A Cherry Lane Press, which is due to open April 1, I believe. After poking around, I’m almost hoping it’s an April Fool’s Day joke.
Usually I don’t say anything, but this is starting to piss me off. Epublishing is the business I’m in (as a subcontractor, of course), and things like this make that business look bad. It also takes advantage of desperate writers who don’t have the ability or the confidence to deal with an established, legit company.
This would be like some guy looking at my husband (who holds a Master Electrical license) and saying, “Hmm…he’s got some cool toys and ATVs and sleds and his wife’s got a ’67 Mustang. I’m going to try that.” So he goes to Home Depot, buys a reel of 10-2, some wire nuts and an amp probe and slaps “Electrical Contractor” on the side of his wife’s minivan.
Then some woman who doesn’t want to deal with an electrical contractor who’s running a legitimate business and has overhead and wait times calls this chump up, doesn’t check his credentials or his liability, and likes his cheap price. You know what? Sure, you got your service upgraded, but don’t come crying to me when your house burns to the ground.
The news reports an electrical fire, and everybody rolls their eyes and tsk tsks “those effin’ electricians”.
Based on the website—the official calling card and public face of this publisher—this is not somebody I would trust with my work. This is not a publisher concerned about making a good impression or putting forth the best work possible. This looks like another person with a website and a shopping cart who’s going to make a quick buck turning out ebooks other people have written. If you do it anyway—if you sign with this publisher because EC and Samhain and Loose-ID rejected you and you desperately want to call yourself published and have a cover to put on your website—don’t cry when your house burns down.
(Black border around screenshots mine)
Sorry for the missing graphics, but after five minutes that’s all the page would load. When your typo is big and front and center—and your promo slogan—it doesn’t bode well.
S&M and bondage are “exceptable”? This is one of the many spelling, grammar and punctuation errors you find if you have the patience to browse around the exceptionally slow-loading site.
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There are two other typos in that second shot other than “exceptable.” Ahem. Illigal and beastiality?
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This is the regisrant listed as the owner of the domain name, cherrylanepress.com via dnsstuff.com
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This should be posted on Dear Author and/or The Smart Bitches.
:rulez:
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What about “depaved” acts?
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I missed that one, but then I don’t see well!
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necrophilia is spelled wrong too.
sad that I know that. :shrug:
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Depaved kind of amused me. :groucho:
And it’s like a word search game, only for typos. One of the reasons I’m hoping it’s some kind of joke meant to waste the time of others for somebody’s sick amusement. This can’t possibly be serious.
Can it?
:gaah:
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This is the regisrant listed as the owner of the domain name, cherrylanepress.com via dnsstuff.com
I’d almost rather publish with somebody looking for a quick, easy buck than a frustrated writer looking to publish her own stories with the ‘self-publishing’ tag.
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Sigh. People will be all over it in droves because they’ll contract books in three minutes. It’s the same old story – bad spelling and all.
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I wonder if “depaved” means you’re tearing up the streets instead of the sheets?
:wtf:
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You’re right lots of typos, thanks for pointing that out. I will admit to my grammar/spelling issues, that’s why I hired an editor, guess I should have had her proof the site, which BTW is a work in progress. I am not being snide please don’t think I am. I have SPD and often overlook things others wouldn’t and I have worked with great publishers and editors who have taken the time to overlook this short in my brain. I often laugh about my grammar and spelling myself. I have never tried to make myself sound smarter than anyone else. I love to write and love the publishing industry, which is why I have hired an awesome staff. As for making a quick buck, that’s not possible with e-books. It is a budding industry and very few people make money. In fact I am working with someone who has great ideas and is helping out a lot with Cherry Lane. I wanted to cry when I read this and I know as an author I should have thicker skin, but I thought we were all in this together and I am a nice person and usually take the time to point out a persons mistakes not bash them online. I will proceed with the great editor I have, the wonderful writers who BTW have great stories and open on April 1st. I don’t force anyone to submit and believe me I know no one has ever had typos in 17,000 words right. I see my author site has been listed here go ahead and look at the great reviews I have gotten on my new book, listen to the interview I gave where I had no problem laughing at myself for my grammar spelling issues. Talk to the other authors who know about my SPD and how hard it is for me to even get through writing one book. Please keep in mind though that you can’t judge a book by its cover or a site by its typos.
