FAQ: Stuff We Get Asked - A LOT
Posted on March 19 2019
You've got questions, we've got answers! Fire away in the comments if you have additional questions and we will answer them here!
Q1: Do you ship to my country?
A1: YES. We ship everywhere. But if your country has a habit of confiscating mail in large puffy envelops arriving from the USA - it might get held at customs. Check the tracking number we give you with your order confirmation email and if it says held or in transit but never arrives, contact your local post office service. Failing that, we WILL reship your order if it becomes displaced or misdelivered.
Email yaoirevpublisher@gmail.com with your order number and we will assist you!
Q2: My book was delivered but it looks like it was run over by a herd of zombie elephants and peed on by bees. Can I get a replacement?
A2: Yes! We've seen the weirdest damage scenarios possible. Books ripped in half, dipped in oil, covered in tire tracks, bent more than seven times, slightly melted...and on and on. Stuff happens. We don't know HOW, but it happens. We use USPS because they are affordable, relatively reliable and provide tracking. 98% of packages arrive safely. If yours was among the 2% that got thrown into a pit of angry hamsters with power drills - WE WILL REPLACE IT.
Email yaoirevpublisher@gmail.com with your order number and we will assist you!
Q3: OMG! Why is your shipping so expensive?? Why are you charging me a flat rate?
A3: Our shipping is cheap if you live in the US. We're located in California and ship up to 4 pounds of goodies coast to coast for $10.75 plus S&H. For overseas rates - we've already exhaustively reviewed shipping methods and prices to get you your books and art at the lowest, safest price possible for your country.
We sell high quality physical books for collectors. They are heavy. Weight + distance = cost. If the shipping is too steep for you, try removing a few items from your cart, check out our eBook catalog, or check Amazon (US). Many of our items are onsale in those formats/markets as well.
However, NEW releases are sold exclusively here online and at tradeshows for about a year before they go out to third party markets.
Q4: My order receipt email contains a link to an eBook. But I didn't order an eBook and the link doesn't work.
A4: Sorry, that's a glitch in the system. Been trying to get that fixed for months...it only works if you HAVE ordered an eBook, specifically.
Or: I did order an eBook but the link says it's already registered, or other error.
We use Adobe Digital Editions rights management. You need to register a free account with them first and then download your eBook link to a FREE viewer of your choice. Full instructions here: Click Me. Sometimes if a link is opened before you register an Adobe Account, it will fail. I'll send out a replacement link ASAP. It'll work the second time.
Email yaoirevpublisher@gmail.com with your order number and we will assist you!
Q5: Can you guys translate and print Vol.27 of so and so's ongoing Sempai Orgy Yaoi Vampire Humpfest that some other publisher gave up on and abandoned? Pleassssee?
A5: No. We don't do that. Why not? Licensing an already published yaoi title from a major publisher in Japan/Korea/China is insanely expensive and results in low quality reproductions due to a lot of their own licensing reprint and distribution rules, and weirdly, 1990s publishing methods. We're here for the REST OF THE WORLD to have a place to publish their version of yaoi.
We have published artists from every continent (just about), including Asia. (And will buy English language rights to books already published in French, Spanish, German, Japanese, etc..) But we don't do stuff that's overly anime-ish in style or already covered by a major yaoi publisher such as Libre. There are plenty of markets for that and plenty of publishers offering it. We like being different. AND we like men with chest hair.
Q6: Can you guys make a comic out of... some movie I like, my sister's O.C., some shapeshifter fanfiction I read once, some rambling unedited roleplay I published already on Amazon, some video game I played once, this great idea I have that I've never written down but will babble excitedly to you at a busy tradeshow while you're trying to sell stuff?
A6: No. We just can't. We can't make a thing that's not a well-conceived project INTO a well-conceived project for you. If you HAVE a project with an artist or are a talented artist with potential to be assigned to a project - read our submission guidelines and contact: yaoirevpublisher@gmail.com. If you can draw hot dudes, and have a mature (non-fantasy) story to tell, we'll probably say yes!
Q7: Why can't I buy your eBooks on Kindle? Why are they copy protected?
A7: Sigh...yes I know, you want the eBooks your way - on your device of choice, but there's problems...Kindle no like dick. Especially dicks in butts. Yeah, I know there's a FEW dicks out there if you look but that has to do with larger distribution channels and delivery methods that would frankly leave us with a $.0002 royalty. We try to keep our content INTACT and our artists FED. So we use an independent system for eBooks. We use widely used Adobe Digital Rights Management so not every title we sell winds up on those crap READ MANGA FREEOMG! sites.
Our private DRM server means you get the goods uncensored and in a free to use eReader format for smartphone, tablet or PC (iOS or Android). It just won't work on your Kindle specifically. Only Kindle files work on Kindle and those have to be sold via Kindle to be copy protected.
