Summary: Dorcheter Pub, home to Leisure Horror amongst others, had a wide wallop of problems last year leading them to reorganize themselves as an ebook centric book publisher. Except, along the way they have run into apparent delays, had some writers go off on their own, and fulfilled their bookclub subscription by sending out other publisher's overflow (basically). Today, Brian Keene and others have started calling on a boycott of Dorchester in retaliation of yet another thing: DP continues to publish ebooks that they have no right to publish.
Writers are leading a boycott against Dorchester Publications
BLOT: (24 Mar 2011 - 08:56:43 PM)
Writers are leading a boycott against Dorchester Publications
For the most part, you can get the majority of the story from Brian Keene's own blog: "BOYCOTT DORCHESTER". Here he lays out the last year or so of Dorcester Publications and their trials and tribulations. Namely the ones that they have visited upon writers who have worked with them. Turns out they owe something like a million dollars in backpayment to their [occasionally ex-]authors? They have also continued to sell ebooks through iBooks and Amazon.com that they do not have a write to sell.
Except that it wasn't, because since then, Dorchester has repeatedly violated that agreement. Since January of this year, unauthorized digital editions of my work have been sold via Kindle, Nook, iBooks, and Sony. These digital editions were not made available for sale until well after the rights had reverted back to me. Dorchester's response, in each case, has been to blame someone else and assure me that "they are looking into it" and that I would be "financially compensated" and that "it wouldn't happen again". Except that I haven't been financially compensated and it keeps happening again.
I am not the only author who this has happened to. Nor is this the only problem. I am told that some authors are still awaiting payments and royalty statements. (One author told me this morning that they have not received a royalty statement or check since April of 2009, yet their books are still being sold). I'm told that some authors' requests for the reversion of their rights are being outright ignored.
Just a couple of days ago, I received an email asking me to submit the 25 or so backlist titles that I would like to see released in ebook. I deleted it, because I knew of some of these issues. Then I saw this in Keene's post:
And I'm told that yesterday, with many authors' books about to go out of print (which would then allow the rights to revert back to the authors) Dorchester has announced their intent to bring many of those books out as ebooks, thus seizing the rights, rather than allowing those rights to revert back to the authors - authors who, quite understandably, have concerns about this, given the company's current state of affairs.
It's a crappy situation. I always considered Leisure Horror to be a bit of a mid-list haven, with a fair amount of their stock kind of poor but enough good in there (and enough strong cheese that was not good, but oh so enjoyable) that I enjoyed being a part of their horror club. There was some Ramsey Campbell, some Brian Keene, some Bryan Smith, some Richard Laymon, some Jack Ketchum, some Edward Lee, some Robert Dunbar, and some Nate Kenyon in it. The rest? Give or take depending on the month. When the melt-down occurred, my monthly dose of mass-market horror dried up. That made me sad. then I started getting charged for books that I did not care about. That made me kind of pissy, but supposedly it was only for a month or two. Then it went on and on and on. I finally cancelled. The woman on the line didn't even blink. I assume they get a lot of them nowadays.
I do feel pretty pissed about all of this, though, pissed-by-proxy. Those writers (the mid-listers) might be kind of a kicking-bag in writing discussions but they are also the sort that make a day-to-day living off of writing. They pump out 3-4 books a year because that's how they make rent. If they have gone over a year without payment, while the company responsible for this gaffe has continued to release works in their name? Screw it. I'm in.
Keene lays out six parts to the boycott: unfollow them on Twitter, don't follow them on Facebook (unlike them), unsubscribe to their mailings, unsubscribe to their bookclub, don't go to them for publication, and don't buy anything from them. Just essentially blank them out. Done x 6.
There are probably quite a bit of postings about this on the 'Net, but one that was linked to early own was by Robert Smartwood: "Stand Up and Fight".
And if you have no idea what I am talking about, well, that's ok, too.
LABEL(s): Book Publishing
OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: March 2011
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Written by Doug Bolden
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