Thank you,

Cher Gorman
http://www.chergorman.com
cher@chergorman.com

Just shows how the owner Madris has lost touch w/ reality. She is vengeful, irrational, and mean, IMHO.

Madris & co. have recently been very upset that many of their top-selling authors (me included) have been jumping ship and taking contracts with big NYC print houses. The fact that the NCP (non-negotiable!) contract is so crappy is probably a good indication why so many of their top-selling authors have left. (I know I got screamed at via email when Madris & co found out I had gotten contracted by a large print house—-she said something along the lines of “you ungrateful print authors are destroying my company!”.)

I think in the early days, NCP published the kind of novels that mainstream print publishers weren’t interested in (i.e., paranormal, urban fantasy, erotica) so those types of authors had nowhere else to go. Now that the print houses can’t get enough paranormal/UF/erotica, those authors have learned that there are better contracts/royalties/editors to be had than what NCP has to offer. NCP is only getting second- and third-tier new authors as a result. And NCP is scrambling for revenue and screaming bloody murder at the fact its sales are declining and their top authors are abandoning them.

I think they must be having a lot of trouble paying their bills because of all this, and are probably too busy dodging collectors and landlords to pay attention to their authors.

FWIW, I have a couple titles w/ them, and have earned respectable royalties by ebook standards. But their editing/administration has deteriorated beyond repair. I think they will be out of business by the end of the year.

I personally adore my editors. They may slice and dice my work as needed, because I’m selling a product to them that cannot be perfectly suited to the changing needs of my publishers. I accept the need for editing as part of the process of doing business.

Oh, well. Not my problem. I’m going back to work. Deadlines. Gotta love ‘em.

I know that when I shuffle off this mortal coil, St. Peter will not look down at me, consult his big book and credit back all those hours I wasted on badly executed books. Pity.

Um, two editors who work for the same publisher should certainly always agree which Manual of Style to use. The epublisher I work for (which expects its editors to do three editing passes on each manuscript) has an in-house Style Guide to which editors and authors are expected to adhere. True, there are some editing changes that I suggest to authors that may be a matter of my personal preference, but when it comes to grammar, spelling, etc.–the Style Guide rules.

I want to add that while I am a published author at the house for which I edit, I got the editing job after my first book was accepted for publication. Since I am not an acquiring editor, my position in no way assures that my submissions will be accepted for publication, nor is having an “in” the reason I took the editing job. (Call me weird, but it’s really just that I like releasing my inner high school English teacher.) I do have a different “nom de plume” in my guise as an editor and an author, primarily because I have two very different purposes in each persona and separating them is good business sense.

When it comes to NCP and their lack of editing standards, I could have told you they didn’t do much (if any) editing of their books without having read a single one. How? Why, by reading the excerpts! If I can find five or six glaring errors in a 500-word excerpt from a published work posted on an author’s website and find the same errors in the excerpt on the publisher’s site, I know it was never properly edited.

There are good epublishers out there. The house I work for hasn’t been mentioned on either side of the ledger, and I’d prefer to keep it that way, hence, my anonymity. But if you want your work held to a high editorial standard, I suggest that you can find out a lot by reading the excerpts on publisher websites. It’s pretty instructive.

Two years ago, when my 1st book was contracted, none of this was visible, much less visible-with-a-vengeance…the way it is now.

Precisely. In 2006, NCP was slow to communicate, but they did communicate. The checks were late, but they were always the same number of days late, so in that sense they were “on time”. ARCs were sent out for review to a long list of review sites. Large ads were run in RT. Reader events were organized. And books WERE EDITED.

My editor was fantastic (she is now working for a different house).
My NCP book won several awards and accolades – even from All About Romance and they aren’t easy to please. :)
I couldn’t have done that without my editor.

So NCP used to be a good house, and their books used to be quality products.

I don’t understand what happened in 2007. Everything changed. And 2008 has only gotten worse. It’s devastating.

I feel so bad for everyone….including my poor little hostage book. I know that’s probably a selfish thought. But it’s a good book – I only hope people will remember to read it a few years from now when it gets re-printed somewhere else.

There are always warning signs of a publisher who might not be what you are looking for.

