MERCEDES-LACKEY Digest 2416 Topics covered in this issue include: 1) if I pay... by "Hill, Susan" 2) Re: if I pay... by kaukgan_-+AT+-excite.com 3) Re: if I pay... by Julia Gray 4) apologies for JUNK in last email; funny moments? by Julia Gray 5) Re: if I pay... by Silvrhwk1-+AT+-aol.com 6) Re: if I pay... by "Victoria H." 7) The opposite view, concerning "IF I pay Thee...." by Katarina Darkchyld ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 10:26:51 -0700 From: "Hill, Susan" To: "'mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk'" Subject: if I pay... Message-ID: <872A9D7CC09CD11188CE00805FBB042E05BFFFF3-+AT+-emswwc7.weyer.com> > From: "L. J. Thompson" > Piers Anthony has a (rather hostile) little paragraph on the whole "If I > Pay > Thee Not In Gold" thing in a back issue of his newsletter at > http://www.hipiers.com/97may.html . It's about 7 paragraphs in. The > Thanks for putting this link in - I thought I would paste the whole paragraph to encourage some discussion here - apparently there is a reason why the book felt chewed up and spit out as opposed to a happy collaboration. And if Mark is around (Mark??) I'd appreciate his take/response/comments to this - provided of course this is really Anthony's perspective. But my main irritation of the moment is the Audit. This is simplified, as all the details would be tedious and confusing. I have done some business with BAEN BOOKS, a publisher which at first seemed quite promising. But over the years there were little signals of mischief, and then larger ones, and finally a giant one that required me to take firm action. When I agreed to do If I Pay Thee Not In Gold there collaboratively, it was to be the first of a series. But when my collaborator dumped an insultingly sloppy manuscript on me-apparently she was angry at my assumption that I know how to write Piers Anthony style better than she know how to write Piers Anthony style-I cleaned it up as well as I could, a real headache, and told the publisher I would not do another. That marked the turning point in our relations. The publisher paid the collaborator more than $55,000, and paid me $400. And subsequently stopped sending me statements at all. The publisher had originally estimated, and stated so in the contract, that it expected to pay me, as the senior writer, on the order of $100,000. Obviously I would not have made the deal if I had known it would be for peanuts; money aside, the experience was already bad enough. Evidently the books started to be cooked the moment the publisher felt it didn't need me any more. Not to put too fine a point on this, but I don't think the collaborator's contribution was worth well over a hundred times what mine was, and the failure even to send statements was an open breach of contract. I am not a good writer to stiff. When my agent's repeated queries got nowhere, I acted directly, with a high powered New York auditor backed by the same lawyer I had used before to make TOR honor its own deal. Well, it has now been over four months, and the BAEN is still stonewalling the audit. Preliminary figures indicate that I am owed from $20,000 to $55,000, but these have to be confirmed, and the publisher is not providing the necessary accounts. I suspect it will take a court order to blast them out, and another to force payment actually to be made, with the threat of punitive damages. So the issue is not yet settled, but I think enough shows here to be a warning to other writers who may consider doing business with this publisher. Personally, after reading the rest of this page, it would appear to me that this has mainly become a forum for Anthony to whine and moan about how the world has done him wrong. I am not impressed. -Susan ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 12:09:44 -0700 (PDT) From: kaukgan_-+AT+-excite.com To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: if I pay... Message-ID: <13111287.970254584055.JavaMail.imail-+AT+-neon.excite.com> On Fri, 29 Sep 2000 18:48:15 +0100 (BST), mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk wrote: "SNIP" > Personally, after reading the rest of this page, it would appear to me that > this has mainly become a forum for Anthony to whine and moan about how the > world has done him wrong. I am not impressed. > > > -Susan > 1shypisces swoops down out of Lukerdom to deposit her 2cents. I totally agree with Susan, I thought the quote was very snide and petty. I too thought that If I Pay thee was a tough read and it took me some time to get into it, but once I was hooked I felt it was worth my time and effort. BTW, I loved the Elvenbane and Elvenblood books that Misty did with Andre Norton. Now I've had my say its back to Lurkerdom I swim. For the liberation of coy fish everywhere _______________________________________________________ Say Bye to Slow Internet! http://www.home.com/xinbox/signup.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 14:24:39 -0500 From: Julia Gray To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: if I pay... Message-ID: <39D4EC77.E54F1C07-+AT+-oakton.edu> This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------2BBA6190048084CC6F4C8948 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Hill, Susan" wrote: > *snipped it all, but mostly it was a quote attribute to Piers Anthony re: if i > pay...* > > -Susan Okay, I read the whole thing, was going to comment about some particular lines, but then realized ....well, comments about PIERS ANTHONY and his thoughts, views etc. in a forum dedicated to ML and where (as far as we know) he doesn't have a chance to defend himself just didn't seem right to me. I personally thought there were slightly snide and somewhat derogatory(sp?) comments about his "collaborator" that took away from the gist of his argument - but I don't know the whole story, this is not a Piers Anthony forum and that's about all of the comments I have on that. of course, others may disagree with me - :-) obmisty: okay, is there really going to be a 4th owl book? does anyone know? I was trying to track that down and haven't gotten anywhere. TIA (Rianna where are you? where's the friendship ring? :-) Betha'lis offering sheep ...just sheep ... to anyone who wants 'em *baaaaaaa* --------------2BBA6190048084CC6F4C8948 Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="jgray.