When I started my path of writing I was advised to join this forum for great advise,support and guidance. What I found was a bunch of people delivering bad critic to anyone they could find whether it was a publisher,author or writer they got trashed by others. And well hello months later it's still going on.
Gee, welcome to you too.
I'm sorry if hearing the truth from folks who know what they are talking about offends you so much. Just for you, how about we all lie to you and tell you what you want to hear so you can feel better?
As an Anchor Group author let me help you with some facts:
1. They don't charge authors any fees.
No publisher does, unless they are a vanity publisher - in which case they don't care about your book, only your dollar. So this isn't really setting Anchor aside from other publishers.
2. We advertise Melissa Ringsted on our pages, well because we as AG thinks she is fabulous.
Yeah, having checked out the quality of her work....each to their own and all that, but I'd be embarassed if my work was edited to that 'standard.'
3. Having your work professionally edited before submitting is advisable, but you can use any editor you want. We of course prefer Melissa.
And do Anchor get a cut or percentage for every author refered to her?
Now, I may be stupid here, but doesn't the PUBLISHER sort out the editing, not refer the author to another, bad and blatantly inexperienced, editing service.
4. We submit our ideas for the cover, a rough draft is created and send back for your input,changes and approval. It's up to you how the cover turns out. My bat girl cover was stunning
.
I'm not seeing that. What I AM seeing are a lot of very bad, cheap looking, badly framed covers. But again, if substandard is your thing, then that's up to you.
5. Our books are available on Amazon, Barns and Noble, smashwords etc.
But where else?
6. Stacey Rourke is a fellow author but also the CEO, and yes captain of an amazing team of authors.
So, was the publishing business set up as a front for her self publishing endeavors? I ask because it creates a conflict of interests.
My husband runs a small press. He does not publish my books - that would be inappropriate. He also writes, but does not publish any of his own books - because that would be a conflict of interests. I get wary of small publishers who do publish their own stuff, or have a vested interest in certain books/authors.
7. Yes Melissa is VP, and she does an awesome job.
And here we get the truth. So, the publisher is referring authors to an editing service provided by the vice president?
Am I right?
Because that is a massive conflict of interests, it's not clearly stated on the site. The actual 'editing' is of obviously dubious quality if the samples are anything to go by. And to state that you 'prefer' authors to have a professional editor, and that you 'prefer' that it's Melissa without making it very clear that she's also got a vested interest in the business....well, I don't think I have to say anything more about the level of professionalism here.
Now I know you have a lot of bad things to add on, so I will leave you to it.
Jesus, you're so negative.
Here's the thing, there are obvious questions both about the running of the business in question, and about the quality of the product. The things you have said have done nothing to reduce the level of concern here.
That's the problem in a nutshell. The time for a publisher to learn the ropes is BEFORE they set up in business, not after. To some extent Stacey is taking advantage of her authors by using their books as part of the learning process.
Agreed.
And please don't think we're all sitting around hoping for Anchor to fail. If they fail, they will take authors down with them. We all need more publishers to succeed.
But in the end, it's important to ask the hard questions.
Yep.
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