Edit Ink (Bill Appel, Denise Sterrs)

[LeslieB]

What a poor victim you were. First you were sexually harassed when a coworker repeatedly refused to date you. And then you were fired for being sexually harassed by the psychic energy that radiated off her, which you could feel clear on the other side of the room.

It's called creating a hostile working environment. Even if they had had a long-running affair, the minute she brought things into the office, it was sexual harassment. I find it interesting that you claim to have been to law school, yet don't know such a well-known and obvious point of law. Could this perhaps be why you aren't practicing law? Or are you just a troll?

Please, feel free to call me crazy and then pull out your e-psychology degree.

 

[Gravity]

Anybody else counting the days until Tad heads off back to work? Gads, what a tiresome man.

Anyway, how 'bout that EditInk? Some scam, huh? (See, Victoria? We can stay on topic here).

 

[Matthew Warner]

What I said was that I realized that something fishy was going on when I visited the Victorian. Too many MS, too many teenaged editors. Denise represented herself as an agent when she was Editcetera and even the entity before that. New Visions Literary Agency it might have been called, but don't quote me.

Dates, please. None of this jives against the timeline. Are you making this up?

You said you were offered the Edit Ink job a year and a half before they folded. That would put it at mid 1997. By 1997, though, I think they were based in the offices in Cheektowaga, not in the Victorian house in Williamsville.

Also, I believe you're wrong about Editcetera. It never represented itself to be an agency, at least not while I was there. New Voices Literary Agency (not "New Visions") did, however.

Finally, I don't think they ever employed teenagers, just wet-behind-the-ears recent college grads like myself.

 

[Matthew Warner]

I quoted the US government's understanding of sexual harassment. If you have some authority that is inapposite - that says A is sexually harassed when A asks B for a date repeatedly - bring it to the table. Elsewise, you're being "not sure" is less than persuasive.

Eh, submit your brief to the judge and he'll take it under advisement.

Um, no. Allow me to quote you:

"We started to kiss and take our pants off."

Oh. Well, I'm glad I qualified my comment, which I didn't check first, with "I believe". Point taken. Still, she was the one who took my pants off, if you must know.

My name and company are not germane to the discussion squire.

It's absolutely germane. You're claiming actual knowledge of events without supporting it with a shred of evidence that even lines up with known information about Edit Ink. You're further claiming general expertise in the industry without qualifying yourself. True expert witnesses give their names and qualifications. Any graduate of the Albany law school would know that.

But please, go on making aspersions and not backing your statements. This is fun.

 

[victoriastrauss]

The sexual harassment discussion ends now. Any more posts re: that issue will go to Take it Outside.

- Victoria

 

[Tad Cynical]

Dates, please. None of this jives against the timeline. Are you making this up?

I believe the word you're looking for is jibes, not jives. Jibes means agree. Jive means falisty. If none of it jived you would be implying that it's true.

You said you were offered the Edit Ink job a year and a half before they folded. That would put it at mid 1997. By 1997, though, I think they were based in the offices in Cheektowaga, not in the Victorian house in Williamsville.

I may well be off about how long it was before they got in trouble after I was offered the gig. All I remember is that it was close enough for me to think: there but for the grace of God go I, on the hook for $100K. I do however know when I was there: it was for my niece's baptism; she's in middle school now, ~ 13 YO. So if that was 36 months before things went south instead of 18, shrug. What.ever.

Also, I believe you're wrong about Editcetera. It never represented itself to be an agency, at least not while I was there. New Voices Literary Agency (not "New Visions") did, however.

So your big aha moment - which was 'Hey wait a minute you couldn't have recommended that they represent a book because they were never agents. J'accuse!' -- is now, well, Denise in fact held herself out as an agent, but she used different letterhead for that part of the business. Bit of a weak reed Mr Warner. It was 15 years ago; that's a long time for me to be remembering letterhead.

Finally, I don't think they ever employed teenagers, just wet-behind-the-ears recent college grads like myself.

Yes, I was being hyperbolic. I was a qualified editor. My brother was a qualified editor. Denise was a qualified editor. As i stated, one of the things I found disquieting when I was there was that it was unlikely that the children I saw working were qualified editors.

 

[Aconite]

I'm a senior editor at the third largest publishing company in the world.

Bull. Not given the repeated, consistant errors you make of which you're completely unaware, you're not.

You should also be aware that this board is frequented by several people who work in publishing for a living, and who know by name and face the person you're claiming to be.

PS The over under on how long it'll take before this post is deleted is 14 minutes. I'll take the under.

Classic troll call. Tacking on that line to an offensive load of crap, reasons the troll, will make sure moderators don't delete the post lest they be accused of censorship.

Your post is being allowed to stand not because you were so very clever as to slap on that line, but because it makes it very clear what you really are.

 

[Tad Cynical]

The sexual harassment discussion ends now. Any more posts re: that issue will go to Take it Outside.

- Victoria

Is Take it Outside an actual place, or are you just saying drop the matter? Because IMO it's the clearest example of the bias inherent in the article under discussion, which article was recommended by the originator of this thread as an "interesting" and "relevant" look at the subject. It seems to me what they did at EI was egregious enough without such scandalous allegations, especially where the allegations are completely unsubstantiated and where they add absolutely zero to anyone's understanding of how to avoid such scams, which was ostensibly the reason that the article was written, right? To help the unwary? If I'd been editing the piece they would have come out, because they're (a) irrelevant and (b) libelous.

It is, however, your forum. So perhaps I will desist, having made my point, which is that there are at least two sides to everything, even Edit Ink. I suppose we all need our bugbears, and if mean old Bill Appel and Kelley Culmer are yours, who am I to deprive you of them. Truth be told I have a begrudging respect for the work you and Ann do (no, I'm not under the delusion that you'll sleep better knowing that), even if I find it a tad silly. Because the real lesson to be learned from Bill and Denise is that there's one born every minute, and that right after that there's one born with shear in his hand.

