Deirdre Saoirse Moen

Sounds Like Weird

Ellora's Cave Author Exodus Support Thread

27 September 2014

[![Greek Sphinx, Delphi](/images/2014/09/greek-sphinx-695x700.jpg)](/images/2014/09/greek-sphinx.jpg)Greek Sphinx, Delphi

This post is for authors, editors, and cover artists who’ve left, or who are trying to leave, Ellora’s Cave. I’ve got a section for other resources for EC authors at the end of this post. ## Authors

At least one of the following needs to be true:
1. Asked for your rights to be reverted in 2014 (or 2015) or had your rights reverted in 2014 (or 2015). Or, and I hope this isn’t true for you, your rights were reverted but EC is still selling your titles.
2. Have taken your EC titles off your website. Or, if they’re reverted, have re-published at least some of them.
3. Have spoken up since December 2012 about late royalties, missing royalties, or suspiciously declining royalties in a public post (blog, facebook, google+, whatver) or tweet.
4. Have had an EC title for which EC has sold the contract to another publisher.
5. Have publicly posted that you’re afraid to speak up. (Thanks for the idea, Courtney!)
You must also have a non-EC title to promote, since many of the readers of this thread may not wish to enrich Ellora’s Cave.
Click on author name for the author’s website.

  1. Cat Grant. She’s gotten her three Ellora’s Cave titles reverted (soon to be re-published) and has more than twenty titles from other sources.
  2. Kit Tunstall. “What I do know is I haven’t been paid for three out of the past nine months[…]” Later received a check, commented, “The low amount of my check is hardly indicative of the financial health of the company.” Note: she later deleted those posts, and they were not archived on archive.org.
  3. Evanne Lorraine. talks about deleting the covers of her EC titles from her website:

    I loved my editor, thought their cover art was brilliant, and was very fond of the regular royalty checks.
    Yesterday I deleted those covers from my website, which makes me want to sob.
    I still adore those stories, but Ellora’s Cave isn’t paying me. I sent them formal notice requesting payment and the reversion of my rights. I received an automated response to both emails stating they’re overwhelmed with requests.

  4. Avril Ashton. Spoke about royalty issues. “I’m going to say that once again Ellora’s Cave isn’t paying royalty checks. I’m going to say that once again, emails and phone calls and fucking homing pigeons are being left unanswered. Silence on all correspondence.”
  5. Jan Springer. Commented on DA, “Jan, one of the EC authors not getting paid and fighting to get her rights back.”
  6. Trista Ann Michaels. Spoke about royalties not arriving.:

    Another month has gone by and no check from EC. Emails and phone calls go unanswered, just like always. I have no doubt if I was to go up there in person, I would find the office doors locked.
    . . . .
    It’s a shame that we at EC have to resort to such a tactic, but I’m adding my name to the list of authors who are asking that readers not buy their EC titles. We’re not getting paid for them anyway.

  7. Lex Valentine. Lex commented on Passive Voice: “I got a lovely check September 23 dated August 31 for May royalties. It was $43 and change. The only thing I found curious was how it took nearly a month for that check to get from Ohio to Southern California and that I got a check at all considering some of my EC author friends haven’t been paid.”
  8. Lynne Connolly has said “I just want my rights back.”
  9. India Masters, also writing as Keira Cole. She comments below, “My last check, covering royalties earned for the month of April, was $48.94 – around 1/4 of my usual earnings.”
  10. Abigail Barnette/Jenny Trout. One of my favorite people, and I’m a fan of her Boss series. She says:

    I’m an Ellora’s Cave author. I only have one book there, and it has never been a bestseller, but I love it and I would be heartbroken if it were to end up as part of a bankruptcy settlement. So, I asked for a reversion of my rights last week, after a summer of rumblings from other authors who weren’t happy with their experience with the company. I myself have never had any payment issues with Ellora’s Cave, but having been in the business for almost a decade, I’ve learned that when authors are saying that they aren’t getting paid, other things aren’t getting paid, either. As Litte points out in her post, if a company goes bankrupt, authors can lose their rights permanently, so some Ellora’s Cave authors are faced with a difficult, possibly bridge-burning choice right now. I’ve never met an Ellora’s Cave staff member about whom I could say a bad word, and it pains me to cut ties with a publisher that I feel has treated me well, but in business you have to make hard decisions to protect your interests.

  11. Lynne Connolly. Comments below, and has removed her EC titles from her website as well as gotten reversions on her unpublished titles.
  12. Shoshanna Evers. Comments below, and has gotten several titles reverted.

    I would also like to add that everyone who works at or for EC has always been awesome to me, and Romanticon used to be my favorite convention. I’m sad this is going down the way it is.

  13. Cassandra Carr. Comments below. Has gotten two shorts reverted, but still has several titles at EC.
  14. Regina Cole. Has a non-EC book available for pre-order, Draw Me In.
  15. Suz deMello. Commented below, asking for rights back on five titles.
  16. Kate Sherwood. Tweets: “Please don’t buy my EC novella. I don’t want any profits from it to contribute to EC’s lawyers’ bills. #notchilled” She’s got other titles available.
  17. Liz Crowe. Commented below, and generously offered the Stewart Realty series ebook for our readers.
  18. Kelly Maher. Asked for reversion of her EC titles.
  19. Lissa Matthews. Spoke up about royalty accounting and also getting a cover that wasn’t compliant with Amazon’s standards.

