Sounds Like Weird
02 January 2016
I’ve suspected this was coming for some time: yesterday, some of New York Times Bestselling Author Laurann Dohner’s titles are no longer available from Ellora’s Cave. The only plausible explanation for same is that the titles have reverted.
Because Laurann Dohner has been the only bestselling author for Ellora’s Cave (to hit the national lists in recent years), this really does signal that Laurann’s time there is coming to a close. The only question is how long it’ll take for her other titles—no doubt still earning significant money for both Ellora’s Cave and the author—to revert.
The reverted titles are, in alphabetical order:
I find the anthology reversions fascinating because of some of what Ellora’s Cave authors have been told in the past, e.g.:
@deirdresm @charmedozarks EC told me they don’t return rights for anthologies
— reginacarlysle (@reginacarlysle) November 14, 2015
Update: Laurann has said that she will be reissuing these titles.
While Ms. Dohner’s site hasn’t been updated with new publishing information (or a blog post), if you’re interested in those titles, the best place to keep up with her new releases is to check her web site or her author page on Facebook.
Laurann’s first indie book, Drantos has been doing well. She’s just announced that it’s now available in paperback for those of you who prefer tree books.
The highest ranking I’ve seen for this book is #123, but I know it hovered in between 100 and 200 overall ranking for its first week, at least when I checked. Also interesting: many authors have reported that a new book bumped up sales of their Ellora’s Cave titles, too. That bump is reported to be the reason Lolita Lopez went dark for several months. In Ms. Dohner’s case, it looked like her EC book sales ranks held but neither increased nor decreased.
Amber Quill Press has announced that they are shutting down effective March 31, 2016. All rights will revert to authors by that date. Apparently, they too were struggling with the recent market changes. However, their web site hasn’t been updated to reflect their closing date. For a sense of the size of Amber Quill, they have almost 1600 books listed on All Romance Ebooks, making them smaller than Ellora’s Cave (3500 books) or Samhain (2700 books). They’re also smaller than Siren. I wish all Amber Quill staff and authors the best. If you’ve purchased titles directly from Amber Quill, now would be a good time to ensure you have backups of everything so you don’t lose your library.
Samhain, meanwhile, has announced that they’ll be becoming a virtual company in May as they won’t be renewing their office space. Submissions are currently closed except for current authors. I think it makes sense to reduce overhead costs in a competitive market like this, and hope that these changes really help Samhain to be stronger. I’ll have another post about Samhain (tomorrow or Monday) and it’ll invite people to discuss their favorite books and authors.