| Country | United States |
| State | Costa Rica |
| City | Lancaster |
| Address | East Orange St. |
| Phone | 7173415572 |
| Website | www.tekeme.com |
What's been happening at Winslet Press lately? Not a lot, if their website is anything to go by:
Quote:
We do not accept queries of any kind. If you are a publisher interested in foreign rights or buying rights to any of our current books/authors, or if you have any questions, please contact us via the form below.
http://winsletpress.com/
There are no books on the site, just a handful of articles. However, a little bird tells me that George and Ashley Weis are still operating as Thinkcap Design Studios, a rebranded version of their old Tekeme Design Studios:
http://think-cap.com/
Thinkcap offers book design and marketing, web design and marketing services. Material from the Tekeme site is reproduced word for word and covers of books by 'Marilyn Grey' (aka Ashley Weis) are much in evidence, as are extravagant claims for the number of copies she's sold thanks to Tekeme/Thinkcap's business acumen.
Quote:
PUBLISHING ASSISTANCE
We are knowledgeable and efficient when it comes to the book industry. If you need help with promoting and marketing your small press, creating a great website, book covers, or laying out interiors, we have the ability to do it all and because our sister company is a publishing company, we know quite a bit about the inside of this industry and we’d love to help you as well!
http://think-cap.com/services/
There doesn't seem to be much left of their 'sister company', as I've been told that only two or three of the original ten authors are still with Winslet.
George and Ashley seem to be a bit shy when it comes to putting their names in a prominent place on the site, but a bit of digging in the comments section turned up this exchange:
Quote:
RJ says:
January 21, 2013 at 11:57 pm
Thank you so much!! This is the first place I’ve been able to get actual next step information rather than “Write A Compelling Book and get a good copy editor.”
Ashley Weis says:
December 3, 2013 at 1:00 am
You’re welcome RJ! Glad it helped!
IEM APPROACH says:
February 7, 2014 at 7:17 pm
Great article. Thank you for simplifying the process. I lunched IEM Press this week and this information is going to be handy. My book Coming to America: A Journey of faith was published by WinePress Publishing, but they are out of business and now I am going out on my own. Thank you for sharing.
http://think-cap.com/10-steps-to-sel...ng/#comment-19
I am a friend of George & Ashley and a new author with Winslet and I believe there are a few of older ones left (Brenda Anderson, Heidi McCahan, Alfred Cedeno, Marilyn Grey, and Lara Whatley from before and a few new ones (myself included) that are friends/family since that's all Ashley has agreed to publish from this point on). Winslet never charged their authors anything (not one penny) and when two authors breached their contracts for reasons I personally think are a little odd, Ashley (owner) offered them their royalties anyway (they never put a dime into their books). As someone who is published under Winslet and knows them George & Ashley personally, these accusations are hilarious. George & Ashley said that they do not want to get involved with all this stuff going on, but for anyone who knows them personally knows it's ridiculous and there are so many lies involved with these multiple websites/people trying to rip them apart that I wonder if they even do their research.
Tekeme Studios did charge for a self-publishing package assistance thingy, which I've never done since I go directly through Winslet for my short stories, but I do know several people who have and they are completely happy with their services. Tekeme is out of business, Ashley no longer works online and is happy to he a stay at home mom, while George continues designing with a new company partnership with a staff of other people. If you know these people, you'll know this stuff is actually quite funny... and yet not funny all at the same time. Can't quite wrap my head around how people can continue to slander a family, send them emails telling them "I hope you starve and die and eat your young," or something like that, and then just keep going and going with this online slander when George & Ashley haven't at all made a response or tried to defend themselves, which I admire and which made me want to write this (which I asked them permission to do and they said they'd prefer if I didn't bother, but that I was free to do as I wish). Yes, slander, by the way... the definition: the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation.
To the guy who won't stop posting stuff about them for the last few years (whew!), no need to call out names but you know who you are, George is still willing to offer him a refund for the cover design he received, but since he went directly to PayPal instead of handling the matter between george and himself, PayPal denied the refund since the prodcut was delivered. But if youre out there and you'd like to finally respond to George's email, he is still willing to give you whatever money you want.
