• Guest please check The Index before starting a thread.

Crushing Hearts & Black Butterfly Publishing / Hot Ink Books / Steamworks Ink

AmbrosiaArts

Registered
Joined
Dec 17, 2012
Messages
5
Reaction score
1
an authors opinion of chbb

There have been concerns brought to my attention about my previous posts. Some of them were grammatical! Oops. You’re right, I should pay better attention no matter the circumstance.
Now in regards to Crushing Hearts Black Butterfly, Hot Ink Press and Vamptasy… Do I think the companies are worth their weight? No. Have I seen the harm they can cause? Yes. Would I ever advise an author to submit to them again? No. Do they pay royalties? Yes on most things such as fulls, novellas, single short stories. (I gave the example of prequels here.) For Anthologies, they do not pay the writer royalties. It is stated in the anthologie contracts I have seen, No currency of any kind will be paid by the publisher to the author, it continues on, Profits made from this anthology will be used to fund future anthology projects for new artists.
To be honest, when done correctly and marketed appropriately I think that is a terrific idea! It could be so well used to help small indie presses promote the authors and as I hope to one day help do, get them to events that otherwise they may not be able to afford.
I admit openly I was not of sound mind last night. I made a bad judgment call because I felt attacked I felt my friends were attacked I felt innocent people were attacked and it was vastly inappropriate for me to come here when someone gave me the link to this thread.
However, I do think that my voice should be heard. I am not slandering. I am giving you my opinions for the questions asked.
I think any indie press is a great way for a new author to get in the market –when the work is ready- if they can’t afford to self-publish. I know a lot of them now that I have started working in other parts of the publishing world. Some are great. Some are really not. I learned last week some do honestly no more than amazon. I am not regarding chbb. I am stating I studied up on small presses vs self-publishing and learned some small presses are just self-publishing other author’s books for them through amazon. I think it’s wrong but I am pretty certain it’s not illegal.
Do I like all of the work CHBB puts out? Not really, no. But I could say the same thing about little and brown. Their graphics I will make the same statement about. As far as crediting inappropriately, perhaps it was over looked and misprinted in the books. Perhaps it wasn’t. In the end, all I can say is I don’t mean to offend anyone. I made good friends through this publishing trio of companies. Met wonderful writers. Made fantastic business contacts that I look forward to working with in the future.
I’ll stop here I think I have addressed everything. If not, feel free to mention so. (i bolded this to try and help but this was the font that came up automatically. If someone can tell me how to adjust this automatically I would appreciate!)
 
Last edited:

aliceshortcake

Wilde about Oscar
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 4, 2010
Messages
1,633
Reaction score
258
Location
Oop North
Of the 5 I took to the publisher, SJ Davis, this editor was not listed as an editor… However yesterday I learned that SJ Davis does edit… it is SHE that runs this company. It is NOT SJ Davis that edited most of these books. She took the credit but from what I have discovered she has edited few of these books herself.

I'm sorry, but I'm completely confused.
 

Gravity

Seen 'em come, seen 'em go
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
3,942
Reaction score
965
Age
71
Location
Once you've heard the truth, everything else is ju
Fixed it, I think

AmbrosiaArts 01-08-2013 09:31 PM said:
Well I feel it only fair I share what I know about Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly (CHBB) Hot Ink Press (HIP) and their new sister add on company Vamptasy. Vamptasy I know very little about. The merger just happened. It has some worried, with good reason. That aside, Hot Ink aka HIP is an erotic sister company. Whereas CHBB primarily handles paranormal of some kind or another, but nothing ever over 100k words.


The shorts they publish they don’t pay for but the shorts they sell, they usually only charge .99 cents for. They say this is to put money back into the company. Now I recently opened a company ( we are NOT a publishing house) where I plan to do something similar with anthologies only, however those proceeds go to getting authors into conventions and stuff like that. We are considering publishing anthologies that go out in or magazine as a collection volume style thing. Anyways that’s not what matters. I know it’s a promo lots of companies do by selling work for a dollar or under. That’s their choice but that’s why they won’t pay you for them.

Their FULL MS they give 50/50 royalties on. Again keep in mind they will not accept anything above 100k, their average full run s about 60k. To me I consider that a novella not a full. Points of view though.

