I see the editors at PA more as victims than as perpetrators. I think they're good-faith employees who do what they're told and believe the lies.
Do you remember the editor who had the LiveJournal? That was about a year ago, IIRC.
Again IIRC she'd been working in a furniture store when she saw an ad in the local Pennysaver looking for editors. She'd always wanted to work with books, so she answered the ad and got hired.
She truly believed that she was helping deserving authors who'd been unfairly overlooked by the "big guys." She believed that she was doing good.
Was she a competent editor? Probably not. She'd had no experience. Was she learning anything about how to work in publishing that she could take to another publisher? No. She was being trained to do things that she'd have to unlearn later, and she wasn't getting a credit she could use on her resume if she ever tried to get a job with a real publisher.
But it took her quite a while before she suddenly realized -- you know what? These books
suck. That was about the point where news of the existence of the LJ got here.
I read the entire thing that night. Which was good -- it was gone the next morning. Erased. (And to think -- Larry claims that a "junior staffer" looks over here once a year or so and finds "nothing new." You're reading this right now, aren't you, Larry?)
The point was -- PA editors are fed the same line as the authors. And they believe it.
I'm told that the editors work in a building with no voice telephones, to make sure that they can never talk directly with any of their authors. Everything goes through e-mail, and Miranda monitors the e-mail. Heaven help 'em if someone has a medical problem and they have to call the paramedics, or if the place catches on fire. Maybe someone would be carrying a personal cell phone.
So I don't blame the editors much. They're young, inexperienced, vulnerable, and gullible. I think that most of them move on as soon as they wise up.
The Author Insult Team, on the other hand ....
(I think that the new Print Unedited option means that a) they've noticed that their books sell exactly as well whether they're "edited" or not, and b) they're planning to cut staff to save money. Hard times in Frederick? As long as they offer what they call editing as an option, they'll skate on their "traditional publisher" story, just like they're skating on their "returnable Independence Books" story.)
Have y'all read the stories of the staffers who were working for
Commonwealth?
And back to
Atlanta Nights -- here's the story of a
sting against Edit Ink.