The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

I was huffing and puffing on the Stairmaster at the gym a few weeks ago when I noticed a woman staring at me. In her early forties, she was fit, pretty, and wearing a tight workout garment that accentuated her shapely physique.  Since I don’t suffer from the delusion that all women find me attractive, […]

The post Stealing Fire appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware®


On Wednesday, September 11, Publishers Lunch published an article by Erin Somers about payment issues at Dreamspinner Press, which I'm reprinting here with permission.

Dreamspinner Keeps Promising Authors to "Catch Up What Everyone Is Due" In Payments

Romance publisher Dreamspinner Press has not been paying royalties in timely fashion, authors have been reporting online, at least partially confirmed by emailed updates from the company that have been shared. Earlier this summer, authors posted on Twitter that the publisher had been inconsistent with payments for over a year, including delays in issuing both first quarter and second quarter 2019 royalties. In June, author TJ Klune posted, "Out of the last 8 quarters, this is the fourth time payments have been late, and the second in which I am owed penalties for said lateness." (Klune had said in March he would part ways with Dreamspinner after delivering three more books.) Author Suki Fleet posted, "I'm not waiting on a lot--but what I am waiting on is from foreign royalties paid to Dreamspinner this time *last* year, that I had to specifically ask for."

That month authors began announcing requests to revert their rights, a trend that continued over the course of the summer. There was some controversy within the romance community over whether authors withdrawing their work could cause the publisher to fail (or fail faster), in which case no one would get paid. Criticism extended to authors who supported the publisher as well, even though they were owed money.

Multiple agents PL spoke to said they were no longer doing business with Dreamspinner, except to negotiate their clients' rights back. They told us that acquisitions at the publisher had dwindled over the past year, confirmed by the sharp drop in PM deal reports, with Dreamspinner acquiring mostly from their existing authors, many of whom are unrepresented.

Dreamspinner provided authors a number of explanations in weekly emails, including writing that they had "not received payments from Amazon for UK or EU currencies," that they were awaiting deposits from "vendors," and that the late payments had been caused by a software glitch. In their latest update on September 4, the publisher said that they are anticipating a small business loan that will enable them to issue payments, and that they "can't offer a firm payment date to catch up what everyone is due." The email goes on, "With every set of deposits we receive, we've been sending payments, and we are continuing to respond as best we can to author requests." They added that they can't provide proof of the impending loan that authors have asked for because, "legal and banking documents are confidential and can't be posted online."

Meanwhile, authors including Indra Vaughn, Avon Gale, Jeff Adams, Will Knauss, CJane Elliott, Meredith Shayne, Tia Fielding, and many more have requested rights back. Fielding wrote on Facebook, "In the last year or so, they've repeatedly been more or less late in royalty payments." TJ Klune wrote in an email to the company that he posted on Twitter, that he is owed $27,448 in royalties and plans to involve a lawyer. A Facebook group of 75 former DSP authors has formed for people who have pulled their books or are considering it.

RWA has offered support for authors who have experienced trouble with Dreamspinner. They said in an August 21 statement: "We're aware of the situation, and members who need professional relations assistance, should contact memberadvocacy@rwa.org to reach our staff professional relations manager." Dreamspinner did not respond to PL's request for comment.

Writer Beware has been receiving similar complaints about late royalty and advance payments and confusing/conflicting explanations for the delays, with some authors saying they are owed four- and even five-figure amounts. According to a number of authors who contacted me, these problems have become more acute in the past few months, but they aren't new: periodic payment delays, with attendant excuses, began as much as two years ago.

Although Dreamspinner regularly sends out update emails (you can see an archive of these here), several authors told me they were having trouble getting responses from Dreamspinner CEO Elizabeth North.

