Complaint Review: Thomas M. Hill II - Cody Wyoming

I'm surprised that Mr. Hill would respond to a negative
evaluation of his services given that he failed to follow-through on addressing
them in the first place. He refused to respond to any inquiries after the one
he cited on the 8th of March, and ignored all correspondence from the Better
Business Bureau as well.

In his rebuttal, he stated "This information helped me
to determine how best to edit the manuscript and explains why certain
non-standard language, spelling, and sentence fragments were rendered as they
were." While I can appreciate targeting an approach to a specific
audience, the issue I had as originally stated (and cited in the rebuttal) was
that there were more than enough spelling errors, word omissions, and
inconsistent formatting issues that I had obtain the services of another editor
working in conjunction with me to identify and correct them all.

Mr. Hill went on to say the following:
--
In the agreement that the author signed, it states:
"Editing is intrinsically a process of offering advice and suggestions to
the Author. In addition to offering such advice and suggestions, the Editor's
responsibility is limited to notifying the Author of any unresolved differences
with the Author before the work proceeds to the next stage of production."
With each partial submission of the manuscript, I suggested ways to improve the
readability and focus and to amply the characters' roles. My interpretation of
the quoted statement from the agreement is that it is also the author's
responsibility to address issues such as he has brought forth on this forum "before
work proceeds to the next stage of production." He only addressed them two
months after the project was considered complete.
--
None of what Mr. Hill states here is relevant to the issue
at hand, as the issues identified are clearly objective mechanical issues, and
as such should've been corrected or identified in the initial editing
run-through. I have no qualms with the suggestions and clarification he
provided in the other areas of copy-editing, which I've made very clear as I've
specified exactly what wasn't done up to standard. I fail to see how his
statement of "several rounds of revisions, rewriting, and re-editing are
necessary" applies to correcting simple spelling errors such as
'reverbated' and 'sitation'. The manuscript did not change at any point while
he was editing except for the changes he himself made.

Furthermore, Mr. Hill omits the fact I explained to him I
had serious medical issues at the time, and was hospitalized, had surgery, and
was on recovery for two months immediately following the holiday season,
dealing with the illness up until then. "Mr. Hill, I would've followed up
on this much sooner, but unforeseen medical issues kept me otherwise occupied
until recently." was the very first line I wrote to him in an e-mail on
the 28th of February 2011 to explain why my review of the material came so
late.

I'm a little concerned and disappointed that Mr. Hill would
attempt to turn this into a personal matter, saying things such as "Given
the author's budget constraints, it is understandable that he would demand a
$500 refund from me" and "It is clear to me that the author has
neither budget nor the time to devote to such an endeavor." trying to turn
this into a personal issue and degrade the integrity of my character when this
is a clear-cut matter of business. To the contrary, the material in discussion
has already been published thanks to the assistance of another editor, and I
asked for the partial refund to help cover costs as I had to obtain another
editor to fix the mistakes that Mr. Hill refused to address in the first place.
I would've been more than willing to negotiate what both of us found as a
reasonable refund, but he was simply uninterested in the matter.

My issue with this entire situation has been clear from the
start - I paid Mr. Hill to conduct a thorough copy-edit, and in many of the
areas entailed in copy-editing he performed satisfactorily. In the areas he
failed to properly perform as outlined in the contract, I requested a refund.

Mr. Hill refused to ever acknowledge the request, and when I
pressed the matter, he refused to respond to inquiries sent to him on the 15th
and 21st of March, and any form of correspondence from any other parties since
then. I would caution any future clients that might consider this editor, and
to do so at their own discretion.

I learned of Mr. "Aramis" and his editing project from a third party website and responded per our procedure with a sample edit of the first 2,000 words of his manuscript on September 14, 2010. I offered him two prices: one for copyediting and one for developmental editing. Additionally, I informed him that, per standard procedure, we enter into written agreements with authors outlining the scope of work and other parameters. Mr. "Aramis" responded on September 19, 2010, stating that he was working with a developmental editor to "improve/clarify some of the content within the manuscript." He also adds, "I definitely like your pricing, as it seems quite a bit more reasonable than what I've seen elsewhere..."

