Happy New Year, And Rene Lyons AKA Dishing Diva Wanted To Get Something Off Her Chest…
Wednesday, January 2, 2008Posted in: Heed ye naysayers, The Dishing Diva AKA Rene Lyons
Wow, TTG and I are only just recovering from our New Year’s Eve blowout. We hosted a party at ours, and I haven’t had that much fun, since… last week.
Anyway, I hope you all had an equally good time, whatever you were doing.
Moving on, Rene Lyons, the CEO of the newly formed e-publisher, Dragon Spell Publishing, posted on my blog a couple of days ago.
I think she got a little pissed off by some of the accusations levelled at her, thus this compulsion to set the record straight. Here’s what she wrote:
“I just wanted to drop in and give a response to some of these accusations written by two of the Anonymous posters and Puppet Truth.
Let me start with the claim that I “expect to surpass Samhain within a year of operation”. That’s preposterous. Nevertheless, I am looking to Samhain, Ellora’s Cave and the other highly successful small presses to see what made them succeed where others have failed. They are the standard by which I’ll judge Dragon Spell. I’m sure anyone can understand that. They are the gold standard and SHOULD be looked to.
As far as me pissing off people, yes, as an author I’ve misstepped a time a two – put my big fat foot right in my big fat mouth, but then, who here hasn’t done or said something that causes them to break out in a cold sweat and wish they could take back? All I can do is learn from past mistakes and solider on and allow the merit of my character and the respectful and honorable treatment of my authors speak for me.
I’ve also heard it said I “ticked” off someone at ARe. I wrote to Lori James herself and she replied back that such a rumor was utter nonsense and she wondered what someone hoped to gain by saying such a thing. I saved that email from Mrs. James as proof of that blatant lie. I have a very good relationship with the entire staff at ARe.
The RRP authors I’ve emailed were ones I believed I’d become friends with during my time there as a cover artist. I didn’t mass email the authors there. And as far me cold emailing authors, yes, I’ve done that as a means to introduce Dragon Spell. At the time, I saw nothing wrong with an introduction. I see now that was not the thing to do and have not done so again. A mistake learned from and not repeated.
The claim from Puppet Truth that I am not an inc or llc, that’s another blatant lie. It doesn’t help their case of discrediting me if someone is caught lying, as Puppet Truth clearly is. How can anything else they say be believed? Our company name is Lyrical Press, Inc. We’ve chosen to to do business as Dragon Spell in order to broaden our publishing range. You cannot publish erotic along side of young adult, so under the blanket name of Lyrical Press, Inc., we can do both. Dragon Spell can publish all that wonderful goodness that is romance in all of it’s forms and genres and Lyrical Press Inc. can publishing everything else.
I was not fired from Red Rose Publishing due to unprofessional behavior despite what is being said. I have the emails and IMs to prove I resigned first as an editor when the publisher did not back me when I criticized the author who posted here “(could have been, I don’t know…me)” during edits. I stayed on at RRP for another couple of months (which proves I contunied to have a good relationship with RRP) before resigning at 7am on December 5th after learning that the publisher had begun slandering me (I have saved IMs and emails proving this) the day I informed her I had opened Dragon Spell. I remain at Dark Eden Press as Art Director and have an amazing relationship with everyone there, some of which are actually RRP authors as well.
After making the decision to resign from writing I posted on my personal blog that I would be deleting it and stepping back from the persona of ‘Rene Lyons’ the author to focus on other ventures. Roughly two weeks later I deleted the blog.
All I want to do is provide readers with good books. I want to give authors a safe and friendly home for their books. I will not be drawn into a tit-for-tat war or reduce myself to playing petty games of gossip. It’s unprofessional and highly damaging to a publisher’s reputation. That should be remembered at all times and I will do my best to succeed and live up to the promises I’ve made to my authors of treating them with respect and honoring their hard work.
Renee Rocco
(Rene Lyons)
Dragon Spell Publishing”
Shit, that was long wasn’t it?