Also of concern: in the midst of repeated payment delays, and despite its admissions of financial distress, Dreamspinner appears to be proceeding with sweeping expansion plans, including a shift to mass market paperback format, increasing the number of translations for the foreign market, and rolling out a new accounting and payment system (which several of the authors who contacted me told me they'd had trouble with). Multiple authors told me that they fear that author royalties, which Dreamspinner says go into an escrow account, are instead being used to finance company operations.

Authors' anger at the situation is growing. Meanwhile, Dreamspinner is still open for submissions. Writers who are considering approaching this publisher might want to hold off for the moment.

More information:

Tweets from authors Avon Gale, TJ Klune, Roan Parrish, KJ Charles (search "Dreamspinner" on Twitter to see many more).

Blog posts by authors Mary Winter, RJ Scott, Rhys Ford, TJ Klune.

Non-Dreamspinner author X. Marduk is compiling a Dreamspinner timeline, with lots of links to tweets and blog posts.

UPDATE 12/25/19: The payment problems at Dreamspinner appear to be ongoing. A group of Dreamspinner authors contacted RWA to request help:


You can read the entire letter here.

According to one of the letterwriters, RWA responded that there is nothing they can do. Dreamspinner's issues are now part of the implosion of Romance Writers of America, with writers increasingly furious over RWA's alleged foot-dragging in addressing complaints--not just about Dreamspinner, but generally.

UPDATE 12/28/19: Another of Dreamspinner's eminently reasonable-sounding but holy-crap-if-you-read-between-the-lines updates. (Summary, if you don't want to click on the tweet: they've hired a firm that specializes in financial restructuring to "develop a plan for 2020 and a structured repayment of all past due amounts." They promise to "be in touch with authors directly about their repayment schedule".)

And here's the latest Dreamspinner update. Um. Yeah. Financial restructuring. pic.twitter.com/dYjZaXKgrt

— Anna Zabo (@amergina) December 28, 2019

When you have to explain yourself by saying "We want to make clear that this isn't bankruptcy", it's not generally a good sign.

UPDATE 1/16/20: I continue to hear from Dreamspinner authors who have not been paid. Some are owed thousands of dollars for the first three quarters of 2019, and have received no payment at all; some have gotten partial payment, or are owed for fewer quarters. Bottom line: Dreamspinner owes a crapload of money to its authors.

According to the latest update from Elizabeth North, "Payments for November have started posting. They will all be submitted through Tipalti [Dreamspinner's accounting software] by Friday, January 10." What this appears to mean--at least, as of this writing and based on the authors who have contacted me--isn't actual payment (as in, money in bank account), but a status change on Tipalti from "In Process" to "Submitted For Payment." Also, the payments are for November royalties only. Anything prior to that will be folded into the restructuring plan Dreamspinner says it is pursuing.

Other stuff:

• Writers seem to be requesting rights reversion in droves. Many of them have multiple titles with Dreamspinner.
• In some cases,Dreamspinner seems to be unilaterally charging certain fees or expenses or other amounts against what they owe individual writers--i.e., reducing royalties owed by whatever the amount of the expense is. I don't want to provide details here, because I don't want to risk identifying the writers.
• The National Writers Union wants to hear from Dreamspinner authors who haven't been paid.
• Dreamspinner is fully enmeshed in the implosion of RWA. Claire Ryan has an exhaustive timeline of the crisis that's tearing RWA apart, with references to RWA's anemic response to Dreamspinner authors' complaints, and allegations that recently-resigned RWA President and Dreamspinner author Damon Suede may not have been eligible for the office based on his actual publications.

One thing that's really striking to me in this whole mess is how, if you look at just one of Dreamspinner's announcements and updates, they sound so very businesslike and reasonable. It's only if you go back and read them all in sequence--as I just did--that the facade starts to crumble, with unmet deadlines, moving goalposts, and unfulfilled commitments.

