I’m still catching up on all the things that happened while I was away on vacation and today I ran across a post on Dear Author about **yet another e-publisher, Highland Press. Seems there are red flags flying everywhere about this publisher, but the thing that really caught my attention was the part about author Deborah Anne MacGillivray, who is with HP–and Kensington and Dorchester, also. I’d heard some shady rumblings about this author’s cagy dealings regarding reviews on Amazon over the last couple of weeks…and wondered how much of it was true.
Apparently, every bit of it. And if the rumors about HP aren’t enough to warn authors away, I hope Ms. MacGillivray’s behavior will send aspiring authors–and readers–screaming for the hills.
It’s too long to go into here, but it’s very interesting reading. If you have a couple of hours–seriously, there’s over 300 comments to this post–and want to see a real case of an “Author Behaving Badly”, it can be found on Dear Author.
My favorite comment came from someone named B in response to a letter by Ms. MacGillivray which was posted in another comment (the part in italics is from a letter Ms. MacGillivray wrote to a reader):
Holy poor English, Batman!!!
I am think you skimmed the book, sitting in an auto place, worry about big bad men sniggering, and didn’t bother to see why the characters did things, just took surface reactions.
That’s a writer!? A published writer!?!?! WTF???
I’m not sure what boggles my mind more…what she’s saying or the fact that she can’t write in English to save her life. Why, why, WHY do these people get published? Why???
Thanks, B, the Batman line gave me a good laugh and I’ve often wondered the same thing about why and how some author gets published, especially after reading some of the cooments they make on the various blogs in Romanceland…but that’s another story!
Also on Karen Scott’s blog, there’s news that Kristi Studts, the owner of the infamous Triskelion Publishing is out and about and posing as a cover artist for another e-publisher, Mystic Moon Press, under the name of Magickal Media. This is the woman who cheated numerous authors out of their royalties and finally ended up filing bankruptcy, tying the rights to their works up for a long, long time. Although there’s nothing being reported about MMP, I have to say, the presence of Ms. Studts is enough to make me keep my distance from them–don’t want to take a chance that she’s in deeper than we know. Still, this is something that each individual author has to judge for her/himself. I just hope any aspiring authors out there are reading these blogs and paying attention.
Here’s the link if you’d like to read about it; Karen Knows Best.
At present, I don’t have any plans to submit anything to an e-publisher and after reading all the shit that’s been going on the past couple of weeks, I don’t think I ever will again. I have at least five completed manuscripts and beyond the one I submitted earlier this year to an e-publisher, I think I’ll just hold on to them for a while–or submit them to L&L Dreamspell, the small press I’m with now, or maybe another small press after I do some very thorough research.
The thing is…between the many e-pubs that have gone down and the many who have been reported lately as “iffy at best”, it’s all just too scary for me.
And that sucks big time. When I first got up the courage to submit one of my books to a publisher, I decided e-publishing was for me. I really liked the idea of being able to promote and sell my books from the comfort of my home. No face-to-face meetings, no book signings, no actual interaction with real, live, breathing people–it seemed perfect for me because, well, I’m a loner at heart and don’t like people very much. I just wanted to write my stories and sell them without all that public crap. I enjoyed meeting people in cyber-space and promoting my work on the Internet, but I’m literally terrified at the thought of what’s going to happen when my first print book comes out later this year.
Hmm…wonder if I could hire some outgoing person to pose as me and go out and promote my book?
Or would that be too much like what Kristi Studts is doing?
**Emily Veinglory kindly pointed out on her EREC blog that Highland Press is not just an e-publisher, in fact less than half their books are e-books. Sorry, my mistake! No excuse except stupidity and laziness–I should have checked out Highland Press before I posted this!
3 comments
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April 11, 2008 at 4:23 PM
Theresa Chaze
There are many such publishers out there. Another publisher that writers need to avoid is Pagefree. It has been my experience that they do poor editing, actually adding errors into the formating, so that they can charge you more fees. With my novel, Awakening the Dragon-Book One of the Dragon Clan Trilogy, there were six chapters where the next chapter started at the bottom of the previous page instead of the top of the next. Pagefree tried charging me an additional 80.00 to fix their mistake. In addition, I have yet to receive one cent in royalties. I have sold books through them. When it comes to payments, they don’t return phone calls or emails.
Last year, I did the research and found that publishing isnt’ as expensive as most authors think. If you are techno-savvy you can get a book into print for less than 200.00, including the ISBN number. This price gets you listed with Ingram and Baker & Taylor; plus you get to set the cover price, the cover discount and are able to make it returnable–the three things that bookstores look for when choosing books for their shelves. For those who are not a computer geek, email me. While I’m working to become a best seller, I’m also a publishing consultant and publicist. I’ll prepare your book for the printer by typesetting and creating a cover.
April 11, 2008 at 5:05 PM
caitlynhunter
Hi Theresa! Thanks for commenting and for the heads-up. I’ve never heard of Pagefree but I’ll add them to my list of publishers to be leary of and probably do a blog post about it later today.
Also, your offer of helping an author with his/her book is interesting, and though I’m currently with a publisher I’m very happy with, I’ll include your comment in the post along with your web site–if you don’t mind. I know there are many aspiring authors out there who like me, aren’t techno savvy, and would love to find someone like you.
BTW, I love your web site!
Caitlyn
April 16, 2008 at 7:15 AM
Raj
Newspaper is a regular published print product containing information, news and advertising. Newspapers are living textbooks and they are source of information and learning. It’s a source to find out whats happening in movies, books, concerts, games, jobs and events. Major advantage left to newsprint is that reading it does not require any sophisticated, cumbersome technical equipment. This offers the reader a high level of flexibility: newsprint can basically be read in any place at any time. The reader can absorb the information offered at his own pace. Even the fact that the reader can touch and feel the printed paper while turning the pages may be of some importance.
Disadvantage of Printed edition of newspaper –
Circulation of the newspaper is one of the principal factors, circulation is not the same as copies sold because many copies are read by more than one person this is a major offset as the number of copies distributed are not read.
People away from their home place would always love to read their regional paper wherever they are in any part of the world. Take my case; I have been hunting for my favorite newspaper Times of India in the heart of New York City but in vain and the only solution I found at this time is e-paper.
E-paper and its advantage –
Will e-paper is going to replace the printed edition in future is the question to be asked? ePaper is the replication of newspaper pages which allows one to get the same experience as reading the hard-copy edition and e-paper has the advantages of being interactive, multimedia, of providing internal and external networks and offering selection functions, the possibility of regular updates, access to archives, rapid access to a large number of newspapers, and being paperless, thus creating no problems of waste disposal.
Not even that it’s more convenient from the customer’s point of view while reading the e-paper, I came across Nokia new model cell phone, and by clicking on it; I was taken directly to the website, where I could compare the prices.
So this has led to some predictions that is newspapers will shrink or even disappear?
All the recent surveys both in USA and abroad indicate that print newspaper readership is going down; there has been a dramatic drop in the circulation of papers.
Full time professional employment at daily newspapers is falling. In a desperate attempt to offset the falling revenues, more newspaper groups are setting them up online.
All of the major news publishers have adopted e-paper technology in order to increase their readers and revenue.
Looking at the enormous growth in the Digital News Publishing Industry, many new media companies are offering ePapers and eMagazines at affordable costing with low or no upfront investment. Pressmart Media Limited, a leading new media services company based out of India and USA provides an excellent Multi channel distribution on Web, Mobile, Podcast, Search Engines, Social Networks, Web2.0 sites and RSS.
I hope you do agree that digital versions of news publications will be an added advantage for publishers in increasing their brand value, customer reach and revenues.