Because then the issue can be dealt with quickly and under the rug and nobody will be the wiser. That’s the only reason I can think of.

Why on earth do people keep harping on “discrete and private”?

It’s a company. A business. It’s *not* a social occasion with guests and host where it’s all about good manners and being nice.

If I have an issue with Walmart–or the little mom and pop store in the corner–I don’t place my complaint discretely out of sight of the other costumers, so as not to offend/insult/humiliate/(insert term of choice) the business owners/managers.

And there’s nothing mean about that.

Epublishers and their authors fight for respect every day. That site—which was the only thing I knew about the ‘publisher’—was an embarrassment to her and to epublishing as a whole. It pissed me off. I blogged about.

I don’t have a responsibility to discreetly tell anybody they’ve got toilet paper on their shoe. My only responsibility here is to the write the best books I can for my readers.

I’m sorry, but as an author the last thing I would have appreciated was all this swept under the rug with a discreet mention to the owner. I like knowing another author has my back, and that this was brought out so that other authors could be made aware of the potential problems with this new publishing house. Because this is a lot of authors’ careers we’re talking about here.

Suppose someone had, instead, emailed the publisher silently and informed them they had a website riddled with more spelling and grammar mistakes than a 4th grade science paper? And the publisher ran spellcheck on the site and put it back up clean. What happens when authors start submitting to that publisher who *still* doesn’t know how to spell or how to form proper sentences? Do you think a polite email is going to teach the publisher professionalism and proper use of the English language? No.

What it would have done is allow a publisher to open that was so shaky it folded in less than a day because the person running it couldn’t handle justified criticism of their website. What it would have done is allow naive unpublished authors to submit to them and never know up front just how shoddy a job they could expect to be done for them.

What about that damage? Much better to point out the obvious pink elephant than to skirt around it and allow someone else to be crushed underfoot.

I understand this person has a disability. That’s very unfortunate. It does not, however, give them a free pass to throw tantrums (see the epic flounce on Dear Author) and be unprofessional and try to start a business they are clearly incapable of handling. I say ‘clearly incapable of handling’ because, in less than 24 hours, this publisher went from trolling author websites and spamming said authors with unsolicited emails, to running away calling us all mean girls and trying to guilt trip everyone with the “You’ve made me lose my joy in writing, I’m never coming back to it, woe!”. That is not the behavior of someone capable of running a business of any kind, so it’s good she found out now, before she duped a bunch a naive authors into believing she could.

Could a simple and discrete mention not have been made to the owner of this site off the main grid? This is someone’s career we’re talking about here. Sure, as writers, its ours too, but consider the courage it takes to give something a try. I think this has turned into something unprofessional. Damage has been done.

An editor is not there to fix the mistakes, and if that is what you think then you seriously need to adjust your perceptions of the publishing industry. I wish you luck. Follow your dreams. Where would any of us be without them, but be better prepared, next time.