Tekeme Studios: George Weis & Ashley Silouan-Weis Fraud, Discrimination, Censorship Lancaster Pennsylvania

So Tekeme Studios/Winslet Press had re-branded itself for the third time, this after burning who-knows-how-many authors with hoax book/design contracts that never materialized.  They're now known as ThinkCap Design Studios, which is basically a return to Tekeme's first business model.  George Weis and Ashley Silouan-Weis tried their best to keep their names off of this new venture -- when you defraud, scam, and rip-off enough people, you gotta get creative as you fly by night -- but the eagle eyes at AbsoluteWrite.com were able to make them again.

Item:  ThinkCap Design Studios operates out of Lancaster, PA -- Tekeme Studios's old stomping grounds.

Item:  A sizable portion of the projects listed in ThinkCap's portfolio section were handled by Tekeme Studios and Winslet Press before they folded. 

Item:  Ashley Silouan-Weis's books are present in the company's portfolio as well.

Item:  ThinkCap continues to push sham author Marilyn Grey, who is neither a best-selling author, nor even real, just a pen name for Ashley Silouan-Weis.

So yes, ThinkCap can get a "friend" to try to do damage control on its behalf, but I must ask:  If a company's on the up-and-up, why does it constantly rely on a series of A.K.A.s?  Why does it need to concoct a fake author in order to claim that it helped her "reach the Amazon and iTunes best-sellers' list"?  Why are its proprietors leaving so many people in the lurch with false promises? 

How many "family emergencies" can one company have that result in the cancellation of contracts?  If they're offering people refunds for unfinished projects, why isn't anybody taking them up on said offers?  How many times can the same scenario appear and still not be true?  How does a company that deals with books and purports to have all this literary and business savvy not even know the difference between slander and libel?

All I ask is that anyone reading this who is considering giving Tekeme Studios/Winslet Press/ThinkCap Desgins/Whatever their business, just breeze through the below thread -- a thread full of independent stories of frustration, lame excuses, and terrible disappointment -- and then try to claim that these are good, trustworthy, salt-of-the-earth people being maligned.

Do try.

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?s=e1934c905cca2d274de563f9f51a699f&p=8955683#post8955683

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.

This is more of a buyer beware update than a rebuttal per se, but still, young, prospective authors beware:

The graphics design company I filed this initial report on, Tekeme Studios, has "rebranded" itslef as Winslet Press -- a purported small publishing company.  Assertions from writers roped into this company strongly conclude that Winslet is essentially a self-publishing front with no real experience or clout.  The owners are, natch, none other than George Weis and Ashley Weis, and they appear to be the only staff members on board.  Indicators suggest that the site's lone "success" story -- one "Marilyn Grey" -- is nothing but a pen name for a self-published series of books penned by Ashley Weis herself, most about her marital woes.  An identical woman -- one "Candice Covahey" -- was at one time listed as Winslet's editor.

They can change their name, but the antics of the Weis team are still just as seedy and underhanded as they continue to treat the intellectual property of others with flagrant disregard. Winslet's authors, believing that they've been signed to legitimate book contracts, are finding their agreements terminated at the eleventh hour after months of anticipation.  Those who opted to terminate their contracts because of severe misgivings about Winslet's management are forced to relinquish all rights to cover art. This has been occurring as late as June of 2014.  Sound familiar?  I received this exact same demand, and I wasn't even having Tekeme/Winslet publish my work.  This is not on the level.  Not at all.

I advise -- strongly advise -- any authors who receive Twitter pitches from Winslet (this appears to me the company's primary m.o.) to avoid the press all together.  These people are preying on authors' ambitions, raising up their hopes, and shattering them at the last minute.

The red flag to look for:  all money should flow toward you as the author, not from you.

Don't just take my word for it, though:

absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=292552

http://agentqueryconnect.com/index.php?/topic/18050-small-presses/

http://briegowen.com/2014/06/26/bad-day/

http://www.alwaysabigail.com/2014/06/sometimes-you-get-bad-news.html

http://jelsamepsey.blogspot.com/2014/06/one-closed-door-opens-another.html

I am Shawn Baker, and yes, I did write the utterly heinous book that made these two neo-puritans fall to pieces.  I stand by my work and hold myself to a higher level of decorum than Tekeme Studios could ever muster.  I have zero shame on my part.

I have never been treated so shabbily by a business -- I'll go so far as to claim that no one would ever be so unprofessional in public because they'd be embarrassed by such behavior -- and the reason I filed this report is because I don't want anyone else to ever be subjected to this kind of chicanery.  These are supposed to be adults offering a service to the public?  Tekeme Studios is a disgrace.

If you work hard on something, you deserve a business that will honor your efforts.  It shouldn't matter how you look or what you write, or what your apparent personal identity is.  By their own words, Tekeme Studios reserves the rights to defraud people they don't take kindly to, and to refuse service to content they don't deem family-friendly.  The book market is certainly big enough to accommodate all types of writing.  Tekeme Studios didn't even know anything personal about me -- though George and Ashley Weis are apparently quite happy to flamboyantly flaunt their own personal foibles before the world --  and they still treated me as less-than.  You don't want to be that person, and you don't want to give this type of people your hard-earned money.  It's an awful feeling to be treated this way -- I'm honestly disgusted by their behavior -- and nobody derserves that.

