"These rumors about massive layoffs are outrageously false and it makes me so angry I'm going to perform a massive layoff!"
There is an old saying of spare the rod and spoil the child.
Based on that recording it wouldn't seem unfair to speculate the elder Tate never owned a rod.
That Tate's are a very arrogant family. I have never witnessed such arrogance in my lifetime. It seems that they have lawsuits against several blogging sites for writers and now they are threatening to sue these people whom they fired. Since this firing has been recorded I can see these ex-employee's getting together to form their own lawsuit.
Leon Mentzer, what's your take on Ryan Tate's comment about the "bother of author interaction...."?
As a four-time author with three sold-out printings and two more books in the pipeline, why would I want to work with a publisher who has this attitude toward authors? A quick Google search shows you've put some work into defending Tate online the past couple of days....
http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_wri..._for_tate.html
Yeah, on top of everything else, Tate basically says that dealing with authors is a pain they are trying to out-source. More great PR for them.what's your take on Ryan Tate's comment about the "bother of author interaction...."?
From that article Steve linked:
"Tate is a vanity press. They make their money selling books to desperate, naive, and gullible authors, not to readers."
Allow me a moment to note a few things that have interested me in this whole mater. Did I understand correctly when Tate indicated in the audio that he was tipped off by the Mustang Times that the alleged leaks were coming from his production office, and that's why he was targeting that group? If this is correct, what do we take from this?
Second, I'm intrigued by the history of reported lawsuits against blogs that were critical of Tate Publishing. This also is not the first time an author appeared on an online forum to defend Tate Publishing. Note the defense of Tate by a John Hess and "Writemaster" - and then the questions that emerged later about that same authors: http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_wri..._for_tate.html
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=992
http://www.writers.net/forum/showthr...ut-of-Oklahoma
This is all very, very, very interesting....
Why haven't his employees all quit?
Some may live check to check and canna make such a move even if they are sick at staying.
Some may share his perspective and feel the mgmt. is fine, they are fine, but oh, some of their co-workers are well, not so much.
Some may have reached their pinnacle of competence and are hoping to hold on to what they have.
Some may have a foot out the door but enjoy the show more than they detest the drama.
Likely to be as many reasons as there are employees, though would not be surprising if several are rather similar reasons.
Whoever this Leon Mentzer guy is, can he please point to where it's a felony in Oklahoma for a party to a conversation to record said conversation without the consent of the fella yelling obscenities at them? 13 O.S. Section 176.4(5) (which lays out when it's not a crime to record conversations such as this states:
"5. a person not acting under color of law to intercept a wire, oral or electronic communication when such person is a party to the communication or when one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception unless the communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal act; or"
Aside from the grammar issues, Mr. Mentzer obviously doesn't know much about Oklahoma law.
Funny enough though, Mr. Mentzer, do you know what IS illegal? Defamation. Did you know that defamation is a crime? Accusing someone of a felony they didn't commit? Up to a year in jail and $1,000. So stick to your day job (if you still have one, I hear that's kind of iffy if you work at Tate Publishing).
To be fair, that's the one thing they weren't outsourcing. The true irony of the situation is lost in the recording. All of the remaining editors were told that they'd have to re-apply for jobs as "Project Managers" where they will no longer be editing. So when he talks about streamlining work and removing author communication, he's talking about making sure the people actually editing in the Philippines don't have to perform author communication, whereas all his former editors will have that as their full-time jobs. They're also getting rid of their part-time editing positions. How he thinks in his mind this isn't outsourcing a is a little beyond me.
Something has been bothering me (and keeping me awake when I have work in the morning). Why is Leon Metzner here on this forum? According tothis he lives in Decatur, Illinois. He's also shown up on a wide array of internet forums defending Tate. This particular time just sticks out to me though. According to his profile he just joined yesterday, so he's not a longstanding member (in all fairness, neither am I, so consider my motives suspect as well). I feel either it's crazy coincidence that someone professing a good experience with Tate just happened upon one of the few places on the internet where it's being discussed, or he's actively running damage control. The latter seems especially likely when you consider this forum happens to be one of the few places Google has indexed as linking back to the original Journal Record article.
I just see too much evidence for this to be just you talking about a company you like. I see posts from you going back to at least 2006 all across the internet in virtually every discussion I can find about Tate (most of which involve people calling it a scam). My favorite thing I noticed was here when you list yourself as Voted “Best New Christian Writer 2005” by www.christianstoryteller.com, which if you go to the website you own. It just looks like you continually show up, try and sound as successful as possible through your experience with Tate, and disappear. And sometimes Ryan Tate (or as I now refer to him, Lead Foot) shows up just a few posts later to defend himself. This just screams organized marketing effort and damage control to me, not really "helpful guy giving his opinion".
I would love to be a fly on the wall listening to those idiots after all of this media coverage. A lot of people who have dealt with these people claim that their sales presentation is a scam. It seems that they get an initial 4000 dollar payment and then continue to ask for more money in a step by step process.
If your business is a con, eventually it will fall apart. Hopefully many of the people who unfortunately staked their livelihood on this company will make it through the the termination of this god-awful company.
It appears that the employees may have noticed that this business was starting to fail and started talking about it on chat lines and it seems that this young kid acting like a CEO panicked. When your employees lose confidence in you and your company they talk.
Vanity publishers aren't necessarily a con.
There are a bunch of them out there that do a decent business as lots of people just want a book published. I know a few people that have used companies like Tate and they were happy with the arrangement.
Not sure about Tate in particular but again, vanity publishing can be a viable business.
Interesting take from the Lost Ogle:
http://www.thelostogle.com/2012/06/0...ng/#more-24924
I don't think vanity publishing is a con. I think there is a legitimate market for it. Tate denies being a vanity publisher, and calls itself a subsidy publisher. The required $4000 dollar fee is an "author investment". That's their hook for their mark. They tell their potential writers that you have to believe in yourself for us to believe in you. I have no personal experience with these people, but just a minimal amount of research brings up the same story with different narrators.
Just one of many examples of why I enjoy the writing over at TLO.
Even King Joffrey thinks that’s a bit rash and immature
ABC has now picked up the story.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/oklah...6#.T9I7tNVDx8F
And across the pond.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...es-speech.html
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