Two years ago, when my 1st book was contracted, none of this was visible, much less visible-with-a-vengeance…the way it is now. NCP has been around for 12 years. Is it possible that for 12 long years the large membership of NCP authors had been muzzled and was in a stranglehold by few…preferred authors and owners/staff? Sure it’s possible but also improbable. If NCP has been a ticking-bomb, 12 years is an awfully long time for it to ‘tick’ and then just suddenly go off. It’s hard to accept that NCP as a company had no merits at any given point in its 12 years of operation. When I contracted my 1st book, I had no comparison standard for this company as to what was ‘bad’ and what was ‘good’ behavior. I am one of the authors whose emails were answered 90% of the time – the other 10% reflects now-situation when I wouldn’t be surprised if my email didn’t bounce-back to me, never mind was actually answered. It took more than a year for my book to come out from time of acceptance. Since it took 11 months for my other novels to come out with my other e-publisher, this didn’t cause me any concern. What did concern me were promises that continued to be unfilfilled with each email answered. Not knowing your book’s release date wreaks havoc with your promotion schemes and plans – and makes you look like a fool when you promote to death but the book’s release has been pushed back again by another month, and another, and another….

My cover art came to me suddenly, unexpectedly and nearly 4 months before the actual book was available. The same day as my book was released, I received a detailed critique of it – note I said critique because it wasn’t an edit. There wasn’t time for that, according to the critiquer. Fortunately, I’m a consumate editor, in addition to having many editor-friends so my work’s fairly clean by the time it goes in for sub. Still, as Marianne, my harshest editor says, no two editors will agree which Manual of Style to use and every editor has his/her own preferences. I learn from every edit – about myself as a writer, about my editors as persons and about the craft itself. With NCP, I didn’t get a chance so I can’t say anything about the quality of their editing.

I subbed my 2nd novel 3 months after 1st’s acceptance because that’s what NCP email said an author ought to do. Six months later, when I didn’t hear anything, I queried again. The Author Liaison replied that NCP had a hard-drive crash and many submissions were lost – re-submit directly to him. He would pass it on. I complied. A week later I got contract for it as email attachment and a curious note from Andrea that she ‘found’ my novel. I didn’t question how that was possible if there was hard-disk crash and let it go. In January, I made a delightful discovery (purely by chance) that my 1st novel was on Fictionwise. I also received cover-art for my 2nd novel and have to say I like it very much. February 4th. I receieved a sales statement and was very pleased with the volume my 1st novel sold. Royalties were 3 times as much as at my other e-publisher. And that’s my NCP experience. I’m one of still several authors who have yet to see a penny of those royalties and considering what’s been going on, my 2nd novel, with wonderful cover-art is probably in limbo.

It’s difficult to move in any direction from my position with NCP. It’s also difficult to stand still. But the most difficult thing is that I can’t even begin to define what I want in this situation. In my opinion, that’s the real crime NCP perpetrated on quite a few of its authors.

To be honest, my jaw dropped at the comments as well.

Rhonda Penders
The Wild Rose Press

Shiny! I like that one.

isn't there ANY organization that should be monitoring these publishers?

Yeah, they’re called EPIC, but they are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

They’re too busy sucking up to publishers and organising their annual conference to actually do anything worthwhile.

isn’t there ANY organization that should be monitoring these publishers?

at this point I’d be afraid to submit to ANYONE because of the possibility of author abuse…

:(

I mean, seriously. How many steps away from being Publish America is this company? Sure, they may not ask for money to publish your book up front, but they will do the same limited things for you and keep 60% or so of each book sale?

The owners may not like that comparison, and granted, it’s not 100% on the mark, but then there are twists to this. What value is lost to an author when a company contracts his/her book to flesh out what appears to be a line-up of books from NUMEROUS authors? When in reality those NUMEROUS authors equate to a select group with multiple pen names.

To me, the only benifit this company provides is being a psuedo book store. But you’ll pay a 60% or so cut to be on the shelf.

Sad, sad, sad

(And please, I said psuedo bookstore, which means absolutley no disrespect intended to the wonderful booksellers who are totally legit)

As an editor, I’ve worked with 20-odd authors. And I’ve had ONE author refuse to edit. ONE out of all of those. So yes, those authors who think their work is absolutely perfect and nothing needs to change do exist, but from my experience they’re few and far between. Most authors understand (see that, Madris?) that a fresh eye needs to look at the manuscript, and most are grateful that issues were caught before the books went up for sale. Because you know what? If an editor hadn’t caught it, a reader would have.

In all honesty, there are good and bad editors out there, just as there are good and bad writers. But to blame everything on the authors who are “too stupid to understand” editing? Deplorable.