Q8: Why aren't you guys putting your stuff up on...Kickstarter, Patreon, Some sketchy overseas rental manga site of the month...etc...
A8: Because crowdfunding means a ton more work and a ton more reliance on art deadlines and deliverables. One of the perks of working with us for artists is: we don't have super demanding schedules. We don't have to deliver content to a streaming service every week/day/whatever. When the project is done, it's done. We print and sell it. More and more artists keep coming to us with their already in progress or nearly finished projects. That's content enough. We can't even get to half the projects waiting in line right now for production! But we will!
Also: iTunes has kind of ruined adult entertainment for everyone with their sex app ban. For you Andriod users out there - manga/comic apps on iOS have to flag or hide or remove content that even suggests a character might fuck at some point in their lifetimes for fear of being wiped from existence by the Apple anti sex prude patrol. Yeah, I know some people are censoring the crap out of stuff or only showing the clean pages...but that's not why we're here. We're here for adults to enjoy their adult books. I'm not interested in all these "hide the dick" shenanigans. Life is too short.
Q9: WHEN IS OROCHI NO SAIDO (Book 3) COMING OUUUUUUT???????
A9: Okay, okay, settle down...settle down... it's coming. Slowly. But it's coming. Itoshi was very ill last year (hospitalized June-Oct 2018) and nearly died, actually, but she's recovered and back in the saddle, typing away. (Don't worry, it wasn't cancer!) No exact dates are available at this time. Give her some space to breathe...it'll come...promise. There's even some rumors it might get split into two books. We'll see, we'll see...Mouse and Sadao will be back!
Q10: Are you guys going to be at SuperAnimeCon? JapanCrazyCon? SuperFanArtCon? WTFCon?
A10: Probably not. We don't really do Japan-themed shows anymore. Reason being, the attendees are too young typically to buy our stuff and/or want anime style art and fanworks. Or else we get shoved way in the back behind a black PORN! BEWARE KIDZ curtain. We do best at shows that welcome LGBTQ as a part of the pop-culture phenomenon and that means larger, more mainstream shows like San Diego Comic Con or LGBTQ/Yaoi-specific shows aimed at a mature crowd. Attendees are less apt to expect our booth to sell Harry Potter x Black Butler Shota Doujin.
Q11: I just placed an order for a pre-order book, when will it be shipped?
A11: It depends. We try to let you know an approximate date in the ordering description, but it's a guess at best. Reason being, printers are notorious for screwing things up. Items can be delayed in production for days or weeks, depending on circumstances. So it's hard for us to guarantee a single advance date for shipping but it's generally between 3-4 weeks of pre-order opening. We do however announce on social media when shipping begins and when to expect it depending on domestic or international USPS service.
I ordered other items with the pre-order item, will they ship together or separate?
Together. As much as possible. If you order unlike items, say a poster and a pre-order book, the poster will go in a tube separately. But both will ship close to the same time.
Q12: Can I work for you guys? It’s my dream!
A12: Sure, as long as you have some skills we’re looking for (see list, below) and not expecting ANY of the following as a key part of your “dream”:
- Free travel/airfare around the world! OMG I wanna go to Japan! Paris! NOW! (We do go to Japan! Paris! on occasion, but we only fly out those who have critical skills we need, like Japanese fluency or extraordinary sales connections. Not just ‘cause you, like, came up with a cool idea once for a blog title.)
- Endless supply of free stuff for you and ALL your friends (folks who DO work for us do get free stuff, within reason).
- Not having to do much of anything except brag you work for a publishing company on your social media. Bragging is not marketing. It really doesn’t help us as much as you think it does.
- Expect to quit your day job and receive giant truckloads of golden dildos delivered to your door every month as payment. (Contrary to popular belief, I do not sit on a throne of golden cocks. We all have day jobs. We do yaoi because we love it. And it pays just enough that we can keep loving it.)
But...Yaoi Revolution’s been around forever! You MUST be rich.
Heh, you must be new to print publishing. Dying field. But we keep it alive because we LOVE TO READ AND COLLECT YAOI. And half of every dime we make goes to the artists. We practice a 50/50 profit split. The only way to do this and not drown in expenses and taxes is to keep things light on our end. Art takes a ton of time to create and artists need to eat. They come first.
