*Read carefully. There’s a poll at the end and free doughnuts blog post links.
Another Secret
I’ve been keeping something from you which was initially the source of anxiety and depression to the point of my not wanting to get out of bed. I’d invested much time and energy only to find myself trapped between betraying my art and myself.
An editor, known henceforth as ‘The Editor’, excluded me from my own book’s preparation process and had it uploaded to online platforms before we’d even discussed how I’d be paid, far less more put it in writing. When I broached this with her, she stopped communicating.
Currently unavailable – DAMN THING DIDN’T EVEN HAVE MY NAME ON THE COVER!
Today – more than a year after speaking to a lawyer who suggested I pay a monthly fee to have her mediate, then became uncontactable when I declined – I make a call and am told the book, Centipede (print version), has been taken down from online platforms.
A god complex is not listed as a mental health illness…. but narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is.
I’m not a psychiatrist, but the reason I’ve kept this to myself and won’t use The Editor’s name is that their history (with myself and others) of similarly irrational behaviour and bouts of seemingly uncontrollable anger suggests a god complex and perhaps other issues. I write about the experience now for two main reasons:
Such behaviour should be exposed to discourage its persistence and to perhaps protect others from it.
As a cautionary tale regarding mixing business and friendship since, believing the latter resulted in me being vulnerable to what you may also consider to be an exploitative contract lacking in good faith. Find a synopsis of what I learned about avoiding a bad publisher here.
Things were Great
I sent The Editor my first short story on March 5, 2019. My first receipt was for payment of three consecutive sessions of one-on-one writing workshops held at the National Library Service (Public Library), beginning April 24, 2019. Subsequently, we were in almost weekly contact: sending edits back and forth and meeting in person to work on my manuscript. She even sent me a manuscript of a book she’d been working on and we talked about dividing my short-stories into five trilogies and a pentology for possible future publications.
“Make the cheque out to me.”
Seven months after that initial email, on the October 2, 2019, I sent an e-mail to her saying the grant I’d applied for had been approved and the grantor required an invoice from her company, since the money would be sent directly to her. The invoice letterhead she gave me for the grantor had no contact information or invoice number which suggested she wasn’t as experienced as I’d thought.
On November 8, 2019, she sent an email to me saying: “The bank did not cash the cheque. They say it needs to have my name on it, not the name of my business.”
This is not a scam
She clarified why the cheque shouldn’t have been made out to her business when it was on the invoice letterhead she’d prepared for the grantor, saying she’d closed her business account.
We agreed to meet at the grantor on November 13, at 10:30 a.m., so she could explain if someone receiving the returned cheque had any questions.
Why have a business and no business account?
Also my friends when I tell them The Editor’s story
The Relationship Sours
Despite the previously agreed upon meeting time, I arrived early. She was hurried, leaving without explaining why she’d not told me she’d no longer be meeting me, having already returned the cheque. I asked if there was something wrong. That led to an argument because I challenged her on her behaviour I’d surmised resulted from her being upset with me for reasons unknown to me. And so it began.
Excluded from the Process
Between November 22, and November 28, 2019, there’s email back and forth in which I remind her I want to be in on the design process and she says:
“I have taken a decision that only J. [The Graphic Designer] and I will have that discussion. The client does not normally attend such meetings. When we have reached a stage in the design process where we are ready to show you the design, I will send you a proof. That’s the standard way it’s done by publishers.” [Perhaps a publishing house, but I’d hired her with the understanding that I wanted to be involved].
My response to that was this email on November 28:
“Hello […],I feel that since our argument you have been treating me differently. You seem slower to respond to my emails (lack of internet last week taken into consideration) which makes me feel like what I am saying has little value to you. When you do respond, you don’t address questions I previously posed as if they don’t deserve an answer and now you’re telling me that you’ll design the cover with J. without my input and send me a proof, not even meet, but send it to me. [It’d been customary for us to meet].I asked that we meet before so we can look at scheduling and you said that you would let me know when. I would like to know when. We really need to meet and talk given our history of my expressing myself in emails in ways you find offensive.”
After that she sent me a number of lengthy emails saying things that seem to me (how do they seem to you?) to be condescending, rude, insulting, bullying and disproportionate in terms of the negative reaction to what I consider imagined offences (see, in the previous link, what I’d said that prompted this first response):
Do you think writing is like masturbation?
“I’m entirely dissatisfied with most of your comments, as well as the absent-mindedness of the email in general.”“What do you think writing is, Martin? Do you think writing is like masturbation? Is writing a process where you play with yourself and feel good? Writing is hard work, which requires mental stamina and commitment […] I have learned from years of doing what I do that unreliable clients waste my time, even if they pay me because there is no guarantee they can or will finish their projects. Why should I put energy into a project that may or may not be completed because the client does not have the discipline, commitment, and fortitude to finish it” [This after no schedule had be proposed by her for editing my manuscript and I’d asked for a month’s break that she was paid for, after 6 months of continuous work].(Excerpt from email The Editor sent on September 19, 2019)
“I have no intention of travelling all the way to UWI [University of the West Indies] just to talk to you about shit that will only annoy me.“
“I have moved to St. Philip, and I have no intention of travelling all the way to UWI just to talk to you about shit that will only annoy me. And if you insist on behaving stupid, I will give you back your money and let you go your way. As I said in my last email, having no client is better than having a bad client.”(Excerpt from an email The Editor sent on November 28, 2019, in response to my request we meet face-to-face because writing is more open to misinterpretation).