Anyway, I was really upset when she wrote that she will not be “drawn into a tit-for-tat war”, or be reduced to “playing petty games of gossip”. Dammit, what the hell am I supposed to do for the rest of the year? Some people are so damned inconsiderate. Sheesh.
(BTW, is it just me, or does Dragon Spell’s website go funny whenever I try scrolling up or down?)
Cookie
January 2
2:51 pm
A lot of people speak words that mean nothing. What will truly mean something is putting words into action.
Plead the 5th
January 2
3:16 pm
Not to be mean, but’s she’s posted the same message on quite a few forums, ie Romance Divas. In my opinion posting these ultra long messages everywhere and anywhere are just fanning the flames.
azteclady
January 2
3:20 pm
Nothing personal against Ms Lyons, Rocco, Diva, whatever…
But I do wonder about the “writer persona” bit. I thought writers wrote because they had to, because they needed to. I’m confuzzled when someone can shed that identity with such ease. Is/was writing then just a hobby? a business venture?
[It is not personal–she’s not the only author turned editor turned publisher turned whatever in epublishing, after all–it is a general wonderment of mine, that’s all]
hotflashes51
January 2
4:14 pm
Everybody is an editor…everybody is an author and now everybody “is” a publisher…But since I have no clue who this woman is nor have read anything she has written or edited, I really don’t give a fig what she says.
Anonymous
January 2
4:29 pm
Im confused…I thought it was found out and proven that the Dishing Diva was some dental hygienist that used to live in Florida turned writer-slash-psycho woman ranting on authors?
If so, why is this woman still being connected to dishing diva?
As far as opening a publishing company, everyone is right words mean nothing…proof is in the pudding.
Sorry, cant remember the damn login and password for my account so posting anon.
T.C.
Anonymous
January 2
5:22 pm
I always find it fascinating when people feel the need to respond with a statement saying they are not going to be responding to anything.
“I’m going to be the bigger person here…” by throwing out vague defenses and making sure I have the last word.
She did incorporate her company, true…AFTER being widely criticized for not incorporating it. (The dates of incorporation are visible online) Why else would she wait several weeks to post her generalized defenses other than because she was scrambling to get her ducks in a row because she was called out on her errors.
Renee has a victim mentality, one of the worst I’ve encountered. Nothing is ever her fault, it’s the big bad world she lives in. A person who never takes responsibility for their own actions is doomed to failure.
But, then again, the proof IS in the pudding as everyone else is saying. We’ll see how well an ex-stripper with no education and a delivery man with no education do running a company. Yes, we’ll see.
M
Anonymous
January 2
5:33 pm
M…
Explain please what exactly her having been a stripper has to do with anything? As far as I know the woman who opened Ellora’s Cave had no education and was on welfare when she opened her company.
Your purpose in putting something out here like that was to humiliate that woman, no other reason.
It is obvious you have, or had, a personal relationship with this woman and that its been tainted, so why dont you just say that? At least be honest.
T.C.
M
January 2
5:40 pm
She should be taking PR classes, and hiring an attorney … and avoid making public statements.
And hotflashes51, hell yeah! … that has always baffled my mind.
formerly M
January 2
5:45 pm
Just in case, please do not confuse me with the M with a personal beef against Rene Lyons …
I think it’s time for me to look for an alias o.O
Karen Scott
January 2
5:49 pm
I just wish you guys would at least choose proper names, lol!
Anonymous
January 2
6:01 pm
Actually, no. I don’t have a personal issue with her. Never spoken to her, never met her.
I have simply seen her treatment of others and find it abhorrent. Someone who thinks herself so high and mighty should really have a leg to stand on.
M
Puppet truth
January 2
8:33 pm
I agree with M on this. She waited 19 days to come and defend herself… and I think that just screams of ‘strategy’ though what shes trying to accomplish I will never know.
I don’t know her. I did read her blog, and I know people who know her, and they all say the same thing: Shes interested in the betterment of Rene,and by her terms only.
