The Preditors & Editors Poll: What’s The Point Of Them?
Wednesday, April 16, 2008Posted in: Uncategorized
This comment from the Authors Deserve to get Shafted thread caught my eye:
I also could never understand how Venus Press popped up and managed to gain the #1 Best Publisher spot in the P&E poll that year, when they hadn’t even published a single book up until that moment.
I remember thinking the exact same thing at the time. I think I may even have gone as far as suggesting to the owner (D.L Tyler was it?) that Venus Press had blatantly cheated, which she obviously wasn’t too happy with, and if I recall, correctly, threatened to sue me. Nothing new there then.
Seriously though, like the useless cheerleading squad that is EPIC, what is the point of the Pred Polls? Especially when the voting system can be manipulated so easily.
It makes a mockery of the whole effort, when a brand new publisher like Venus Press, can beat out the likes of Elloras Cave, to claim the coveted title of publisher of the year.
I must admit, these days when I see the Preditors and Editors winner insignias on e-publishing sites, I’m inclined to navigate elsewhere.
No matter how much they improve the voting system, I fear I’ll always remember that they let the cheating scum at Venus Press take the piss out of them.
What do the Pred Polls mean to you?
Dorothy Mantooth
April 16
11:00 am
Sadly, the P&E awards mean nothing for the exact reason you described. I had a couple of my books nominated this last time around, and while I was grateful to whomever put them up there, I knew there was no way I would win (nor did I care), as I am not into emailing everyone I know or posting on every cheer-you-on internet message board to “Go vote for me, wheee!”
And yeah, at this point it might very well be a reason to navigate away from a site, indicating as it does that the authors there are rabid and unscrupulous. And that the publisher him- or herself doesn’t know enough about the award to know it means nothing, which suggests they don’t know as much about the business as they should.
Special awards, like the one Dave gave Miss Snark a few years back, are different. And P&E is still a good resource (and is being sued by those scumbags at Publishamerica, so if you have anything spare to kick his way to help with his legal bills please do). But the awards have been bastardized from what they should be into a “Let’s-see-how-many-email-accounts-I-can-open” popularity contest.
Angelia Sparrow
April 16
12:43 pm
It means a popularity contest.
Circle Dark was nominated in the cover art category for Twilight and Thorns.
It came in 14th.
I took a look at the covers that won. Most of them were hideous. Cluttered messes at best. That was when I knew it was more a “Vote for me! vote for me!” thing than an actual measure of quality.
Ally Blue
April 16
2:20 pm
It’s not even a proper poularity contest. I know for a fact that people vote for books/covers/publishers they’ve never even read/seen/bought from, just because someone they know begged for votes. I don’t know what to call it, really. A contest to see who can collect the most votes? Hey, politicians could pick their campaign chairs from the winners O_O
AztecLady
April 16
2:26 pm
You mean they don’t already?
Who are you calling a cynic? 😉
Bonnie Dee
April 16
2:59 pm
Waste of time. Getting a big bunch of people to vote for your book, cover or publisher doesn’t really make it “the best”.
CJ England
April 16
4:26 pm
When I first started in this business, I thought the P&E poll was really important. I was totally jazzed when one of my books made it into the top ten.
Now, two years later, I’m more jaded. While I may mention the poll on my chat list, I don’t beg for votes. I usually forget it’s even going on.
Since it can be so easily manipulated, it’s lost all value for me. IMHO, it needs a major overhaul to make it noteworthy.
kirsten saell
April 16
5:09 pm
The award means nothing to those of us who have been around the industry awhile. Unfortunately, to newbs fresh off the turnip truck, A P&E poll winner insignia might be just the lure to convince them a questionable house is legit. I wish Dave would just write the whole poll thing off and put out a loud disclaimer stating that an insignia on a publisher’s (or author’s) website is not an indication of legitimacy or quality, nor an endorsement on the part of P&E.
This is one case of more harm than good, and that’s disappointing to me.
Nonny
April 16
6:04 pm
The P&E Polls are a (broken) popularity contest. Anybody can vote, even people who have no real opinion but are doing it for a friend or family member. Some e-pubs, I imagine, encourage their writers and staff to vote and get other people to do so as well. I doubt that EC or the other big names really care about a popularity contest; they know where they stand.
Heather Holland
April 16
8:17 pm
I agree that it’s a worthless poll. I stopped paying any attention to it years ago.