Back in June, Dreamspinner was promising that "the remainder of outstanding royalties" were about to be released...but here we are in January 2020, and they still owe tens of thousands of dollars. In July, they promised that they were "in the final steps" with the Small Business Administration loan, and "estimated funding has been moved back to mid-August"...but as of January, the loan is still pending. Over the months from June through December, they promised repeatedly to get everyone paid (especially, again and again, royalties for Quarter 2)...and then, in December, they suddenly announced the hiring of a firm to re-structure the entire debt from October backward, with no details about the process, or even an end date for it. Presumably, this firm will want a fee...from a publisher that can't afford to pay its authors.

I get that it's tough out there for small presses. Things go wrong. Vendors are tardy. Loans fall through. Personal emergencies happen. But read from beginning to end, Dreamspinner's updates--so reasonable-seeming individually--start to feel like mere excuses. Together with authors' frustrations and complaints, they paint a really troubling picture.

UPDATE 1/17/20: Re: all those November royalties that were to be released by January 10, and are currently listed in authors' Tipalti dashboards as "submitted" but not actually paid...this rather irate email from Tipalti to Dreamspinner in response to an author's inquiry about the delay suggests why nothing is landing in authors' bank accounts: Dreamspinner's payment account is not funded.


This is not good news. It's really starting to feel like there's some serious gaslighting going on here.

UPDATE 3/19/20: Dreamspinner has not provided an author update since January 7, and writers are still reporting that royalties are in arrears. Yet, amazingly, Dreamspinner is open to submissions:


Also seeking submissions: Dreamspun Desires.

Writer beware.

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware®

In my first post about the ways that predatory companies attempt to ensnare unwary writers who are searching for publishers, I discussed fake publisher-matching websites. In my second, I exposed the scammy Google ad tactics of vanity publisher Austin Macauley.

In this third post, I'll talk about an equally insidious practice: providing misinformation or even outright lies about traditional publishing, in order to make self- or vanity publishing appear superior.

Yesterday on Twitter, someone tweeted this chart, which purportedly compares traditional publishing and self-publishing.


If you're even slightly savvy about publishing, the inaccuracies are easy to spot. Trad pubs often pay royalties on retail price (not "net sales"), or pay a higher percentage (higher royalties are especially common in the small press world). Trad pubs that pay advances don't withhold them from less popular authors, and they don't require authors to make "certain minimum orders" or to buy thousands of copies of their own books. And while it's often true that smaller traditional publishers don't provide much in the way of PR or marketing support, and larger houses invest more marketing in more popular books and authors, they don't simply ignore 95% of their output (this makes no sense; what business markets only 5% of its products?)

As for author rights...trad pubs do license exclusive rights from authors, sometimes for a period of years, sometimes for the life of copyright (with reversion usually happening well before then). But they don't gain ownership of them (as "all rights are with the publisher" implies), because the author retains copyright--plus, authors can often negotiate to keep some of their subsidiary rights. And although self-publishing is typically non-exclusive, allowing authors to publish on multiple platforms if they wish, they do still have to license publishing and distribution rights to whichever platform or service provider they choose--otherwise, the platform couldn't legally produce and sell their books.

The chart comes from this how-to-self-publish article, which is really just a long ad for PublishEdge, which is (surprise!) a paid publishing services provider.


PublishEdge is a "division" of Zaang Entertainment Pvt Ltd, which, unlike the Philippines-based scams I've been covering so much lately, is based in India. The range of services it sells aren't priced as high as some of the scammers', but there are still plenty of warning signs: no information about who is providing the services on offer (so you have no idea who they are or if they're qualified); no cover or website design samples (so you have no idea what you'd be getting for your money); and this pitch for ghostwriting services, which invites you to "Discover the simple secret to how celebrities and busy professionals get their books published without actually writing", courtesy of "our book writing experts", who (judging from the description of the service) basically type up a Skype interview into a chapter book. Most likely these unnamed "experts" are hired on Upwork or Fiverr or a similar jobs site (holy plagiarism scandal, Batman!).