I am not personally a fan or their promotional graphics, for merchandise posters trailers or covers. But some of them do look nice. My favorites are generally created by the author or someone they know personally and are not in house designers. They have some decent names. One I know of I believe is going to be agented to the big 6 soon. (sidebar: Is it still too early in that merger to call them the big 5 now?)


Was hired by CHBB’s publisher this past fall as an editor when I took them 5 of their published books and pointed out errors. The head of their company acted appalled and hired me immediately without asking for credentials. I never asked for the job. She just assigned it to me as her handy little helper. Fortunately I freelance on the side. She didn’t know this. But I agreed and I edited them. This upset her other editor that she did fire. She had one other editor that she didn’t fire. She avoided speaking to and completely dropped them without comment going forward. I pity this editor but she is recovering from the insulting blow. Of the 5 I took to the publisher, SJ Davis, this editor was not listed as an editor… However yesterday I learned that SJ Davis does edit… it is SHE that runs this company. It is NOT SJ Davis that edited most of these books. She took the credit but from what I have discovered she has edited few of these books herself. Why would the publisher personally edit them anyways? They have more important things to do. So why not give credit where credit is due, even if said credit may be minimal for not much was done?

But a lot of you said that CHBB and Hip or SJ basically said she gave general non answers as to how they would handle things. And a lot of assumptions were made about twitter fb and blog tours. All I can go by is my own personal experience. In going by that, I agree with every single one of you… I wasn’t just an editor for CHBB I recently signed with them in October. Today I resigned. I’m not bitter actually I am well past that. I won’t give you the many many reasons as to why I resigned because as of yet the editor hasn’t responded in regards to my resignation. I think that’s bad business to go poo on someone in a time when I may come across as bitter.

As far as website and graphics go I am not impressed. Their trailers are one MAYBE two pictures generally floating around a screen with scrolling font. Not impressed. I contracted my own people into doing it which lead to me creating a company of such services.

As far as the skill of their authors… Their cheapest books are their worst. They are the most poorly edited. Great authors are being dismissed as lazy because of the errors brought to them by their readers. It is a writers group for writers who couldn’t publish elsewhere so they published for themselves. No outsider do I believe would find a great deal of enjoyment in the majority of their works. Now I say the majority. Some if it’s very good… I was blessed to be the editor of a book titled Revealing Hamilton. It was an awesome book that I could barely put it down. I had to re-read it more than a few times to make sure I didn’t miss something cause of how much I got hung up in some spots.

This is just my opinion of course.

All it boils down to is that I am glad I pulled my work out of their hands before it was too late. They play favorites. They dramatize, socialize and magnify things like teenagers. It didn’t take a month before I was second guessing my decision in signing with them it took less than two before I outright regretted it. I was slandered once for expressing excitement for an upcoming photo shoot I had scheduled for something I thought may be great for CHBB. After being publicly slandered I was then threatened.

But that’s all I need to say for now. I have done my research heavily since feeling weary and have moved on to more promising places. They play some dirty pool though.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

kaitie

With great power comes
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 10, 2009
Messages
10,994
Reaction score
2,525
Just read that big long post and I have several thoughts.

First, I'd never submit a short story that didn't pay (unless it was maybe to a free magazine or something of that sort that I knew and liked). I'd not at all be happy with a publisher putting my stories out and making money on them without paying me a dime. Maybe if they paid a flat fee up front I'd be more okay with it, but to pay nothing? I could put the same story on Amazon for $.99 and I'd at least get $.35 for every sale. I especially feel this way when they're planning to sell enough to fund other projects. If they're planning to make that many sales, I feel like they could at least give the author something.

Second thought is (and I know this is the internet) that the post has enough errors and sentences that were awkward that I had to go back and reread that I'd not be confident in this person's editing skills. I think if you're going to call yourself an editor, you need to show off those basic skills, particularly in a writing forum in which you are discussing your business.

The fact that they asked for no credentials and didn't test your skills beyond you pointed out errors in a few books doesn't inspire confidence, either. What sort of editing did they hire you for?

Final thought is that cheapest books or not, that they have books out that appear to be unedited and poorly written doesn't bode well for their standards. What it bodes even less well for is their business model. If they use cheap short stories as a way to fund larger projects, those had damn well better be some awesome stories that are well edited. The fact that those would be their worst just makes no sense to me.
 
