How does it feel when your John the Baptist becomes your Judas? This is a question I faced as my literary dreams went down the drain. Who would have told me my literary experience would unlock the catalyst of victimization? What I experienced with two young African American females cost me thousands of dollars but what they taught me is priceless.
My name is Linda D. Wattley, the author of Daddy's Girl the first of a trilogy pertaining to the soul altering experience of sexual abuse. My first disappointment was my ex-publisher, Missy Brown of Reality Press Publishing, LLC. When I joined her, I was eager to get a message out about healing the damages of sexual abuse. She told me she could make it happen if I could front the funds. I paid for a trilogy and received one book with errors.
Prior to realizing she had published my book without a galley, she introduced me to Belinda Williams of Literary Lifestyle, LLC. Together on a three way call they convinced me together we could make great things happen. Ms. Williams informed me as my publicist it would take an entire year to do justice for my career and her fee was $10,000.00 plus a $500.00 retainer fee. Immediately I told her I it was far out my budget. She took a $1,000.00 off making my payments $700.00 a month. Reluctantly, I stepped out on faith.
Once I paid the retainer fee and signed the contract, she informs me my book was a mess and she could not do it service in this condition. Also, she discovered Ms. Brown had unethical practices towards my agreement. I kept asking Ms. Brown about the other two books. She told me to hold off--make the readers want for more. Disappointed, I asked for the money back for the other two books. The money was gone. First she told me it was in a CD. Then she admitted she purchased a laptop.
This is where I thought I had a John the Baptist. Ms. Williams came to the rescue. She told me we will do it ourselves. She would help me self-publish. I was overwhelmed by then. My son was in Iraq and I was working a full and part time job trying to come up with the payments. I told her maybe we should learn from the second book just correct the errors and go on with it. She told me we can do this and she would help me. Our plan was Ms. Williams would show me what I can contribute to the business as we learned in the meantime she was going to get things going. She was a fast reader and went through the self-publishing book I believe in less than two days. When she needed my credit card number I gave it to her. I trusted her that much. Our relationship had grown to our ending conversations with "I love you sis."
Electronically, Angel Press publishing was established with me paying for registration fees, ISBN numbers, Book cover, set up fees, I even paid her $900.00 for typesetting. While she was doing everything I asked her if we should have someone else do some of the work like editing, proof reading, creating a logo, she did not want other people involved. In fact she did not want anybody to know she was a partner in the company. Now, that I did not understand but respected it.
I was so appreciative of her efforts. All I could do was make sure I paid her even when I did not have money to pay my bills. I kept telling her I wanted to be a blessing to her for all she had done. It took her almost three months to learn typesetting which delayed publishing. Not very much was going on as far as publicist service. I was told a lot of plans got pushed back because we were learning self-publishing. Periodically, I would ask about establishing contracts for the book and company. Ms. Williams would get angry and tell me I was selfish. After a while I was convinced she may be right so I backed off. Her reasoning being, I was not the only client she had. The last outburst got from her when I asked what happened to us and our plans. She told me, there were no us, it was business. I felt like a big fool as I began to see what happened to me.
I finally had hope of a contract from an attorney I thought at the time was for Angel Press Publishing. Ms. Williams stated we each owed $250.00. I sent the funds, never got the contracts. What I received was a three way call with her and the attorney stating I had little less than nothing to contribute to the company that Belinda had invested over $5,000.00 in the business and she is doing everything. I was shocked because she knew the agreement and I had no clue what cost $5,000.00. My books were supposed to get us on our feet and we were in time to take on authors when we could afford to handle all the expenses for their books. Ms. Williams had already silenced me as a partner when she took on Marcus Parker, author of The Product. She established a contract with him using our company and left me out of the business. With this in mind, I told them just give me Daddy's Girl, you can have the company. It has not happened. To this day, Ms Williams is collecting royalties. How much? I have no ideal. I was told to get an attorney if I wanted my book. Since December my attorney has been trying to resolve this matter. Both her attorney and Ms. Williams refuse to give me my account to my book. The copy rights are mines. Why she wants to keep Daddy's Girl when it is not her book?
It appears she used my predatory experience with Ms. Brown to learn the publishing business. She has established herself another publishing company. Now, she has our company and her own publishing company. I trusted both of these young ladies like they were my daughters. In the end they were predators who just wanted my money. They taught me predators have the nature of a psycho/sociopath nature. That's how they can be so heartless. I found it ironic both attempted to make themselves victims by saying I was selfish and wrong. A simple phone call to Lightning Source would have given me my book back. Now, I have to file a suit in Florida while residing in Ohio. I have lost thousands while she sat on my book. What profit a woman to gain the world and to lose her heart?
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