Tag Archives: Emails

Emails and Files

A short blog post about emails and files!!

It seems many people either don’t realise, forget or just don’t think about files they’ve attached to emails and sent to contractors, publishers, editors etc., etc.

Why do I say this?

If you send a file to someone… anyone, then you should still have a copy of that email and file YOU sent to them in your email account unless YOU deleted the OUTGOING FILE!!

Don’t ask the person you sent it to for a COPY back (if no changes have been made) GO AND LOOK IN YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT! This not only saves YOU time, it also SAVES your CONTRACTOR TIME – TIME YOU PAY FOR…

Claire
Author Consultant
Plaisted Publishing

Journey into Creating a Publishing Company – Part Three

I never name call anyone. I am always polite and rational with anyone with any discussion. If or when a person earns my ire I tend to grumble a lot, though I do step back and think about the situation which has arisen. I will help as much as I can or as the client will let me…One thing I am clear about is when a client has approved a final file then they will need to pay for extra work, whether the original job was a swap of skills, paid or a package.

2016 was a big year with a lot of changes. It wasn’t a good year on many fronts though I did have a favourite. Needless to say this year was filled with bullying clients and gossip in the local writers group which I didn’t know about for nearly two years. I was devastated by both of these. Luckily for me I have stong family support from my husband and children and some really great friend. Many of those friends were students from my Business Management Course and my Incubate Course.

There was one bully who I worked with. They were like an advisor, going to do marketing for me on a local scale, introduced me to a local reporter for one of the free newspapers. All of this was appreciated. In exchange I formatted their first book, pulled together a book cover – all to the best of my ability at that time – both ebook and print, assisted them set up accounts with createspace and kindle. Now if one thinks about all the time involved the different things I was learning, it was a lot of work. I can’t really put a price on this.  They were happy with the result…UNTIL…They suddenly decided I’d not done the book properly (a word I now HATE) Thinking back I did two books for this person. The other was in exchange for a computer (desktop) he put a price of $300 on which strangley was raised to $400 during email discussions. It wasn’t acutally worth anything due to it’s age. Once again I did the second book plus two websites.
What I wonder now is if the second book was better set out than the first due to the growth in my learning…Would you redo a client’s book for free because you’ve learnt more about interior design?

One thing I will advise everyone with a small business…

MAKE SURE YOU KEEP ALL YOUR EMAILS FOR EACH CLIENT SO THEY CAN’T BITE YOU ON THE BUTT/ASS AT A LATER DATE!!

Even in those days, I insisted all clients to proofread their own books for any formatting edits. Bits that need changing or taking out etc.  This person approved the final file. Six months later they complained I’d left their home address in the back of the book and I have the synopsis in the back as well.  EXCUSE ME…YOU APPROVED IT!!  Fed up with the ongoing emails, I redid the formatting which was once again APPROVED.  
    Now we come to the end of 2016. They had decided to sue me…I presume at small claims court. They were going to win and take all my business/money etc.

WOW.  Not only this, I had another client who disparaged my name (Yes I can still sue them for defamation of character) They contacted me for a meeting.  I went into a deep depression and fog for three weeks…It was one of the worst time in the year for this to happen due to course work for Business Management along with trying to claw my way out of the fog and stabilise once more. 

With the bully I was still getting emails. In the end I sent them an offer which most folks wouldn’t refuse. I got a unpleasent email stating I was to re-do the book, and upload it to createspace, and purchase 5 or so copies to be sent to them by a certain date. They had gone a step to far. I was now furious.
     Offering them one last deal. It took several weeks to prepare and over $500 out of my business…which is still a loss to this day.  I printed off all their emails I met with my business admin who I had to pay ($75) to go through them and advise me if I was correct with my assumptions. That was another $300. Yes I was correct. If they sued me I could prove they were in the wrong, not only that, I could re-sue them for defamation of character.
     The email was sent. It wasn’t accepted. I still don’t understand why. The email was sent via my business admin. Their reply.  “All I wanted was to have it edited”
    If a client has approved a final file then they need to pay for any further formatting edits. They also need to use the final file I sent them.  I have about 4 different files with different words counts on my computer…Which is the right one? Why should I continue to edit their work for FREE when they had approved final files. 

