I Still Have Most Of My Organs, Actually

[ursulav]

So there’s this publishing horror story making the rounds the last few days-the saga of Mandy DeGeit, who submitted a short story to a small press that did anthologies and discovered that it was published with a whole lot of changes, including animal abuse, which she never saw, never okayed, and never had an inkling of until the bizillion copies

Comments

[sprrwhwk]

I have the hunch that we will be seeing this thing more, rather than less, now that SELF-PUBLISHING IS THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE. When any douchebag can set themself up as a publisher and legitimately get books onto Kindles and into Amazon for print purchase which are indistinguishable from the books of professional publishers... some douchebags do. I think that closing that particular barn door would be futile with the horse out and halfway to Peoria by now, but I'm not really sure what the answer is. Education, some, but in this case I don't think the author had any way to see this coming. I guess when that fails we publicly shame the wrongdoers and move on?

I wonder, can one donate to Writer Beware? I don't see an obvious donation box on the site.

[ursulav]

Actually, no--they're very serious about not taking money, for some ethical and/or tax reason having to do with being affiliated with SFWA, I believe. They ask that you donate to one of the sponsor organization's scholarship funds, I think.

[sprrwhwk]

Ah, indeed. Thanks! Then here's SFWA's benevolent funds. (And here's the MWA's scholarship programs, since they also contribute money.)

[edthetallguy]

You're probably right about seeing this kind of thing more, not just from Internet-enabled douchebaggery, but from sheer, well-meaning incompetence. I suspect it'll be kind of like what happened to graphic design for a few years after the Mac came out, or the early days of website design. Anybody could do design, but it took awhile for people to realize that many people shouldn't.

[rusti_knight]

Heh, we still have that problem in the design world. Especially since any Tom, Dick or Harry with a broadband connection and a little internet savvy can download the Adobe Creative Suite for free from a torrent site and crack it.

Occasionally people look at me like I've sprouted a second head when I give them a price and tell me their cousin with Photoshop can do it instead.

[cjtremlett]

There's an ad that is part of the advertising slideshow at the local cinema that I suspect was done by someone's cousin with Photoshop. It probably looked fine on the computer screen but looks like complete crap on the theater screen because cousins with photoshop don't understand resizing. And I wonder how much business they're not getting because the ad looks so unprofessional. It's like a perfect example of why you should pay the money and hire the professionals.

[rusti_knight]

Heh, we do vinyl work and some DTG t-shirt printing from the house and lemme tell ya what, I should start chronicling the reactions we get when we give a price for lettering a window or a van.

A lot of people do not know the value of good work, and the value of someone who insists on making sure the work is going to last. The really successful business people do (most of the time).