“Starting rumours have consequenses. All I said is to be an adult about it. All I did was point out that this thread is nothing more than gossip and hope for revenge…”
Monday, May 26, 2008Posted in: Authors behaving like twits, e-book publishers behaving badly?, e-pubbed authors behaving like fucktards?
Tags:Will they ever learn?
Remember my April 10th post, where I was sent an e-mail alleging that Kristi Studts, disgraced ex-owner of Triskelion Press may have opened up a new publishing company under the name of Mystic Moon Press?
Well, I had the CEO of Mystic Press over on the blog last night to set the record straight. The problem? She also sent across a number of her henchmen authors to tell me off for spreading scurrilous rumours. (Yes, I know we’ve been here before, but bear with me.)
Anyway, Ceo Jennifer Mitchell wrote:
Hello My name is Jennifer Mitchell, I am the CEO and owner of Mystic Moon Press.
All I can say is that Kristi has nothing to do with our company other then she is a cover artist. It saddens me to know that by hiring a cover artist who claims to be male and involved with a woman I have garnered bad press because of it.
Those that doubt please feel free to check out my personal writing webpage www.jenniferraemitchell.com
or by all means go to Writing.com which is where I got my start www.writing.com/author/gen13
both places have pictures of myself and my family and my book covers.
I originally started this company with a good friend of mine, who has passed away, her name was Keeley McGreggor, to help me run the company now is an author by the name of Kristina Chartrand.
I am offended that I have not had one query to the matter of the real identity of Magickal Media is to myself or Kristina, there is no fact to base this on other then that Kristi “Magickal Media” is a cover artist for me and my company. At this point without knowing the truth I will stand behind my employee, but if I do find out that I have been decieved then I will take the appropriate actions.
It saddens me that things in the E-publishing business have gotten a bad name. Mystic Moon Press, was a dream of my dear friend and one that I want to continue to share. We are small, new and family like. We endevour to treat our authors fairly and I will go to bat for any of them.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Mitchell
CEO of Mystic Moon Press, LLC
jen@mysticmoonpress.com
You’ll note Dear Readers, her use of the phrase “We are small, new, and family like”. This is a familiar refrain is it not?
Anyway, fair enough she wanted to set the record straight, but then Ana Star, one of the authors at MMP also posted:
Hi everyone,
My name is ana star and I’ve been a published author for almost a year with mystic moon press. I never had any problems what so ever with this company. Alot of the authors at mmp came from writing.com and some others came from other companies.
As I was reading the comments, there is absolutely no proof as to what you are accusing. Also I am not sure why this post is even here in the first place…sounds like rumours of people who have nothing else better to do than start bs.
Who ever this kristy is, she isnt in your life anymore so be a grown up and move on…
As for the covers, all covers of every company look alike. If you go to fictionwise, you have the largest example of similar covers. Everyone uses the same images and same programs to make them…
I have no doubt that Jennifer Mitchell put out a call to arms for her authors to come over and give the blogger what-for, for spreading malicious gossip, but as per usual, they’ve gone off the deep end without actually, A, doing any research of their own, and B, without taking the time to find out the kind of blog this is. Happy days for Karen.
Now, let me address that fucktard Ana Star.
Ana, you are indeed a fucktard. You know why? Because after all that’s happened with e-publisher after e-publisher imploding and screwing over their authors royally, you dare come on here and say “Who ever this kristy is, she isnt in your life anymore so be a grown up and move on…”
That statement, my dear friend, ensures that you wear the crown of Fucktard of The Week. You must be so proud.
This statement:
As I was reading the comments, there is absolutely no proof as to what you are accusing. Also I am not sure why this post is even here in the first place…sounds like rumours of people who have nothing else better to do than start bs.
Merely cements your fucktardly status.
I wouldn’t be so incredulous had she not admitted in a later post to having already been shafted and “taken advantage by a company who turned out to be fraudulent.”
