I got word about a week ago that Ellora’s Cave’s headquarters were for sale. This building isn’t owned by EC, but by sister company Brannon-Engler Properties, Ltd. Per Dear Author’s Curious post, one of the things alleged in the Brashear case was that the property was rented to Ellora’s Cave at inflated prices.
I had other things going on, so I’m a little late in reporting on it, but I think you’ll agree it was worth the wait. The other day, I got an anon tip containing Tina Engler’s latest missive:
For the past year we’ve only been releasing information on a need-to-know basis because it feels pointless to make announcements when we know that anything we say will be twisted, redistributed, and broadcast in a false light by a select minority of authors who (a) don’t know what they’re talking about and (b) have agendas. That said, here are my responses to the latest rumors:
- Yes, the building EC currently inhabits is up for sale. As we no longer print books and have downsized to boot, it makes no sense to keep such a large facility with 3/4 of it being unused space. When the building sells we will be moving into a commercial area that is zoned for retail; the offices will be in the back and our (upcoming) bookstore will be in the front. We’re actually very excited about this and have been working toward the goal of getting the Home Ave building up for sale for months; it is now (finally) on the market.
- No, we did not spend “tons of money” on our new website. It was created in-house by Darrell King who is already on payroll.
- We are not filing for bankruptcy. (This rumor is really getting old.) We are further downsizing where we need to, upsizing where we need to, and getting EC back to where we were before… and then some. This process takes time, but it’s definitely happening. We’ve got several irons in the fire and look forward to furthering the careers of our loyal, professional authors. (More to come on that later.)
I think that’s it for now. Have a wonderful week.
Tina
Additionally, there was another followup from Tina:
EC should have informed you that the old links to your books do not work on the new site. I didn’t realize this either until a week ago after spending two hours updating my links. I am truly sorry for the oversight.
So I’m going to respond point-by-point:
- First, all authors have agendas. All businesses do too. This is a very us vs. them kind of statement that has no constructive purpose.
- On the building sale: good for the most part. Tina basically echoed what I said a few days ago on Twitter: they don’t print their own physical books any more, and thus the building is too large a space for their current needs. My only criticism is that this feels like it’s happening significantly later than it should have. My understanding, which may be in error, is that they stopped printing their own physical books around the time of the POD printer lawsuit, which dates to 2011.
Note that this doesn’t mean EC will stop having print versions of books, just that they will no longer be printing and stocking them in house. Switching to a just-in-time POD production company (e.g., CreateSpace) makes sense. (I’m actually a big fan of just-in-time manufacturing. More on that in a later post.)
On the other hand, a bookstore? When so many are closing? So, they’re selling off their book storage space so they can move into a smaller space where they’ll need book storage space?
Ellora’s Cave is not going to get significant foot traffic unless they’re somewhere with really high retail rents. After all, the space they have right now has a front office space that could be a bookstore. It has window space, though too many divided lights to make it a display window. Also, anywhere with a lot of window space will be expensive to heat in winter.
Also, having worked in a bookstore, I’m pretty sure this will be a huge rude awakening for EC. The US lost ~20% of its indie bookstores between 2002 and 2011. In addition, a bookstore requires continual staffing, and Ellora’s Cave doesn’t have that kind of staffing level right now.
But, you know, romantic ideals about bookstores. Whatevs.
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Despite other criticisms about the new website, I think moving to WordPress with WooCommerce on WPEngine is a huge improvement. And, thank God, no more blinding red. Also, they’re using WooCommerce for their shopping cart, and that is what I would have suggested had they asked.
That said, I’ve given it a few weeks to settle in, so I think I can make some real criticisms now.
- The way the migration was done killed Ellora’s Cave’s existing SEO (search engine optimization). All the inbound links from everywhere are now broken. When those links bring up 404 errors (page not found), what happens is they then lose the inbound link as adding to the value of that site. They might as well have bought a brand new domain and started there.
The right solution is to add a bunch of redirects, one for each author and each book. Unfortunately, the tools for doing so on WPEngine aren’t super great because it doesn’t use Apache’s .htaccess format for it.
There is exactly zero reason that this should be on authors (or reviewers), though.
- Not migrating customers and their libraries is amateur hour. I can understand libraries taking a while, but then you’d have to shut off e-commerce until you worked the old libraries into the new table structure.
Here’s my constructive suggestion: if EC can’t migrate people except by hand, migrate people’s libraries in the order they sign up for an account on the new site. It would also be nice if there were some time frame given for when customers’ libraries would be migrated. (And totally unprofessional for them not to be migrated.)
Over time, that will reduce customer service requests, and it will also give EC a goodwill boost it desperately needs. Plus, many of us—myself included—have bought books off of EC’s website and we’re basically cut off from our libraries. Apparently, this is not the first time EC’s done this; I’m told they also did so when they upgraded to the red site from the previous incarnation.
Not only that, but Tina was encouraging authors to encourage their readers to buy books directly off EC’s site, so now EC’s throwing those authors and customers under the bus?
Can you just imagine the outcry if Amazon did this for Kindle books?
If you want Amazon’s business, Tina, you have to be at least as good as Amazon. Not amateur hour.
- I know default WordPress search isn’t the world’s best, but visit the new EC site and search on, say, Paris. One of the many titles found has Paris in the title, but not all of those books have the search term even in the description. I don’t know how they managed that, but my WordPress searches don’t work that badly. Logic suggests that author matches and/or title matches should be ranked first, though, and they’re not.
- There is no information on the site about how to submit to the publisher. That’s probably a good thing, though.
- Others have noted that there is no physical address. Given that their building is for sale, that may well be temporary, but I’m more likely to do business with a site that actually lists their physical address.
- While I’m glad Ellora’s Cave isn’t filing for bankruptcy, part of me wonders how much of this is sheer stubbornness. Several people have reported that they haven’t received a check since May, which paid for royalties due up through January.
Ellora’s Cave v. Dear Author Lawsuit Update
It’s been a quiet few months, and the only thing to happen in the last six weeks is another status update (docket item 39) from the defense. Status reports are supposed to be filed every 45 days by both parties. Only two things happened since the last status report:
- On June 15, 2015, Plaintiffs served responses to written discovery.
- On July 15, 2015, Plaintiffs and Defendants served their witness lists.
What’s interesting, though is that there’s only been one plaintiff status report (on April 28th, docket item 35) and there have been four defense status reports. Normally, things filed with the court by the parties are a matter of public record, so I’d expect to see them on the docket.
Now, granted, the discovery period is a time when the parties are incredibly busy, but there may not be a lot of court filings. So, from an outsider’s perspective, this can appear to be a very “quiet” period, even though it’s anything but.