JERR blogs too!

Over the five years that Just Erotic Romance Reviews has been published, we’ve seen many electronic publishers come and go.  Given the nature of what we do, we never felt it would be proper for us to make any public comments pertaining any of them.  After all, we don’t have “insider” information on any publishers (print or electronic). 

Last year we started a series of articles titled the “JERR Files”.  In that series we did a bit of analysis on erotic romance and the electronic publishing industry, in particular.  Many electronic publishers opened their doors over the past two years.  Some are still around, others just went “poof” … not that it’s surprising at all.  Some went “poof” with some finesse … others gave lessons in what not to do as an electronic publisher.

The most recent electronic publisher currently under fire, however, has compelled us to make an exception.  First of all, this is NOT a new electronic publisher.  This is an electronic publisher that allegedly opened in 1996.  Second, this publisher had earned some respect from their readers.  Many of my friends as well as myself have been reading their books for years.  However, it seems like things started going down steadily until they got to the point in which they are now: the most recent electronic publisher over which bets are being placed as to how long they will continue to be in business.

Now, I am sure many of you that visit the blogosphere have read posts in several blogs.  Among other things, this publisher not only managed to insult their authors in a rather disturbing way, but also has pretty much stated in unequivocal terms that they have been ripping off their readers by providing them with a sub par product: books with NO editing whatsoever. 

These are the specific words used by Madris DePasture, owner of New Concepts Publishing:

“Editing-the focus of editing in this company has shifted with the times.  We spent years trying to help new authors perfect their writing skills by paying editors to tweak the books. Some authors actually appreciated this. The vast majority did not or they just didn’t have enough understanding to comply with suggestions. Beyond that, the salability of the books is so unpredictable, I felt uncomfortable requesting authors to put a lot of time into making changes that might not pay off in the end. Either way, the flightiness of authors also encouraged us to stop wasting time and money on trying to tweak the books to increase their marketability. We rarely do anything to the books beyond corrections of errors any longer. This considerably streamlines the edit-to-release time frame and allows us to adhere to the schedule more closely without having to continually reschedule books.”

Basically, it is a waste of time and money to edit a book… never mind that the ones paying are the READERS.  But we are stupid, right?  We don’t care, right?

On a personal level, I feel very sorry for the authors caught in this mess.  And saying that I am very disappointed at a publisher of which I was a very loyal customer is the understatement of the year.  Under other circumstances we would have avoided making any public comments as we did when other electronic publishers were under fire.  However, this involves the RIPPING OFF of customers…the same customers that helped that company grow. 

JERR is a newsletter written by readers for readers… and READERS DESERVE TO KNOW THE TRUTH about this publisher.  If the readers want to continue putting their hard earned money into this publisher, that is their prerogative, but this needed to be brought to the attention of the readership.

 

Sources:

http://ellenashe.blogspot.com/2008/03/serious-problems-at-new-concepts.html

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2008/03/12/new-concepts-publishing-under-heat-by-authors/