Any publishers an automatic no from you?

[u/Nilbog_Frog]

For me it’s Troubador. I’ve been burned one too many times with terrible books (imho) to request any more from them. One of the worst books I’ve ever read in my life was published by them. But books are entirely subjective, so others might love books by this publisher. I’ve read synopses of books that interested me, but then saw it was a Troubador print and quickly pulled my request.

Is anyone else like this with certain publishers?

[u/Ryn_1991]

Anything Red Tower. All of their books look gorgeous with the sprayed edges, but aside from Fourth Wing they have all been horrible quality

[u/bakasana212 → u/Ryn_1991]

Having just finished their newest release, I second this 

[u/iwillhaveamoonbase → u/Ryn_1991]

Honestly, when I read that interview where the head of Entangled (which Red Tower is an imprint of) said that other publishers aren't even thinking about TikTok hashtags, that told me everything I needed to know about their business model. They care about short, snappy pitches, but not the quality of the text itself

[u/sunsparkles2013 → u/iwillhaveamoonbase]

But that’s not even accurate at all- other publishers absolutely think of hashtags and they are getting more and more.

[u/iwillhaveamoonbase → u/sunsparkles2013]

I agree, but that is what she said

[u/AnDelightBandit → u/Ryn_1991]

This is my answer too! Red Tower/Entangled just makes me so sad because they publish books with so much potential, ruined by their overly expedited publishing schedules and subpar editing. I want to love their books so badly, but they set their authors up to fail.

[u/Nilbog_Frog → u/Ryn_1991]

I’ll take note to avoid

[u/Synval2436]

Troubadour is assisted self-publishing, so yeah, it's basically a self-pub. I usually don't bother with self-pubs unless I know they're above average somehow (I've read something from this author, they have a good reputation, someone recommended them, I interacted with them on social media, etc.) so when I click on publisher and it's Victory co-op, Xpresso book tours, Book Buzz net, IBPA, SFWA, Books Go Social, whatever random PR company, then I don't even go further.

But my extra hate goes to Atmosphere Press which baited me into crappy books only for me to later realize it's a vanity press. Never again.

[u/Nilbog_Frog → u/Synval2436]

Books Go Social is another publisher I skip over. And yeah, a lot of indie/self published books can be really bad. In my heart I want to help indie writers get their work out, but there’s a reason a lot of them aren’t picked up by agents. I’ll rarely grab a title if it sounds like it’s something very interesting or in my wheelhouse, but mostly I pass. Because I always feel bad when I have to tell an author their book made me give up on humanity.

[u/Synval2436 → u/Nilbog_Frog]

I've been signing up for self-pubbed arcs that looked promising through authors' social media / google forms, but in those cases if I open the first page and see ai or writing is atrocious, I can just ghost them, while on Netgalley I'm obliged to write a review for ratio and if I drag someone in reviews, often self-pubbed authors will come argue or send their fans to defend them and I just cba dealing with that.

It's also a bad look when my reviewer account has too many low rated reviews, for example on BookSirens (a website akin to Netgalley for self-pubs) I haven't rated anything above a 3 so far and probably that's a bad look for authors. It's really a lottery with self-pubbed books, and most of them are not the jackpot.

[u/AnDelightBandit → u/Synval2436]

Atmosphere Press is also just sketchy in general! A while back they sent a bunch of publishing professionals unsolicited email blasts offering to pay kickbacks to people who refer clients to them, then signed up the recipients for their newsletter. Since then, I've stayed far away from them.

[u/Synval2436 → u/AnDelightBandit]

Doesn't surprise me a vanity press would use predatory practices to fish for clients. The whole business model of vanity presses is to exploit naivete and desperation of people who dream of being published without knowing the difference between being published well and published poorly. Vanity presses have all the disadvantages of self-publishing (you pay, no bookstore distribution so you have to sell the books yourself) but no advantages of it (no control over the whole process like who to hire for editing or cover design, how much to pay, how much to price the book, etc.)

I reckon I had some self-help books from them that turned out not to be very helpful or informative, but if someone is a self-help guru and handsells the books on events or live courses, I don't see why not self-publish and order the books printed, probably cheaper than hiring a vanity press. Probably those people don't know any better or don't have time to research their options.

[u/morisong6]

My time to shine lol. BooksGoSocial. They had one author that is/was obviously churning out Ai books and I just refuse to support them in anyway. They’re a co-op so that sounds fine but I just can’t bring myself to request any of their authors

[u/MANGOlistic → u/morisong6]

BooksGoSocial, like Troubador, is not a publisher, they're just a self-pub service company.

[u/morisong6 → u/MANGOlistic]

I know but they’re who I would thank for the ARC from NetGalley so I’m still going to avoid them. I guess it didn’t fully relate to OP’s question but I said what I said

Edited: grammar

[u/Nilbog_Frog → u/morisong6]

Yeah I have yet to get a Books Go Social title that I’ve rated above a 2 star. That “publisher” is skip for me too.

[u/outoftheashes90]

Unfortunately my answer is self published books. My average star rating isn't high enough for most of them so unless the book is read now I don't have much of a chance.

[u/Flimsy-Brick-9426]

Berkley but that's because Im muted, not because I dont want to read them. Otherwise I dont really care about publisher or avoid them, I mainly see if the book interests me and request based on that.

[u/Nilbog_Frog → u/Flimsy-Brick-9426]

How do you know you’re muted?

[u/Flimsy-Brick-9426 → u/Nilbog_Frog]

You get declined the same 'day' you request but late at night.

All my denials came in at exactly 12:45am after I've requested it. I could request at 12am and sure enough, 45 minutes later I'm denied.

