Earlier today, Laurann Dohner updated her facebook profile to show Ellora’s Cave as a former employer rather than her current one.
A bit later in the day, she removed Ellora’s Cave from her work history entirely.
So far as I’m aware, all of Laurann Dohner’s titles remain in print with Ellora’s Cave, at least for the time being. If I were the speculating sort, I’d guess that we’ll be seeing reversions happening at some point in the not-too-distant future.
A Shiloh Walker / J.C. Daniels Update
Earlier today, Shiloh Walker (who also writes as J.C. Daniels) posted a link to the Twitter #notchilled hashtag linking to this blog post about her Ellora’s Cave titles.
An excerpt from that post:
At this time, I’d like to request that my readers stop buying the titles below from any and all retailers. If I’m not going to get paid, and in a timely manner, I’d rather the books not be bought at all.
Her Best Friends Lover
Silk Scarves and Seduction
Never as it seems
Guilty Needs
One of the Guys
His Christmas Cara
Lacey’s Game
Belonging
Sexy Little Surprises
Best of luck to Shiloh on getting reversions for her remaining EC titles.
I’ve heard from sources sources that many, if not most, long-time Ellora’s Cave authors want out. Unfortunately, they’re neither in a position to use a hammer (e.g., a lawyer) or slink under the low number of sales. Most are now publishing with other houses or indie publishing themselves. (As far as many/most, I believe my sources are credible on this point, but I obviously haven’t heard from more than a fraction of EC’s authors.)
At least some fear speaking out because they’d be branded as troublemakers—and feel they would be less likely to be paid and/or less likely to get reversion offers they could live with.
Which reminds me….
Booktrack Adds Ellora’s Cave As a Publishing Partner
The article here lists a few Ellora’s Cave authors being converted to the Booktrack format:
- A.L Wiley (first published by EC in Oct 2015)
- Lora Leigh (long-time EC author whose last EC book was published in May 2014)
- Desiree Holt (long-time EC author whose last EC book was published in Feb 2015)
- Audra Carusso (first published by EC in Feb 2015)
- Joanna Wylde (EC published the first book in a series; later volumes from Berkeley made her a NY Times bestselling author)
Joanna Wylde, you may recall, was one of Jane Litte’s sources for her Dear Author article The Curious Case of Ellora’s Cave, and said she had not seen Amazon payments since January. (Despite the name being redacted on that document, it’s put together in this document on p.6.)
So what’s Booktrack’s interest in Ellora’s Cave?
Booktrack offers a new content creation and distribution platform that turns reading into an immersive movie-like experience. Booktrack’s patented technology lets anyone add a synchronized movie-style soundtrack to an e-book or other digital text content, with the audio paced to each individual’s reading speed.
I can just hear the moan soundtrack and the bad ’70s jazz….
bow-chicka-wow-wow
That’s how I read it!
Trying to understand the Booktrack format…So it’s like playing music that the author is pairing up with the story, only it’s somehow synchronized to your reading speed? I’d have thought that would be a nightmare of arranging for permissions to use specific music. Maybe Booktrack cuts deals with other music purveyors or something. Not something I would want as I much prefer to read in as quiet an environment as possible, but I gather that’s not the norm. Quite apart from EC, it will be interesting to see if it catches on.
Re: Authors jumping off the EC bandwagon, I guess that’s no surprise to anyone watching EC since the ill-fated SLAPP suit. I’d like to feel good about purchasing some of their books again. Wishing them the best of luck.
Booktrack started as an educational thing to give kids a more immersive reading experience and help kids learn to enjoy reading. I don’t know where or how they get their soundtracks, but that’s not my problem. 🙂
It’s not a surprise to me that Ellora’s Cave authors are jumping ship. I’m just surprised it’s taken this long for some of them. Of course, some of the bigger fish may have been paid more preferential schedules in the past and may only have been in breach recently. (That’s my assumption based on Laurann’s announcement given her 75-book deal.)
All right, so, as they say in Ireland.
Putting books into another format means they retain the rights, and make their claim to another right. I don’t know if this one is covered in the contract, but the contract does include audio, so presumably that’s the one.
Booktrack sounds like a gimmick, and since I tend to do my reading in bed at night, would annoy the crap out of me, but that doesn’t matter. It’s a way of holding on to the books.
By the terms of the contract, the book has to be in print (ie out there to be bought in any format) for twelve months before reversions can be requested. They have to sell less than 100 in a consecutive 12 month period, but EC are insisting that they count the 12 months immediately prior to the request, although it doesn’t say that in the contract. That makes it tricky because they’re so late in issuing royalty payments and statements. Then they have six months to say yay or nay, and to let the reversion take effect. They have six months after reversion to sell any remaining hard copies, a clause that dates from when they printed their own books, but now they’re POD, so that clause is a bit moot.
All that means that there are a lot of EC authors asking for their rights back who have no intention of writing anything else for the company. The best guide is to look for the last book of theirs that EC published, as you did above.
That’s the true measure of how many authors EC has on its roll. And speaking personally, I don’t know one author who is actively writing for EC, or who plans to write any more books.
