Publishing Incompetence not limited to UK shock

Although most of the stories and information on this site relate to UK publishers, publishing incompetence is not limited to these shores. Here is a story from Evan Morris, a US author who wrote Making Whoopee; Words of Love for Lovers of Words. Given the subject matter Valentine's Day was obviously a pretty good time to promote it:

"This book, incidentally, has a weird publishing history. (Did I say weird? I meant infuriating.) It was released a few weeks before Valentine's Day 2004 to the accompaniment of very good reviews, including a half-page article and sidebar in USA Today. (You have be a writer to truly understand how big a deal that is.)

Just as I was to start plowing through dozens of scheduled radio and print interviews, however, I landed in the hospital for surgery on a mutinous gall bladder. Beginning two days later, doped to the gills and still in pain, I sat at my desk from dawn to midnight (literally) for a solid week doing telephone interviews with cub reporters and dim DJs from Idaho to Ireland. I have no idea of what I actually said. I do remember that the folks in Ireland were very nice and smart.

It was at this point that I discovered that the so-called publicity agents hired by my publishers were, unfortunately, certifiable morons who had never quite mastered the concept of time zones and had, consequently, royally screwed up a schedule that, even before it went kablooie, frequently had me doing three interviews in a single hour.

Then the real fun began. The first print run of the books turned out to have badly warped covers and had to be withdrawn from the market, including from Barnes & Noble and Amazon. Mega-bummer. I was doing Percocet-laced interviews with shock jocks in San Diego at 3 am for a book that functionally did not exist. People were going to bookstores in droves, asking for the book, and not being able to buy it. As my brother-in-law put it when he offered to lend me a gun, "That ain't right."

The cover debacle eventually got straightened out, and a new run of the book was released with nice, flat covers, three weeks after Valentine's Day. My publisher said they'd rent space on Barnes & Noble's front tables to promote the book to make up for their screw-ups, but somebody was, um, how shall I put this, lying. The book did eventually get back into the stores, but the Golden Buzz was gone.

I agree. That ain't right.

Original story at http://www.word-detective.com/010506.html