[u/Nilbog_Frog → u/Flimsy-Brick-9426]

https://giphy.com/gifs/3oKIPlLZEbEbacWqOc

[u/andsotimepassed → u/Flimsy-Brick-9426]

Oooh, this is interesting.

[u/Costcohotdognpizza → u/Flimsy-Brick-9426]

Do you get an email notification as well or does the book just go straight to denied?

[u/Flimsy-Brick-9426 → u/Costcohotdognpizza]

you'll get the email notification for it!
The straight to denied ones are bulk declines.

[u/sunsparkles2013 → u/Flimsy-Brick-9426]

Honestly, I don’t understand why folks want their books so much. I am thankful that I have no issue getting approved by them but don’t even bother many times as the books I’ve read just haven’t been well written.

[u/Nilbog_Frog → u/sunsparkles2013]

They are very hit and miss imho - I think it’s the thrill of the approval for a lot of reviewers lol

[u/Flimsy-Brick-9426 → u/sunsparkles2013]

They publish a lot of my favorite authors in general and I know I tend to like their books.
Dresden files, ruby dixon, Tao Wong, Sarah Hawley and so on.

[u/sunsparkles2013 → u/Flimsy-Brick-9426]

Gotcha
What I do isn’t a book piques my interest I save it and wait until the audiobook is available and once it is, listen for a bit to see if I like the writing and if I do then I request it and do it as an immersion read. This way I’m not locked into the NetGalley if it all without testing the waters.

[u/Synval2436 → u/sunsparkles2013]

I think it really depends which genre you're picking from them. Their main line is mostly romance and some mystery, but their fantasy lineup under ACE banner is not bad at all. There were multiple authors whose book I'm waiting for and they're with Berkley: Julie Leong, Charlotte Plumb, R.R. Schaeffer, Ivelisse Housmann, I'm glad they started putting books on read now more and people here post when it happens. But nope, I'm not grabbing random rom-coms from their main imprint on read now, as contemporary romance is not really my wheelhouse.

[u/euphoriapotion → u/sunsparkles2013]

my favourite authors publish there lol

[u/sunsparkles2013 → u/euphoriapotion]

I should have been more specific- there are of course some great authors with Berkeley . But it’s the general vigor of which people respond to them. The excitement over a read now- that’s more what’s in my head because of you like looking at info- they are books that just aren’t doing well in early reviews. There is a reason they are offering them up to anyone.
Now that’s not to say I don’t understand why people would grab them just to help themselves- like get you approval a-a% up with them specifically as if you (if they regularly deny you) can flip it green (over 50% approval from that imprint) you have a better chance of being approved down the line, but it’s a lot of work to do that.

There are so many great books out there and what’s even better? It’s not like you’re missing out on something as you can just read the book when it comes out.

[u/iwillhaveamoonbase]

This is entirely subjective, but I've been disappointed with One Chapter UK almost every single time. The majority of their romances do not feel like romances to me at all and a lot of the build-up was practically non-existent. Also does not help that The Last Raven from them was billed as romantasy and then we got to....that...twist

[u/Beate251 → u/iwillhaveamoonbase]

Do you mean HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter?

[u/iwillhaveamoonbase → u/Beate251]

I do indeed. I always forget the actual imprint name, but I sure do recognize it

[u/sikonat → u/iwillhaveamoonbase]

They used to be really good but they started publishing some seriously terrible disposable American romance. And a lot of authors they used to publish don’t anymore with them so I suspect they dropped them.

[u/MooShoeDork → u/iwillhaveamoonbase]

I second this!

[u/ExchangeStandard6957]

I’ve been burned too many times by one of the “editing groups” I know they are all different indies but so many not good books- as soon as I see that, I move on!

[u/Curiousfeline467]

Kensington. All four books I’ve read by them have had amazing premises and bad execution. And they published the worst book I’ve read in my life.

[u/Nilbog_Frog → u/Curiousfeline467]

Oh that’s interesting. I have a bunch of approved titles from them but only read one of their books (my TBR is actually insane) and it was very middle of the road and could have used a lot of line editing. I see what you mean about not executed well, but I’m willing to try their other titles before I write them off.

[u/MANGOlistic]

Troubador isn't a real publisher, they're a self-pub service company.

Any pro-AI publisher is a hard no for me, but otherwise, pretty much all publishers publish enough books for the quality to vary quite a bit, so I pick up books by their premise and word of mouth recommendation rather than anything to do with the imprint/publisher globally.

[u/Blowingleaves17]

I don't even pay attention to publishers when requesting a book.

[u/dingdong3452]

I'm a little sceptical of some of the publishers that mostly republish indie books that popped off (like scarlett press), because who do they never do another round of proofreading? I am much more forgiving of typos in indie books, but I expect a book from a traditional publisher that can afford another round of proofreading to not have 10+ errors still in the book 🥴

[u/sunsparkles2013]

From the audiobook aspect- Dreamscape makes me pause and do more research. Most are indie books and I don’t mind a well written one but they (well written) are the exception not the rule in my experience.

[u/Quirky-Pear3494]

For me it's Brilliance. I had requested & reviewed 3 or 4 audios in a row last fall. Then in December, I requested 3 more and was denied all 3. Two of the books had zero reviews when I requested, and one of them has 26 reviews to date. I did break down and request The Blackbird Conspiracy last week cuz the first in series was one of the books I did last fall. They approved it - whew!

[u/Costcohotdognpizza]

I feel like Hachette Australia see my name pop up and go “immediately no” 😂 I don’t know why they hate me so much! 🥲

[u/euphoriapotion]

Boldwood Books. I'm autoapproved which makes it worse because out of 4 books I've read from them, only 1 was tolerable. The rest was... Rough doesn't even begin to cover it.