John,

>Please...you are so full of yourself.

You know, I have been dealing with a good many potential authors over the past few months and it's very interesting that you are the only one who seems to have a problem with rejection or delay. Why is that?

I have accepted proposals from some, I have rejected others, I have delayed some. I have pushed back on content ideas, asked for rewrites, edited some very severely, pushed people hard on deadlines, cut one author down from a 3-part series to 1 article with a maybe on a part 2, and even kept some complete articles in the hopper awaiting edit (and space) for months.

ALL of those authors (except you) have been completely professional in all their dealings with me, regardless of whether or not they liked my actions or requirements.

Not one has ever acted as unprofessionally as you have, both with private insults to me and my staff, as well as public attacks both on me and on some of my current authors. You'll remember that I told you in an email that exalting yourself above the other authors would not buy you much with me.

Still, I bent over backwards to be fair in giving you an opportunity to submit proposals after the end of the year, but evidently the delay was more than you could handle.

So my publisher and I wonder... why should we take on the bother and hassle and risk of dealing with someone who acts as you do -- both privately and publicly? The answer is simple -- we will not. And that is very sound business sense. You can spin it any way you want, but that's the bottom line.