Briefs: Dorchester Woes Continue; The Brand of Mary Higgins Clark; And More
Dorchester Publishing continues to do its best zombie impression, as a number of authors have learned the ailing company continues to sell digital copies of their work even after they no longer hold the rights, and despite repeated assurances they would stop this practice. Horror writer Brian Keene detailed the situation on his blog, saying that he found unauthorized e-copies of his books under the Dorchester banner selling through various digital outlets. “In the most recent case (iBooks), Dorchester blamed their vendor, Libre Digital, but provided no documentation verifying this. An employee at Apple cast doubt on this explanation. In the case of Kindle, they blamed Amazon.com. Again, an employee at Amazon cast doubt on this.” Keene says he has not been compensated by Dorchester since mid-2009, with author authors owed money from even earlier. More than 100 authors are calling for a boycott of Dorchester.
Keene also provided notes from a conference call to creditors last August that showed how dire Dorchester’s financial situation was and presumably still remains: “The company saw a 60% decrease in book orders in mid-2009; payroll was down from 1 million to $600,000; the company had no cash flow, but also had no bank debt; the company owed six million dollars to various creditors, including $700,000 to active authors and $400,000 to inactive authors; ebooks accounted for 10% of their profit; their trade paperback plan was currently on hold; they didn’t think the sale of the company was possible; and that as of August 9th (2010), they considered themselves in bankruptcy but are not actually filing for bankruptcy’.” A spokesperson for Dorchester did not respond to requests for comment.
You can read all the sordid details on Brian’s Blog. http://www.briankeene.com/?p=6140
Not a good place to be for anyone involved.
Talk tomorrow,
Kathy
Filed under: Author, News, Publishing Industry, Young Adult Novel Tagged: Boycott, Brian Keene, Dorchester Publishing, Leisure Books, Writer beware
