July 2003

(if you drop in here straight, you need to read the previous parts first to get the whole picture. Start reading with Poetry scam(s), Part I.)

Yesterday I called Mr Khris McCants at XLibris. First I called six times with my phone identity on and I constantly got the answering machine. Then I switched my phone identity off, called again and got straight through to him. Now this might be completely totally coincidental and maybe I'm getting a bit paranoid with this whole thing, but well... I thought it was a bit strange.
I told him that he was talking to AC. He didn't know an AC. Then I told him I sent him a couple of e-mails about publishing poetry and some other questions and I gave him my hotmail e-mail address and then all of a sudden he said that he misheard my name and he remembered now. He wanted to know my full name and where I was from, so at that moment AC Johnson, an American student studying International Literature at the Finnish University, was born *grins*
I asked him if he read my e-mail and then he asked what I wrote. So he didn't read it, I concluded. I told him that I asked in the mail why I didn't get a reply to the mails I sent to Megan Gallagher or info@XLibris.com. And I asked him on the phone if it was their company policy to structurally ignore normal questions and reply only to potential income e-mails.
He was quiet for a second (just too long to make his reply sincere) and then he said that well... we ARE a business and all the mails have to be redirected to people who can reply to them. But they do usually answer all the questions. But it might happen that ocassionally e-mails get lost along the way of processing. And straight after that I asked him if that was maybe the case with all seven of the e-mails that I sent to them before I started asking about being published and to that he couldn't really give an answer. After that I asked him still how they got my e-mail address and he mentioned that they find e-mail addresses through subscriptions of writer-boards/forums, websites and so on and so on. He wasn't really specific with that. When I asked him if they had any relation with poetry.com he denied without any hesitation. So I guess that's a dead end.
Overall they seem to be an ok company, even though they have kind of an aggressive way of approaching people to get them on the ship. But well... Be aware anyway.

I'll still get back on the Theatre of the Mind thingy at a later stage, so...

TO BE CONTINUED!
Continue with Poetry scam(s), Part XVII.