Shawn, ( aka Tekeme Studios stalker)
Move on, man. Why are you haunting these people? Everywhere I go, there you are calling them fraudsters. Ok. We got the message. Ok. So you feel you were treated unjustly. I understand. By keeping at this, what are you gaining? If you ruin their business, will you then be happy? I mean, don’t you want to be forgiven for things you do wrong? When you refuse to let go and forgive do you think you will find forgiveness when someone thinks you are a “fraud”? . . . Just let it go, man. It is possible that they did good work and some people were happy with it, isn’t it?
George & George Weis & Ashley Silouan-Weis
This is just a hypothetical scenario:
If you'd paid Tekeme Studios to say, build you a deck or repair your car, and they opted to simply not do the project while keeping all your money, would you consider said people ethical, fair, or even decent? No, you'd feel defrauded,and rightly so. Now, what if said business decided -- after weeks and weeks of false promises -- to just abandon all your hard work and the time you'd invested because they felt that your home or automobile weren't "morally fit" for them to be associated with? Does that seem like an above-board business practice to you? This is that sort of thing that you hear about on the news -- you know, when someone expects the world to stop for them because they find other people inconvenient.
The fact that you're dealing with a good that isn't physical -- say, an e-book or a websit-- doesn't negate the fact that you deserve what you paid for, but you should be aware that you have very little protection under the law, meaning that if Tekeme had sold you a laptop and not provided it, they would obviously be in the wrong, but since an ebook can't be held in your hand, they're able to wriggle out of responsibility. I know, it's classy and involves no moral relativism whatsoever; still, don't you feel like "forgiving" the people who pocketed your hard-earned cash and then for months afterward sent you email money-begs about donating funds to aid their sick children -- not to mention lauding their trip to Greece which you surely helped pay for -- is kind of a ridiculous request? Wouldn't you -- maybe -- want to warn others about such treatment? Maybe people who want to pick and choose which projects they complete or whom they provide services to based on arbitrary moral stances that ultimately have nothing to do with you shouldn't be in business at all?
Do these sound like trustworthy, dependable, true-to-their-word small business-people? I mean, clearly they're the victims of those they defraud, right? It's all so emotionally taxing...for them. Grifting is hard work.
The truth is that as a consumer, you often have little or nothing in the way of resources when dealing with shady business owners like this, so if you feel like filing a consumer complaint in the hopes of keeping others from being flagrantly ripped-off in a similar manner, I say go for it.
Truth is, after all, a great -- no, the greatest -- defense.
I am a friend of George & Ashley and a new author with Winslet and I believe there are a few of older ones left (Brenda Anderson, Heidi McCahan, Alfred Cedeno, Marilyn Grey, and Lara Whatley from before and a few new ones (myself included) that are friends/family since that's all Ashley has agreed to publish from this point on). Winslet never charged their authors anything (not one penny) and when two authors breached their contracts for reasons I personally think are a little odd, Ashley (owner) offered them their royalties anyway (they never put a dime into their books). As someone who is published under Winslet and knows them George & Ashley personally, these accusations are hilarious. George & Ashley said that they do not want to get involved with all this stuff going on, but for anyone who knows them personally knows it's ridiculous and there are so many lies involved with these multiple websites/people trying to rip them apart that I wonder if they even do their research.
Tekeme Studios did charge for a self-publishing package assistance thingy, which I've never done since I go directly through Winslet for my short stories, but I do know several people who have and they are completely happy with their services. Tekeme is out of business, Ashley no longer works online and is happy to he a stay at home mom, while George continues designing with a new company partnership with a staff of other people. If you know these people, you'll know this stuff is actually quite funny... and yet not funny all at the same time. Can't quite wrap my head around how people can continue to slander a family, send them emails telling them "I hope you starve and die and eat your young," or something like that, and then just keep going and going with this online slander when George & Ashley haven't at all made a response or tried to defend themselves, which I admire and which made me want to write this (which I asked them permission to do and they said they'd prefer if I didn't bother, but that I was free to do as I wish). Yes, slander, by the way... the definition: the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation.
To the guy who won't stop posting stuff about them for the last few years (whew!), no need to call out names but you know who you are, George is still willing to offer him a refund for the cover design he received, but since he went directly to PayPal instead of handling the matter between george and himself, PayPal denied the refund since the prodcut was delivered. But if youre out there and you'd like to finally respond to George's email, he is still willing to give you whatever money you want.