Loyalty is an admirable trait. Blind loyalty such as the one that she displays, will no doubt ensure that she will be fucked over more than once, by her present/future e-publishers.
Anyway, somebody called Jim Richards, (another one of Dear Jen’s authors) also had his tuppence worth, but he stated his piece and nothing in his comment annoyed me. Although, if they ever go tits-up, you know I’ll be reposting his comments right?
Anyway, the original post was a ‘Rumour Has It’ post, with a request for more information. I suspect though that the authors didn’t bother reading it, and just launched straight into their staunch defence of Mystic Moon Press.
Will these people ever learn?
Karen Scott
May 26
11:12 pm
Hey Nora, how’s your hotel doing? Are you rebuilding?
KM
May 26
11:27 pm
I firmly believe that success in this industry is not always a direct relation to talent. However, if after thirty years, the only way you could get published is to sign with a fledgling epub, then perhaps, Ms. Holley, you just aren’t that good.
Shayne
May 26
11:58 pm
Was that trip really necessary, KM?
Ann Somerville
May 27
12:06 am
I find it fascinating in these discussions how one can come into it with one possible reason to avoid a press / author / organisation and come out with quite firm, but rather different reasons for doing so. I don’t know if this publisher is crooked or not, but so far, the utter absence of common or business sense, combined with blatant contempt for the English language, makes me want to stay far far away from the company AND its products.
As one person with a permanent limp from shooting myself in the foot, to another – Jennifer, Shiloh D, Charlotte and the rest of you, the time has come to cast away the shovels and use the rope ladders. That hole is already deep enough.
Nora Roberts
May 27
12:43 am
~Hey Nora, how’s your hotel doing? Are you rebuilding~
The crew’s made tremendous, even amazing progress on the rebuild since the fire. We’re hoping to open by Christmas.
It’s not impossible we’ll make it!
AztecLady
May 27
1:00 am
Ms Holley, we are reading your comments. We are not changing our minds because of them. Different things.
Of course what you do is your business, and you have every right to make whichever decisions you feel like making. I don’t believe anyone here argued against that.
However, please do keep in mind that what works for you (at least for now, here’s hoping it holds that way) probably won’t work for many, if not most, other writers aspiring to publication.
Many have the scars to prove that no indeedy, it doesn’t work.
So, for other aspiring authors who want to be published for different reasons, and through a different process than you, these kind of cautionary tales, and this information, are necessary.
Shiloh Walker
May 27
2:01 am
Man, I hate it when I feel like I need to inject a note of reason… but…
guys, Ms Holley really hasn’t done anything to deserve some of the mud being slung at her.
She said her piece, politely and without all the melodrama that some use. She hasn’t backtracked on anything. When people took exception to the ‘grammar’ comment, she read what they said, gave it some thought and offered an explanation as to why she made it, one that made sense.
She hasn’t been snotty, thoughtless or condescending.
She voiced support for her pub, but she didn’t do it in that annoying, OMG how frickin dare anybody besmirch my beloved pubbie! strident squeal.
I do think she’d be wise to investigate her chosen field a little more, but it’s her career, not mine.
All in all, she’s offered a professionalism some of her MMP fellows have lacked and IMO, deserves a bit more respect than she’s been shown. She demonstrated respect, she should receive it back in kind.
KM, that strikes me as rather harsh.
Some very talented writers struggle their whole lives and never get pubbed.
I definitely agree that getting pubbed isn’t JUST about talent. A lot of it has to do with timing and luck-getting the book in front of the right person at the right time.
JR Ward’s books-six, seven years ago, there’s a chance they wouldn’t have been pubbed. Or put in front of a different editor, that same chance exists. Timing. Timing and the right person make all the difference.
I had a book, a very important one for my career, that was passed on by every editor right up until the last one took a look. I’d already made up my mind that if that book didn’t sell, I was going to have to set writing aside for a while due to financial issues. I was going back to college and that, combined with my young kids, would have put seriously crimped any writing plans.
