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After reading some of the comments to my previous piece, I realized that I didn’t make myself very clear—or perhaps it’s that I pointed out issues I see without giving alternative solutions. Allow me to correct that oversight here with some other ideas—including those suggested by other readers who commented *tipping hat to you, guys, thank you*

= Flexibility –set a beginning and end date for the readers to participate, but give yourself a few days after that to post winners (e.g. “Contest open from Monday morning to Tuesday at midnight, blog-time; winners announced on Friday;” or “Contest open only (day of post) and winners are announced through my monthly newsletter”—or any combination or variation that works for you.)

= Be clear on the parameters of the contest (e.g., Only one entry per household; cheaters will be automatically disqualified; winner(s) agree to post an honest review at a blog/reader forum/your choice—see Shiloh Walker’s rules here and her contest disclaimer here, for example)

= Be clear on parameters of delivery for prizes, both when announcing the contest and the winner, and perhaps even when communicating with the winner(s) through email (e.g. prizes are mailed once a month/every two weeks; allow so many weeks for delivery; please contact me if you haven’t received your prize by –so many days/weeks after correspondence- etc.)

= Apologize in advance for potential forgetfulness or delays when announcing the contest (I could have sworn that I saw that somewhere at Shiloh’s blog, but of course now I can’t, for the life of me, find it–however, she did say something to that effect here), or if you are indeed late (Jody Lynn Copeland does it here, and Sasha White here.)

= Enlist a family member or friend to remind you of contests and giveaways, and/or add scheduled reminders on your computer’s calendar and/or cell phone.

= If running contests in a multi-author blog, perhaps find if one of you is better at (and willing to) keep track of contest deadlines/announcements for the rest (I’m sure there are suitable bribes for this).

Any reader or author out there with more ideas? Please share!

(I will touch on the courtesy or professionalism/generosity vs promotion issues raised in another piece soon.)

If you noticed that I mention Shiloh Walker’s blog and contests a few times in this one… 😀 That is because I happen to think she has this down pat.

{K: AL, you’re such a suck up:)}

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Please note, this was originally posted at my Karenscott.wordpress.com blog. All corresponding comments can be found there also.

I was sent this link by a source so anonymous, even I don’t know who he/she is.

It’s a post from one of the Torquere authors who apparently belongs in the ‘In Crowd’ over there:

Ya know… If I really wanted to hear all the frickin’ mud-slinging that goes on within this biz (namely on blogs), I’d have gone into politics. For the record: I love my publishers. So for those idiots who have nothing better to do than drag pubs through the mud just for the sake of blog hits, feel free to step out in front of a car.

Have a nice day. 🙂

Apparently, he/she also writes under the name of Kaye Derwydd. No idea who she/he is of course.

I’ll post some of his accompanying comments shall I? (FreePublicityFreePublicityFreePublicity!)

Torquere, Phaze… I’m happy with my pubs, and I honestly don’t understand where the drive to spout shit about pubs comes from. Between private conversations among friends? Bitch all ya want. But in public? These morons need to learn to get their facts straight.

This is a comment from one of Mychael’s cronies:

Some folks got no manners…
and no awareness of how small the biz really is. Names get noted, and remembered.

And Mychael replies with:

Yup. Which is probably why some of these people start the mud-slinging–either they or someone they know was probably rejected/not happy, and poof! The press in question is officially evil.

This next comment is from another of Mychael’s readers, and I thought it was very telling:

not sure where, who, what was said ect – I agree with you tho’ – it’s one thing to express your concerns about a pub in private – but to post in a public forum is just wrong

The above comments epitomizes a lot of what is wrong with the e-publishing industry right now.

What worries me even more is this sentiment from the Anon who sent the link:

Please don’t name this email or the source. These people are psychos. Note the threats of violence. Balanced – not.

Not much else for me to say really apart from….Am I the only person who’s annoyed at the way Mychael Black has chosen to spell his/her name? Sheesh.

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Please note, this was originally posted at my Karenscott.wordpress.com blog. You can also find the corresponding comments there.

That’s what Madris DePasture wrote in a New Concepts announcement letter addressed to her authors in 2002/2003.

It would seem that even as far back as that, Madris lacked a certain finesse when dealing with her writers.

Because I’m a bad, bad girl, let me post this warning that she included within one of the letters:

Please remember, this page is ONLY for NCP authors, so don’t give out the address to anyone else. There is no link on the main site going to the Author Lounge, so be sure to bookmark it. The address is http://www.newconceptspublishing.com/authorlounge33.htm

Ooops, again.

