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Yet another Madris DePasture tirade to her authors.

You’d think she’d make up her mind one way or the other on the subject of editing:

The question of editing continues to surface. We EDIT the books. We Have ALWAYS edited the books. We will ALWAYS edit the books. The COMPANY’S reputation is based on the quality of books that we release And we are just as careful in guarding–make that MORE careful in Guarding the reputation of this company than many of the authors who Write for this company.

In the simplest terms, we do not ACCEPT books for publication unless We deem them to be an asset to this company to begin with. Once we Have accepted a book for publication, it becomes the company’s Decision when the book has been edited sufficiently to be deemed Worthy, by this company, of publication.

It is the author’s responsibility to submit to the company their Product already polished and edited to the best of their ability. We Do not teach writing at NCP. We do not accept books for publication That are not already deemed publishable. Authors seeking critiquing Services should do so before they submit the final product.

So basically, authors have to make sure they do their own editing, even though she says that NCP have always edited their books.

Yep, clear as mud.

Thanks to you-know-who for the heads up.

17 Comments »

  • It is the author’s responsibility to submit to the company their Product already polished and edited to the best of their ability.

    This is absolutely true.

    However….just about any writer is going to tell you that too often they aren’t the best editors of their own books. Little words like too, the, of, etc can be left out, but our brains see what we meant to say, not what was said. The wrong words get used, like live instead of life and the same thing happens…we see what we meant to say, not what is on the paper.

    Maybe some of their authors make enough to use a professional editing service on each book going into epub. However, I suspect many, many, many don’t.

    So I’m kind of curious~if a NYT bestseller decided to write a book for them and it was well-written but did some EDITING, since that is what an EDITOR does, would they reject it since it wasn’t ready for publication?

    I generally try to keep my personal opinions out of messes like these, but at this point, I’d strongly advise authors to think twice before submitting anything to NCP.

    Sorry, NCP, but you’re a publishing company. Unless you consider yourself a vanity press, then it’s your responsibility to work with your authors to get a book ready for publication, including that very-important polishing.

    There is huge difference between polishing a well written book and getting a critique on one that still needs a lot of work.

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  • Karma
    April 6
    2:06 pm

    Although I agree with the statement that all work submitted should be as clean as possible, it’s insanity to believe that, no matter how clean a manuscript, ANY author…ANY…does NOT need editing! Even Stephen King and Anne Rice need editors (although they probably don’t receive as much editing as they should…sorry, but some of their work could have been trimmed judiciously). Nevertheless, no one is perfect, things get missed, whether it be words, spelling errors, logic problems with storylines, etc. To think that any company would read something, think it “good enough,” and put it out is just plain stupid, unless they are a vanity publisher. I think customers spending hard-earned $$$ are worth having at least one editor make a pass through a manuscript before it’s put on sale. Jeez, Louize! And any authors who think their work does NOT need an editor is sadly mistaken.

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  • Why the random caps? It’s hard enough to follow the convoluted and illogical meandering without them, really.

    And… if NCP won’t take anything that is not “worthy” of publication, already polished and edited and what not… then what do they do to earn their cut?

    Because my understanding, limited as it is, was that publishers keep the lion’s share of the profit because they work for it–you know, editing? polishing?

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  • Was that letter written exactly as reproduced here, with incorrect capitalization? For example, “We Do not teach…” and “…deemed Worthy”?

    If so, I believe the thing speaks for itself.

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  • Yep- copied exactly. No edits. Why, when this woman wrote to my lawyer she said there was no “breech” in contract.
    ‘Nough said?

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  • Thanks, Ellen. I figured that was the case, but I wanted to verify it.

    ‘Nough said, indeed.

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  • I was going to comment on the random caps thing, but it looks like it’s already been said. Yikes! Speaking of no edits….

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  • “We always edit books…” This made me chuckle. Here’s part of an email I received (copied with permission) from an editor NCP fired last year. Enjoy! It’s an eye-popper!

    “It’s my belief that I was fired because they couldn’t handle actually getting manuscripts to me to work on, and it was too damn embarrassing. (AND they don’t think that edits matter. Also I’m pretty sure that they never had their own books edited, one of the ways to figure out which pseudonyms were theirs.) In December 2006 to January 2007 I was totally unable to get Andrea to send me any manuscripts to work on, and contacted Madris to see if she could either send me manuscripts or get Andrea to do so. But no… Finally around January 21st Andrea contacted me and sent me some work, after about 6 weeks of no contact. Then Madris withheld a paycheck, even though I was a W-4 employee (at their insistence), because “I hadn’t done any work” (which is totally illegal).

