Welcome!
This is the information side of our website. The format is meant to mirror the design of the MSR Online Bookstore.
Above you will find headers for the different categories. Some have drop downs that link to specific information about that subject.
For those looking for submission guidelines, everything we publish now has a separate page of streamlined guidelines. If an item is not listed on Submittable, that means we are currently not reading for it. When we get large backlogs, we shut down submissions to catch up so that authors don’t have to wait an unreasonable amount of time to reach print.
There is also a link to The MSR Online Bookstore where all Main Street Rag, Mint Hill Books, and Pure Heart Press titles are available.
Operational Status Report (November 18, 2024)
Submissions:
Current needs are in the magazine submission area, poetry, prose, and images. Our backlog is currently minimal and, in most cases, accepted pieces will be published within 2 issues (9 months) of when they were accepted. This situation is unusual for us and probably won’t last long.
Book manuscript submissions changed midway through 2024 to take a breath from giving Submittable so much of our (your) cash and to increase our subscription numbers. Having accomplished the latter, we will soon revert to doing everything through Submittable. There will, again, be a reading fee for manuscript submissions UNLESS the author is a subscriber in good standing (up to date) to our literary magazine. Literary journal subscribers can submit ONE manuscript per year without a reading fee.
Contract Changes:
Print runs have become an issue in recent years. The truth is, printing a book just to give an author a publication credit is not fiscally justifiable. We’ve tried different methods to enhance our advance sales because these sales pay for a large chunk of production costs.
To that end, we’ve made some changes to our contract. One is to set a MINIMUM print run of 220 copies for all Main Street Rag publicatons. Main Street Rag is responsible for roughly 50 copies, but the author is responsible for the remaining 170, assuming we are printing a minimum run.
Does this mean the author must BUY 170 copies? Maybe. It depends on how many Advance Discount copies they sell. If they sell 100 in advance, then they only have to buy 70, but from our perspective: anytime an author doesn’t want copies of their own book, that’s a red flag, a guarantee that we will lose money on the project.
Often in the past, we wouldn’t learn this until we’re preparing to send a title to press. As a buffer to ensure we will at least cover the cost of production, it’s now written into the contract. If this policy would be a burden to you as an author, then we may not be the right press for you. Consider this before submitting for book publication.
Relocation:
Main Street Rag Publishing Company got its start in North Carolina in 1996. We’ve been here nearly 30 years and have decided to move on.
Effective January 1, 2025, Main Street Rag will operate out of our new location in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. We’ll miss our friends in the North Carolina writing community, but look forward to building new relationships in our new home which has an attached building that is large enough to host readings and workshops once we get settled.
Production will be done in the same way by the same people, but books will ship from the production house rather than from the Main Street Rag office. The magazine, however, will ship from Pennsylvania starting with the Winter 2025 issue in January. Please note, that might mean this issue will ship a week or so late.
The new mailing address and official business name will be posted as soon as we are registered in Pennsylvania and set up to do business. We expect that to start January 1.
In reference to the business name, when we became a NC LLC in 2010, we used our names as our business name and kept Main Street Rag as a DBA. Unfortunately, it was the parent company name that appeared on peoples’ credit card statements and when they didn’t recognize Douglass-Rausch Enterprises, LLC, some filed fraud claims with their credit card companies. That would happen several times a month and we’d not only lose a sale, but sometimes get hit with a service charge.
To help avoid this scenario, our new moniker in Pennsylvania will be Main Street Rag Enterprises, LLC. It is our opinion that this name will help people who don’t read the fine print when ordering to connect the dots.
Book Orders:
BOOKSTORE ORDERS: We do not take phone orders. All orders must be made in writing and email is the most efficient way. We offer three different levels of discount: single-copy order (25%), returnable (40%–minimum 3 copies), and NON-returnable (50%–minimum 10 copies). Store buyers should identify which terms they wish to use upon placing an order. If they have not ordered from us before, we may ask for a PDF of their Certificate of Resale. All orders and queries go through editormsr@outlook.com
ADVANCE SALE ORDERS: These orders earn a discount; however, they do not ship until after the author has received his/her copies. Advance Sales all ship at the same time, but they may not arrive at the same time since the US Postal Service sets its own priorities over which we have no control. We do our best to get these to their destination as efficiently and economically as possible.
If a buyer placed an Advance Discount Order and did not receive it (while others have), be smart: DON’T contact the author. The author is not responsible for shipping your order and is unable to do anything other than pass your complaint on to MSR at which time the author will be informed that MSR–just like Amazon–does not respond to third party claims. Claims and queries must come from the buyer to Main Street Rag directly by email to editormsr@outlook.com. All claims must be made in writing (email). We do not handle them over the phone.
DAILY ORDERS: As for DAILY online orders, they generally ship the next business day, but there may be exceptions and we will do our best to notify the buyer when this is the case. Buyers of books already in print will receive a notification when a shipping label for the order has been made. This does not mean the book has already been shipped, just that the packaging process has begun. The notification will include a tracking number which buyers can click on to follow the progress. We don’t usually make labels more than 3 days prior to shipping, but the world does have weekends and we sometimes work them.
Miscellaneous:
Main Street Rag has started cutting back on the number of different titles we publish annually. To that end, we plan to minimize summer book releases (July 1 through September 1). Our annual production target moving forward will be 40-50 titles and most of their release dates will fall between January 1 and July 1, September 1 through November 30. Again, there may be exceptions.
Summer Hours
June 1-September 1, Main Street Rag will be on Summer Hours. Here’s how it will affect operations:
1) No phone calls will be answered–not that we answer the phone anyway–but those who do need to call must leave a message. If you do not leave a message, your phone number may be read as SPAM by the very aggressive software we have on our phone system and blocked moving forward.
2) We will still check and answer email, but not as often and we will not respond as promptly. We appreciate your patience.
3) The Bookstore will be OPEN for business as usual. Books already in print will ship normally, usually within 24 hours. If there is an issue that prevents timely shipping, the buyer will be informed.
Vacation
No vacations currently scheduled; however, we will be making our final move to Pennsylvania sometime between December 11 and December 16, 2024. During this time, we will have limited access to email. Please bear with us. We will respond at our earliest opportunity–even if it’s just to say, “We can’t talk now.”
Main Street Rag Publishing Company is an American independent press that values and respects individuals’ rights in regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious persuasion, and/or immigration status and while we believe in everyone’s First Amendment Right to freedom of speech, we also believe that we have the right to screen our site and our publications of language and material we find offensive. Specifically, we disavow racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, classism, ableism, and hate speech or actions that attempt to silence, threaten, and/or degrade others.