<Cue the guy with Kenny Rogers hair saying 'good riddance'>

 

[Tad Cynical]

consistant errors

Oh dear. You seem to have made an embarrassing boo boo.

 

[Aconite]

Do not imagine for a moment that it escaped anyone's attention that you are still discussing the topic this forum's moderator told you to drop, in the thin guise of dropping it.

I'd also expect someone familiar with law to be more careful about calling something "libelous."

 

[Alan Yee]

Take It Outside is another forum at AW. It's for controversial topics. The reason Victoria said that was because this thread is supposed to be about how Edit Ink was a scam. The sexual harrassment commotion has nothing to do with it.

And Victoria is one of the moderators of Bewares and Background Check. She's told you to drop the topic.

 

[Aconite]

Oh dear. You seem to have made an embarrassing boo boo.

Why, yes, I did. I do not claim to be "a senior editor at the third largest publishing company in the world" and yet not understand how commas or hyphens work, however.

 

[Matthew Warner]

Why all this nitpicking on grammar and typos? To prove how great of an editor you are? At least I don't perpetrate abuses of the English language such as, "Bit of a weak reed Mr Warner."

Anyway, until you identify yourself and give us your qualifications instead of hiding behind a pseudonym, I'm going to continue believing you're a fraud. You've alleged nothing that couldn't have been made up by any random troll with a chip on his shoulder. This is borne out by your inability to make a single statement consistent with historical fact. The difference between 18 months and 36 months is a hell of a lot of time. So is the difference between 15 years ago, when you claim your brush with Edit Ink happened, and 10 or 9 years ago, when it would have had to have actually occurred.

Your absolute lack of knowledge about anything having to do with this subject is most clearly shown by this statement, however:

Denise was a qualified editor.

She was a fraud, as was well documented by the attorney general in his pleadings. She had no qualifications other than serving a short stint with some imprint called Meteor. She lied about her qualifications just like everybody else there, just as I suspect you are right now.

Put up, or shut up.

 

[Popeyesays]

"Is Take it Outside an actual place, or are you just saying drop the matter? "

I think this proves SockPuppetism. Only a Sock Puppet with a One Issue mentality would not know that "Take It OUtside" is a separate forum here. It is expressly for discussing things that have nothing to do with writing.

Regards to everyone but Tad,

Scott

 

[MartyKay]

Someone say sockpuppet?
reads back
Sigh.. that's a Troll, not a sockpuppet
exit stage left

 

[mysteryhost]

Hi Mr. Warner:


And as for the company I work for, well, it's so large that a wannabe writer such as yourself has probably never even heard of it. Here's a clue for you; I'm sure an important investigative journalist such as yourself will be able to work it out: last year our total revenues exceeded two thousand million British pounds.

But working in the gaming branch hardly qualifies a person to professionally remark about actual manuscript editing.

mh

 

[Popeyesays]

But working in the gaming branch hardly qualifies a person to professionally remark about actual manuscript editing.

mh

He works for Games Workshop?

Enough said . . . .

Regards,
Scott

 

[rtilryarms]

How does he know these things?

 

[Popeyesays]

How does he know these things?

GW?

One of the proudest things in my life is to have NEVER bought a GW product in my forty-six years of gaming.

If you look up "rapacious" in any standard dictionary, you get a picture of the GW masthead.

Regards,
Scott

 

[L M Ashton]

Wow. That was... entertaining, I guess.

Mathew, thanks for sharing your story.

 

[HapiSofi]

I like Matthew a lot better than I like Tad.

 

[Mags]

scifi potboilers about 21st century vampires who run haunted hair salons in the Andromeda Galaxy

Is it weird that I totally want to read this?

 

[Popeyesays]

Originally Posted by Tad Cynical
scifi potboilers about 21st century vampires who run haunted hair salons in the Andromeda Galaxy

Mags: Is it weird that I totally want to read this?

Buffy's Bad Hair Day in Space?

 

[James D. Macdonald]

Have you noticed how many anonymous folks whose first posts (and only interests) are in defense of scammers also feel the need to talk about their unmotivated disdain for science fiction?

Got stung by Writer Beware, did they?

 

[Popeyesays]

Have you noticed how many anonymous folks whose first posts (and only interests) are in defense of scammers also feel the need to talk about their unmotivated disdain for science fiction?

Got stung by Writer Beware, did they?

The Book Of Imaginative Publishing, Chapter One, verses 1-7

1:And in the beginning God created publishing to be the beacon of opportunity for all mankind.

2: But Lo! Behold all the talented writers were stymied by the angels of darkness, the dreaded Agentus capabilis, Publisher makeanhonestbuckus. and the Writer clarus, who could string five or even six clearly written sentences together in an evil and readable paragraph were sore troubled that Publishing might slip from their control.

3:So those angels of evil turned from the light of universal rights of publication, and trampled all the truly talented writers, who could not write a sentence that made sense to a reader.

4: The rights of humanity to spell miserably, use bad grammar and lose focus to their hearts content rose up with wrath to smite down the demons of New York, Los Angeles, San Fransisco and the other abysmal depths of perdition.

5: All the righteous vanity presses, up front-fee agents, and bogus book doctors called for revolution in heaven and Publish Anybody (if they can afford to pay) became the White Knight of God.

6: The battle rages today, in tiny pockets of resistance to successful writers, profitable publishers and reputable agents who make their fees from selling GOOD books well-written.

7: The fate of readers everywhere hang in the balance.