All you have to do is read their rebuttal to know exactly who and what you're dealing with.  As a consumer, I held up my end of the bargain.  I paid them, supplied a manuscript and images, and was always in contact throughout the process.  I was the picture of grace.  I'm not in business, so they can't defame me in any other way than by admitting that they found my writing distasteful.  It seems that they even objected to my appearance (?!).  Voila, your money isn't good enough for us. 

Yes, these are people so naive and utterly lame that they expected a horror book to be full of well-behaved people who never swear and always keep their clothes on.  Notice how they don't and can't claim that I didn't pay them or I wasn't cooperative.  They simply decided that I wasn't worth the same level of civility as other people whose projects they deigned to actually complete as contracted.  Honestly, the Weis brood are not the sort of people that I would ever assocociate myself with, but I was willing to make things right.  I was the bigger person in this scenario -- the actual grown-up.  George and Ashley Weis let their own distorted views get in way of that.  That's a terrible, indefensible way to act.  That's their failure, not mine.  There's no working with such infantile people who expect the world to stop everytime they feel remotely threatened.  Don't waste your time and money.  Nobody wants to pay to be looked down on.  Go elsewhere where you can be treated with respect.

You don't mislead people because you feel that their talent is unseemly, or because you just don't like the look of them.  That's just patently wrong on its face.  You don't let your personal demons get in the way of doing your job.  You don't take people's money, make promises, and then not deliver on your word.  Professionalism doesn't come with an asterisk.  You shouldn't have to be a member of someone's congregation or country club to receive a standard level of fairness and respectability from a supposed business.  This is a free market, not a high school lunchroom.

For a company that loves to tout its supposed high moral ground, Tekeme Studios -- the reprehensible likes of George and Ashley Weis -- are not worth your time and money.

You and I are officially better than them.

Look, here's the deal:  if I lay out what I want from you, and I supply payment -- payment that you willingly and happily accept -- then you need to fulfill your end of the deal.  That's just basic fairness.  Money is worth the same amount, no matter who holds it.  A web designer is there to design your product, not pocket your cash and then offer you up some lame "moral exemption" pretext for flaking on you after months of leading you on.  You're either in the market, or you're not.   They inconvenienced me terribly, then offered up a phony consolation deal that was concocted completely without my input, slanted heavily in their favor, and uncerimoniously tossed at me at the eleventh hour.  They kept the entire amount, delivering a cover  -- sure I like the design, it was my concept -- that was too small to even be sufficient to upload to Amazon.  I wouldn't have even dared to use it for fear that Tekeme would allege that I was violating their religious liberty (this is the sort of thing you hear about on the news).  So I ended up with nothing despite meeting my end of the bargain. Exactly how much am I supposed to beg these people for, and how many hidden-restrictions shenaningans am I supposed to put up with? 

That's a humiliating way to treat a customer, and I can tell you right now that Tekeme's definition of "immoral," "pornographic," or even "PG-13" is not a reasonable standard by any means.  Had I known that this pair of hothouse flowers had such deep and troubling issues regarding the world, I would've never dealt with them.  Of course, in the spirit of full disclosure, George Weis never bothered to inform me of any of the content restrictions he illustrates above.   See, that burden of full disclosure falls onto you, the customer.  After you've laid down your deposit and waited for over a month for results.  See how that works?

These are people whose chronic personal problems color their professional business practices.  Yes, George Weis has a wandering eye and compulsive hands that he has to keep off the keyboard.  Yes, Ashley Weis has a debilitating pathological resentment toward other women she deems sexual threats, a trait she shares with the tens of other damaged women who frequent her tear-stained romans à clef-- er, childthey've added to their mix (I have a very sneaking suspicion that this is where my deposit went).  They'll object to your work of fiction, but they'll force that creepy stuff on you.  Yeesh.

I don't want to know any this, and neither do you as a potential customer, but as Tekeme states, it is an issue that will determine how they treat your work.   By their own words, they only deal with writers and artists whose visions they deem appropriate and in keeping with their own narrow worldview, so if you have any doubt that you don't fall into that spectrum, then you need to avoid Tekeme and find yourself a reputatable, honest, objective designer.  Noboby should have to put up with this sort of treatment.

That's just what I ended up doing.  The designer I hired practically did a spit-take when I asked if he had hidden "morals clauses" or rated books like the MPAA (?!).  He was frankly horrified by Tekeme's shabby treatment of me, and even went so far as to post a "Buyer Beware" message on their Facebook page to alert other potential customers.  He felt that they were giving a bad name to the business he traded in.  He turned my project around like a snap, gave me just what I wanted.  No flimsy excuses about accidents or babies.  Just a fair and honest shake.  You may get that from Tekeme...just as long as your work doesn't threaten them in any way.  Who wants to take that risk?