Tekeme Studios -- billing itself as "Winslet Press" -- was offering phony publishing contracts to writers as late as June of 2014, charging them four figures (!) and then dumping them, sometimes within mere days of getting the money. Watch your wallets, people. You can easily self-publish for all of $200, not $2500!
http://www.christinayother.com/#!Youre-upand-then-youre-down/chz3/A18C0834-F058-44A7-97B6-C0569AD0875D
http://www.absolutewrite.net/forums/showthread.php?p=8955569
I am a friend of George & Ashley and a new author with Winslet and I believe there are a few of older ones left (Brenda Anderson, Heidi McCahan, Alfred Cedeno, Marilyn Grey, and Lara Whatley from before and a few new ones (myself included) that are friends/family since that's all Ashley has agreed to publish from this point on). Winslet never charged their authors anything (not one penny) and when two authors breached their contracts for reasons I personally think are a little odd, Ashley (owner) offered them their royalties anyway (they never put a dime into their books). As someone who is published under Winslet and knows them George & Ashley personally, these accusations are hilarious. George & Ashley said that they do not want to get involved with all this stuff going on, but for anyone who knows them personally knows it's ridiculous and there are so many lies involved with these multiple websites/people trying to rip them apart that I wonder if they even do their research.
Tekeme Studios did charge for a self-publishing package assistance thingy, which I've never done since I go directly through Winslet for my short stories, but I do know several people who have and they are completely happy with their services. Tekeme is out of business, Ashley no longer works online and is happy to he a stay at home mom, while George continues designing with a new company partnership with a staff of other people. If you know these people, you'll know this stuff is actually quite funny... and yet not funny all at the same time. Can't quite wrap my head around how people can continue to slander a family, send them emails telling them "I hope you starve and die and eat your young," or something like that, and then just keep going and going with this online slander when George & Ashley haven't at all made a response or tried to defend themselves, which I admire and which made me want to write this (which I asked them permission to do and they said they'd prefer if I didn't bother, but that I was free to do as I wish). Yes, slander, by the way... the definition: the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation.
To the guy who won't stop posting stuff about them for the last few years (whew!), no need to call out names but you know who you are, George is still willing to offer him a refund for the cover design he received, but since he went directly to PayPal instead of handling the matter between george and himself, PayPal denied the refund since the prodcut was delivered. But if youre out there and you'd like to finally respond to George's email, he is still willing to give you whatever money you want.
Looks like they've moved on to a phony publishing press scam called Winslet Press. It seems that they've even gone so far as to invent a fake author who's supposedly sold nearly a million copies (yeah, right). There's also a sick kid of theirs (again, he's probably just a ploy) whom this "author" solicits donations for. They're offering people sham book contracts, getting them to pay thousands of dollars for "promotion," then dropping them just as the books are supposed to go to print. They're just dashing people's hopes and robbing them blind. It's low and beyond crooked.
The word is out:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=292552
I am a friend of George & Ashley and a new author with Winslet and I believe there are a few of older ones left (Brenda Anderson, Heidi McCahan, Alfred Cedeno, Marilyn Grey, and Lara Whatley from before and a few new ones (myself included) that are friends/family since that's all Ashley has agreed to publish from this point on). Winslet never charged their authors anything (not one penny) and when two authors breached their contracts for reasons I personally think are a little odd, Ashley (owner) offered them their royalties anyway (they never put a dime into their books). As someone who is published under Winslet and knows them George & Ashley personally, these accusations are hilarious. George & Ashley said that they do not want to get involved with all this stuff going on, but for anyone who knows them personally knows it's ridiculous and there are so many lies involved with these multiple websites/people trying to rip them apart that I wonder if they even do their research.
Tekeme Studios did charge for a self-publishing package assistance thingy, which I've never done since I go directly through Winslet for my short stories, but I do know several people who have and they are completely happy with their services. Tekeme is out of business, Ashley no longer works online and is happy to he a stay at home mom, while George continues designing with a new company partnership with a staff of other people. If you know these people, you'll know this stuff is actually quite funny... and yet not funny all at the same time. Can't quite wrap my head around how people can continue to slander a family, send them emails telling them "I hope you starve and die and eat your young," or something like that, and then just keep going and going with this online slander when George & Ashley haven't at all made a response or tried to defend themselves, which I admire and which made me want to write this (which I asked them permission to do and they said they'd prefer if I didn't bother, but that I was free to do as I wish). Yes, slander, by the way... the definition: the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation.