If she hadn’t liked it, believed in it, I might not be where I am. I’m still on the lower half of the ladder, but I’m on it-in huge part because of luck and timing.
Taking a dig at Ms. Holley about her struggle to get pubbed strikes me as needlessly cruel.
Nonny
May 27
2:25 am
Shiloh… as always, on the mark and full of class. I’ve nothing more to add to what you said except to follow it up with “Word!”
Charlotte Holley
May 27
2:39 am
Thanks, Ms. Walker. I’d decided to shut my mouth and go away permanently, but I guess curiosity won out and I came back to see what else had been said. I’m glad I at least got to read your kind comments (and the nice little aside from Karen. It wasn’t wasted on me, and I also hope I don’t ever regret my lack of research!). I probably could have been published any number of times, but I lost confidence after rejection #4 and just started working harder to make a living with my mass communications/advertising degree in the rat race some people refer to as the “real” world, since I had people who depended on me to make a living for them.
To Ms. Sutherland: I wasn’t using my comment about not paying for publishing my work as a defense for my publisher. I was referring to the point that I have nothing to lose by trusting MMP with my work. If it sells, that is great and something I look forward to very much. I never said I wasn’t interested in sales. If I wasn’t interested in selling my books and being able to sell more in the future, why would I bust my buns trying to promote my work? So far, I’ve been promoting so hard I haven’t had time to finish book three. It’s hard work when you are a new novelist, no matter how old you are, especially a new novelist with a new company and no agent. MMP might not make it, but I have to promote them if I am going to promote myself, since the success of one is tied to the success of the other at this point.
Thanks for all the food for thought, and especially thanks to the ones who didn’t shoot me down just because I am in the “other” camp!
Charlotte
veinglory
May 27
2:41 am
Romce small presses are giving a lot of people some great opportunities, but also a lot of grief. It’s a bit of a minefield. I started erecsite.com to try and point out the better selling epublishers and am in the process of marking which ones offer print.
ana star
May 27
2:50 am
When I said this:
Who ever this kristy is, she isnt in your life anymore so be a grown up and move on…
I did not mean any disrespect, if it came across as this then I apologize.
So first let me explain what I meant.
Yes I was taken advantages and yes I was angry and hurt. But I moved on, I don’t go around spreading rumours about companies whom I might think be fraudulent. If I hadn’t moved on, I wouldn’t be a published author right now. There seems to be a lot of grudges concerning that person and, hey that’s your business, but I thought you guys were writing to know the truth. Yet when the top of mystic moon press comes to set things straight, all of you just joined in to bash. To me you were not interested in the truth, to me it sounded like people in search of a guilty person to hold all the blame.
Now I understand that this was all about warning writers against a potential scam. There is another site like that called predators and editors. And I agree that we should all be careful but when we are unsure, we can’t go around distorting a rumour and making it into a fact. When I responded, I wasn’t criticizing Karen but some of the comments left. She posted a rumour and some of the comments made it a fact.
The only thing I don’t understand is how far this all degenerated. I thought that this particular blog was about discovering if Kristi was the owner of mysticmoonpress and from jen’s comment she cleared that up. Now whether Kristi is behind magickal media cover designs is not yet confirmed nor denied. And I’m sure as soon as Jen knows she will probably announce it.
Aside from the last post Shiloh walker made, I didn’t see anything making sense, to me it was bickering and throwing all kinds of slanders and blame…yet evading the true reason why we are discussing this blog.
Shiloh Walker
May 27
2:55 am
Oh, I’m always full of something. I dunno if it’s class, hot air, fill in the blank… 😉
Blogs are like crack. I swear, I have to limit myself or I’d never get work done. I’m playing more today because it’s a holiday, but be warned…curiosity cripples the writer.
