This is unbelievable.

http://journalrecord.com/2012/05/31/trouble-at-tate-publishing-company-fires-25-as-outsourcing-rumors-fly-general-news/

Wow! Listening to that recording was infuriating.

Hiding behind your faith to justify your sleazy actions and poor business decisions. What a coward.

Isn't Tate just a run of the mill vanity publisher? And weren't they named as OKCBiz's top places to work? Yikes.

Convenient excuse to ruin 25 families...Very Christian like...Sure the lord told him to fire locals and make more for his family by replacing them with Filipinos

Why do I get the feeling there's a lot more to this than just a leak about outsourcing. Sounds like the guy is more concerned about what potentially could be leaked rather than what has been leaked.

Interesting to see this one play out.

The Lost Ogle is gathering the goods on him right now. Reportedly he has some skeletons in his closet.

Who prays before meetings? What the F

Who prays before meetings? What the F

A sociopath with a Napoleon complex.


The Lost Ogle is gathering the goods on him right now. Reportedly he has some skeletons in his closet.

I'd be interested to see what they get. Looking him up on OSCN revealed possibly one of the worst driving records I've ever seen.

He also attends Crossings. I'm interested to hear their sermon on firing people.

If it weren't for the fact it was this guy's company he probably wouldn't be working there. I can't imagine anyone ever hiring him. He has his incompetence on record now for everyone to see. His fake emotion at the end was difficult to stomach.

Who prays before meetings? What the F

Someone that lives by, and runs a business based upon Christian values.

My how some are quick to judge with little or no evidence. Scary.

My how some are quick to judge with little or no evidence. Scary.

It's the Christian way lol

It always seems to be the people who didn't earn their positions that make ignorant decisions like this. This is what happens when fathers groom their children to take over a business when they really don't qualify to run a business. I am sure that this business owner claims to be a conservative but giving his son this position without earning it was not a conservative action and this business will pay a heavy price for the actions of this spoiled son. You see this abuse of authority just about every time a father brings a son or daughter into a business as a leader without making them work their way up from the bottom. Compassion for others is a life learning experience and this spoiled brat hasn't learned about compassion at this point.

I can't imagine anyone ever hiring him.

He was Chief of Staff to Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin.

He was Chief of Staff to Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin.

That opens it up to all kinds of fun responses :Smiley122

Evidently these guys will publish anything for 4000 bucks.

I see their Twitter account has been deleted.

What a POS.

I see their Twitter account has been deleted.

What a POS.

Correction, their Twitter is active, they just don't know how to link to it.

Someone that lives by, and runs a business based upon Christian values.

Putting a fish on your business logo or citing Bible verses on your website (like a lot of businesses in OK) does NOT mean your business is run on "Christian values."

You wanna see a business run on strong Christian values? Look up David Green and Hobby Lobby. Ironically, they don't seem to brag about it.

I also seriously doubt Mr. Green calls his employees morons and stupid, either.

LOL...what a moron. If I worked for a guy like this I would have left a long time ago. Not because I disagree with his issue with employees using social media during work time, but his attitude. The computer usage is an easy fix...block the sites and you're done.

He might be suing those ex-employees for 7.8 Mil...but he just shot himself in the foot even more. Gotta love the part where he said he'll essentially own those people for the rest of their lives.

This is a guy that really does not need to be in a management role let alone running a company. He obviously can't handle the pressure of what else is going on to flip out like this. Sure you can be passionate to save your company, but at some point when you get the point of threatening and just terrorizing employees is something that does not need to be in power.

The Tate's would look perfect wearing big clown shoes and big red noses at this point.They will be the laughing stock of Mustang for a long time to come. He talks about lawsuits. The lawsuits will be from the employee's that he fired. Old man Tate made the mistake of his lifetime putting his idiot son in this position of power and it will cost him dearly in the future. Who in their right mind would want to work for a family of clowns like the Tate's?

How sad for all involved in this. As I review what has transpired I will said this,
1. Rarely has any employee ever released from a job admitted that they might have contribute to the issue.
2. Former employees are most likely, angry, stressed, vindictive, and have powerful internet weapons at their hand for making their problem known and seem like some else's. They always act like they're speaking for the rest of the employees.
3. Signing confidentiality agreements are serious business.
While I might of worded Ryan's speech differently I wouldn't change the message. The actions of the employee(s), anonymous e-mails to the entire work force, passing on alleged rumors. Gossiping, being disrespectful toward your employer are just not to be tolerated in any business, period.
The actions of a few can ruin the job security of many.
The illegal taping of a meeting is a felony. That alone garner no sympathy from me. This mixed with the e-mail tells me that Tate needed to address the problem at once. The fact that a newspaper is playing the tape, is just as illegal in my opinion.
As a CEO, and a Tate Author, I could care less about the day to day HR problems at Tate. I'm very concern that my publisher is successful and that my book(s) are represented by good and financially solid publisher.
Prayers are offered for all.
Leon Mentzer
Christiansyoryteller.com

That opens it up to all kinds of fun responses :Smiley122

That's what.