From this time one I went quiet on Facebook which of course, affected my business badly. This person was still on my friends list and in two groups I ran. It wasn’t until mid 2017 that I finally deleted them, unfriended and blocked them. This was all thanks to another online friend who is like a sister to me. The relief was immense, though with them still living locally I was real nervous going up town. Call it anxiety of thinking they’d verbally attack me in the street. This is also another reason few of my friends online know I went back to England. 

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU KEEP RECORDS FROM ALL YOUR CLIENTS AND ALSO ALL YOUR REPLIES. IT MAY SAVE YOU ONE DAY.

This same person also emailed saying they had paid for a membership to the Chamber of Commerce…NOPE they didn’t because I have my receipt.  However I still wonder today if they paid for a second year – without my permission due to the fact I still received post from this group. I have never been able to find out.

SAVE ALL YOUR RECEIPTS!

As for the second person…They are still in the background, pottering along with life, asking me for coffee…well until they found out I was back in the UK…

The strange thing is that the only clients I’ve ever had issues with were all local males to were I used to live. All my online clients have been amazing and I have loved working and growing with them.

As for the Writers Group. I gave the then chairperson – who is an Editor, a printed out copy of my book to look through and advise.  She came back that it wasn’t her style and a bit rude. Ok yes she is an older lady.  What I didn’t know was that she’d told the rest of the committee and god knows who else that I wrote Erotica.  The book at that time was called Malachy’s Unit – it is now called Hidden Secrets.  It is not erotica or even erotic. It is murder, mystery romance with a bit of spice.

Nearly two years later I took my children’s book in to sell and show to the writers group. Girlie and the War of the Wasps. One of the gentlemen who approached me to buy a copy said. “Oh, I thought you only wrote erotica.” to my reply. “I don’t write erotica.”  Once again I was as mad as hell. I never went back to the group. The thought they were all looking at me a a nonsense smut writer (yeah they were that bad) was beyond a joke.

The Best Part…

The best part of 2016 was assisting a client with three children’s book. ‘The Pottontots’ is a set of three books with wonderful art work by the author. Keith Broad was awesome to work with and his stories are a great read for any child.

Createspace – Closing their Professional Services. Is this another step to closing their business?

WE all know I don’t like Createspace anymore due to their Customer Service debacle and how they treat their customers. They are so not with it. I’m glad to get out now rather than when they close their business down for good…To me this is what it looks like and I’ll tell you why.

I have worked in several businesses which have closed down and slowly but surely they get rid of things they no longer need. If your observant enough…you notice and it makes you wonder. Are they closing? Is this why customer service is so bad? Do they really want to work with Indie Authors or are they just money hungry and we’re not bring in enough profit for them anymore?  

If I follow my instinct the first thing Amazon rolled out was print on KDP!  Why did they do this?  Createspace was excellent at the time and I loved using their website.  From authors around the world I heard scathing comments about KDP Print and how bad they were, rejecting book covers continually. One author had her cover rejected 37 times where as on Createspace it was accepted straight away.  I decided to stay away. I hated the thought of even trying to use them at that stage.

Then suddenly I was having issues with Createspace. Their customer service was all over the place, moving from one to another person, not reading emails, getting things wrong…totally incompetent. In my company they would be reprimanded and given training to upgrade their skill set.  Then it was the turn of the ordering area of Createspace.  Books disappearing, Tracking number telling authors their books were going somewhere else. They couldn’t even tell the difference between the Northern and Southern hemisphere. Astounding mess. Though this one incident had a happy conclusion in the end nearly five months later. I know for a fact this author won’t order though Createspace again.  

