Denouncing The Editor
- boycemartin
- Aug 28, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 3, 2022
The following letter was written to the director of a publishing house to have the print version of my book removed from its platforms because it had been uploaded without my permission. The digital version is available here.
28/08/2020
The Director,
[Name of Company,
Address]
Dear Ms […],
Pursuant to our telephone conversation on August 25, 2020, I’m writing to request you have my book Centipede removed from your on-line platforms. I used a hybrid publishing company, […] Inc., for its production which was 100% funded by a grant I received from the […].
One-on-one writing workshops began on Wednesday, April 24, 2019, with the editor and publisher, […], at a mutually agreed upon price for editing services. Communication deteriorated over the length of our working relationship and, from November, 2019, she oftentimes didn’t respond in a timely manner to my questions and sometimes ignored them. In her email communications she’s been condescending, hostile and a bully, and I became apprehensive about speaking to her. In an email on January 22, 2020, she had this to say:
“With regard to disassociating my company from this book product, that’s not my plan. You might not like the way the communication has degenerated, and I don’t like it either. However, you should consider it an opportunity for you to develop the fortitude and personal power so clearly absent from your personality.”
“If you wish me to stop being hostile, as you put it, you should stop behaving as if I am not a business with a system, and that anything goes. I hope you can see by now that anything does not go.”
“Here are my suggestions. I suggest that instead of trying to squirm out of completing a process we have started that you stop wining [sic] and do what is necessary to bring this project to a successful close.”
“The book is still in the assembly line, and there’s nothing you can possibly do about that.”
“I also suggest that you keep your fears, anxieties, emotions in general and personal opinions to yourself. They have no bearing on this project, they have created very bad energy, and I am really not interested in what people think about me.”
I trusted her when she said the publishing contract was “a standard agreement”. Although, I have since been told by a lawyer that it may not be legal.
However, according to the publishing agreement under 4. Style, Price, Promotion, Distribution A. “…The initial publication shall be with a title and price agreed to by the parties in writing.”
The initial [grantor] deadline for the book’s completion was December 31, 2019. I’d gotten an email on January 29, 2020, from Dr. Brito justifying another extension to February 28, 2020. Not having heard from her since her last email, I emailed her on February 24, 2020, to ask what stage she was at with the book, to which she responded saying the book was finished and being uploaded to Print-on-Demand.
She mentioned the price (USD $20, for a 35 page short story trilogy) afterwards at a meeting on February 26, 2020, and I expressed my concerns about it being too high, thinking it would discourage sales in Barbados, especially from Amazon which may add as much as a USD $50 transport fee from the USA. There has been no agreement on the book’s price in writing. Furthermore, there’s been nothing said or written in the contract of a payment schedule and how I would have access to royalty statements during a payment period. I’d imagined that because of the contract’s stipulation that we agree upon a price in writing, we’d have had these discussions prior to the book being uploaded.
I do not know how I am to be paid, but my book has been for sale online since February 28, 2020, at a price to which I did not agree. I sent an email to [The Editor] on March 22, 2020, in an attempt to get her to address these issues, an email to which she never responded. August 28, 2020, will be six months that the book has been online and I am unable to promote it because of the aforementioned circumstances.
Furthermore, on some Amazon sites [The Editor] is listed as the author! (See attached screen shot).
Finally, there also seems to me to be some deceit in her portrayal of her company as being an established one. I think our relationship suffered because she saw my questions as a challenge to that. The grant cheque from [the grantor] had to be returned because they’d addressed it to the company name […] (on the invoice they’d received from her). She then told me that she’d closed the business account and that the cheque had to be made out to her. This is all documented in email exchanges.
Prior to this letter, I had made several attempts to contact [your establishment] about this, but was unable to do so by phone, perhaps due to the lockdown caused by COVID-19.
I am asking that the book be removed from your online platforms so your company avoids potentially being implicated as a facilitator in this breach of contract and so I am not seen to be promoting her services.
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
Best regards,
Martin Boyce
Months after the upload
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