If you have a skill we need, you CAN expect the following:
Tradeshow Helpers
Free show badges, hotel lodgings, gas and food during tradeshows that you are local to or else planned to attend anyway. (We don’t pay for flights, in other words. We’ve got plenty of locals willing to come out for a free coffee and tons of laughs. We will cover gas and parking if you drive yourself). Working a show means: you work. In the booth - greeting customers, explaining and showing the products, being nice and cheerful! Lifting shit. Pushing carts. Dumping trash. Wrapping very large objects in plastic for reasons that escape me but are required by forklift drivers. Living the dream. Some folks love working shows and it shows. Others … don’t. We don’t invite them back. You can scowl at people from a folding chair at home.
Yes, you'll get ample time to run around, catch a few panels and buy stuff and receive a small stipend to go buy that stuff with - but no, you can’t go stand in line for seven hours to meet all the Walking Dead people. That’s not why we got you a $400 badge - it’s because I need someone there so I can pee once in a while (and possibly meet Peter Capaldi).
Editors
Right now I’ve got plenty of editors/proofreaders with a high proficiency and passion for the work. We don’t publish tons of material a month, so a handful of folks more than covers it for us. Yeah, yeah... I know we missed a typo on page 234 - comma splice. Yeah, you would have caught it if we’d only paid you $50k. We don’t have $50k. We do have a fair hourly rate we pay based on experience for editors who help us out when we need it - like when we have a bunch a novels to work on. But mostly we do comics and art. Not a lot of words there.
Unicorns: Desktop Publishers, Programmers, Graphic Designers
I ALWAYS need help with technical shit. Folks who know Photoshop, InDesign, Typesetting, HTML/CSS, Content Management Systems. I’m more than willing to work with young folks looking to gain practical experience in these areas and pay them for their time. But you gotta know the basics at least. I’ve had the utmost pleasure working with college age young adults and helping them gain useful job experience and offering all I can in terms of a personal reference for future jobs and other advanced career applications. Like most professional fields, tech is at the core of everything. Even yaoi.
I get asked all the time: How can I get into this business? Know tech shit. All the shit. Be a nerd - you’ll go places.
Got more questions? Ask them in the comments!
Q13: Why can't I buy your book "..." on Amazon yet? And/or why is the listing displaying with the wrong title/image?
A13: Amazon can suck my left nut. They suck. Everything. In so many ways, I can't even...but, they are a necessary evil. Folks want free shipping, I get it. So after we've more or less exhausted immediate direct sales from our website or tradeshow tour, I'll finally list the book/item on Amazon. It does give the title new life and books have been selling faster than I can refill them sometimes. That would be good news if Amazon didn't take HALF OF OUR SOULS in fees and bizzaro charges for things like: incoming shipping, labeling, 'decaying inventory', size limits, damage they've caused themselves, item retrieval, 'cause it's Tuesday fees, shipping to customers, reshipping to customers when they fuck up, plus a FAT 40% of every sale. We'd make more royalty if I set the books on fire or created toilet paper out of them. Seriously. But if our stuff wasn't listed on AZ, hundreds of resellers would rush in with used copies of everything we sell and RESELL them at $900 each. Or more. And we'd get blamed for that. Price gouging.
Adding to this misery, is Amazon's favorite sport of randomly re-categorizing items they "feel" match our products better and switching out titles and images for utterly unrelated items if their bots think a pic of a tapir with diarrhea on a cell phone cover is more appropriate than one of our legit book covers. What REALLY sucks is, sellers have no control over this. I can't change the image or title BACK to its correct status. Only Amazon can AFTER you file a report and wait half a year for them to reject it. This is why Velvet Toucher's Lost in the Snow is was displaying as a Men's Hoodie. FML. If you ordered it, you'd get the book of course - NOT a hoodie. But try to convince Amazon of that. They think endless dayz of cabin butt sex SHOULD BE A HOODIE.
5 comments
It has been a very long time since any new e-books were released. Why is that?
I would like to see the new series “Tango” and Volume 3 of “This Vacant Body” released as an e-book.
Is this artwork on paper or fabric?
Krey -
We welcome story ideas of all kinds. But all projects we accept now need to be attached to an artist. Meaning you need to have an artist on board to participate in the project.
Thank you for asking!
I just visited your website for the first time and read through your FAQ & submission guidelines. First of all I have a question: Do you accept characters outside of cis men? I have a story in mind between cis gay man and gay trans man and there will be opinions expressed (about how cis men see trans men). To be clear, trans man are man without a meat dick attached to their lower half, they own multiple sizes strap-ons. Not that I already have the story on hand, but this is one of the ideas I want to do.
Who knows; maybe someone at Amazon read Lost in the Show and thought, “Hmmmm, if only those naked guys in that cabin had some hoodies. Then they could get warm without having to rub all up against each other every 2.75 pages.” (I don’t know where that exact math. I surely haven’t read it often enough to know.) Yeah, cause that’s what we all want—sexy men sitting around in hoodies talking about—things. Yeah, that’ll sell MUCH better.