Shiloh Walker
May 27
3:15 am
The sad fact is that in part it degenerated because some decided to dive in with their loyalty banners waving and they didn’t take a moment to pause and think about how they SHOULD react, versus how they wanted to-or even if they should comment at all.
I’ve had to bite my tongue on more than one occasion, on this blog, on other blogs, when things have been said that either I knew weren’t true, or they were said in a manner that offended me some level.
But wading in blindly does me no good.
Without objectivity, all a professional does is damage their professional rep.
Readers, and many of the comment here do come from readers, don’t have to worry about pissing off the public.
Industry professionals do.
Passive Observer
May 27
4:46 am
No agenda, other than to expand peoples minds. My point was to provide information and allow you all, Karen’s people and the Mystic people to make up your own minds. Of course, I was forced to defend myself, and expect this post to be deleted within minutes of being posted, so I will not be back.
Make up your own minds, don’t let me, Karen, or any of the other people posting on here.
Best regards everyone and goodbye.
Julie Leto
May 27
4:52 am
Anyone else wondering how telling another adult to “grow up” means NO disrespect?
Ana, I think I understand your need to back up and retract some of your statements…and if that’s what you’re doing, then do it. Don’t qualify it with “if it came across that way…” How else could it come across?
I still think you’re missing the point…a publisher is, by definition, a professional. Whether or not the rumor was true (clearly, it is not), the publisher’s response was unprofessional. Had cooler heads prevailed, she might have written something like this:
It has come to our attention that rumors abound that connect me with the former owner of the now defunct Triskelion Press. Please know that I am in no way affiliated with this person. I appreciate your interest in alerting readers to my publisher, which has X book coming out next month…etc.
Or some such. No emotion except excitement and professionalism. If the publisher cannot act with a cool head, then perhaps this business is not for them.
Look, we all get riled up from time to time, but a publisher is in a unique position, especially with a new venture. Every word, every press release, every piece of code on the website will be scrutinized by potential customers as they decide whether or not to do business with this outfit. A new publisher cannot afford to put out anything negative to the public, even when the negative is tossed at them. It’s just basic business sense.
That’s what most of the people here were saying.
I also want to send Charlotte Holley a big cyber-hug for being so cool headed. I did attack your statement, Ms. Holley, and I for one am glad you came back and clarified. Thank you.
kseriphyn
May 27
5:48 am
Came back to see how research on this matter was progressing, my has it progressed a lot. I do agree with some of the comments raised here especially the one above me where it says:
I’m a book cover designer (although I have dabbled with writing but won’t go there as I’m so bad at it and prefer to be a designer) so agree level headed statements with next-to-perfect grammar, at least, is important for credibility.
I must admit, I’m surprised and somewhat disappointed at one or two of the Mystic Moon Press author comments I’ve read here but can forgive them as being “in the heat of the moment” and passionate about the publisher they trust.
For my part, I’d like to thank a few of the commentators for their diplomatic responses which has made me think over a few things. I’m deeply sad authors were taken for granted by the said company (won’t stir up more emotion than necessary), even more sadden by the fact a fellow cover artist is potentially behind this grief.
I hope my earlier comment wasn’t seen as offensive too, as I was only stating that the company was uniquely managed my Jennifer (I call her Jen) and was doing well with real authors (I linked to one of the author’s sites where she is most active at).
I also hope, as Mystic Moon Press evolves (I have trust in this), you would one day see this as a hiccup and, at the end of the day, writers are purely passionate creatures who can sometimes get carried away with emotion and miss the fine points.
PS: Thank you for allowing us involved with Mystic Moon Press the opportunity to speak our minds. In this sense, you have been reasonable and kind.
kseriphyn
May 27
6:04 am
Opps! Should have been “managed by Jennifer”. As I said, I’m a designer…
Emmy
May 27
8:35 am
Few comments.
Charlotte Holley? Classy. Never heard of her before, but I’m all kinds of impressed. Doesn’t happen often.