Next it ws Copyright Permission. Their policies stated you’re only allowed to upload documents you own or have copyright permission of.  Yes there have been a hell of a lot of stolen manuscripts out there, however there are many ways this is done and most have nothing to do with Createspace.  So here they are demanding proof…Something new they’d never asked before.  If you know your business law (mine was New Zealand) then you can’t share private and confidential information with another party without permission from the person it involves.  I never have and never will share contracts, emails or anything else without permission.  Saying no to Createspace turned them into …well i’m not sure what. On top of this the book was published as an ebook and is for sale on Amazon, but they wouldn’t publish the paperback.  Guess who went to LULU.  They’ve been excellent by the way.

What else can happen?  Oh yes PERMA FREE.  Due to all the fuss I stopped uploading to KDP and started to use Pronoun – who we all know closed this month.  With Pronoun you could make a book FREE and no problems.  I wish they hadn’t closed.  Then Draft to Digital had distribution rights to send to Amazon, however, in their deal you couldn’t mark a book as FREE.  So I did the usual request and the second time they said no because it wasn’t uploaded to KDP only distributed. (They accepted the first…meaning they can’t even get this right)  They told me to contact D2D and get them to send a request. I’m sure this is more work which D2D don’t really want!  Much to my joy they did so but, I can still see a price on it on Amazon.  Though this could be me having a New Zealand Account.

Now the reason for this blog.  Createspace are no longer going to be offering professional services to authors.  They don’t wish to work one on one with you. No Book Cover Design, No Marketing and No Editing (I didn’t know they offered Editing.)  This info comes from a friend I sometimes work with. The original blog was from Book Baby who like me offer all the service to Indie Authors. They found the information in a newspaper in the USA/

ARE THEY CLOSING DOWN?  WHAT DO YOU THINK?

If you do need services for Editing, Cover Design, Formatting and some Marketing (I’m looking at taking a course in Marketing this year) Then please consider using Plaisted Publishing House. We love working one on one.

More Createspace Issues

Createspace has been around for quite a while. They had great customer service, always got back to you and sorted out your problems.  NOW I’m wondering what the hell is going on with them! A new boss, a new set of manager or staff?  I’ve not idea. What I do know is that suddenly over the last 4 months or so they have become a tad…incompetent in how they respond and sort out enquiries from authors.

I’ve found myself running around, chasing my tail to get things sorted. I’ve had them back down once over anthology copyright after I’ve explained things to them…no apology given for their error. I’ve tried to claim a book which took them over 8 emails to get right, not only the book title but the author name as well! It is getting ludicrous.  Then I get an email from a client crying foul with their delivery service….WHAT THE HELL!!

Now I know they failed to deliver my last set of books which never arrived and I went to my book signing without any books.  Of course this is the one time they apologised and sent a new set..obviously to late.. Now for my clients issue.

Apparently Createspace sent her parcel, (I forgot to ask if she got her email saying they had been shipped so may need to update this later) which can’t be tracked to New Zealand.  They usually over-estimate the date too. Something I’ve always known. Well next my client gets an email stating that she wasn’t home for the delivery so they sent them back to the USA to be destroyed and would send her another lot when she established another address. WHAT? NO WAY?  Nobody is home all the time!

I’ve never heard of this been done before.  My client is most upset as once again these books were for a signing and some had been pre-sold.  What a bloody nightmare.  The said client was angry and rang all the courier delivery companies (not the many in NZ) to ask if they’d had the package.  Nope not one of them had dealt with her package and not only that, they were horrified at how she was treated most saying they kept parcels for 2 weeks before sending back to the sender.  So who is pulling whose leg and why?

My client had one more email saying they had re sent the book with tracking – so what happens is she isn’t home again? (doubtful no tracking in New Zealand as previously stated) Since this my client got generic emails from createspace and nothing else. Most unhelpful.  WHAT IS GOING ON?

I have heard rumours that Createspace are shutting their doors, though I haven’t heard when or even if this is true. I suppose we’ll find out. I wonder if the KDP Print is the alternative. Needless to say they could at least pull the plug on a high note and stop messing everyone around. At this rate I’ll be going to LULU instead even though it costs a bit more.

PLEASE CREATESPACE PULL UP YOUR SOCKS AND GET YOUR MESS SORTED – IT’S IRRITATING AND A CAUSE FOR CONCERN.