    I have one book filtered at Amazon and I don’t even have a year’s worth of sales numbers on it, but I can tell you it definitely meets the ‘sells less than 100 copies in a calendar year’… No one even knows the book exists unless I tell them. And it’s filtered because I didn’t specify No Nudity for the cover. Okay, I took blame for that, but how was I supposed to know I had to tell Ellora’s Cave what their distributors would and wouldn’t allow on covers in order for them to be found by readers and not stashed so deep into the abyss? I had never had to specify that before and believe you me, I learned that lesson. Because the next and final book that I submitted specified on the cover art form NO NUDITY!

  20. Berengaria Brown. Comments below. She’s got plenty of non-EC titles for you to read. Thanks, and welcome!
  21. Delphine Dryden. Comments below. I have read and enjoyed her Cosmo/Harlequin titles, but she’s got plenty of others.
  22. Leigh Ellwood. Comments below. She’s got quite a few titles out and is a very versatile writer.
  23. Lolita Lopez / Roxie Rivera Wrote a heart-wrenching blog post about her EC relationship. She has plenty of titles to entice you with, especially if you like paranormal or sci-fi in your romance.
  24. Nina Pierce. Comments below, and has asked for reversions on her EC titles when her sales started slipping.
  25. Angelia Sparrow. Comments below. Many of her EC books reverted before the recent issues with EC.
  26. Lynn Rae. Pinged me on Twitter, and has other non-EC books featured on her website.
  27. Emily Ryan-Davis. Has gotten reversion on her Ellora’s Cave titles. She’s got plenty of other books for you to read!
  28. Kate St. James. Has gotten reversion on her EC titles and has other titles for you to read.
  29. Blair Valentine aka Bonnie Vanak. Has spoken out about EC’s slow royalty payments and asked people not to purchase her EC titles.
  30. Jane Leopold Quinn. Has asked for reversion, but also has non-EC books to check out.

There is a Kindle book list of EC authors who have non-EC books for authors who’ve contributed to the Dear Author/Jane Litte Defense fund.
Additionally, A. Nonny Mouse comments below, “I’m an EC author who’s received obviously backdated checks, suspect royalty statements missing books, whose questions and concerns have gone unanswered by TPTB. I’ve removed all EC books from my website and have asked for all my rights to be returned. Obviously, they haven’t bothered to respond.”

To Participate

Please comment with, email me with or tweet me with your pen name and website (and link to the post if #3), and I’ll add it to this author list. Fan of an author not listed? Let me know!
Note: EC covered a wide variety of erotic romance tropes, and there’s no guarantee that any particular author will write something that speaks to you as a reader.

Editors

You’ve commented publicly, even if anonymously, that payments to you are currently, or have been recently, late.

  1. Just sayin’ comments: “I am a former EC editor and have not been paid since the beginning of the summer.” I believe, but obviously can’t be sure, this may be the same “Just sayin’” who comments below.
  2. And me commented below saying they have not been paid since early summer.
  3. This makes three adds, “I’m yet another EC editor who hasn’t been paid.”
  4. Me too also comments below, “I’m an unpaid editor too.”
  5. Lemon Squeeze Editing is a group of laid off EC editors now offering their services as freelance editors.

Cover Artists

You’ve commented publicly, even if anonymously, that payments to you are currently, or have been recently, late.

  1. Dar Albert Commented on Avril Ashton’s blog:

    They owe me for covers for two months. They worked me like a dog, took the art, and now tell me nothing. Or that they have no idea when I will be paid. I am really frustrated. Got bills, got a life, got just me, no back up, and now I have no loyalty for a company I served for six years as an artist.

    If you need covers for a book project, you can contact Dar at Wicked Smart Designs. I’m sure she’d appreciate the work.

Promotion Opportunities

  1. There’s a Google Doc form for each non-EC book by an EC author for bloggers to promote. Here’s the tweet. This is a great project to help get exposure for authors. Here’s the resulting web page.
  2. Felicia would like to feature EC authors on Top Off Tuesday. (I’m not affiliated with that, just passing along the info.) Covers should have a male with a top all or partly off.
  3. Angela would like to feature EC authors with non-EC titles on Boosting the Signal.
  4. Kastil Eavenshade tweets that her blog is open for EC authors to promote non-EC titles.
  5. Agents of Romance tweeted that they would love to help EC authors promote non-EC titles.
  6. Romancing Rakes wants to feature non-EC titles by EC authors for the entire month of November. Whoa.
  7. ScuttlebuttReviews comments below. “We currently cannot commit to reviews, but can accept author promos, guest posts, and the like. Please note that we only accept GLBTQ books, the bulk of which are MM/Gay.”

Several EC authors have noted that Ellora’s Cave did not register their copyrights. Victoria Strauss tweets how to check if your copyright was registered. More direct link is here.

Romance Writers of America

By the way, if you are an Ellora’s Cave author and an RWA member, you can file a complaint with RWA. #notchilled

— Courtney Milan (@courtneymilan) September 29, 2014

Here’s how you do it. (1) Here is the Industry Code of Ethics: http://t.co/d2LABorDDD There is no easy way to report… #notchilled

— Courtney Milan (@courtneymilan) September 29, 2014

…so step (2) is to e-mail the RWA president (emails here: http://t.co/D94jUfVhif) and say you’re reporting a violation. #notchilled

— Courtney Milan (@courtneymilan) September 29, 2014

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

If you’re a SFWA member and are having trouble receiving payment, or believe your royalties aren’t accurate, you may be able to use SFWA’s Grievance Committee resource. Not all EC titles fall under SFWA’s purvue, but many stories are science fiction, paranormal romance, or similar genres.

Comment Note

Note: Comments use gravatars. If you wish to comment anonymously, be careful. To the extent the law permits, I will protect anonymous commenters. Also, all comments are moderated unless there’s a previously-approved comment from you.


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