And azteclady, I agree with you. A real writer HAS to write no matter what. After reading her blog, and seeing how she had SO much to do and all I wonder about her. I have a friend that works 75 hour weeks, takes online classes, has a 2 year old and a 6 year old, is a single parent and STILL manages to write and put out books every three months or so.
Now for Ms. Lyons/Rocco to say that her two year old and her husband keep her so busy that she cant write, but was doing ‘cover art’ in several places only proves to me that writing wasn’t ever anything more then a hobby. And i read her first book, and I gotta say… it was sub par, and that fact had NOTHING to do with her editing, as she mentioned SO OFTEN on her blog.
Frankly, I don’t know why anyone would sign on to a publisher that cant manage to manage a housewives life of a child and a husband and still write. It speaks ill of her time management and that speaks ill of the future of what shes doing. I hope she proves us all wrong, and bites her thumb at us, but honestly, with her known online persona… I don’t see that happening.
Renee Rocco
January 3
1:00 pm
I waited to respond because I didn’t want to write out of emotion. I’ve posted much the same thing in other places because what I wrote was all I was willing to say publicly.
I find it amusing that people are writing these vicious things about me and my husband under either Anonymous or aliases. I’ve put my name on something and have been picked apart, lied about, accused of wronging my authors before my company is even open for sales. I’ve been accused of only becoming an incorporation because of the comments left on this blog. My husband and I were, in essence, called stupid. And it’s all been done by people hiding behind aliases. I’ve been accused of having a victim’s complex, yet I plainly wrote that I’ve done and said things I regretted and wished I could take back. I’ve owned up to my wrongs and still I was accused of having a victim’s complex. So, Puppet Truth and M, if you feel I’m such a vile person, why not write these allegations under your real names?
Like T.C. wrote, these accusations were written publicly solely to humiliate me and to discredit me and my husband. It smacks of a desperate need to bring our company down before we even get off the ground, and thats not coming from a victim’s complex. Anyone who can read can see that plainly enough. And as Cookie wrote, putting words into actions is what counts. All that matters to me and my husband is that our authors and staff are treated well and paid on time and that we put out good books.
Renee
Barbara B.
January 3
3:25 pm
Renee Rocco, you may have owned up to your wrongs but you haven’t accepted responsibility. You seem oblivious to the law of consequences. Your regrets are in no way a magic wand that restores your damaged reputation, reverses your actions, or makes you worthy of trust and respect. The online romance community is fairly small. It was exceedingly foolish of you to metaphorically “shit where you eat”.
You may as well accept the fact that you have created some powerful ill-will through your own actions that isn’t going to go away anytime soon. And may in fact have some devastating consequences for your fledgling publishing company. In your own way you’ve sown the wind and are now reaping the whirlwind.
Nobody ever did, or ever will, escape the consequences of his choices.” Afred A. Montapert
Renee Rocco
January 3
4:19 pm
Barbara B., your response that I seem oblivious to the law of consequences is absurd. The very nature of wishing I could take back certain actions means I’ve accepted responsibility of wrongs done and have learned from them. To use a quote as well: To err is human; to forgive, infrequent. Franklin P. Adams US journalist (1881 – 1960)
It seems that I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t (I can hear the rumblings of “here goes her “victim’s complex” again). The truth of that is obvious. I was silent for weeks and was accused of hiding. I came out and spoke against this disgusting smear campaign and I’m now accused of having a victim’s complex, not accepting the laws of consequence and had my husband and I called stupid. I find it odd that only one person saw that M calling me an ex-stripper and accusing my husband and I of having no education is wrong and being used solely as a means to humiliate us. It’s a marvel to me that no one else feels that this is a gross push past the line that separates right and wrong. Nothing I’ve ever done or said warranted such an ugly attack upon us. Nothing.
