Do anyone have experience with Dreame?

[denise]

Hey! I got contacted by an editor from Stary Writing interested about my story, but I don't know if they are a predatory company.

[SoftWonderBun]

Don't have any experience with it myself but a quick google search of 'stary writing review' is giving me mostly negative opinions. With the best being the suggestion to really, really comb over the contract before you sign. They may not be an outright scam, but it seems they are predatory at best. Probably best to stay away.

[azurehayalet]

Be really careful reading the contract before you sign it and even make sure you have a lawyer to look through it with you. If it goes well, great but if it goes wrong it could go really wrong

[denise]

Yes, I did a quick search too, the opinions are too mixed and the information they offer about the benefits are too vague.

[denise]

I did not received the contract yet, but I definitely send it to a lawyer to check it before. I know others writers who went through contracts with platforms like this and found hidden closures and changes even after reviewing it.

[cherrystark]

I haven't heard of Stary Writing but I've heard of Dreame and most romance writers I know of don't write with Dreame.

[denise]

Okay, as far the information I got about them, Starry Writing is the "owner" of Dreame is just they focus on LGBTQ+ stories, etc.

[cherrystark]

Gotcha. Not many romance writers I know actually write for them. They go more for Radish.

[denise]

Yes I'm aware of Radish but I think is a little bit difficult to get picked from them, honestly I don't know too much.

[Mallory]

Here's what I found (with sample contract):

Is Dreame Publishers (also known as Ficfun and Stary LTD.) a Scam?

It's not worth your time. They won't do anything to promote your story (i.e. usually this is the benefit of a publisher and a contract, where they keep a bunch of the money made from selling your book in exchange for paying for the editing, hiring artists, doing marketing and distribution, etc). So they basically give you a laughable advance and then tell you they'll keep most of your profits for... hosting your story behind a paywall IF it does well? That costs them pennies. You might as well keep posting it for free, or publish it on Amazon and retain all of your copyrights.

In general, as far as publishing is concerned, NO company that actively solicits writers is worth anyone's time (even if they aren't an outright scam). The ones who can offer something actually worthwhile to their writers can't beat submissions off with a stick. They have no time to search out writers on free novel sites.

[vapidink]

Dreame is one of those companies that are constantly reaching out to authors hoping one will bite and take their not-very-good contract. I get emails from them regularly and pretty much ignore them, lol. Here's a bit about them and some of what you can find in their contract.

Bad Contract Alert: Stary (aka Dreame) - Writer Beware

[denise]

Thank you @Mallory and @vapidink for the information and the insight on my question. I read the articles and it's quite scary, definitely not worth it and I don't even know how those companies still ongoing.