Last edited:

christwriter

Resistance is Everything
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 25, 2010
Messages
275
Reaction score
63
Location
Texas
Website
creativedoubledipper.blogspot.com
First, I'd never submit a short story that didn't pay (unless it was maybe to a free magazine or something of that sort that I knew and liked). I'd not at all be happy with a publisher putting my stories out and making money on them without paying me a dime. Maybe if they paid a flat fee up front I'd be more okay with it, but to pay nothing? I could put the same story on Amazon for $.99 and I'd at least get $35 for every sale. I especially feel this way when they're planning to sell enough to fund other projects. If they're planning to make that many sales, I feel like they could at least give the author something.

This was my first response, too. (assuming you meant $.35 and not $35.00)IMHO there are three reasons to go with a press: Quality covers, quality editing, and better sales than you could get on your own (due to distribution, sales teams ect.)

The covers are okay. Some of 'em are good, some of 'em arehorrible, none of 'em strike me as particularly eye catching. They're very basic photo manipulations, and one of 'em in particular looks like crap piled on top of crap. An author could do that on their own with GIMP, good stock photos and a couple month's practice...or they could pay a starving artist to do it for them.

The editing is abysmal. The authors should have done a better job before they handed their manuscripts over. The formatting on the Kindle is just as bad. Paragraphs are indented AND broken up by spaces, which is a big no-no. And I really hope that the coding for the Amazon previewer spontaneously broke, because the text appears in Courier, aka the "My computer can't handle the real font" font. I think the only font people hate more is Papyrus. Admittedly most people can't edit well, but if you can research topics for your book and format a document in Word you can figure out how to reformat your books for the Kindle without breaking them.

The real story to me, though, is the Amazon rankings. The shorts aren't ranked much better than mine. Worse, in a couple of cases. The full length books aren't any better. They're selling...what, one copy a week? If this press were to be a better choice than self publishing, the sales on their books should be superior to the sales of self-published titles. And they're not.

Frankly, I see NO advantage to publishing with this press. And giving them a short story for free makes no sense at all. You can do just as well on your own.
 

folieadeux

Registered
Joined
Jan 3, 2013
Messages
24
Reaction score
2
Editors

The editing is abysmal. The authors should have done a better job before they handed their manuscripts over. The formatting on the Kindle is just as bad. Paragraphs are indented AND broken up by spaces, which is a big no-no.

The thing is that if this is a serious company then they should offer editing services with their contracts, and from what I took of Ambrosia's post is that they in fact DO do that. Authors do need to have a presentable manuscript when they send it to the publisher, but as a writer I know that I understand what I write and how I mean things -- yet they might confuse others. That's part of what an editor (hopefully) does, in addition to fixing typos and errors. I personally feel like if the author is being told in a contract that they (the company) will handle editing, then it's the company's job to fulfill that part of the agreement. Unfortunately not all authors are editors.

And from the looks of things that simply isn't being done to standard.
 

kaitie

With great power comes
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 10, 2009
Messages
10,994
Reaction score
2,525
See, I'd generally agree that authors should have a more polished product. Yes, I make occasional comma errors or word choice errors, and once in awhile I might have a sentence that doesn't quite work, but part of being a writer is having pretty darn good grammar and writing ability. An occasional error isn't a big deal and won't hurt the piece. Numerous errors shows, IMO, that the author needs to work more on their craft. I think every author has weak points, even with grammar or punctuation, but an author at a professional level should be able to put together a fairly polished piece before ever submitting. I tend to think editing should be more about fine-tuning--not making it competent.

I know that there are a couple of big name authors I've heard of who are apparently abysmal writers when it comes to grammar and what not, but who put together good characters and stories and have been picked up because of that, but honestly, I'd never suggest anyone submit with errors like you're seeing here. Part of our job is to learn to do this well. Not perfect, mind you, but well.
 

aliceshortcake

Wilde about Oscar
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 4, 2010
Messages
1,633
Reaction score
258
Location
Oop North
I'm with kaitie on this one. No amount of editing will turn slush into readable, saleable work.
 

folieadeux

Registered
Joined
Jan 3, 2013
Messages
24
Reaction score
2
Agree

Oh, I totally 100% agree the author has to do quality control during the initial writing process. But there's a difference between "slush" as you put it and typos/some grammer mistakes/etc. You say slush and all I could think of was that awful snippet that was posted.