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Please keep in mind though that you can’t judge a book by its cover or a site by its typos.
Are you serious? Do you really believe that?
Words are what we do. And when we want somebody to pay for them, then absolutely they’re going to judge us by our covers and typos and misspellings.
Talk to the other authors who know about my SPD and how hard it is for me to even get through writing one book.
Then I congratulate you on your writing accomplishments and your great reviews. But I have to wonder why, then, you would undertake being a book publisher. And why, when you are aware and admit spelling and grammar aren’t your strong suit, you wouldn’t have had your editor proof the site. You never get a second chance to make a first impression, if you’ll excuse the cliche.
And to be honest, you will need a thick skin, because epublishing has become a very cynical place to be. We’ve seen too many poorly built, ill-captained ships go down, taking authors down with them. And a lot of those publishers shared personal information about health problems and disabilities and family issues in an effort to keep the critics at bay, so you might meet with some skepticism.
Unfortunately, for the last two days, the only thing anybody has had with which to form an opinion of your business is that website, which not only contains typos, spellings, and grammatical errors, but is literally riddled with them.
If you’re sincere in wanting to make a go of it I’d, quite frankly, yank that website until you have a professional, attractive one ready to go, then relaunch.
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Oh, and as for:
“…I thought we were all in this together…”
No. This is not a family. Not the Brady Bunch or the Partridge Family. My job is to write the best book I can. Your job is to market and sell that book to readers. That website is not going to sell books to readers because they have no reason not to think the same lack of attention will be given to the books as to the website. Therefore, you’re not a business I would consider doing business with.
It’s not personal. It’s not about being nice. It’s about a professional relationship resulting in publishing the best book possible and mutual financial success.
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We have pulled the site, I’m having the editor redo everything and reopening soon. For the record my struggles with SPD have been very well recorded as I club lead a board for it, have belonged to adult spd share for years and have often discussed it in interviews. There are too many adults who miss out on oppertunities to follow their dreams because of this and I refuse to allow it to hold me back. I am in no way using it as an excuse as I have said for many years how hard things come for me. Let me tell you how my critique group suffered lol. Thankfully I have worked with great publishers and editors who have taken the time to work through my issues and looked past my mistakes at the writing. I am far from stupid, but sometimes things get jumbled in my brain to say the least.
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For the record, nobody cares.
I don’t mean to be cruel, but we don’t. What we care about is that your site looks professional and that there is some indication in it that your authors’s books will sell to the public. It’s not just the grammar and spelling on your site that’s the problem. Sentences like “Remember it’s an editors job to fix your work” do not inspire confidence; it is not an editor’s job to “fix” the work, but to edit it.
You can come and explain your problem all you like, and some of us might be sympathetic. Others would ask why in the world you opened the site as it was knowing that you have these issues. Others might simply be readers who neither know nor care who you are; they’re going to look at that site and run.
Explaining the problem does not fix it. If you want to be treated like a professional you need to act like one.
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As others have said, I’m sorry for the publisher’s health problems, not sure what it is, but bad health is a bummer. But it’s not an excuse for a shoddy representation of what is supposed to be a professional aspect.
And it’s true, your authors aren’t going to join your house because they feel sorry for you – they are going to want to know that you will help their book be the best it can be, and if you can’t even edit your own shop window it doesn’t fill them with confidence to submit their books to you.
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“Remember it’s an editors job to fix your work†do not inspire confidence; it is not an editor’s job to “fix†the work, but to edit it.
Too true. The last thing an epub needs to do is encourage authors to send in messy manuscripts believing the editor will ‘make everything all better’.
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The only two times that I’ve been involved with a publisher who said we were all one big happy family, that we were all friends and all in it together, those publishers ended badly. Triskelion and NBI.