We agreed to a payment plan that was different from our standard procedure (50/50 payments), breaking the payments into bimonthly installments. "Im on tight budget since Im financing this out-of-pocket..." Mr. "Aramis" signed the agreement, which stated that I would copyedit for "grammar, punctuation, word usage, style" and produce a style sheet. The agreement was signed on October 14, 2010. Work began on the author's project, and submissions were sent to the author according to our predetermined schedule. With each submission, I highlighted elements of the manuscript that I felt he needed to develop further--things I imagine a developmental editor would have caught in the initial editing phase. I submitted the final section of the edits to the author on December 16, 2010. 

Two and a half months later (February 28, 2011), the author contacted me stating that he was "troubled by the amount of spelling errors and word omissions." He goes on to say, "I can't speak much to the grammar and formatting, as I admittedly don't know nearly as much about them as I would like," and "I can't say I noted any errors specifically as I honestly wouldn't know...Having to review all this again just for these issues is both incredibly time-consuming and defeats the purpose of copy-editing in the first place, and has also placed me several weeks behind."

On March 8, 2011, I respond to the author's request after having reviewed the manuscript: "I ran the entire ms through the spell/grammar check and discovered about 10 spelling errors and one or two grammar 'flags.' There are, of, course, a lot of slang terms in your book, so those were obviously flagged as well. According to Word's editing features, there don't appear to be any outstanding problems with your manuscript." I admitted to the author that I must have forgotten to run the spell check before submitting the final document. (Feb. 28, 2011: "Running the spell check and the style sheet through the ms are usually the last things that I do prior to returning it. It's clear from the first glance at the file you sent me that this was not done.")

Also, in the correspondence dated February 28, 2011, the author requested a refund of $500.00 "as I've had to do or redo a substantial portion of the work myself."

When I began working on the project, I asked the author what his target audience was. This is a standard question to ask, because it determines the style in which a manuscript is edited. The author's response was, "Its primary demographic is young adults, 18-30ish." This information helped me to determine how best to edit the manuscript and explains why certain non-standard language, spelling, and sentence fragments were rendered as they were.

In the agreement that the author signed, it states: "Editing is intrinsically a process of offering advice and suggestions to the Author. In addition to offering such advice and suggestions, the Editor's responsibility is limited to notifying the Author of any unresolved differences with the Author before the work proceeds to the next stage of production." With each partial submission of the manuscript, I suggested ways to improve the readability and focus and to amply the characters' roles. My interpretation of the quoted statement from the agreement is that it is also the author's responsibility to address issues such as he has brought forth on this forum "before work proceeds to the next stage of production." He only addressed them two months after the project was considered complete.

Editing is not a one-sided task that can be performed like actions at a car assembly plant. Oftentimes, several rounds of revisions, rewriting, and re-editing are necessary to get a work into good shape. I have been working with an editor for my own novel for over a year. There were many things that the copyeditor missed in the initial copyedit, including spelling and punctuation marks. But after several rounds with the editor, everything got ironed out. In the case of Mr. "Aramis," there are developmental elements that his developmental editor clearly missed. It is a common misconception among many of today's authors that publishing can be viewed as an assembly line process, where the raw material goes in one end and a perfect product emerges from the other. 

Given the author's budget constraints, it is understandable that he would demand a $500 refund from me. But, as mentioned earlier, the agreement clearly defines what constitutes "unresolved issues" and when they are to be addressed. In other words, it is the author's responsibility to address the issues he brings forth in this claim prior to the next stage of production. According to our production schedule, he had at least four opportunities to do this (October 28, November 13, December 5, and December 16). Instead, two and half months roll by and he is now demanding a refund.

In the standard course of editing--many of my other clients would agree with me--the author takes the time to review the manuscript, make changes according to the suggestions I have made, and then resubmit it to me for review. It is clear to me that the author has neither budget nor the time to devote to such an endeavor. Instead, he expect me to pay him for time lost. Had the author taken the time to review the partial manuscript before agreeing to proceed to the next stage of production, all of this might have been avoided.