Oh, dearie me. Here's an example of Hot Ink's editing (I'm assuming there was some editing because it's credited to S J Davis):

"Jennifer shakes her head and walks to the bar. She is going to need something strong to get through the night. She knows that she doesn't look back but compared to Meg she is a fly on the wall."

Were it not for the fact that this odd statement is followed by a description of the heroine's appearance I wouldn't have known that the author meant "doesn't look bad". No competent editor would have allowed this to slip through.

"She looks to her right, and there is a man in a flashy name brand suite sitting next to her. He is breath-taking beautiful. His hair falls to the middle of his neck, and it looks dark. She can't see what color is eyes are, but she has a feeling they are dark like is hair.

"It is the only think that I know I like."

This man is sex in a suite."




As opposed to things like...thinking of an example...Oh, I don't know. "John, you can't just walk away like hat."

SUPER minor mistake that won't be caught by the average spell checker, and easy to miss during a read through.
 

AmbrosiaArts

Registered
Joined
Dec 17, 2012
Messages
5
Reaction score
1
Hey alls. Not sure how to find or edit my last post so I wanted to ammend something. They do pay authors royalties on shorts when its their own short. Like a prequel for example? They have a lot of those I was only thinking of anthologies. The anthologies I know they dont pay royalties for because I have seen that contract. A friend gave it to me asking for advice. But the single shorts they do indeed pay royalties for. Apologies I forgot that.
 

AmbrosiaArts

Registered
Joined
Dec 17, 2012
Messages
5
Reaction score
1
Second thought is (and I know this is the internet) that the post has enough errors and sentences that were awkward that I had to go back and reread that I'd not be confident in this person's editing skills. I think if you're going to call yourself an editor, you need to show off those basic skills, particularly in a writing forum in which you are discussing your business.


.
You're correct about the post I should have saved it and submitted it today after cleaning it up, but I wasn't thinking too well. 3 a.m. and painkillers = bad mix. So I agree with you there and I do apologize and blush for that.

She asked me to edit an anthology that I brought to her attention. I did a skim of it and honestly I could have done better at the time I didn't think I was going to be hired. After that I have done line by line edits of a few of their fulls. Not many admittedly I was there for less than two months as an editor.
I haven't caught up with the rest of these posts, but I am getting there.
 

AmbrosiaArts

Registered
Joined
Dec 17, 2012
Messages
5
Reaction score
1
:3 Hah. Thanks. Least I can laugh at myself and own up to it. My bad.
 

sjdavis

Registered
Joined
Jan 10, 2013
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Correction

Thank you, Ambrosia Arts, for correcting the misinformation from the earlier post. The original post can still be seen as the font was fixed by Gravity.

We have several editors who work with us now and their work is impeccable. As we reach our first year in business, we have set up an Ingram's account and hope to be in more bookstores soon. Yes, our books are being re-edited as we upload the new versions.

I hesitate to ever reply to posts of this nature, but I feel that I must stand up and say every editor is correctly identified in each book. Also, I pay royalties promptly and on every book, whether it's .99 or 14.99.

Our anthologies do not pay royalties except to the editor. This is for two reasons, I pay for the isbn and blog tour/promotion. Additionally, every anthology we have done has donated a percentage to charity, including TWOLA, Turning Point Women's Shelter, and St. Jude's

Best of luck in the future! Good writing, everyone.

SJ Davis
 
Last edited:

veinglory

volitare nequeo
Self-Ban
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
28,750
Reaction score
2,933
Location
right here
Website
www.veinglory.com
It still seems very odd to me to pay the person who edited the work a very generous share, and the ones who wrote it nothing at all.
 

aliceshortcake

Wilde about Oscar
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 4, 2010
Messages
1,633
Reaction score
258
Location
Oop North
sjdavis, your company's donations to charity are laudable. However, you are a publisher/editor, not a philanthropist, so let's go back to those excerpts from a recent Hot Ink book edited by you:

Originally Posted by aliceshortcake
"Jennifer shakes her head and walks to the bar. She is going to need something strong to get through the night. She knows that she doesn't look back but compared to Meg she is a fly on the wall."