Never, ever again. The publishers I’m with now are professionals, and they don’t presume on me and I don’t presume on them. The fact that I like them, get on with them and work happily with them isn’t because we are friends, or even family (got one of those, don’t want another one, thanks), but because we know our responsibilities and we meet them. I provide a proofed manuscript on time and they edit it, give me cover art, and sell it for me.
And I’ve never been so happy with the publishers I’m with. Yes, we have friendly chats, but that’s beside the point. That’s not what either of us is there for.
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I sympathize *and* empathize with this entrepreneur’s health issues. Moreover, I applaud her conviction that they will not hold her back from pursuing her dreams. Brava.
But. Placing myself in the shoes of someone who is seeking publication, I would look at all of this and think, “Now should there be a problem with my book all I’m going to get is a bunch of excuses based upon well-documented health and business start-up growing pains. Pass.” She’s laid out up front what she’s going to say when she hits a rough patch (as all business do, fledgling or not) and that is a huge red flag for me.
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Add me to the list of writers who don’t want to belong to some big happy writing family.
You can’t choose your family but you can choose who to submit your work to. It’s a lovely thing, yes?
I’ll take a professionally run pub over a ‘family-like’ pub any day of the week.
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Professionalism shouldn’t be handled any differently with an epub as it is with any other kind of business. Don’t think I need to go into too much detail there. It’s just the truth.
Impressions are important. The wording, actions, display–anything done by the company or representatives of that company directly impact consumers or those willign to do business with them. Whether its consciously done or not, those initial impressions help people make decisions on who to do business with and what kind of product to expect. If a website for a publisher is riddled with typos, then the message is that their products would be just as “messy”. If the art is cheesy or in poor taste (not saying it is…I didn’t see the site), my immediate thought would be “what is the cover art going to look like?” If the person in charge is already coming up with excuses for mistakes or oversights, are these excuses goin to come up when it’s time to be paid royalties? Can I trust that a book will be published when scheduled? Will it be edited properly?
It’s hard to be honest without sounding harsh, but I’ll just say MANY authors are once, twice, even thrice bitten and now completely shy of start-up e-pubs. To be a successful epub you not only have to be on your game, you’ve got to be ahead of it and unfortunately, the examples shown here don’t offer me much hope for Cherry Lane Press.
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It’s an insult to everyone living with a disability to hide behind one. Plenty of people with SPD live life without excuses.
If you are confused about SPD, please visit The Sensory Processing Disorder Foundation: http://www.spdfoundation.net/
So cheap and unfair! Apologies to those who aren’t hiding behind their challenges and whining would be nice.
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I am not hiding behind anything. The only thing I even said about SPD is I often overlook things because of it! I took full blame for not seeing the mistakes I should have. Oh yeah and I said how hard it is for me to get through a book, what does that have to do with the site? I’m sorry you feel as though I am hiding behind a disablity and for the record I councel parents who have children with SPD. I club lead a board for children and adults with SPD and NEVER do I take it lightly or would be accused of hiding behind it. I love the fact that I am a little diffrent and I think that shines through in my personality. And for the record as well I not only have SPD but three of my children. Oh and the second time I mentioned SPD I was hoping people would look into it as I work daily to raise awareness for it.
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First of all, I do applaud the fact that with SPD that you have managed to write and publish, however, you of all people should be aware that some times those with certain disorders have to use more diligence with things like this. I am not at all say that your spelling should be better than mine, but come on, spell check. It would have caught several of the mistakes.
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.
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This is seriously starting to remind me of high school.
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.
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Devon said: “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.”
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.
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I just have one question for Cherry Lane/Steph, If you aren’t hiding behind your SPD, why did you bring it up in the first place?
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Because I knew I would make spelling errors responding. Which I will no longer be doing.
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,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.
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.
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Rather than retyping it all in my own words, I’m pretty much going to have go with “What Fae said”.
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.
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Pardon the outburst, but…
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.
I make my issue public and alert the people I know who may use that business themselves–neighbors, friends, etc.
And there’s nothing mean about that.
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Why on earth do people keep harping on “discrete and private�
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.