I’m all about debating different viewpoints *weg*, but name calling is really uncalled for. If you can’t get your point across without punching someone in the face, don’t get in the conversation. It just messes up what could have been an interesting, enlightening discussion.
Yay! Keeping on eye on this one. Looks like I might get to take a spring vacay.
Karen Scott
May 27
9:11 am
Oh that’s wonderful to hear! I hope the other people who’s buildings were affected are doing ok too.
Passive, that comment can stay because it didn’t twiddle my ‘Troll’ button.
Charlotte, hugs from me too, but you really need to do your research in future, otherwise you will get shafted at some point.
Ana, that thread was six weeks old. Everybody had more or less forgotten about Mystic Moon Press. In fact, until I woke up yesterday morning, if you’d have asked me who they were, I wouldn’t have had the foggiest. I blog, and I move on, unless I’m given further blog fodder, which your CEO and yourself, happily gave me.
Had you guys taken the time to explore this blog before waving your sticks, you’d have known that all you were doing was providing an excuse for a blog post that wouldn’t end with you guys looking good.
Like Julie Leto already suggested, a simple innocuous, ‘no Kristi Studts does not own Mystic Moon Press, and we will investigate the Magickal Media matter’ would have just led me to either not post at all, or just put up some obligatory public information announcement. End of matter.
Your ridiculous comments telling the Trisk authors to basically ‘get over it’, and the subsequent cheerleading for Mystic Moon Press was like waving a red rag in front of a bull.
Michelle Marquis
June 1
5:28 pm
Hello everyone (hugs to you Karen over that horrible baby thing)
I write for Mystic Moon Press as well as Whiskey Creek Torrid, Double Dragon Ebooks, and Amira. MMP sends me big checks that cleared the bank, great covers, and excellent editing.
’nuff said.
Warmest regards to all
Michelle Marquis
Tony Butler
June 1
5:57 pm
Seems to me that Karen’s getting her knickers in a twist over MMP because she has finally been exposed as a fake.
I too, have been and are currently published by Jen who has delivered everything she said she would.
So, why the extended beef and your gutter language, Karen? Is your vocabulary so limited you cannot express yourself without resorting to obscenities?
You really are pathetic little girl – grow up!
Tonyb
Karen Scott
June 1
6:31 pm
Sorry Tony Butler, you’ll have to explain that comment to me because I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Apparently so Tony Butler. You should see some of my other posts. I use the word ‘twat’ and everything. My mother would be so disappointed if she knew how much of a waste my university education has been. Sorry mum.
I know, I really should act more mature. You know what, I think I wanna be just like you, and write for MMP when I grow up. Do you think that would increase my maturity quotient, and lead to a successful career?
I fear I’m a total lost cause, but you know what I’m good at though? I’m good at getting apparently perfectly sane individuals, to visit my pathetic blog, and tell me how immature I am.
Now that’s talent.
Welcome to my humble home, fucktard.
Shannon Stacey
June 1
7:12 pm
Seems to me that Karen’s getting her knickers in a twist over MMP because she has finally been exposed as a fake.
A fake…what?
That’s the funniest thing I’ve read today.
Michelle Marquis
July 18
12:08 am
Well Karen I hate to say you were right but you were…right that is. Looks like JR Mitchell has ripped off her authors, taken the money and run. We are all really pissed.
Spread the word not to buy from Mystic Moon Press
Have a better weekend than I’m having
Michelle
Mireya
July 19
12:20 pm
The word seems to be spreading around. I’ve been finding blog entries mentioning the problems at Mystic Press.
http://www.erecsite.com/2009/07/smokey-moon.html
Shiloh Darke
July 19
12:38 pm
Yeah. . . We’ve been had. Please help us spread the word. It makes me feel very stupid for defending them back when this forum was actually open.
Karen Knows Best
October 4
4:52 pm
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