And just for the record, the photo they've supplied of me -- supplied by me to them -- was supposed to be used for the virtual book jacket they promised to create for me.  Yeah, that didn't happen.  Still, it was kind of Tekeme to use my own image to further their own self-serving defense.  Because values!

And as for me neglecting to not contact Tekeme, well, here's  the final, exasperated email I sent after finally giving up the ghost on the project being completed as promised:

 On 3/4/13 4:05 PM, "Shawn Baker" wrote:

George,I'm wondering if maybe we shouldn't both consider pulling the plug on our deal.  It's nothing personal, but I didn't figure the process would take this long, and pretty soon it'll be near two months of waiting.  I'd hoped to have the book finished by my birthday in mid-March at the very latest, but now even that's seeming less and less likely.  I haven't gotten an email from you in two weeks, I don't really have anything concrete on my end,  I'm on the hook for the entire $400, and PayPal only gives me X-amount of time to recover my money.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't having some misgivings.  Maybe we should just nullify:  you return my money, I won't get PayPal involved.  We can part ways with no fuss.-- Shawn

For the record, they did not return a single cent to me, nor did I receive any of these phantom graphics they go on to refer to.  Gosh, they offered to handle a different project for me -- one I didn't even have, and one they wanted to make subject to their approval -- so why wouldn't I jump at that?  

Tekeme's long-delayed response (it took them nearly two months to tell me that the "almost finished" formatting had been arbitrarily nixed on their part):

From: George Weis

 

Sent: 03/04/13 03:28 PM

 

To: Shawn Baker

 

Subject: Re: Checking In

 

Hi Shawn,

Forgive me as I have been in a swirl of family changes plus some misfortune here and there (car wreck, family illness).

That aside, I had hoped to email you Friday evening, but I was called away from the desk. I beg your pardon for the inconvenience this has caused you.

As Ashley and I have gone through your manuscript, we noticed a few things that we wanted to suggest to you from a professional standpoint.

One thing you ought to have is a copyright page after your title page for sure. You may want to research what is needed for that (includes Library of Congress number).
Also, you may want to seek out and purchase a barcode of your own. CreateSpace will give you one, but it will be a dead ringer for self-made book.
Beyond this, you have a very layered story which is good, but this manuscript could use a good go through with a professional editor. This is not a jab but a true friendly professional suggestion.

Lastly, as we delved into the content, there were a number of things that caused us concern to fulfill this for you. We needed to think it through, but with everything going on, our thought process was a bit clouded. In the end, we do not feel comfortable putting the piece together. I agree with the end point of your work, but the way in which you have put it together is problematic for us personally. I thought I got a good picture through the synopsis, but I see now that the darkness you explore in the book to arrive at the end escaped me. I am not suggesting you change this. But another person may be the fit for it that we are not.

However, if you still wish to use the cover, I am ok with that, since it was completed prior to my knowledge of the content, plus it turned out very nicely. Additionally, I have very nice chapter graphics I will gladly hand over to you. Beyond this, I am willing to offer you some credit towards some other project if it is of interest.

I hope you can see that #1 Life has pulled some punches with me, and that has derailed my otherwise fast moving emails and work. #2 That I am sincere in my desire to help you where I can. #3 I do wish to preserve a good and kindly relationship between us.

If all you wish is to have your money returned, that is fine as long as we have written agreement to not use the cover (since the cover was what was paid for with a free interior attached to the price). If however, you want the cover and other graphics I can hand over, we will additionally work up a discount for another need you might have, so long as it is not us putting together the content for the books, which poses moral difficulty for us. Perhaps you need that logo you were thinking of? No, that is not too contrived! Most authors I know have one that is at least used on their marketing materials.

Please advise as to what direction you would like to take. Again,  I am terribly sorry for the great inconvenience.

Many thanks for your patience and kindness,
-g-

Lyrics to a certain song come to mind:

Through their own words
They will be exposed
They've got a severe case of
The Emperor's New Clothes

This "rip off report" was written by Shawn Baker who wrote "The Cowering Corner" who has slandered Tekeme online via various avenues in an effort to combat us for denying the ebook formatting of his work. He came to us for a book cover design and got a free ebook layout as a bonus. We designed the cover which he emphatically loved and when we began the ebook we came across clearly blashpemous and profane content. Being a company that works mainly with Christian authors we found this to be quite disturbing and offered Mr. Baker a refund for the FREE ebook formatting he received and told him we would also offer him a free service in the future in place of this one, so long as the content was not crude. We now have a strict acceptance policy for books we contribute to design-wise... they must be PG-13 and below. We do not contribute to and design books with crude sexual content or the Lord's name in vain. Obviously this greatly upset Mr. Baker and he decided to make up fake names to go around slandering us without putting his actual identity to the accusations. To find out what we are really like... ask one of our best author clients "Marilyn Grey" who has sold over 10,000 books just in December 2013 and has succeeded very much because of our assistance in her publishing process. We love working with books, but the content must be appropriate. We are sorry that Mr. Baker decided to handle it this way without even contacting us to cordially accept our offers... instead his anger got the best of him. We always strive to make things better for our clients and suggest asking some of our great author clients -- who don't hide their identity -- what it's like to work on a book with Tekeme.