As the founder and owner of a leading self-publishing company, MindStir Media, I hear plenty of horror stories about my competitors. Usually authors come to me with re-publishing in mind, i.e. taking their previously published book and publishing it again under the MindStir Media name. One publishing company that comes up often is Dog Ear Publishing LLC, despite the fact that they closed their doors in early 2020 at the start of the pandemic.
Just last week I spoke to a former Dog Ear Publishing author from 2020 and he told me that he never received a single royalty payment before Dog Ear went out of business. Not a single dime, not even a royalty statement. I wish I could say “unbelievable” in a situation like that, but one of the main issues authors had with Dog Ear Publishing, especially near the end, was lack of royalty reporting and payment. About three years ago they just stopped bothering with royalties, according to former clients.
Dog Ear Publishing Review
During my review of Dog Ear Publishing, I found that not only were they not paying authors royalties, they also stopped communicating with their clients. This is incredibly disheartening for authors who spent good money on their publishing services. The books that did get published, many of them anyway, are still live on Amazon. As of today there are approx. 5,000 instances of Dog Ear Publishing LLC books on Amazon.com. That’s 5,000 authors who likely need a new home for their books.
Rather unexpectedly, it appears that Dog Ear Publishing’s website was purchased and rebooted by a third party recently. The company seems to be run by a totally different individual or entity and claims to offer “traditional publishing” even though they sell publishing packages. Now, I don’t see a problem with selling publishing packages — I offer these through MindStir Media — but calling it traditional publishing is completely erroneous and misleading. Traditional publishers are incredibly selective and pay authors for the rights of their books. Those publishers then cover most if not all of the costs of book publishing. The author doesn’t pay the traditional publisher.
If a publisher is going to sell publishing services, they should be honest about it. Don’t call it something that it clearly isn’t. The former version of Dog Ear Publishing called it self-publishing at least. The rebooted website doesn’t include the former Dog Ear Publishing logo anywhere on the website, by the way, an obvious attempt to rebrand. The BBB, Google and other sources online still list Dog Ear Publishing as “out of business.”
I would never recommend a book publisher with a well-documented bad track record like Dog Ear Publishing. Even if they are trying to operate again, it saddens me that they are intentionally misleading authors with their “traditional publishing” label, and who knows if they’ve improved from their previous iteration? Not only that, the owner isn’t listed anywhere on the website from what I can tell. There’s a “meet the team” link that doesn’t actually allow you to meet the team. The anonymous owner is remaining anonymous for a reason. I’ll let you come to your own conclusions.
Dog Ear Publishing Alternative: MindStir Media
I run MindStir Media and I’ve been doing so since 2009 when I founded the company. I’ve partnered with Mariel Hemingway, the granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway and Shark Tank’s Kevin Harrington. International Business Times called MindStir Media the “best book publisher in LA.”