Tate Publishing & Enterprises

This article is about the Christian vanity press. For other publishers with the same name, see Tate Publishing.

Tate Publishing & Enterprises, LLC was a Christian publisher that printed books that operated on the vanity press model. They ceased operations in January 2017 and owed their customers about $900,000 at the time.

Background

Tate Publishing & Enterprises, LLC operated, in general, on the vanity press model in which most authors paid for the publication of their books.^[1][2] Its publishing charges may have been refunded for books with sufficient sales volumes.^[3] The company was founded by Richard and Rita Tate and was located in Mustang, Oklahoma. The company also ran the Tate Music Group record label.^[4]

In May 2012, 25 employees, out of over 200, were fired. According to the company president, this was a disciplinary action rather than a layoff, in response to employee leaks of confidential information related to rumors that the company would be outsourcing its operations to the Philippines.^[5][6]

In January 2017 Tate ceased operation and notified the public that they would no longer accept new authors.^[7]

In December 2019, Richard and Ryan Tate, respectively the former founder and CEO, pleaded no contest to 44 criminal charges, including embezzlement, attempted extortion, conspiracy and racketeering, that were laid in a Canadian County, Oklahoma district court. The presiding judge in the case issued an order related to how customers would be granted reimbursement for their estimated $900,000 in losses over the next 20 years.^[8]