Puppet Truth
April 16
9:25 pm
Totally worthless. I kept up with it because a friend of mine was “nominated” in the cover artist category, and when she didn’t make the top 5 I was appalled, especially when I saw the crappy “artists” that were in the top ten (Trace Edward Zaber and his CREEPY pieced together zombie men, eww.He’s the reason why I don’t buy anything from AQP) It made me realize that it, like the Eppies, are just a popularity contest. At least for P&E you don’t have to pay to play like the Eppies.
though a lot of new authors think its the be all end all. Sad, truly sad.
Kayleigh Jamison
April 17
12:14 am
It’s about as useful as P&E’s publisher recommendations.
While I think there is value to many “publishing watchdog” sites, P&E is worthless. Its owner doesn’t require any proof to slap a publisher with a negative recommendation, and in fact when presented with proof that refutes the accusations, he shrugs and says “too bad.”
I realize that many publishers who have bad reps deserve it, absolutely. But that’s not always the case.
It’s why, even though I have about as much love for PA as I do for dog crap on my shoe, I was happy to hear about the lawsuit against P&E by PA’s former attorney. It was about time somebody did something.
Michele
April 17
2:05 am
Nickolaus Pacione, who is nominated and manages not to come in last nearly every year is known in the horror genre for wishing AIDs on people, being horribly sexist and homophobic. He cyber stalked me for reading and reviewing someone else’s book, because he hates that person. He doesn’t pay his authors, tries to extort money from the people he targets and he only self publishes (claiming the anthologies he lulus are “his”) and yet… he’s there every year.
I am unimpressed with most awards.
Capo
April 17
3:17 pm
OT a little; regarding Nickolaus Pacione –
it blows my mind that Mrs. Giggles’ site can be removed for what, explicit book covers? But this guy posts threats like this and Big Brother’s net nannies don’t give a rat’s butt:
http://nickolauspacione.blogspot.com/2007/08/who-ever-is-behind-samyoung05.html
BTW, yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the mass shooting at VA Tech. That murderer was another nut with a gripe against women, sex and anyone who didn’t kiss his cry-baby ego.
Dorothy Mantooth
April 17
3:55 pm
I thought he does in fact ask for proof. Piers Anthony reports rumors; P&E asks for documentation. Are you getting them confused, or did I totally miss something and he changed the way he does things?
Dave Kuzminski
April 17
4:48 pm
The P&E Readers Poll is meant to be used as a marketing tool so writers can point to their work in a place where thousands of people visit. If you don’t want your work noticed by in excess of thirty-thousand voters, then don’t participate.
Just because we can’t all write War and Peace doesn’t mean that only Tolstoy is legitimate and the rest of us aren’t. We’re writers and in order to get the public to know about our books, it’s necessary to promote. Winning doesn’t mean your book is necessarily better, but participating does help you promote your work. That’s where the Readers Poll is useful and possibly even important.
As to P&E’s recommendations, we haven’t changed our policy. We base our opinions on documentation. Sometimes we can’t reveal the documentation because of promised confidentiality, but the documentation is still in our files. And just because someone claims one reason is false, that doesn’t mean the opinion was formed based on only one reason. In some instances, we have three or more reasons, each of which was sufficient by itself to warrant a negative recommendation.
Capo
April 17
5:19 pm
Dave, I think what bothers some people is that your poll is promoted as a READERS poll. I just checked, and says so right on the pages. But then you say here at Karen’s blog:
“The P&E Readers Poll is meant to be used as a marketing tool so writers can point to their work in a place where thousands of people visit. If you don’t want your work noticed by in excess of thirty-thousand voters, then don’t participate.”
Can’t you see how this just doesn’t jive with what you have up about it being a reader poll? Nothing personal, but I think the contradiction here gives people a rightful reason to ask questions.
Kayleigh Jamison
April 17
7:21 pm
I thought he does in fact ask for proof. Piers Anthony reports rumors; P&E asks for documentation. Are you getting them confused, or did I totally miss something and he changed the way he does things?
He rated one publisher “not recommended” with no proof. In fact, he was basing this off the complaint of a former employee who said they had not been paid. The publisher emailed him a copy of the receipt that proved she’d paid the woman. He refused to remove the NR. I saw, with my own eyes, the evidence that refuted her “complaints.”
There were other issues involved, including Dave giving this former employee bad advice, which amounted basically to bad legal advice, and threats to the publisher.
I can also think of four other instances where he’s done the same thing to other publishers, sans proof. He may claim he requires it, but he doesn’t.
Because of this, P&E will never, ever get my support. Contribute to his legal fund? Not bloody likely. I’ve talked a few others OUT of it, though.
Oh the Irony
April 17
7:24 pm
You know what I find funny?
One of the reasons most of these voting-based awards have lost all credibility is because authors started cheating the system. One in particular would create dozens of different email accounts to vote for herself. She was caught doing this. Many awards switched to IP based voting. Not surprisingly, she stopped winning them all.