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Julia Gray Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="jgray.vcf" begin:vcard n:Gray;Julia tel;work:847-635-1264 x-mozilla-html:TRUE version:2.1 email;internet:jgray-+AT+-oakton.edu title:Technology Supervisor, RHC adr;quoted-printable:;;"For a list of all the ways technology has failed to =0D=0Aimprove the quality of life, please press three" - Alice Kahn;;;; x-mozilla-cpt:;7280 fn:Julia Gray end:vcard --------------2BBA6190048084CC6F4C8948-- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 15:32:09 -0500 From: Julia Gray To: Mercedes Lackey Mailing List Subject: apologies for JUNK in last email; funny moments? Message-ID: <39D4FC49.E24D726F-+AT+-oakton.edu> sorry, i had changed my preferences when demonstrating how to do so in a workshop and forgot to set them back. I know that was a lot of wasted space, so I'll try to make it worthwhile obmisty: Favorite funny line/moment? this is kinda related to the quotes... is there a humourous moment or funny line that you in particular remember or like? I know i've laughed out loud at parts of Misty's books, but can't recall off hand a particularly funny moment. Anyone? Beth'alis who is really really sorry for that JUNK before ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 17:11:56 EDT From: Silvrhwk1-+AT+-aol.com To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: if I pay... Message-ID: <6d.9eb6f8b.27065f9c-+AT+-aol.com> Hey again,(wow, Ive been posting a lot more than usual lately!) Susan.hill wrote: Personally, after reading the rest of this page, it would appear to me that this has mainly become a forum for Anthony to whine and moan about how the world has done him wrong. I am not impressed. Okay, If I Pay Thee Not in Gold is definitely not one of my favorite books. In my opinion, it's only redeeming factor is Misty's writing. The entire second half of the story just didn't work. I'd read that quote from his newsletter a few years ago and was completely appalled. This is the entire reason that I will never read any of Piers Anthony's other books. Besides, what I did read of his(If I Pay Thee Not in Gold) just didn't impress me. Sorry for the slightly hostile tone, but this is a touchy subject. Vegetarian sheep to all, Silverhawk ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 17:19:24 PDT From: "Victoria H." To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: if I pay... Message-ID: Heyla again, listsibs! I've been lurking for quite some time now, but the whole "If I Pay Thee Not in Gold" issue drew me out of the black hole... first Susan.hill says: >Personally, after reading the rest of this page, it would appear to me that >this has mainly become a forum for Anthony to whine and moan about how the >world has done him wrong. I am not impressed. Same opinion here... *moves to stand on Susan's side* I've glanced at some of the other "newsletters" at the site - How anyone finds his writings interesting is beyond me - I have better things to do than read 70,000 words about how he was cheated by Baen and Misty. Sorry if I sound harsh here - it just upsets me, and I feel the need to defend Valdemar's creator. ;) About the book, I read it throught, wasn't thrilled but wasn't shocked either. Basically, here's my opinion - I read the book on checkout from the library and that's fine, but I wouldn't buy it. Misty has much better works out there - instead of spending $7 on "If I Pay Thee not..." buy something like "Oathbound" instead.... it's a much better investment. The collaboration just seems to have certain snags in it, where the writing doesn't flow, and also, the plot didn't thrill me. Purified, 100% Mountain Grown sheep to all! Zhai'helleva, ~*~ Victoria _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 20:45:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Katarina Darkchyld To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: The opposite view, concerning "IF I pay Thee...." Message-ID: <20000930034540.19321.qmail-+AT+-web2305.mail.yahoo.com> I absolutely dissagree with the two emails that speak so negatively of Piers Anthony, concerning that quote from His newsletter. Number one...it is His newsletter...as in, on his own page, and such. it is not as if he is going onto a forum of another writer and badmouthing them, as is going on here, by readers. As another reader said..there is no place for him to defend himself here..and I think that is sad. Second, if that little paragraph is Read, it explains WHY he is angry...I would be too if it were under those circumstances. Now....of course, that is the POV of one party...Misty may have a very different view on things....we dont know, because nothing has been written concerning it..(that *I* know of).... Either way...Piers Anthony and Mercedes Lackey are my two favorite Authors....and it is a shame that it didnt end up being a more fruitful compilation of their styles.... Thank you.. Katarina ~*Queen of the Vampire Sheep*~ ===== Yesterday is History, Tomorrow is the Future, Today is a Gift, and that is why we call it the "Present" Fiat ignem (~*Let there be Fire*~) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - 35mm Quality Prints, Now Get 15 Free! http://photos.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ End of MERCEDES-LACKEY Digest 2416 **********************************