Firefly & Wisp Publishing

Terie said:

I read the link Brian provided before it was taken down, and I sure wish I'd thought to take a screen capture of it. It was a fairly impressive list of credits, including Harlequin in addition to those already mentioned.

If the credits were indeed real, there would've been no reason to remove the page, and it would also go some way to assuring folks that there was a modicum of experience behind the ownership of Firefly & Wisp. (Not that I think being a well-published author is enough experience to become a publisher, but it's better than the self-published-only people who open their own micropresses.)

Anyway, I can think of only one good reason to remove such an impressive list of credits: that is wasn't actually true.

And if it wasn't true, why would anyone want to sign a contract with a company owned by someone who lies very publically about something so easily verifiable?

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I saw it, too.

This is incredible.

I also read that link, and I seem to remember the author claiming to have sold 2000 copies in a single month. We appear to be dealing with a serial fantasist here.

amergina said:

Like I said... there's no erase button on the Internet: here's a Google cache of the post.

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Oh, good on you! I've never succeeded with finding stuff in Google cache.

I've screen-captured it anyway (since I think sometimes things do eventually drop out of there).




It's worth noting that this is what she posted on the official Firefly & Wisp blog.

I've contacted Scholastic, Harlequin and DAW about this. Stay tuned!

Oops, sorry, wrong box.

Yup. *joins callalily61 in a cup of coffee*

I don't know if that's intended as a credit or just a slightly ill-advised WiP status update. I'm not sure she knows the difference between appropriate and inappropriate information. However, the earlier part of the post about apparently published work she's claiming to be hers suggests she also doesn't know the difference between her work and other people's.

nkkingston said:

However, the earlier part of the post about apparently published work she's claiming to be hers suggests she also doesn't know the difference between her work and other people's.

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"Only be sure always to call it please 'research'." --Tom Lehrer

Glendower: I can send stories to the slush at Tor.

Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can anyone; But do they buy when you submit to them?

Torgo said:

So, listen. Do we believe this is a preliminary design prepared by a Penguin imprint?

Maybe Mrs Zwissler prepared it herself. (The stock photo used comes from here.) The same is probably true of the back cover copy. I hope so, for DAW's sake.

What I don't get, though, is why DAW would buy a book called The Dream Stealers when they already have a book called Zac and the Dream Stealers, by Ross MacKenzie.

We also have her announcing the sale of a book to Scholastic on the 5th of March - The Key, which again I can't find any other reference to on the internet.

What is going on?

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Wait...is the claim here that DAW sent, with her acceptance letter/e-mail/what-have-you, a mock up of the cover art for her novel? The novel they just accepted?

That's ... highly unlikely.

This thing is quickly slipping from the strange to the surreal. It almost looks like a version of "Author: the RPG", only taken to an extremely odd new level.

I actually thought she had done the cover, and she was saying something along the lines of, "just for fun, I'll mock up a cover to give you an idea of what my book is about."

Maybe I'm wrong.

callalily61 said:

THAT'S who I was thinking of! I'd blocked that whole trainwreck out of my head.

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Caramba. I'd forgotten all about that knuckleknob.

This is getting really interesting in a trainwreck sort of way. I wonder what the aforementioned publishers will have to say about it.

The F&W debacle reminds me a little bit of the woman who claimed she had a winning lotto ticket here in the States last year - but she didn't, and then made up all kinds of stories when the lottery officials asked her to produce it.

At first glance, DAW has no public listing of a book called 'The Dream Stealers' by D.L. Haver. Can anyone check the PW listings for an announcement?

Torgo said:

So, listen. Do we believe this is a preliminary design prepared by a Penguin imprint?

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It is not.

There are a number of dead giveaways—ranging from the fact that it doesn't resemble the basic DAW template, one of the fonts is a public domain knockoff, and the copy is . . .

Someone's not dealing with reality.

Medievalist said:

It is not.

There are a number of dead giveaways—ranging from the fact that it doesn't resemble the basic DAW template, one of the fonts is a public domain knockoff, and the copy is . . .

Someone's not dealing with reality.

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Yes. I'm also mildly intrigued by a network she is connected to on Facebook which does marketing for self-published novels, and also offers publishing services, and doesn't have much in the way of demonstrable skills in its listed personnel, and essentially every link I click I find myself disappearing down another rabbit hole of weirdness. It starts to feel like an incredibly ramified cargo cult, and I begin to wonder if, out of the sheer commitment and elaboration of it all, planes full of dollar bills do actually start appearing on the horizon at some point. You've got people just sort of miming being publishers and authors and marketeers, in some cases to the point of outright deception.

Taking it another way, at what point does the big-tent revival movement stop being a religion and start being a scam? Is it at the point where the person in charge decides it's OK to lie for Jesus? Well, in any case, I'm backing away slowly.

callalily61 said:

She's using as a credit the fact that she self-subbed to DAW's and TOR's slushpile? Am I reading that correctly? *refills coffee*

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aliceshortcake said:

Yup. *joins callalily61 in a cup of coffee*

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Is there enough room for both of you in that cup?



*rim shot*

I looked at that cover and even if it is a mock-up, it looks pretty cheap.

And a dollar and a (virtual) cyberchip cookie to the person who can find this person in the DAW/Penguin roster. (Hint: you can't!)