That should get some of the authors at the Romance Divas forum anxiously wringing their hands. Yes, I know, I am the devil herself.

Let me post you some snippets anyway, after all, the devil has no conscience:

“Any author who has NOT fulfilled the terms of their contract, or in any other manner behaved unprofessionally, been verbally abusive or just uncooperative, who demands the release of their book, may or may not be given permission to withdraw.

If money has been exchanged and/or time and effort put into marketing your book, we might then decide NOT to release you from your contractual obligations. It’s entirely up to you whether or not you wish to hire a lawyer to regain the rights. If we do decide to relinquish the rights, and state as much via email, do NOT expect to receive further written confirmation just to make you comfortable.

We will not go to any extraordinary lengths to soothe your fears. You are not welcome to submit again at a later time when we have managed to build a market and your work will never be considered again by New Concepts Publishing.

Charming woman.

For those of you who don’t understand and get nervous when you don’t hear anything and want to be continually updated on any and all progress… I’m sorry, but we just don’t have time to hold hands right now. Please repeat this mantra…..NCP is a business with much work to do.

As long as the website is there, they are there. If the phone is busy, it’s a good thing. If my emails have not been answered it’s because they are busy doing the work publishers do in order to stay in business and sell books. I am not being ignored because I’m not important, or because they’re thinking about dumping me. They are busy and I am allowing my fertile imagination to conjure paranoia.

Good grief.

Otherwise, keep in mind that your reputation is our reputation and our reputation is your reputation. If NCP is thought well of, then our authors have status as our authors. If our authors are thought poorly of, then NCP is not considered a good publisher. Whatever doubts or anxieties you might have, when you make NCP look bad, it makes you look bad.

Watch what you say, where you say it and to whom you say it. Don’t share your hysteria, anxieties or disappointments. Don’t play the blame game. Whether you realize it or not, YOU always get tarred with that feather.

I realize that people are either confident, or not. Nothing anyone can say or do can build confidence in those who lack it. Everything anyone says or does can further deteriorate a fragile confidence. However, I am sick to death of hearing ‘we’re not as good as’ NY, or any other publisher for that matter.

I have a feeling she’s not that big on trying to build confidence in the first place.

Rumor has it that Ellora’s Cave is so desperate for ‘romantica’ that they’re asking their authors to add sex scenes to previously written books. Anyone who’s been in the business for a while, and learned their craft, will know that this is a formula that will generally not click.

Hehe, she dissed Elloras Cave. That should go down well with the folks over at EC. We all know how precious they can be.

Before I go further, I need to address one serious problem that frequently rears it’s ugly head in this business, particularly when I try to talk shop to our authors—jealousy. I do understand that this is something that is a part of some people’s nature, hard to control and hard to combat. However, it is a totally useless and unproductive emotion. If it empowered a person to strive harder, then it would have some use. I’ve yet to see that—I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but in general it just causes problems.

Set your jealousy aside. The plain, hard, indisputable fact of life in publishing is that you are an entertainer. Sometimes your ideas appeal, sometimes not. I wish I knew the exact formula to produce highly successful books every time, but no one knows that. Even authors who regularly sell well occasionally write one that flops, and usually some that do not perform as well as others—this isn’t an exact science and it is useless to try to compare your books to anyone else’s.

Hey, it’s not all bad, she does give props to one of her authors:

Now, having said that, I want to give credit where it’s due, Autumn Dawn ‘lucked’ out by writing a wonderfully appealing book, effective promotion, and being in the right place at the right time with the right story.

I wonder she couldn’t just say the author in question did a good job, without having to say that her success was due to ‘luck’?

What a great ambassador for her business eh? I can’t believe how bad she is at addressing her writers. It is possible to write a communication document without leaving the recipients feeling like they just had a fight with a cruise missile.

Oh, and for those folks over at Romance Divas who insist on wringing their hands over the legality of posting Madris’ e-mail, and discussing whether it should have been posted in the first place, rather than concentrating on the fact that your fellow authors are being shafted left, right, and centre, let’s hope you’re never in the same position as Ellen Ashe eh?

Thanks to you-know-who for the link.

The Blog Is Back…

Thursday, March 20, 2008
Posted in: Uncategorized

We have a new host, but we wont be moved officially until all the backing up of files and changing of nameservers has been done. Hopefully by the weekend.

For those people who didn’t do it last time, in the event that the blog goes down for any reason, you will find me at my www.karenscott.wordpress.com blog.