PublishEdge isn't alone in misrepresenting traditional publishing in order to make itself look more attractive. Among other alternative facts, this chart from Morgan James, a vanity publisher with an author purchase requirement, claims that "many major houses" require authors to buy 5,000 copies or more of their own books (doesn't that make MJ's 2,500 purchase requirement seem appealing?), and that trad pubs provide no PR or marketing support for 94% of their books and authors. (Hmmm. Could PublishEdge have borrowed a little something there?)

Here's another misleading comparison, from Union Square Publishing, a self-styled hybrid (read: vanity) publisher. It too borrows heavily from Morgan James's chart, with several of the same dubious claims. Here's another one--this time from Success Publishing, which sells Chicken Soup-style anthology slots.

This one, from "custom" publisher Momosa Publishing (packages start at $5,900), doesn't tell quite so many fibs, but encourages you to believe that trad pubs cap their royalties at 6%, and don't market their books to libraries. And then there's this from Atmosphere Press, another so-called hybrid, which wants to convince writers that a $5,000 publishing fee will save them from the "raw end of the deal" they'd get from a trad pub, "losing not just their royalties but also the rights to their material and to their control over their art." Not addressed: the likelihood of ever making that $5,000 back.

These are just a few examples; there are many more. If you use the internet as part of your publisher search, you're very likely to encounter them (in some cases, disseminated by self-styled experts who ought to know better). It's a great argument for a step that many writers skip: learning about publishing before diving into the quest for publication. As with all aspects of publishing, knowledge is your greatest ally and your best defense: the more you know about the way things really work, the better protected you will be against the disinformation described above.

Final note: I know that many writers have had bad experiences with traditional publishers--I've had some myself. Especially in the small press world, many traditional (at least in the sense that they don't charge fees) publishers engage in nonstandard and author-unfriendly business practices. There's plenty of discussion of that on this blog. I'm not trying to paint trad pub as perfect, or argue that it's necessarily a better choice for any given writer.

But deliberate distortions like those described above don't help anyone, even if you don't take into account their obvious self-serving agenda. Tarring an entire segment of the publishing market with a broad negative brush--especially where some of the supposed negatives are demonstrably false--is as irresponsible as arguing (as some people still do) that only traditional publishing is a worthwhile path. 

Twice “Sweet Talker” When I write about songs sung in languages I cannot understand I generally try to find an English translation. This is helpful in getting the idea of the song, but it can do a weird thing in my brain where my understanding of the song is at a remove from my experience […]

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The last few weeks have seen Virginia racked by government scandals, including Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring’s histories with blackface, and allegations of sexual assault against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax. Democratic Party leadership has since swiftly called for the resignations of Northam and Fairfax — demands that some on both sides of the aisle […]

It occurs to me that, if I were better at marketing myself, I’d be writing and sending out press releases titled, “New York Times Number One Best Selling Audiobook Narrator […]

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Nelson is capable

Whoops, forgot to change the strip number. HAPPY CANADA DAY

that's it, that's the best joke I'm ever going to write, it's all downhill from here

whew, I think that finally wraps up this robot-centric story! Time to catch up with some of the rest of the cast.

I will be at Gencon next weekend! You Should ComE Say Hi

I will be at gencon this weekend! Come find me at booth #1537 with a bunch of my great cartoonist friends!

Pintsize kinda startin to look like a Wooper

Lamp

I miss restaurants :(

hmmm

In celebration of Earth Day, here is a collection of Middle-earth moments in a special BS (Book Spoiler) post in the Main Discussion Board… for a moment of Tolkien-zen. [TIME and BS entries are maintained and updated by fans of The Lord of the Rings, and are in no way affiliated with Tolkien Enterprises or […]

Pukeko Pictures, founded by Weta Workshop’s Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger with their friend and children’s author Martin Baynton, has released a free children’s ebook. The book is based on characters from the New Zealand kids’ show Kiddets and demonstrates to children the importance of remaining clean, clear, and kind. You can download a copy […]