mercredi 15 juillet 2009

A great Editor - Pierre Turgeon


The coup d'éclat of the book publisher Pierre Turgeon and the biography of Michael Jackson written by Ian Halperin is not surprising. I know Turgeon well, because he was my editor when I published a biography on Pierre Péladeau in 2003.
Our relationships was broken because the publishing house Trait d'Union was forced to close its doors and several authors had not received their fees in copyright. This had created a cold with the literary community and if the investors cheated by Vincent Lacroix and Bernard Madoff want to stone in the public their fraudster, who has relieved them of very large amounts, the authors of the Trait d’Union, even for amounts of few hundred dollars each, also wanted to transport on a carriage with tomatoes the editor Pierre Turgeon.
Personally, I consider that I have lost only a few thousands of dollars because my book was at the end of the cycle. The first publication was made in January of 2003 and Trait d’Union has declared bankruptcy in March 2005. Monies due to me were the portion of royalties kept in reserve for the return from stores. The closure of Trait d'Union has allowed me to regain all the copyright on the book, in addition to a few hundred copies of the books still in storage. The sales were a success and had reached almost 10 000 copies. I had also received the main part of my royalties before publishing in the form of an advance payment.
With hindsight, I must admit that Pierre Turgeon had done an excellent job and I enjoyed the project, despite the slight loss of money.
I am not yet ready to invite Pierre Turgeon to lunch but I must admit that he is a great editor who knows how to interpret the needs of readers. The only problem of Turgeon, according to me, is his difficulty to manage his projects on the administrative level but that did not remove him any of his talent as a writer and editor.
I am not surprised at all of his two recent success, the book on Guy Laliberté and probably his mega success, the book on Michael Jackson with Ian Halperin. In a sense, this success is encouraging for the whole society. This means that we have a right to make mistakes and that despite setbacks and difficulties, we can recover. As for those who have been deprived of funds by Turgeon, including myself, I think this is one of the risks of life. Worse would have been the reject of the book by the public ...
Note: The same judgment can be made in respect of Vincent Lacroix, Bernard Madoff and Earl Jones. Anyone who invests in a project with someone else should expect a degree of risk. Otherwise, keep your money under the mattress but beware of termites ...
Congratulations to Pierre Turgeon for his courage to continue!
Bernard Bujold - www.LeStudio1.com

1 commentaire:

Unknown a dit…

Turgeon n'a pâs fait des erreurs. Il a fait fourrer le monde et ce, depuis des années. Ce n'est pas tout à fait la même chose.