The options my brain presented me after reading The Editor’s email
Why not Walk Away?
I often regret not having asked for my money back at this point. However, it was my first grant and the situation only worsened after The Editor had control of the money. While continuing to work with her was not ideal, $BBD 2000 of the grant funding had been allocated to the book interior and exterior design. She had sent me a receipt for $BBD 1000 which was the initial deposit. Since the book was nearing completion, I thought it prudent to wait until I had evidence of the finished product (including both a digital and a printed copy) to send the grantor, to then part ways, naively thinking this was also something she’d want. I mean, we’d have to work together for years promoting it, I was likely to tell the truth about how she’d treated me and I had no intention of going forward with my other work with her.
Slow to Respond
I sent her a link to my author photos on December 2, 2019, to which I got no response.
The next correspondence was received on December 19, 2019, after worrying that, in the interim, work might not have been done on the book. It was this day she sent me a first draft of the book design.
The Editor Walks Out of Meeting
The next time we met was almost a month later, because I was afraid something I might say would provoke her. It was on January 18, 2020, in Cave Shepherd Department Store’s food court. I admitted being afraid to speak to her and her response was, “Good. Maybe that will make you think before you speak to me.”
She called me an idiot and I asked her to lower her voice and stop being hostile. It was then that she got up and walked away.
After I’d not heard from her for a day after she walked out of our meeting, I emailed her offering suggestions on January 22, 2020, about how we could possibly proceed to expedite the book’s production and part ways. She responded on that same day, again in what I considered to be extremely condescending and oftentimes insulting ways, saying things like:
“…so far every suggestion you made has created confusion, particularly in the communication process. I have also asked you to set up a meeting between myself and the Chief Development Officer at [the grantor’s]. That’s all you have to do. Nothing else.” Notes on how best to speak to your client by The Editor – excerpt 1 of email dated January 22, 2020
“Please try to establish within your own consciousness clarity about issues before you speak of them, because you do appear to be unclear about many issues, and it appears to me that the more you think about things, the more unclear you become.” Notes on how best to speak to your client by The Editor – excerpt 2 of email dated January 22, 2020
“However, you should consider it an opportunity for you to develop the fortitude and personal power so clearly absent from your personality“
“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.” Notes on how best to speak to your client by The Editor – excerpt 3 of email dated January 22, 2020
“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.” Notes on how best to speak to your client by The Editor – excerpt 4 of email dated January 22, 2020
“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.” Notes on how best to speak to your client by The Editor – excerpt 5 of email dated January 22, 2020
“If you wish to salvage what has indeed become an irksome communication, I suggest that you stop making personal attacks upon me, and focus your energy on the aspects of the publishing process that concern you directly. The book is still in the assembly line, and there’s nothing you can possibly do about that.” Notes on how best to speak to your client by The Editor – excerpt 6 of email dated January 22, 2020
“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.” Notes on how best to speak to your client by The Editor – excerpt 7 of email dated January 22, 2020
“My energy is focused on producing a high quality product, and that takes most of my energy, and I suggest you stop interrupting. My final suggestion is that you do not reply to this email, but instead stand by for the email which will contain the interview questions for the marketing. It seems to me you are becoming forgetful. You need to notice this and do something about it.” Notes on how best to speak to your client by The Editor – excerpt 8 of email dated January 22, 2020
The Editor Decides the Grantor’s Deadlines
In that meeting she said the grantor’s current deadline “wouldn’t do” because it was arbitrary and she believed they had little knowledge of the publishing process, as if she hadn’t agreed to the previously established contractual deadline of January 30, 2020, and was free to change it at will.
She said in an email dated January 29, 2020:
“You may inform [the grantor] that the reason I set February 28 as the new deadline is because…”
But although she was asked to set a date and justify it, although she set this date of February 28, in an email today February 24 she says:
“[The grantor] looming over your head has been very problematic for this process, because it has forced us to rush a process which normally takes longer than their timeline, and which should have been done in a more studied and careful manner, so do not try to blame me for anything, since I have been very proactive in pushing it through the assembly line in order to get the best product we can in the short time we were given, and my work on your book far exceeds the $500 you paid last year.”
Am I responsible for the prices she set on the services she offers?
Bogus Publishing Agreement
She had smiled in my face and said it was a standard contract and because I trusted her – she’d sent me a manuscript of a book she was writing and she seemed to like my work enough to want to publish more of it – I barely skimmed through it. Only later do I see it’s exploitative nature, phrases like “The Publisher shall have the right, but not the obligation” and “which the Publisher reasonably deems”. However, we’d never talked about the book’s price far less more put it in writing. According to the Publishing Agreement:
“4. Style, Price, Promotion, Distribution
A. The Publisher shall have the right, but not the obligation, to publish and re-publish the Work in such format and style, cover or covers, manner, and advertisement, and at such price, as has been agreed upon between the Publisher and the Author. The initial publication shall be with a title and price agreed to by the parties in writing.”