Again, from a personal point of view, saying all that hurts me very much. I had a great few years with the company, enjoyed working with the editors, had some gorgeous cover art and had some great sales. To see all that go away is painful, and to see the schadenfreude racing around is also unpleasant. They could have had so much and they threw it away. IMO it was not keeping up with the market that was their fundamental problem, but it’s their company and their decisions. All I can do is make my own.
Yep, that’s exactly how I saw it on rights retention. It’s pretty obvious that Joanna Wylde was disgusted with Ellora’s Cave prior to the lawsuit given her emails to Jane Litte. One of the things that this EC experience has taught me is that I should ask for an escalating number of copies if reversion’s for low sales (e.g., 100 the first year, 200 the second, etc.). Another is that 100 is way too low to justify Ellora’s Cave’s costs in issuing checks.
I also do my reading in bed at night, often after Rick’s asleep (I had more insomnia than usual), so I’m really not interested in audio book formats. However, a lot of people really do struggle with immersing themselves in books if they don’t have an especially visual imagination.
Agreed that one needs to consider how many books the big authors have written recently. So far as I’m aware, Desiree Holt may be the biggest name who’s still publishing new titles with Ellora’s Cave, but she does write for multiple publishers, too. The other point is that, unless an author’s said so publicly, we have no idea if they have asked for their rights back. Thus it’s really hard to see how what percentage of EC’s authors are in reversion limbo, though I gather it’s a substantial percentage.
Sometimes, the hardest situation of all business-wise is a bust year following shortly after a big boom year, as I gather 2014 and 2012 were for Ellora’s Cave, respectively. While some have interpreted some of the things I’ve said as schadenfreude (and, tbh, a few were), mostly I’ve been happy that people have gotten their rights back or that various issues have been exposed. I’m not the least bit happy about the underlying situation. I’m still super unhappy about the incredible irony of a publisher publishing a lot of BDSM titles and ignoring continuing consent of the authors involved. Do we really need to go to the level of a safe word in contracts?
The other thing is that both people and companies can take a long time to die, and I don’t believe that Ellora’s Cave has what it takes to pull out of this. That’s always sad to watch.
Does anyone else wonder if perhaps Laurann bought her rights back, and that’s why some authors are suddenly being paid?
I’m sure people are wondering that, however I don’t believe that’s the case.
In the cases where I’ve heard specific details, EC’s been asking for reversion fees vastly in excess of the amount of royalties authors have already received in order to buy out contracts. I can’t imagine, given that Laurann’s their NY Times bestselling author, that there’s a number the two could agree upon.
On the other hand, if Laurann did forego some royalties, that would also seem to be a sudden cash windfall.
Yes, I know some authors who have told me directly they paid a LOT of money for their rights. Numbers that made my jaw drop.
Laurann forgoing royalties for her rights is an interesting theory. They could pay back a lot of authors with what should be going to her.
Which still makes me wonder…what’s happening to the rest of the royalties? Why aren’t they being held separately for authors? Are they going toward regular operating costs instead of what they should be paying (aka the authors)?
It strikes me that EC could save a lot of money if they shut down the office completely and had the remaining staff work from home. Skype is a wonderful thing.
I can’t tell you how much it pisses me off to know that authors are either paying outright, or foregoing royalties, in order to get their rights back–particularly authors who have stated that their royalty checks are months late, and/or barely enough to purchase a fast food kiddie meal, and/or their royalty statements are questionable.
I am disgusted by all the negative things that have happened to Ellora’s Cave authors (current and former), and the editors and cover artists who are still waiting to be paid. Is it shadenfreude to hope that the people whose stupid, ego based decisions, have caused so much grief to so many people, finally face some negative consequences? Then, so be it.
No it’s not, AztecLady. But I’ve had some responses from authors that are “see, we told you!” and the ones who think that erotic romance is porn, so we’re getting what we deserve.
The law being what it is, I don’t hold out much expectation of seeing what I’ve lost, but it was worth it to free up my creativity again. And I wanted to point out that it wasn’t all bad, back in the day. It is now.
Ah, I get you (re: shadenfreude)
On the other thing, at this point I don’t think pretty much anyone will get more than a tiny fraction–if that–of what they are owed.
I’m very glad I haven’t heard that perspective, Lynne, because it’s pretty disgusting. 🙁
It is really galling for a company so far behind to ask for a free pass on being behind in order to get out of breaching a contract. Especially so in jurisdictions where a small claims case can issue an equity claim for relief (e.g., order Ellora’s Cave to return the rights).
Do unpaid authors/contractors have to be residents of the same state as EC in order to file in small claims court?
I’ve long thought that the artists and editors who were summarily dismissed last year and refused payment for projects that they were not allowed to complete should have some form of redress. Especially if EC went on to transfer the uncompleted work to in-house staff. Can you imagine trying to stiff a photographer for hours of work done if a wedding were cancelled?
It really did hurt (financially) to have done one or sometimes two rounds of edits on a project and then be told to forward those edits to EC for someone else to finish. That’s hundreds of hours of work down the drain.