In case you haven't heard about Dorchester/Leisure Publishing, there's a movement to boycott them. Why? They're screwing everyone over. Big time.
Brian Keene has it all down.
Mary SanGiovanni is following suit.
If you don't have time to read either of those, here's the short version of what's been happening in the world of Dorchester.
Many of you may have heard a while back that they decided to (abruptly) go all-digital. Then they backtracked and said they'd still put out trades along with the ebooks. Weird, but okay. But then authors weren't getting their royalty checks. Strange things were happening in the company. All sorts of garbled information started coming out of them. Many of their authors haven't been paid since 2009. That's right. Dorchester is essentially in the toilet, but the books are still selling, and authors haven't gotten any of their royalty money since 2009.
Some authors, Keene included, decided to ditch Dorchester and save themselves a lot of waiting and misery and requested the rights be returned to them and Dorchester could keep the money they owed. Dorchester reneged. The books are still being sold on Kindle, Sony, and so forth, but the authors are the legal owners of the rights so these sales are illegal and authors aren't getting paid for them. Other authors have requested the rights be returned to them, but Dorchester is basically saying no and continue to sell the books - and they're still not paying anyone.
So the word on the street is to boycott Dorchester/Leisure publishing (obviously not going to hurt the authors if they're not getting paid anyway!) in every way possible. Shut down your affiliations with them in every capacity; Twitter, Facebook, get off their email lists and off their memberships, and if you've been considering making a deal of any kind with Dorchester/Leisure Publishing - run in the opposite direction.
Most importantly of all, don't buy their books. Remember, it may not just say "Dorchester" on the book/ebook. It may say "Leisure Publishing" as well, but remember they're one and the same. Even if it's cheap: DON'T BUY IT. If you have friends, tell them. Make a post on your blog, spread the word any way you can. This isn't right. If you're a reader it should make you mad. If you're a writer, it should make you freaking furious.
My mentor from Seton Hill - Gary Braunbeck - had a lot of his books with Dorchester, and I'm worried that he's stuck in this awful mire and have since emailed him to find out. So go - spread the word!
3 comments:
Good to know. Thanks for sharing.
Sarah Allen
(my creative writing blog)
This is terrible for all those authors. All the time and hard work put into those books will be down the toilet if they can't get their rights back. Keeping my fingers crossed for them.
I know. It's ridiculous. So blog, tweet, and get the message out somehow. If they're not going to give their writers anything, they shouldn't get anything either!
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