Read It and Weep

The following is an excerpt from a lengthy e-mail I recently received from a former employee of my least favorite reverse vanity printer, PublishAmerica. I thought long and hard about whether to mention anything about it in public but, since I know that people are still getting sucked into this publishing scam and that knowledge is power (if you're smart enough to understand and heed it), I decided to share this much of it. It's a humdinger. I hope that nothing in this quote will give away the identity of the person who wrote it, as he or she requests anonymity. For that reason, please do not copy it to other venues.

"I was hired as a member of the editing staff. Please. We were proofreaders. X, Y, Z, and I were expected to have between 20 and 30 really, really, really, really, really bad books proofread and formatted each week. We were former college English students. None of us was experienced at proofreading, let alone editing for content and continuity. Grammar to these women was subjective. I can remember a conversation about the prepositional phrase between you and me. The three of them concluded that since between you and I sounded better, it would become the rule. No argument I made, like the one about objective case pronouns being used as objects and subjective case pronouns being used as subjects could change their minds. It is no wonder the books suck. They actually changed correct grammar."

And there you have it, a very big red flag and an excellent reason to stay well away from PublishAmerica.