The Tate Music Group facts...

Tate Publishing, the parent company of Tate Music Group, was recently reviewed in a new book from author Mark Levine, who is a book publishing industry expert. Tate Publishing operates in much the same way as Tate Music Group, wherein authors maintain creative control, high royalties, and the rights to their book. Check out what Mr. Levine thought about our company once he had an opportunity to review our contract and see what we do for authors and artists:

I trashed Tate in earlier versions of this book. While I don’t apologize for it based on what I knew then (Tate wasn’t very forthcoming with information and wouldn’t provide a contract for me to look at), my opinion is now completely different.

Tate’s biggest problem is that it does a terrible job of demonstrating that it really does put in substantial money above what the author contributes to the publishing process. However, I wouldn’t have believed it, unless I saw it with my own eyes. Ryan Tate called me after reading this book and said, “You’ve got it all wrong. Come see what we’re doing down here.” I took him up on his offer. What I saw was an energetic staff of at least 60 people, including, 10 full-time editors, 15 illustrators, and 15 graphic designers. When you start adding up included items in every publishing package like complete editing, unlimited cover and interior changes that are available, Tate really is investing money in an author’s book.

Also, if you accept Tate’s numbers that they take 4-6% of 10,000 submissions a year, that’s about 500 books. If each author is paying $4,000 that is only $2,000,000. That amount of money can’t cover even the payroll. So, Tate has to be making money from sales of authors books to the public. It needs the portion of royalties and printing revenues to pay for its existence. The only way to get sales is to invest time and money to promote books. Is Tate putting in $20,000 toward every author’s book? Probably not. On some it might be more and on some it’s probably less. But, Tate is definitely investing money and resources to promote its authors books. It’s making a nice profit on the printing and taking a healthy royalty, but that’s not unlike any traditional publisher. Because the author is investing money up front, the royalty taken by Tate is substantially less than a totally traditional publisher would demand....It sounds ridiculous – you put in $4,000 and the publisher puts in $15,000-$20,000. In reality, those numbers are pretty accurate.

Tate is a solid choice with a great management, staff, and continuing vision. Tate doesn’t need to sell the sizzle. The facts are good enough.