That author? Has posted in this thread complaining about the fairness of these polls.
Pot, Kettle, perhaps you should be friends.
Dorothy Mantooth
April 17
7:34 pm
Oh the Irony, you’re being unfair!! My TrixyLion books DESERVED those prizes, dammit!!!
😉
Katrina Strauss
April 17
7:48 pm
OT in regards to the OT but…wow, I haven’t heard Nickolaus P’s name in years since my NetGoth days. When I was first e-published and someone had the gall to ask me if my book was a “real” book, I actually snapped back with “Hey, I’m not Nickolaus Pacione.” Goodness, he’s actually publishing other people’s work now???
Dave Kuzminski
April 17
7:56 pm
Actually, we do use several methods of verifying votes in the Readers Poll in order to avoid stuffing. In fact, we disallowed over a thousand votes, if I recall the numbers correctly.
As far as the claims made that P&E has abused as many as five publishers, I noticed not one publisher’s name was given so that no one can verify anything. With that in mind, why not charge that there were twenty, or forty, or a hundred publishers thus abused? In actuality, though, the numbers really don’t matter. What does matter is P&E is expressing its opinion. We’ve never stated that the businesses we recommend against are scams. If anyone wants to check the Ratings page on each P&E site, it’s stated clearly that we’re not calling them scams, but merely expressing our opinion. Technically, no documentation is even needed in order to express an opinion. However, P&E does obtain documentation.
Kayleigh Jamison
April 17
8:09 pm
Dave, I saw both the communications sent to you by two of these publishers, and your rude responses. (“I’ve formed my opinion and I’m not changing it.”) I am not giving names of publishers because I am not an owner or employee of any of them, therefore it’s not my place.
Nice backtracking, by the way, to now say you are only offering opinions. Only further confirms my suspicions about what I see as unethical practices from one who claims to objectively and fairly give advice on various publishing outfits.
I never said you called all “not recommended” publishers scams, but that’s yet another thing. A publisher can be “not recommended” on your site for a wide, arbitrary range of reasons. Perhaps Publisher A has never paid a single author, and in fact charges them to publish. Publisher B had a falling out with a former employee, and that employee now feels she wasn’t paid enough for her work (despite agreeing, in writing, to the amount offered by the publisher, and the publisher paying that amount.) Both Publisher A and B are now simply listed as “not recommended” on P&E without any explanation as to the reasons behind that recommendation. If I know, via other sources, about Publisher A’s shady practices, I may look at your “not recommended” status of Publisher B, and think they are guilty of the same, because you give no clarity.
Obtaining documentation is a term you appear to use quite loosely. Further, I have a problem with the fact that you never attempt to hear the other side of the dispute, or look at documentation from the publisher. Perhaps further clarification is needed on your “ratings,” that not only are these your opinions, they are not objective ones.
But if you’re simply offering your “opinions” about publishers, then, well, I’m simply offering my “opinion” about P&E, which is that I find you disreputable and deceptive.
Dave Kuzminski
April 18
2:35 am
Anyone who cares to read the About page on the P&E sites can find several paragraphs where it’s clearly stated that P&E publishes opinions concerning businesses related to writing. One is at http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/about.htm . Those statements are even dated. One is dated 1997, so it’s not a new policy. It’s one that dates back to P&E’s establishment. Another page gives P&E’s rating criteria. That’s at URL http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/perating.htm . Any business having to do with publishing can see what will garner a negative recommendation from P&E. We try very much to adhere to those criteria even though there’s no law requiring P&E to have any criteria for offering its opinions.
As to your claim that you’ve seen a rude response from P&E (“Dave, I saw both the communications sent to you by two of these publishers, and your rude responses. (”I’ve formed my opinion and I’m not changing it.”)”) I’m going to state that I don’t recall ever stating those exact words to anyone. Of course, you’re free to forward a copy to me and prove otherwise or to post it here in its entirety so that it can be seen in context.
Kayleigh Jamison
April 18
2:49 am
We try very much to adhere to those criteria even though there’s no law requiring P&E to have any criteria for offering its opinions.
I’m not talking law here, I’m talking ethics. There’s a difference; trust me, I know. Not once have I brought the L or D words into this discussion. Just because there may not be anything illegal about having a resource (which many view as authoritative recommendations on the publishing industry) where you apply biased personal opinions in an uneven and unfair manner, doesn’t mean it’s right.
As for your comments, I’ll go sift through my email and find them. Gladly.