Were it not for the fact that this odd statement is followed by a description of the heroine's appearance I wouldn't have known that the author meant "doesn't look bad". No competent editor would have allowed this to slip through.

"She looks to her right, and there is a man in a flashy name brand suite sitting next to her. He is breath-taking beautiful. His hair falls to the middle of his neck, and it looks dark. She can't see what color is eyes are, but she has a feeling they are dark like is hair.

"It is the only think that I know I like."

This man is sex in a suite."

Why on earth did Hot Ink release a book in such a poorly-edited state? Did the author have anything to say about it?
 

AmbrosiaArts

Registered
Joined
Dec 17, 2012
Messages
5
Reaction score
1
I wanted to make one more statement. I said that editors were not being correctly edited because another editor of chbb bought the book they edited and their name was nowhere in the credits under editing. I did see a picture of this. SJ had the same book and has a picture with the editor’s name in it. So I suppose maybe there were misprints. But I feel that is just as bad as any other typo found in a book. The reason I started editing was for one reason. Chbb is not the only indie press with this problem, tons of them have it. How are indie presses ever supposed to be recognized as a legitimate way to publish in the BIG world of publishing if this continues? They're laughed at by big presses and agents. That shouldn’t be the case. If you want to compete in this wild world of publishing you have to prove yourself. You have to prove you're just as good as anyone else. You have to prove you can stand next to anyone else and hold your own. I have worked with other publishing houses with the same problem and I hate it. These authors don't deserve these poor marks against them because they can't edit. Do I think it's a big part of the author's job, to make sure their work is as edited as possible before submission? Yes. I will cringe every time I hear a writer say they submitted their first draft to a company. It makes my stomach flip! Then these small presses, who see the value of the story, take the work and they slack on polishing when that should be the absolute focus of their work is polishing. Polishing words. Polishing covers. Forget merchandise. Make the book WORTH its weight in gold. You can have a TON of merchandise and if people see 3 star reviews for horrible or lack thereof editing then why would someone else take the chance on buying it? I wouldn't. I don't. When I buy a book it has been published or agented by a big name because I know I can relax and read. That editor inside of me doesn't have to stress and flinch for every flaw because at best, there are just one or two. - Rant over.(tried to find font change again.)
 

kaitie

With great power comes
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 10, 2009
Messages
10,994
Reaction score
2,525
I think it's more that there are a lot of great indie presses who do amazingly well, but there are a lot of there one day gone the next that don't show up on anyone's radar. The industry doesn't really care about them. Agents wouldn't submit to them and probably haven't heard of 90% of them. Most are set up by disgruntled authors who couldn't find an agent or publisher, so they decided to make their own, doing things the "right" way.

They don't last. I understand your thinking, and it's nice someone wanted these presses to be taken seriously, but the problems with these publishers go beyond editing and crappy covers. It's a lack of understanding by the principals in how the publishing business actually works. They're often underfunded (not realizing how much capital is required to start a successful company), they don't have a good understanding of contracts, they lack and understanding of how distribution and marketing and promotion, etc. all works together to help achieve success.

These poor publishers won't last long. You can see a long list of them on the index page here. They don't really make many waves in the publishing industry in general, but they do take a few authors with them when they go down. That's why we're here. To help authors avoid getting caught by publishers like this.
 

folieadeux

Registered
Joined
Jan 3, 2013
Messages
24
Reaction score
2
sjdavis, your company's donations to charity are laudable. However, you are a publisher/editor, not a philanthropist, so let's go back to those excerpts from a recent Hot Ink book edited by you:

"Jennifer shakes her head and walks to the bar. She is going to need something strong to get through the night. She knows that she doesn't look back but compared to Meg she is a fly on the wall."

Were it not for the fact that this odd statement is followed by a description of the heroine's appearance I wouldn't have known that the author meant "doesn't look bad". No competent editor would have allowed this to slip through.

"She looks to her right, and there is a man in a flashy name brand suite sitting next to her. He is breath-taking beautiful. His hair falls to the middle of his neck, and it looks dark. She can't see what color is eyes are, but she has a feeling they are dark like is hair.

"It is the only think that I know I like."

This man is sex in a suite."
Why on earth did Hot Ink release a book in such a poorly-edited state? Did the author have anything to say about it?

