Has anyone been contacted by "Jay with Fonthill Media" begging them to publish a UE book with his company? I've been getting emails from him on a regular basis, and now the guy is spamming various Facebook groups asking around for more urbex material.

I am most interested in picture books on abandoned sites/states as well as other urbex ideas, rail, ship, local history, transport and military sites. For example, we are publishing an exciting series of abandoned states/themes in America with over thirty+ books commissioned since January 2018.

Has anyone actually talked to this guy or done anything with Fonthill Media? Are they legit? Did they screw you over? Did you feel like a dirty sellout afterwards?

On a related note, I am actually looking into book publishing (not directly UE-related), but something about this guy turns me off. He comes off as kinda scammy but maybe that's just my impression since I don't like pushy salesmen.

Nope...have you done some good research on the company? Maybe you can find a few articles or books by them to get a rough estimate of what their work would look like.

They appear to be a military-oriented media company. Many of their books are focused on the military, but they also have a lot of other history like content. I see how that would go with Urbex. Their book focus is on history and abandonments hold a lot of history.

Never heard of them, but I also can't find anything bad about them.... There isn't a huge profit margin in books, so I would bet they just want to shower you in photo credits, not money.....

From what I can find they have a shotgun approach to finding authors. They post on various forums (military history, aircraft enthusiasts, car collectors etc) asking for people to do a book. Urbex seems to be their most recent target. I haven't found anything about what they're actually like to work with.

Posted by Freak I haven't found anything about what they're actually like to work with.

There is no way I could know, so this in an obvious guess. I have the sneaking suspicion they will make bank for investors and themselves, and you won't get squat....

There has to be a reason they aren't pursuing authors and editors to research a topic, write, and photograph themselves. This is not a hard hobby....

I've gotten the same e-mails from them. They're publishing softcover urbex books similar to the arcadia books in size, but with color photographs.

Abandoned Pittsburgh is the first in the series and is already out.

Posted by Starman Abandoned Pittsburgh is the first in the series and is already out.

How are they about protecting location information? Do they show the proper discretion, or do they print location details for any scrapper with a few bucks to buy?

Posted by Aran for any scrapper with a few bucks to buy?

I cant imagine somebody who's a scrapper would seek out an obscure book like this for scrapping locations. Unless it blatantly shows like an old abandoned time capsule type house with a bunch of items strewn about with addresses included, but I doubt that would be featured because that's somebody's actual private property. I'd imagine any location, that would be shown in this would already have been scrapped up.

Yes, he has been spamming me for about 4 years now.

Here is what I have learned

Each book has a word count of around 6,000 or so words for an introduction and captions along with 184-200 or so high-res images.

We would prefer all books to feature on one particular state to increase sales and demand, but please do let me know as to what is on your mind.

In return, all books are aggressively marketed and distributed nationally and locally with all authors receiving 8 per cent royalties.

Posted by Freaktography with all authors receiving 8 per cent royalties.[/i]

Authors, not contributors? Key difference there, if this guy calls himself the former and you (and anyone else who sends him pics/info) the latter.

Posted by Aran Authors, not contributors? Key difference there, if this guy calls himself the former and you (and anyone else who sends him pics/info) the latter.

He's approached me as well and my take away (although I haven't seen anything official) was that the submitter is considered author and receives the 8%. But that's very low and they seem to want a decent amount of effort without anything legal in place (contract, protection of ownership for anything submitted, etc). Then it seems the publications are released under your name which eliminates the whole veil of anonymity that is most useful for this hobby. I'm not convinced this is a good idea

Posted by stealthwraith He's approached me as well and my take away (although I haven't seen anything official) was that the submitter is considered author and receives the 8%. But that's very low and they seem to want a decent amount of effort without anything legal in place (contract, protection of ownership for anything submitted, etc). Then it seems the publications are released under your name which eliminates the whole veil of anonymity that is most useful for this hobby. I'm not convinced this is a good idea

Unfortunately, 8% is standard for first time authors. They sent me a sample contract as well as a proposal form. The contract did say that you keep the copyright of your images, but said that they could change the format of the book however they saw fit.

Posted by Starman Unfortunately, 8% is standard for first time authors. They sent me a sample contract as well as a proposal form. The contract did say that you keep the copyright of your images, but said that they could change the format of the book however they saw fit.

Ah thanks for weighing in on the contract part. And reminding me why I didn't get into this for fame and wealth!