To the guy who won't stop posting stuff about them for the last few years (whew!), no need to call out names but you know who you are, George is still willing to offer him a refund for the cover design he received, but since he went directly to PayPal instead of handling the matter between george and himself, PayPal denied the refund since the prodcut was delivered. But if youre out there and you'd like to finally respond to George's email, he is still willing to give you whatever money you want.
So you're a prospective author who wants to submit your work into the burgeoning ebook market? You have your manuscript written and edited, but you need help designing a cover and converting your work to the proper formatting for uploading. Do. Not. Use. Tekeme. Studios. Tekeme brands itself as an any-size, any-budget, any-project web design firm, but it really caters to religious-themed projects. It's run by a pair of fanatical anti-porn crusaders -- husband George Weis is a recovering morbid porn addict, wife Ashley Silouan is a professional victim/scold -- who like to work with authors and bloggers who share that worldview and will disseminate their ""Porn Is Evil!"" message.
If you're vision doesn't fall into that limited category, then beware: 1. Tekeme provides no refunds, even if they abandon your project, so be very careful putting any money in their hands. 2. Tekeme reserves the right to change your contract with them at will and after weeks of making promises.3. Tekeme determines what content is acceptable for publication; if your book doesn't feature dewy-fresh virgins, Lands End-style cover models, and crosses glimmering in the sunlight, then go elsewhere. Tekeme's design policy is not content-neutral; it will discriminate against you based on the themes and content of your work, and will actively try to discourage and censor you.
I paid $400 for an ebook package including a book cover and formatted text. I only received the cover, and was told that my book would not be formatted because the designers had a ""moral problem"" with it. Tekeme dragged this process out for over a month and did not deliver the promised results. $400 for an ebook cover is ridiculous. I had to hire a new designer who did it for a mere $75, and then he even did the conversion process for a mere $125. This was the exact same deal I had with Tekeme for twice as much. You deserve to be treated with respect and honesty. I did not receive that from this agency. Your hard work deserves better than the condescending, sanctimonious likes of Tekeme Studios.
not true
I am a friend of George & Ashley and a new author with Winslet and I believe there are a few of older ones left (Brenda Anderson, Heidi McCahan, Alfred Cedeno, Marilyn Grey, and Lara Whatley from before and a few new ones (myself included) that are friends/family since that's all Ashley has agreed to publish from this point on). Winslet never charged their authors anything (not one penny) and when two authors breached their contracts for reasons I personally think are a little odd, Ashley (owner) offered them their royalties anyway (they never put a dime into their books). As someone who is published under Winslet and knows them George & Ashley personally, these accusations are hilarious. George & Ashley said that they do not want to get involved with all this stuff going on, but for anyone who knows them personally knows it's ridiculous and there are so many lies involved with these multiple websites/people trying to rip them apart that I wonder if they even do their research.
Tekeme Studios did charge for a self-publishing package assistance thingy, which I've never done since I go directly through Winslet for my short stories, but I do know several people who have and they are completely happy with their services. Tekeme is out of business, Ashley no longer works online and is happy to he a stay at home mom, while George continues designing with a new company partnership with a staff of other people. If you know these people, you'll know this stuff is actually quite funny... and yet not funny all at the same time. Can't quite wrap my head around how people can continue to slander a family, send them emails telling them "I hope you starve and die and eat your young," or something like that, and then just keep going and going with this online slander when George & Ashley haven't at all made a response or tried to defend themselves, which I admire and which made me want to write this (which I asked them permission to do and they said they'd prefer if I didn't bother, but that I was free to do as I wish). Yes, slander, by the way... the definition: the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation.
To the guy who won't stop posting stuff about them for the last few years (whew!), no need to call out names but you know who you are, George is still willing to offer him a refund for the cover design he received, but since he went directly to PayPal instead of handling the matter between george and himself, PayPal denied the refund since the prodcut was delivered. But if youre out there and you'd like to finally respond to George's email, he is still willing to give you whatever money you want.