If I continue to fight back against this disgusting smear campaign it will be twisted into me acting like a “victim”, even though I don’t know anyone who would allow such lies and horrendous rumors to be spread about them and do nothing. Yes, the romance community is small. It’s also filled with good people. So, I’ll leave M and Puppet Truth to their business of desperately trying to hurt me and my husband. The more vicious their comments the more I have faith that there are many people out there like T.C, who use logic and reason when reading these cruel things about us.
Renee
Anonymous
January 3
5:26 pm
I find it amusing that people are writing these vicious things about me and my husband under either Anonymous or aliases. …And it’s all been done by people hiding behind aliases. …So, Puppet Truth and M, if you feel I’m such a vile person, why not write these allegations under your real names?
Oh, you mean like you did when you wrote as the Dishing Diva?
Nothing I’ve ever done or said warranted such an ugly attack upon us. Nothing.
This is where the victim complex comes in, my dear. I’ve seen it from you time and again. Oh, you’ve done things you regret, but nothing to deserve people being mean back to you! Oh, your first book was subpar, but that was the editor’s fault!
All that matters to me and my husband is that our authors and staff are treated well and paid on time and that we put out good books.
You know what, Renee, I honestly hope you do. I hope DSP does well, not for your benefit, but for the authors who have now put their trust in you. They are the ones who stand to lose or gain the most. But given the way you treated authors when you were an editor, I don’t have much hope.
Maybe this has been an eye opener for you. How does that saying go? Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
M
Karen Scott
January 3
5:44 pm
If I continue to fight back against this disgusting smear campaign it will be twisted into me acting like a “victim”, even though I don’t know anyone who would allow such lies and horrendous rumors to be spread about them and do nothing.
You know, with the exception of that poster calling you a stripper, (and forgive me for not interceding, but I couldn’t really work out if the allegation was a truth or not), isn’t that basically what you did when you started up a blog, pretended to be somebody else, and pretty much reamed out J.R Ward just because her fans are slightly.. erm.. rabid?
As I recall, you wrote a lot of things that would have probably wounded her personally, but I can’t recall her coming out in public and complaining about it, and siccing the RFGs on you. Unless you know something I don’t?
You did a really stupid thing Renee, and as you should know by now, Romanceland has a very long memory, so no matter how sorry you are, people are still gonna tar you with the Dishing Diva brush.
Seriously dude, the only way this will die a death anytime soon, is if you just get on with doing what you do, and take your lumps without complaint, because a lot of it was totally self-inflicted.
Everybody else, please refrain from getting personal, cuz as much as the notion of her being a stripper amuses me, if it’s not true, then it’s ridiculously unfair.
Now if it is true, all I gotta say is, Renee, you gotta choose your friends more wisely honey, because somebody who knows you personally, obviously really hates you.
Just sayin’.
M
January 3
5:51 pm
You’re right, Karen, and so I do apologize for getting personal. While the accusation is 100% true, and I said it because it also amuses the hell out of me, I should have left it alone, since it discredited the rest of what I said. So, while I won’t take it back, as they say, I will apologize for it.
M
cumhitherglobal_admin
January 3
6:05 pm
Hey there’s no shame in being a stripper! A wolf-in-victims clothing, well that’s an entirely different matter.
azteclady
January 3
7:15 pm
Saying, “I wish I hadn’t done this or that or the other” after royally screwing the pooch is not, has never been, nor will it ever be, accepting responsibility.
To accept responsibility, you learn to deal with the attendant consequences of choices you’ve made. In this case, it would be accepting that there are plenty of people who remember those same actions you regret and that they–either personally affected, or only witnesses–have no obligation whatsoever to forgive you. Or to be nice to you. Or to believe whatever you say.
To accept responsibility and face the music, you ask forgiveness from those you’ve wronged, then buckle down and show, through your actions, that you won’t do it again.
It’s much more difficult, and shows much more class, than saying, “I wish I hadn’t done this.” (Particularly when what you mean is, “I wish I hadn’t been caught doing it.”)
Barbara B.
January 3
8:54 pm
Renee Rocco said-
“The very nature of wishing I could take back certain actions means I’ve accepted responsibility of wrongs done and have learned from them.”
