Boy, was my face red. It's embarrassing, on a personal level, to recommend a business to your publisher, and then have them refuse to work with him.
Ken at
Seventh Window wanted to print up some bookmarks for
Discreet Young Gentleman, and because I spend allllll of my time online, I looked around and found what looked like a decent deal:
My1Stop.com. Except, when Ken submitted the order, it was refused. The email, which came from customer service representative Greg Schroeder, referred to this policy:
You further agree that My1Stop™ will not be used by you to post, email, upload, transmit, distribute or otherwise make available any materials or content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, harassing, abusive, obscene, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, pornographic, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, racially, ethnically, sexually or otherwise objectionable. My1Stop™ reserves the right to reject, remove, delete or modify any content submitted by you.
Greg did not, however, indicate which part of the policy DYG's cover was considered to be violating. So, embarrassed that Ken had taken my advice and gotten his hand slapped, I called Greg up to ask what the heck happened. Greg said while it was his province to send out the emails, he had not made the decision--that came from someone above him. For clarification, I asked if he thus didn't know which part of the policy was violated, and he confirmed that he did not. He told me his supervisor, Shana, would know, but that he believed she was in a meeting. Would I like her voice mail?
No, I'd rather have her extension. Greg gave it to me, and just on the off chance, I gave Shana a call right away. She was in the office, and spoke to me, identifying herself as Shana Emerson, Office Manager. Again, she referred me to the policy, saying at first that the company made the decisions. When pressed, however, for the actual name of the person who reviewed the artwork, she said she was the one who refused to print the order.
Okay, why? Well, she would have to review the artwork again. No problem--did she have a computer in front of her? Yes? Then try
DiscreetYoungGentleman.com. Oh, that would surely be blocked. How about
marlyspearson.com? I spelled it for her, she brought up the page, and put me on hold. After a few minutes she came back. Was I still there? Oh, yes. Okay: she had judged the graphic sexual in nature. As a Christian-based company, they were not going to print anything sexual in nature. Did she mean
homosexual in nature?
No, absolutely not. It was the
lack of shirts. So this is My1Stop's policy, in a nutshell, from Shana Emerson: they will indeed print projects containing gay content, as long as the people in the graphic are wearing shirts. They will not print heterosexual projects, such as Fabio-type romance covers, if the male model is not wearing a shirt. Indeed, she told me that they had refused to print a Fabio-cover project.
Nice to have that cleared up.
By the way, we're going with
PrintingForLess.com. Turns out their prices are better, anyway.