I finished my novel.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

They simply told me they forgot about it even if I had sent them emails reminding them of the clauses related to the translation.

It was an aggravating experience. First they had someone who knew absolutely nothing about landscaping, ponds and water gardens to edit and correct my mnuscript. It took me months to make them understand how bad the job was done and managed to have a professional editor do the editing. Then, once I accepted the edited version,, I was a bit worried with the delays only to find out they had lost the manuscript and didn't know how to explain it to me. Good thing I had copies of the edited manuscript. My next surprise was when they sent me five copies of the first printed version. The cover was upside-down. They hadn't noticed it!!!

One thing that became clear in my mind was that I would never work again with a French-Canadian publisher. The book industry is heavily subsidised in Quebec and they have this tendency to work within a sort of pre-agreed budget and project quota they use with the provincial government to get these subsidies, nothing more. As for the writers, if you're not a member of their so-called writer's guild, you deserve no respect particularly if you decide to work on an English novel project which was the case with my first novel, 'My Ripper Hunting Days'!!

Most of the subsidied publishers have specific mandates that they cannot go around, but obviously you fell on a rotten one, and there are a few. But there are also very good ones. This said, I don't know any who published in English. My first novel (in English) was published in the United States.