Dragongirl
First Post
Bruahahhahaha I figured out who it is!
Funny Email From a Publisher re. Reviews
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
chatdemon
First Post
Well folks,
I must agree that this mystery publisher is completely out of line in expecting preferred treatment in exchange for promo products, but there are two points I must address:
1.> It wasn't stated explicitly, but the wording of the email seems weird. 'it seems you were not informed of our policy' or some such...
Sounds to me like a reply to someone asking for promo material. If, and only if, that reviewer has a habit of contacting publishers and saying 'hey, send me a free copy and ill post a review of it on enworld!' and then gets into the habit of trashing some of that material, I think the attitude of the publisher is understandable, if still unjustified. If, on the other hand, the relationship with that publisher and the reviewer is a more traditional book review set up, where the publisher contacts the reviewer and says 'hey, weve got a new book and value your opinion and respect the weight your opinions carry, heres a copy for you to review and enjoy' and then they get mad because they get 'dissed', oh well, that's their problem. Honestly though, as I said, the verbiage of their email makes me wonder about how this publisher's relationship with this reviewer works. (NOTE, I am commenting ONLY on this email and the reviewer in question, this is NOT a disparagement of ENWorld or its reviews policy, thank you
)
2> Reposting private email to a public forum is extremely bad netiquette and very unprofessional, no matter who the guilty party is.
I must agree that this mystery publisher is completely out of line in expecting preferred treatment in exchange for promo products, but there are two points I must address:
1.> It wasn't stated explicitly, but the wording of the email seems weird. 'it seems you were not informed of our policy' or some such...
Sounds to me like a reply to someone asking for promo material. If, and only if, that reviewer has a habit of contacting publishers and saying 'hey, send me a free copy and ill post a review of it on enworld!' and then gets into the habit of trashing some of that material, I think the attitude of the publisher is understandable, if still unjustified. If, on the other hand, the relationship with that publisher and the reviewer is a more traditional book review set up, where the publisher contacts the reviewer and says 'hey, weve got a new book and value your opinion and respect the weight your opinions carry, heres a copy for you to review and enjoy' and then they get mad because they get 'dissed', oh well, that's their problem. Honestly though, as I said, the verbiage of their email makes me wonder about how this publisher's relationship with this reviewer works. (NOTE, I am commenting ONLY on this email and the reviewer in question, this is NOT a disparagement of ENWorld or its reviews policy, thank you
)2> Reposting private email to a public forum is extremely bad netiquette and very unprofessional, no matter who the guilty party is.
chatdemon said:
Reposting personal e-mail in a public forum is extremely bad netiquette. But that's not what happened here.
A corporate representative sent a message to an employee of a news service, detailing corporate policy and the reasons behind that policy. What the corporation does behind it's own doors may be it's own business, but when a company states openly how it interacts with others, and why, that's official public policy - fair game for news.
If the original author had said, "Simon, I'm sorry, but I can't send you the product. Off the record, the boss doesn't like how poorly EN world rates our products..." you might have an argument that this was a message from one private individual to another. But the author seems to treat Mr. Collins as an EN World representative, and seems to retain his stance as a corporate representative.
Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
That would have been my guess, based on ColonelHardisson's "bemused" comment. I don't know if that's who he had in mind when he said it, but for some reason it struck me.
Now that I know, the next juicy bit of gossip to watch is how those "other" sites respond to being defamed like that... OR ARE THEY? (cue ominous music!)
Wulf
Now that I know, the next juicy bit of gossip to watch is how those "other" sites respond to being defamed like that... OR ARE THEY? (cue ominous music!)
Wulf
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
You know, I thought it was them because I asked if they wanted me to add to the reviews and they said no pretty much for the reasons statted here. No biggie for me personally as I do reviews for some other sites, some of which do get this material or buy it. Now the strange thing is they wouldn't provide product blurbs or cover scans either. Ah well. Not going to lose sleep over it.
ghoti69
First Post
Ahhhh
Well, now that I know who it is, I know who's products to avoid despite any positive reviews they may have received. I gotta tell you, I read the negative reviews those products received and I thought they were fair. Oh, well, I would've probably avoided them solely to protest the obvious pandering to "pathetic geek losers who play role-playing games and would buy our products solely because we show a lot of skin on the covers".
Or, at least, that's what their covers say to me...
Morrus, think we can start a poll as to how long before they a) relent or b) are out of business?
Well, now that I know who it is, I know who's products to avoid despite any positive reviews they may have received. I gotta tell you, I read the negative reviews those products received and I thought they were fair. Oh, well, I would've probably avoided them solely to protest the obvious pandering to "pathetic geek losers who play role-playing games and would buy our products solely because we show a lot of skin on the covers".
Or, at least, that's what their covers say to me...
Morrus, think we can start a poll as to how long before they a) relent or b) are out of business?
MeepoTheMighty
First Post
Hmm, that's a shame, I had been thinking about buying a few of their products. Oh well, if they want to shoot themselves in the foot like that, I guess they don't mind losing this customer...
