot. We love kink.

2. What makes an ebook publisher successful?
Niche marketing. LOL. For us, mostly the fact that what we set out to be was/is author friendly. Changeling was started by authors to give a home to orphan work — the kind of thing no one else was publishing. Apparently readers like it as much as we do.

3. Where do you see your publishing house in 5 years?
Well, we just moved out of the “pantry” into our first real office, so 5 years from now we should have a bigger office, yes?
Seriously, we’re always open to new ideas and new media. We’re Sci-Fi. We’re buys predicting the future, so we’ve got to be part of it….

4. How responsive are you to reader demands in determining content?
Depends. We try to be really open minded. We’re open to almost any new kink! The only thing that concerns me is being true to the genre. Readers kept asking for interracials. I didn’t see it working, cause, well, to me in a true interracial, the race has to play an important factor. When one of the characters in green, do we really care if the other one’s Latino? However we added an interracial theme, as opposed to a genre, and it’s doing well. NOTHING would convince me to ad cowboys, amnesiac brides, and secret babies — but then we’ve never had a reader — not even one — request such a thing. Again, Niche market. Thank the gods. But when readers asked for more aliens — yeah. We can do that…

5. Why should a reader be buying from you?
Err… cause they want to read the books? I mean really. Anything else is just hype. It all comes down to great stories written by great authors. What other reason is there? It’s got to be all about the books.

6. Are there any things about your site you\’d like to be sure get featured in the Dearauthor post?
One of our unique features is our credit system. If you know you’re going to buy $20 worth of books this month, at the beginning of the month, buy yourself a $20 account credit. (You get a credit of $21.00, because we give you a 5% bonus.) This allows you to only have to enter your credit card info when you’re buying the credit, and readers tell us they can buy books in less than half the time. AND we don’t have to store your credit card info anywhere to do it, so its totally secure. (This started with readers asking if we could save credit card info to cut down on filling out the buy stuff, but security precautions steered me away from that idea.) account credits are available in amounts of $30, $50, and $100. Customers love the convenience! We can also use this system to apply money orders to your account.

 

Love and Laughter,
Margaret Riley
A. K. A. Shelby Morgen
Changeling Press LLC

Overall, this site is easy to navigate and very self explanatory. The book I purchased was available immediately and the shopping cart was easy to use. CP adds help notes at various points throughout the website and during the purchase process. I would rate it a B+.

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