That is a very good question. I'm interested in hearing what the justification is for that, too, because the errors there are flamboyantly awful.
 

christwriter

Resistance is Everything
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 25, 2010
Messages
275
Reaction score
63
Location
Texas
Website
creativedoubledipper.blogspot.com
The thing is that if this is a serious company then they should offer editing services with their contracts, and from what I took of Ambrosia's post is that they in fact DO do that. Authors do need to have a presentable manuscript when they send it to the publisher, but as a writer I know that I understand what I write and how I mean things -- yet they might confuse others. That's part of what an editor (hopefully) does, in addition to fixing typos and errors. I personally feel like if the author is being told in a contract that they (the company) will handle editing, then it's the company's job to fulfill that part of the agreement. Unfortunately not all authors are editors.

And from the looks of things that simply isn't being done to standard.

Damn, I should have been clearer. My meaning was more along the lines of filtering than "the authors should have done better". If publishing houses are water treatment plants, authors are the first filter and editors are the second. Authors should catch the leaf and twig sized mistakes, editors should catch the germs and chemicals and silt that the author can't get on their own, as well as the occasional leaf or twig the author misses, because you're right. We're not all that good at editing. And maybe the editor can't catch all the silt, but it should be catching the leaves.

If the "leaf" mistakes are still in a published book, it's not the author's fault. They entrusted their book to someone else who is not doing their job. But it's a sign that that either NOBODY is going over the manuscripts at all, or the comb these editors use is less "fine tooth" and more "fireplace grate".
 

folieadeux

Registered
Joined
Jan 3, 2013
Messages
24
Reaction score
2
If publishing houses are water treatment plants, authors are the first filter and editors are the second. Authors should catch the leaf and twig sized mistakes, editors should catch the germs and chemicals and silt that the author can't get on their own, as well as the occasional leaf or twig the author misses, because you're right. We're not all that good at editing. And maybe the editor can't catch all the silt, but it should be catching the leaves.

That's a fantastic way of summing it up! :) Pure poetry.

Not trying to speak for everyone in this thread, but I'm still holding my breath though for sjdavis' reason that all those errors were allowed to go to print.
 

ViariRose

Registered
Joined
Aug 7, 2012
Messages
16
Reaction score
1
I remember CHBB launching, I also remember thinking that the site was not at all professional. Though I am a very visual person. I couldn't understand why any author would want to give up a free short, especially if the pub wasn't paying me, but they were paying themselves.

As for donating to charity, I've seen it done by other pub houses on the rare occasion, though if your going by what SJ Davis donates from her own books, it's only 10%. It's not at all a large percentage. A little above my current state sales tax.

From the Vamptasy site.
Vamptasy was founded by Nicola Ormerod of Scotland. She quickly built Vamptasy into one of the leading Independent Publishers in the UK. Currently Nicola Ormerod and Rue Volley have teamed to create Vivid Book Designs, a New York /London Style Graphic Arts Company specializing in book and CD covers. Their creative style has made Vamptasy Covers into a truly recognizable brand.

SJ Davis, an author for Vamptasy, founded Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing in the US and quickly became a best selling Indie Press in the states. Nicola and SJ decided to merge powers and now Vamptasy is part of the CHBB and Hot Ink powerhouse.

Bios can be very misleading. I wouldn't consider either of these pub's leading or best selling. After just a second with Google, you find one owner with a site who's hosting has expired and the other well I don't even think words can describe that bio. (link here) Needless to say I wouldn't submit anything to them. Though I am not an author, a reviewer yes, a cover designer yes, but author no.

As for the covers, anyone can throw text on a stock cover, you don't even need any special graphics, paint comes pre-installed in Windows. I wouldn't call those covers a recognizable brand.
 

G. Applejack

Write faster! FASTER!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 22, 2010
Messages
417
Reaction score
61
Location
Oregon
If publishing houses are water treatment plants, authors are the first filter and editors are the second. Authors should catch the leaf and twig sized mistakes, editors should catch the germs and chemicals and silt that the author can't get on their own, as well as the occasional leaf or twig the author misses, because you're right. We're not all that good at editing. And maybe the editor can't catch all the silt, but it should be catching the leaves.

Don't forget to give it lots of retention time (letting it sit without rereading/editing) to let the disinfectant do its work.

[SIZE=+0]


:nothing


[/SIZE]