You’ve chosen to run your site as you see fit. That’s fine. I think it’s shady. I too, have a criteria before I side against something, and certainly before I make any public comments on the matter. Since you’re so fond of opinions, surely you can respect that.
K. Z. Snow
April 18
3:00 am
Yay, Karen, you took it on! Those polls have always mystified me. I could never figure out how the “Who the hell are they?” winners became winners. Then I started seeing a lot of online begging for votes . . . and I realized the winners were actually wieners.
By the way, if the EPPIES were indeed a popularity contest, one of my books wouldn’t have ended up a finalist. I can probably count on one hand how many people in e-publishing circles, outside of Ellora’s Cave, have heard of me. Hell, I’m even a small fry in that pond. Authors don’t (and, for that matter, can’t) “campaign” for EPPIE votes, which are cast by EPIC’s author members. And I’m not even one of those!
Dave Kuzminski
April 18
3:18 am
Then let’s bring in the I word, otherwise known as integrity. Like it or not, P&E applies its criteria equally. I even issued a negative recommendation about a publisher that had just a month or two earlier accepted one of my books. Letting them slide would have protected my book. I valued the integrity of P&E more because P&E seeks to protect all writers, not just one writer–me. The downside was that I had to go through a series of emails just to get the rights released. It’s not easy when the publisher is unhappy with you.
You might have seen evidence from a publisher about them resolving a problem without getting the negative recommendation removed, but you’re ignoring the fact that there could be other problems that haven’t been resolved. Consequently, if there are still problems that P&E considers significant, then the rating probably won’t change until those other problems can be resolved. To do any less would be a failure in P&E’s integrity. Complain all you want and you’re more than welcome to do so, but P&E will not abdicate it’s responsibility to act with integrity on behalf of writers.
Kayleigh Jamison
April 18
4:37 am
Integrity is a good word, I’m glad you brought it up. P&E doesn’t have any, despite what you say. Particularly when you brand a publisher “not recommended” based on the complaint of a fire employee who claimed she wasn’t paid, when she was. That had zero to do with writers. Oh, and for the record, I’ve been through your rating criteria, and the things you negatively rated this particular publisher for, aren’t on there.
Further, opinions may be opinions, but when presented in a manner that a large group of people reasonably take as fact, and said opinions cause damage or harm…well, you know the song.
There’s a difference between standing by your mission, and being too stubborn to see the cracks in your own foundation.
I believe I made valid points on how you could improve your “integrity.” (btw, if your policies haven’t changed since 1997, maybe you should consider revamping them. The industry itself certainly has changed in 11 years.) If you choose to ignore them, that’s your choice. I didn’t really expect you react any other way than how you did, given your reactions to this topic in the past, but it’s been disgusting me for months, and now, as they say, it’s off my chest.
burnedonceshameonme
April 18
1:14 pm
all I know about P&E is that when the publisher I went with failed to live up to their expectations (and then tried to change the rules) I had to send documentation to Dave to get their rating changed – it dropped from “Recommended” to a neutral rating. It wasn’t just on what *I* said, I had to provide the proof. And other authors complained as well; it couldn’t be just me.
of course the publisher involved freaked, started a witch hunt to see who had reported them to P&E; pulled down their banner from an earlier “win” at the P&E Poll and promptly issued emails denouncing P&E and other writing boards that supported them…
jmo, for what it’s worth.
Dave Kuzminski
April 18
2:50 pm
Obviously, someone didn’t read those two pages or they might have seen how often P&E’s policies and criteria have been updated. Also shows how their reading skills seem to be deficient or they’re deliberately ignoring facts. Otherwise, the individual would have noted that the case involving the fired employee also involved other complaints. Solving one dispute out of several significant problems is not enough to justify changing the recommendation.
Oh, by the way, the publisher never provided any proof that they resolved the fired former employee’s complaint. So, I’m supposed to take the publisher’s word without proof when the former employee hasn’t verified the resolution, either? When you’ve been in the position of resolving numerous disputes as I’ve been put into, after awhile you’d come to realize that I’m using the only practical method of assuring some fairness and that’s to require proof in the form of documentation from one party or verification by the other party.
Roslyn Holcomb
April 19
2:33 am
When I filed a complaint against a publisher, I was required to provide documented evidence (of which I had reams). That publisher became an NR. I have no idea what they are now.
veinglory
April 20
2:42 am
Re “Authors don’t (and, for that matter, can’t) “campaign” for EPPIE votes, which are cast by EPIC’s author members. And I’m not even one of those!”
EPPIES are judged anonymously with numerical ratings from mutliple judges rather than a simple vote for or against. This is of course a labor intensive process with its own issues, but assures that decisions are made by people who have a copy of the book itself to base their decisions on.