Cantaraville is On Someone or Other's Shitlist

There are people who believe that somewhere out in cyberland there exists one great amorphous but singular Writers Community—sort of a cohesive “nation” of writers possessing certain rights, rules of conduct, avenues of redress, etc. simply because its inhabitants are writers. This would be harmless fantasy if it weren’t for a few people who take this idea very seriously, perhaps because of misplaced idealism, a personal grudge magnified, or simply to make one’s mark as a sort of industry provocateur.

It won’t have much of an effect on what we’re trying to do with Cantaraville and Cantarabooks, but last Friday we got an email at Cantarabooks with the subject line in caps: COMPLAINT. It went on to address us with, well, not only our mailing address, the full names of our editors (me and Michael), but our domestic relationship as well. I’m going to do my best to obscure the name of this person and her writers forum because, frankly, I don’t want to throw any more publicity in her direction. She doesn’t need it.

This was a long email. In it, this person spoke of an “investigation” being launched into a complaint made by a writer who submitted a batch of poems to us. This writer “alleges you sent a deeply insulting, threatening and unprofessional email simply because the author hesitated at your non-paying contract offer. See complete allegation under my signature."

In actuality, the “allegation” was simply her reprint of the last email I sent this writer.

“All correspondence for our investigations,” it went on, “must be in writing and is subject to publication. If you do owe this person money, we strongly suggest you read this article before responding: (and here was a URL pointing to one of the forum’s articles written by this person)... We appreciate your prompt response in this matter.”

I responded this morning in, I believe, a measured tone that matched the tone of the “official complaint” form letter email:

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Thank you for your interest in this matter. On Wednesday, April 15, I— K— sent us five poems for consideration. Although they were not sent in the format we request in our guidelines, we nonetheless read them. As we happened to have one slot open in an upcoming issue and his poems were deemed good enough for inclusion, we accepted them.

- On Friday, Apr 17, K— wrote back: Thanks for the acceptance. I’ll have to mull it over since this is without remuneration.

Our payment policy—one author’s copy—is stated clearly in our guidelines and in the Author-Publisher Agreement we email an author upon acceptance of his work. This agreement is an informal, unsigned agreement, more of an acknowledgment that a relationship has started with the author.

In the body of this same email, he then went on to include an unsolicited 1200-word pitch to our small press, Cantarabooks, for his translation of a novella by the minor early 20th-century Russian author, Mikhail P. Artsybashev, which ended:

- If you are to have it as a paperback, I am more than certain that at least 300 U.S. libraries with Russian literature interest, plus college libraries, would be potential buyers.

In our guidelines for Cantarabooks, we state in the first paragraph: “At the moment we are open only to unsolicited submissions of novellas, story collections or literary reportage 20-30,000 words for our ebook series of new writing in English.” Not proposals—full manuscripts.

NINE MINUTES LATER, before we even had a chance to reply to this email, K— sent us another one, stating:

- I can also have my illustrator supply some superlative pictures for this novella. But it will cost some.

We state clearly in our guidelines, “No photos or illustrations, please."

That was the last straw. It was clear that the submitter of this unsolicited material had no interest in being published in Cantarabooks/Cantaraville other than to get remunerative work for himself and his “illustrator”. Since that is not what we are in business for—our aims are clearly stated on our website—his importuning was taken as an insult.

On April 23 I wrote him the email you quote in its entirety, to which he replied the same day:

- Didn't know that some e-publishers are so touchy, but thanks for your advice. Best of successes to you and your publication. PS: Indeed, word will get around and writers do have some rights as well...

I’m assuming from that last intimation he felt driven to contact you to help him get some sort of redress. But in our opinion there’s nothing here that needs redressing.

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Our accuser’s advocate was swift in her reply:

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Hi Cantara,

Despite the emails you received from the writer, which were all friendly and professional, and despite what appears to be your obvious misunderstanding of his intent, your email to him was, in our opinion, over-the-top unprofessional—downright mean in fact.

We will be issuing a warning about your firm.

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I’m sure that by this time this warning will have been turned into a topic thread at her forum with the entire exchange of emails—or possibly just my email—posted, so if you want to read the whole thing or the offending email I wrote to I— K—, you’re just going to have to go and find it there. It’s not too hard to figure out the identity of the woman or her forum. I believe that she was one of the several owners of writers forums recently sued for defamation by the agent Barbara Bauer. (I have absolutely no public opinion on Bauer’s professional career.)

So there it is, time wasted swatting more ants at the picnic. Back to the sandwiches.

Comments

[MacAllister]

Actually, no - Barbara Bauer didn't name her on the lawsuit. (I'm one of the co-defendants, so I'd definitely know.)

But don't sweat it. Seriously. And don't respond--it doesn't get better when you respond, no matter what you say, or what the truth is.