Jodi
Spread too thin and don't follow through
I really wanted to love She Rises Studios when I first started with them over a year ago. But although they had me sign a contract, they didn't stick to it. They promise a lot and deliver reluctantly, and are very hard to get answers from. I was given a timeline that apparently only I was willing to stick to. They promised me an illustrator for my children's book and after many attempts to get examples of artwork I was told that their illustrator had not renewed their contract and I'd have to find someone to illustrate for me or do it myself. I was told that I would be compensated with an article in one of their magazines. I did my own illustrations and uploaded them with the book. I had to keep asking for progress reports and had to be the one to ask where we were in the process more than once. I told them that I would be out of town for the projected date of publishing, because it had been moved from the original date. Yet they planned a live video kickoff event for the week that I would be gone. When the book was published the pictures were all in black and white, which was not the way I had submitted them. They fixed it, but not until after I had already sold 13 in black and white! According to the contract I was supposed to get 10 free books provided to me, I was going to use those 10 to replace the ones that had been sold in black and white, but She Rises told me that they couldn't honor that because they had set me up through Amazon. That had not been communicated to me at any time in the over a year that it took to get the book published. For this snafu they promised me a spot on their podcast. This has yet to happen. I had to ask about the article they promised to put in one of their magazines multiple times. It finally came out in Becoming an Unstoppable Woman, but I had to write it myself and had to buy the issue just to see it. Although I'm glad that my book was published and at a reasonable cost, the frustration associated with dealing with this company is a lot to ask. They give no direction and I feel that they are spread too thin trying to get all of their magazines, podcast and various books published. I don't feel as though they can devote their time to any one project when they are trying to get their name out there at the cost of the authors they are ignoring in the process. I was contacted by She Rises after this review was originally published and given a date for the podcast interview. They told me that they would send me a link once it was live. It’s been over a month and still nothing. I really would have rather had the free books, or compensation for the ones that were printed in black and white, but again, She Rises didn’t deliver on either their contract or their promises to make amends. I’d give them 1 star if it weren’t for the fact that they did help me get my book published, and for that I truly am grateful, but if/when I publish my next book I definitely won’t be using She Rises for the project.