-- She


(sorry. saw it on a shirt and liked it.)

It's a sleezy vainity publishing outfit anyway- blow smoke and make you think you've written the next great classic. All they need is a $4,000"author's investment" and if the author comes to his snses and declines they apparently get nasty once more persuasion isn't effective and tell the poor guy his book really is dirt.

The illegal taping of a meeting is a felony.

If the person that recorded the meeting was party to it (and you have to assume they were, otherwise they wouldn't have been in the room) then their tape recording was not illegal:

"Federal law permits recording telephone calls and in-person conversations with the consent of at least one of the parties. See 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d). This is called a "one-party consent" law. Under a one-party consent law, you can record a phone call or conversation so long as you are a party to the conversation. Furthermore, if you are not a party to the conversation, a "one-party consent" law will allow you to record the conversation or phone call so long as your source consents and has full knowledge that the communication will be recorded.

In addition to federal law, thirty-eight states (including Oklahoma) and the District of Columbia have adopted "one-party consent" laws and permit individuals to record phone calls and conversations to which they are a party or when one party to the communication consents."

http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/recording-phone-calls-and-conversations

How sad for all involved in this. As I review what has transpired I will said this,
1. Rarely has any employee ever released from a job admitted that they might have contribute to the issue.
2. Former employees are most likely, angry, stressed, vindictive, and have powerful internet weapons at their hand for making their problem known and seem like some else's. They always act like they're speaking for the rest of the employees.
3. Signing confidentiality agreements are serious business.
While I might of worded Ryan's speech differently I wouldn't change the message. The actions of the employee(s), anonymous e-mails to the entire work force, passing on alleged rumors. Gossiping, being disrespectful toward your employer are just not to be tolerated in any business, period.
The actions of a few can ruin the job security of many.
The illegal taping of a meeting is a felony. That alone garner no sympathy from me. This mixed with the e-mail tells me that Tate needed to address the problem at once. The fact that a newspaper is playing the tape, is just as illegal in my opinion.
As a CEO, and a Tate Author, I could care less about the day to day HR problems at Tate. I'm very concern that my publisher is successful and that my book(s) are represented by good and financially solid publisher.
Prayers are offered for all.
Leon Mentzer
Christiansyoryteller.com

Pete pointed out your error when it comes to recording. Welcome to Oklahoma...you can record anyone if you are part of the discussion. So that strikes that out. I find it interesting that these obvious internal issues and horrible leadership skills by Tate don't bother you. Does that give insight to the type of business leadership you practice at well or do you simply just believe in the "I'm the boss and you do as I say" mentality?

To your other points...
1) While true, where there is smoke there is fire. Things will get exaggerated but there is likely some other issues that haven't gone public yet.

2) Same could be said for Mr. Tate. Not very Christian like...whatever that is these days. Meaningless words since they've lost their original meaning over time from being overused by people looking to excuse their actions.

3) Obviously NDAs are important and serious. The fact that such leaks were occurring shows just how poor labor relations are with this company. He has chosen to rule by fear but people aren't going to put up with it. In this age if you don't maintain quality relations with your workers they will turn on you - as they have here. His reaction seems to highlight the kind of leader he is and it is not one to grow loyalty. Leading by fear will only lead to failure. Of course there will be plenty of like-minded individuals who will continue to support them because they look at labor in a negative light. Such disregard for the Golden Rule will eventually bring the house of cards down on him and others like him.

At the end of the day it is about addressing the root cause of the problem. He isn't doing that. He instead made it worst and killed labor relations for his company. If this was a public company shareholders would have his head and get the cancer - HIM - out of the company extremely fast.