No. It does not. You’re very much mistaken. Taking responsibility means admitting your mistakes and THEN accepting the consequences. I think what you’re experiencing now, this online shit storm, is part of those consequences. I find it absurd and disingenuous that you don’t seem to understand this.
M
January 3
9:19 pm
Oh, and I forgot about this:
I was not fired from Red Rose Publishing due to unprofessional behavior despite what is being said. I have the emails and IMs to prove I resigned first as an editor when the publisher did not back me when I criticized the author who posted here “(could have been, I don’t know…me)” during edits.
Actually, it appeared to me to be a mutual thing. Wendi fired you and in the same moment you said you were quitting, probably to save yourself the humiliation of being fired. The publisher did not back you when you acted inappropriately towards authors during editing. And, for the record, I am not that author. You’ve never edited anything of mine, nor would I let you touch my work with a ten foot pole. I’ve read some of the manuscripts you “edited,” and they were atrocious. Things as simple as “too” instead of “to” and “your” instead of “you’re.” The complaints about your attitude and skills as an editor are far reaching; it wasn’t just one author upset because you criticized her writing, but at least a dozen who found you to be rude, caustic, and ultimately, disinterested in doing your job as an editor.
I stayed on at RRP for another couple of months (which proves I contunied to have a good relationship with RRP) before resigning at 7am on December 5th after learning that the publisher had begun slandering me (I have saved IMs and emails proving this) the day I informed her I had opened Dragon Spell.
That’s because Wendi continued to believe in you and back you up, despite numerous complaints she had received about your covers, as well. Despite everything you have accused her of since, she tried very hard to support you until it became glaringly obvious you didn’t deserve it.
I remain at Dark Eden Press as Art Director and have an amazing relationship with everyone there, some of which are actually RRP authors as well.
True, but I know of at least one author who will no longer work with DEP because you are there. And another who refuses to submit at all because of your presence. And countless more who simply wish you’d go away.
You were also fired from Eternal Press as a cover artist.
You’ve quit your writing career. You opened Immortal Art Designs and then quit that. You started editing, and then quit that. Business ventures with you seem short lived. What indication is there that your dedication to DSP will be any stronger than that to your previous endeavors? I agree with Puppet Truth in that regard.
Shannon Stacey
January 3
10:12 pm
(BTW, is it just me, or does Dragon Spell’s website go funny whenever I try scrolling up or down?)
Makes it harder to find the typo.
Karen Scott
January 3
10:16 pm
Makes it harder to find the typo.
Laughing. My. Tits. Off.
Jinx
January 4
2:12 pm
Why is it that bitter people always have to say things about others? Does it make you feel better insulting people?
Misery loves company. While others are doing something with their lives, you will still be here, on this blog trying to be a better person, which you never will be.
Karen Scott
January 4
2:14 pm
Misery loves company. While others are doing something with their lives, you will still be here, on this blog trying to be a better person, which you never will be.
Oh Jinx, do you realise the irony of posting that comment on this blog? 🙂
Anonymous
January 6
11:48 am
Did Mrs. Giggles create another mock epub or is this (scarily) the real thing?
http://www.firedrakesweyr.com
Anonymizer Rex
September 22
6:18 pm
A few observations:
What a retarded little pissing match that is CLEARLY a CHICK thing as opposed to a publishing/writing thing. What’s going to happen next – are you all going to steal each other’s boyfriends/husbands or accuse one another of having cankles?
Interestingly, most of the e-publishers mentioned in this amazingly entertaining pissing match nobody has ever heard of. We have no idea what kinds of sales they’ve got, and really, any vampire/shapeshifting/cowboy with a bare chest romance e-pub ever make it to print on the New York Times Bestseller list?
Sigh… chicks. Boggles the mind.
Tuscan Capo
September 22
9:28 pm
Anonymizer Rex, it’s comments like this that make the words “chauvinist” and “pig” comfortable companions. Be a man and stop lumping all the ladies together in one mold.