    I gritted my teeth and continued, but the same thing happened again about two months later around the time when they went off to the RT convention. No work, no contact, no email, no paychecks… It was pretty clear that they were falling apart and that the job was doomed. Finally, after no responses to many many emails, Madris sent me a couple sentence note saying that they wouldn’t be using me any more because I was too expensive. And threw in the complaint that I had used track changes even though she said not to. (God, she must be stupid. It’s not at all hard to make sure that track changes don’t show up in a clean copy. I TOLD her how to do it…) Firing me with negative 6 weeks notice broke I don’t know how many labor laws, but since they didn’t pay me that much–$250 per week for editing about 50,000 words, which frankly was quite a bit higher than most e-publishing editors get–it wasn’t worth pursuing, since they’re in Georgia and I’m in upstate New York.

    I figured out a long time ago that Kaitlyn O’Connor was Madris, and for a while there was a notice about the suit over the “Bad Boys” thing which named Andrea as Jaide Fox. Their behavior on so many levels was unethical and extroardinarily tacky. They were constantly sending checks late, or they’d go missing entirely. Madris would replace them sometimes, but once or twice she refused to replace a missing check. I communicated with the other editor those times that Andrea disappeared, and she hadn’t heard from her either. So you know no editing was getting done…”

    Scary stuff, huh!?

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  • Anon76
    April 6
    4:19 pm

    Shiloh followed the same thought process I did. There is a difference between “critique” and “edit”. One is an estimate, and the other is to prepare for publication.

    One would hope that the head of a publishing house would understand the difference, but…you know how that goes. Wish in one hand and shite in the other…

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  • Rosemary Laurey
    April 6
    5:18 pm

    However….just about any writer is going to tell you that too often they aren’t the best editors of their own books.

    I’ll echo that.

    No matter how many times I go over, redo and rewrite, little things escape the eye. If I sell to any publisher NY house or small press, I darn well expect them to do their share and go over it with a fine tooth comb.

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  • Back when I used to buy from them I found most of the books edited -or well polished, if that’s the right term. But I got really annoyed with the e-books by author Charlotte Boyette Compo. I don’t think the New Concepts editing team (if there was one) even read the damned things before putting them up for sale. Of course the story lines were generally snoozy anyway but still I felt it a disservice to her.

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  • Nora Roberts
    April 6
    6:02 pm

    I’m boggled a publisher doesn’t seem to know the difference between critiquing and editing.

    Also boggled that knowing these posts are being blogged ANYONE writing them wouldn’t proof, therefore making said post as clean as possible.

    My 200th book will be published next year. On every one I did my best to make the ms as clean and polished as possible before submitting. Every one was edited before publication.

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  • It is indeed the author’s responsibility to turn in the highest quality manu possible.

    It is then the editor’s responsibility to polish what is already a strong piece into a brilliant gem.

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  • In the simplest terms, we do not ACCEPT books for publication unless We deem them to be an asset to this company to begin with.

    So why is the crazy bitch streamlining these selected gems off the boards? Sounds like her dosages very on a given time and day.

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  • Linda
    April 6
    8:24 pm

    “we are just as careful in guarding–make that MORE careful in Guarding the reputation of this company than many of the authors who Write for this company.”

    Sure they’re doing an Excellent job of Guarding Their reputation!!1!

    Seriously, what century does this woman live in that she needs to capitalise certain words? Get Thee to a Madhouse, Woman!

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  • Personally, from an objective standpoint, I think Madris made a poor choice of words in saying that NCP won’t accept a manuscript unless it is turned in ‘publishable’.

    IMO, turning in a manuscript that is written and edited to the best of the writer’s ability is ‘publishable’. What I mean by this is, the book is a diamond in the rough and all it takes is a good editor to help the author polish it up.

    In this instance, the question is, what is her definition of publishable?

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  • Ok, I’ve been following these posts for awhile, and I am just agog. Of course, I would expect an author to turn in the best product possible, but please! What exactly is the publishers responsibility, if they aren’t going to help the author to polish their work? Crazy shit here.

    ReplyReply

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