How sad for all involved in this. As I review what has transpired I will said this,
1. Rarely has any employee ever released from a job admitted that they might have contribute to the issue.
2. Former employees are most likely, angry, stressed, vindictive, and have powerful internet weapons at their hand for making their problem known and seem like some else's. They always act like they're speaking for the rest of the employees.
3. Signing confidentiality agreements are serious business.
While I might of worded Ryan's speech differently I wouldn't change the message. The actions of the employee(s), anonymous e-mails to the entire work force, passing on alleged rumors. Gossiping, being disrespectful toward your employer are just not to be tolerated in any business, period.
The actions of a few can ruin the job security of many.
The illegal taping of a meeting is a felony. That alone garner no sympathy from me. This mixed with the e-mail tells me that Tate needed to address the problem at once. The fact that a newspaper is playing the tape, is just as illegal in my opinion.
As a CEO, and a Tate Author, I could care less about the day to day HR problems at Tate. I'm very concern that my publisher is successful and that my book(s) are represented by good and financially solid publisher.
Prayers are offered for all.
Leon Mentzer
Christiansyoryteller.com

If a company is firing that large a percentage of it's staff solely over disciplinary action, it has management problems as well.

"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_writers_life/2006/03/tit_for_tate.html

what's your take on Ryan Tate's comment about the "bother of author interaction...."?

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.


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."

How sad for all involved in this. As I review what has transpired I will said this,
1. Rarely has any employee ever released from a job admitted that they might have contribute to the issue.
2. Former employees are most likely, angry, stressed, vindictive, and have powerful internet weapons at their hand for making their problem known and seem like some else's. They always act like they're speaking for the rest of the employees.
3. Signing confidentiality agreements are serious business.
While I might of worded Ryan's speech differently I wouldn't change the message. The actions of the employee(s), anonymous e-mails to the entire work force, passing on alleged rumors. Gossiping, being disrespectful toward your employer are just not to be tolerated in any business, period.
The actions of a few can ruin the job security of many.
The illegal taping of a meeting is a felony. That alone garner no sympathy from me. This mixed with the e-mail tells me that Tate needed to address the problem at once. The fact that a newspaper is playing the tape, is just as illegal in my opinion.
As a CEO, and a Tate Author, I could care less about the day to day HR problems at Tate. I'm very concern that my publisher is successful and that my book(s) are represented by good and financially solid publisher.
Prayers are offered for all.
Leon Mentzer
Christiansyoryteller.com

If I were a publisher, I imagine I would prefer my champion/author-client not stand up for me via a post containing numerous typos, punctuation miscues, structural oddities and information errors. Might be over-thinking the matter though.

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_writers_life/2006/03/tit_for_tate.html
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=992
http://www.writers.net/forum/showthread.php?111452-Recent-experience-with-Tate-Publishing-company-out-of-Oklahoma
This is all very, very, very interesting....

Why haven't his employees all quit?

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).

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.

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 (http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=84865091&authType=name&authToken=GAGn&locale=en_US) 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 (http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_writers_life/2006/03/tit_for_tate.html) 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".

(if you still have one, I hear that's kind of iffy if you work at Tate Publishing).

I think Tate Publishing still need to employ internet trolls now more than ever. I think his job is safe for a while.

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/2012/06/04/about-that-crazy-staff-meeting-at-tate-publishing/#more-24924

Vanity publishers aren't necessarily a con.



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.

... it seems that this young kid acting like a CEO panicked. When your employees lose confidence in you and your company they talk.

Not certain where the young kid notion comes from. CEO of Tate, while exhibiting what many would easily conclude to be a startling lack of maturity and common sense, appears to be a grown man.

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.

I understand what you are saying and agree this company seems a bit shady.

I was just making the point that not all vanity publishers are necessarily sleazy, although almost none of them like the "vanity" label.

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/oklahoma-company-fires-25-employees-amid-outsourcing-rumors/story?id=16520756#.T9I7tNVDx8F

And across the pond.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2156488/Christian-CEO-prays-insults-fires-25-employees-leaked-email--takes-Lords-vain-minutes-speech.html

Is this Ryan Tate, or Richard Head? What a megalomaniacal prick!

It sure has been quiet for five months. Did the kid go through with lawsuits against his former employees?

Not nearly as many cars parked at their location in Mustang now.

A friend of mine that used to work for Tate said it's every bit the nightmare we all had been told it was. She did not know what has become of the lawsuits at this time.

Any updates on this?

I guess the Tates are doing some serious damage control and hiding out. Anything new?

Tate Publishing is closing up shop. From the story they owe alot of money and are getting sued by a few companies for non payment.

http://m.newsok.com/article/5534974

Ding, dong, the witch is dead! Which old witch? The wicked witch! Ding, dong, the wicked witch is dead!

AG filed charges against Ryan and Richard Tate today it looks like:

http://kfor.com/2017/05/04/charges-filed-against-president-founder-of-tate-publishing-for-fraudulent-business-practices/

Newsok has a little more detail.


http://m.newsok.com/founder-ceo-of-tate-publishing-arrested-on-embezzlement-extortion-charges/article/5547934?rotator=true