Beware of McKenna!
Beware, oh beware-- the reason I originally posted my message was to see if anyone else had a problem with them. Back in July they said they were going to offer a contract, but when I asked some simple questions about their process (royalties, copies, lead time-- real basic stuff)-- the guy (Eric Bollinger, who appears to be the only employee of this company) tried to intimidate me by saying that I obviously knew nothing about the publishing business and refused to answer the questions. He then disappearred for several weeks, and not one in many calls to his office did ANYONE answer the phone (the message was recorded on a machine that sounded like it was bought for ten bucks at Wal-Mart). After several e-mails, he finally wrote back and called me a pest (all because he never returned any of my messages or phone calls), and again mentioned that I knew very, very little about the publishing business. Yet, he still wouldn't answer my very simple questions. At that point I had had enough (this has been going on since July - 3 months)-- so I wrote back and said that despite P&E's warning that McKenna was a conflict of interest because this guy also runs Sligo Literary Agency (which, by the way, apparently charges reading fees), he wrote back and accused P&E of preying on inexperienced writers, a comment that didn't make much sense to me (especially since that seemed to be exactly what he was doing - the more I revealed that I knew about the publishing industry, the more belligerent he became). I only wish I could have seen a copy of the contract-- the questions I asked him probably concerned him that I was just some dumb hack and that I would easily see right through his little game.
So, in brief, this experience was a nightmare, and now I just feel a sense of relief that it is finally over, despite the disappointment of having to start shopping my manuscript around again.