Book Uploaded Without Permission
I’d gotten an email from her (justifying another extension to February 28, 2020) on January 29, 2020. Not having heard from her since then (!), I ask on February 24, 2020: “What stage are you with the book?”
To which she responds:
“The book is finished and is currently being uploaded to Print-on-Demand.”
You’s uh KANT?!
I could be a KANT too! (My self-control is a strength not a weakness)
Throughout this ordeal I maintain propriety, partly out of concern that I’m dealing with a difficult person I don’t want to trigger further, partly because someone else’s money is involved, but mostly because I am so angry at myself for trusting her. I say:
“You don’t think I have the right to see the final product before it is made public? This is my work. I thought you were going to have proofs printed so I could have a look and something to send to [the grantor]. [The Editor], this is unacceptable.”
She responds:
“You seeing the book before it is made public would make no difference to its quality, and might even have delayed the process.”Words used to defend herself, then: “…So don’t be telling me no stupidness about anything being unacceptable. Your attitude is unacceptable. I worked on your book without being paid, and I did that in order to give you a price you could afford, if you’d recall […] Do not email me back unless you have something constructive to say.” (Excerpt from an email The Editor sent on February 24, 2019).
Again, as if she wasn’t the one who suggested the pricing, and as if giving me a rate I could afford should mean that I put up with a demeaning attitude.
The constructive thing I have to say is that my permission was not given since we’d talked about me seeing the final version, we’d not discussed pricing or put it in writing and I had no idea how I was to be paid. So I want the print version of the book she’s responsible for taken down. THE COVER DIDN’T EVEN HAVE MY NAME ON IT!
Print version The Editor uploaded without my permission
The Editor’s tone starts to change after I mention getting a lawyer.
“What are you contacting a lawyer for? Your book is finished. It is currently being uploaded into print on demand. What can a lawyer possibly do, since there has been no violation of any contract? By the time any lawyer contacts me, the book would be online. Are you trying to sue me for losing respect for you? How pathetic. Btw, I do not understand his misconception you have that I’m working for you. You need to get over yourself. “ Mon, 24 Feb 2020 at 6:31
“Why sabotage the process Martin, in this immature manner? It would be better to allow the process to continue so you would have a product in your hand soon, and a good product that several people worked hard to produce.” Mon, 24 Feb 2020 at 19:01
She tries to get me to meet so we can plan for marketing the book like she hasn’t been calling me names and talking to me like I was something she scrape off she shoe! She stops communicating when I tell her on 22 March, 2020, that the book has been uploaded and I don’t even know how I’m to be paid, that there’s been nothing said of a payment schedule and how I would have access to royalty statements during a payment period or, preferably, how I would be able to access these statements online so I could track sales myself. The last time I heard from her was 25th March, 2020, when she sends me a receipt for the grantor.
The Editor underestimated my willingness to sacrifice my book for the short-term to disassociate myself from her. What I could not abide was her deceit.
Along with an extremely exploitative contract (said to be standard) being put in front of me, one stipulating that I provide 100% of the funding, I wasn’t consulted about nor was my approval given to use my author’s photo alongside a testimonial posted almost a year after it’d been written (Wednesday, June 19, 2019), before I had experienceD THE UNPLEASANTNESS resultING From HER behaviour, experiences which she knew had changed my opinion of her.
The testimonial was used in a video she posted on Facebook on Tuesday, January 19, 2020, the day after she walked out of a meeting because I asked her to lower your voice and stop being hostile, the day after she called me an idiot, saying, “If you behave like an idiot then you’re an idiot!” Obviously this testimonial no longer represented my opinion of her.
Testimonial The Editor asked me to write just after we started working together
I asked her to take it down which she didn’t claiming:
“Facts do not change because one’s emotional state changes. Regardless of one’s emotional state, facts remain facts.” Tuesday, 10 Mar 2020, 07:01
Why would you want to use an old testimonial of someone whose opinion of you has dramatically changed?
I threatened legal action and making a public statement explaining that my presence in any social media post related to her or her company is what I interpret to be a deliberately deceitful misrepresentation of my present opinion of her, given the mutually expressed unpleasantness of our interactions since November, 2019. [I checked and have since been removed me from the video – months after I had asked her to do so. Praise Rihanna!].
I contacted the business place she used to have the book uploaded, still concerned I was dealing with someone who did not have even their own best interest at heart (for how is it in your best interest to treat your client this way?) and so couldn’t possibly have mine.
COVID hit. There were lockdowns but the Director of the establishment asked me to send this formal letter and, finally, today I was told that the print version of my book, Centipede, (the one The Editor had uploaded) has been removed from online platforms where my name was associated with hers and that of her company. What a relief to not be seen to endorse her services.
Thank you!
It’s been one of the most challenging relationships I’ve been in, and I’m thankful for the support of friends like Izzy, Sean and my brother Mark who allowed me to beat them with cat-o-nine tails.
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