Publisher All Romance Ebooks: Closing Hits New Low In Stealing From Authors

Author Celia Summers has posted an excellent piece on blogcritics about the sudden closing and less than savory actions of ARe.

The ebook industry has undergone several transitions in the past few years, where authors have become increasingly victimized by e-pirates, vanity presses, and scams designed to keep writers from making money on their intellectual property. Earlier today, December 28, 2016, the industry hit a new low when longtime e-tailer All Romance E-Books (Are), LLC (with its non-romance genre partner Omni Lit) released a surprise notice to its authors and publishers. ARe’s CEO and owner, Lori James, announced that the retailer was closing its doors in three days’ time.

What makes this so terrible is not the fact that they’re closing. What makes this so terrible is how they’re doing it:

We will be unable to remit Q4 2016 commissions in full and are proposing a settlement of 10 cents on the dollar (USD) for payments received through 27 December 2016. We also request the following conditions:
1. That you consider this negotiated settlement to be “paid in full”.
2. That no further legal action be taken with regards to the above referenced commissions owed.

Wait…what?

Link to the full article.

Short Notice! All Romance Ebooks Closing 12/31/16

As we leave, not soon enough, 2016 behind there comes notice another ebook venue is closing. At very, very short notice. KT Grant posted the following on Babbling About Books, and More!

 

Yesterday at 2pm I received an email in my inbox that most authors like myself, and I assume publishers (both epublished and traditional) received who sold their books at the online book vendor- All Romance Ebooks aka ARe. This email sent shockwaves through the publishing community for not only self-published authors and epublishers, but readers as well who have used ARe’s services for 10 years.

As of midnight on Saturday, December 31, 2016, the All Romance Ebooks site will go dark, aka they’re shutting their doors, and all content there, aka digital books for sale, will no longer be available through their platforms. This means authors and publishers have two days to pull their books off the site, and for readers to download their library of content before midnight on Saturday, or their books they purchased will be lost to them forever.

What has the publishing community raging, including myself is the email All Romance Ebooks, or rather Lori James, the Chief Executive Officer of All Romance Ebooks sent about the sudden closing of ARe. This section below is what has authors, and I assume publishers enraged:

Link to blog.

 

 

Happy Holidays

Torquere Press Is Closing

Writer Beware announces another publisher is closing, like EC for Books (Ellora’s Cave) Torquere Press has spent the last year or so giving part of their authors nothing but problems so this is not exactly a surprise. And like EC even the closing will give their authors nothing but another massive headache.

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Troubled publisher Torquere Press is closing. Owners Kristi Boulware and Joanna Talbot announced their decision yesterday in an email that will doubtless infuriate many authors, but probably won’t surprise them:

We have thought long and hard about where things are with Torquere and made the very hard decision that we need to begin the process of closing this chapter of our lives….We have done everything we could to turn things around but with the saturation in the industry, the financial hardships we are in, my health in constant decline along with the negativity we have had hurdled our way. We feel like we are currently fighting an uphill battle.

For the complete text see here.

Just getting picky here but shouldn’t that be hurtled not hurdled?

Remember the Pearl 75th Anniversary

U.S.S. Shaw explodes on Dec.7, 1941. (AP photo)

Last year I posted this link to the Press-Telegram’s 2013 series of photos from Pearl Harbor the day of the attack.

Spotlight on #OwnVoices: Freedom Over Me

Are you familiar with Reading While White? An excellent site for children’s and YA racially diverse books like this one.

Bryan, Ashley. Freedom over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life. A Caitlyn Dlouhy Book / Atheneum. 52 pages. ISBN 978-1-4814-569-6

Peggy, John, Charlotte and child, Stephen, Mulvina, Jane, Athelia, Qush, Bacus, Betty. It is with little more than these names that this book began. 

 

Ashley Bryan explains in his author’s note that he acquired a collection of slave-related documents and found among them an 1828 estate appraisal for the Fairchilds: “Eleven slaves are listed for sale with the cows, hogs, cotton; only the names and prices of the slaves are noted (no age is indicated).”

From those names, Bryan imagines lives into being. 

Continue reading here.

Small Press Storm Warnings: Torquere Press, Caliburn Press, Month9Books

If you’re an author or a reader you really should check out Writer Beware. Strauss has posted an update on the problems various small presses are causing and/or experiencing.

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

A roundup of publishers about which I’ve recently received serious complaints (all of them documented).

TORQUERE PRESS

At the end of 2014, the founders of Torquere Press–a well-regarded small publisher established in 2003–turned the company over to new co-owners: Kristi Boulware and Joanna Talbot.

Before the change in leadership, Torquere had been trouble-free (or at least, not generating author complaints). It didn’t take long for that to change. In early 2016, a little more than a year after the new owners took over, reports began surfacing of royalty payment problems. More reports showed up over the summer, even as Torquere participated in Twitter pitch contests to find new manuscripts. Also during the summer, Kristi Boulware was arrested on a hot check charge, allegedly after payment to one author bounced.

For more see here.