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Book Covers and Stock Photos

March 23, 2016 by deirdre 3 Comments

I’ve heard a few things lately about book covers and stock photos that have been bothering me. First, let’s go into a primer of how stock photos work with regard to book covers.

How Stock Photography Works from the Photographer’s Perspective

When a photographer takes photo sessions of a model (or a landscape), they add keywords to each photo they wish to sell. A given photographer may have relationships with as many as 15 or 20 different stock photo agencies, but not all photos may be uploaded to all agencies. Each agency has different audiences and different plans.
Let’s take this photo as an example. Here it is on another site.
Some stock photo sites list how many times a photo’s been sold, but that’s only how many times it’s been sold on that one site. A cover artist (or an indie author doing their own cover) may pick a photo that has relatively few sales on one site and believe they’re picking something that’s not overly popular. But that same photo may be significantly more popular on other sites.
Also, the same photo may be used for completely unrelated purposes. Like buying a new car and suddenly seeing that car all around you, buying cover art has the same perils. A photo I bought for a book cover has also been used in a Korean cosmetics ad. Not all those image uses will be to a given stock photo purchaser’s taste, so unless one wants an exclusive cover shoot for many, many times the cost of a stock photo, one’s just going to have to put up with the fact that this photo may be used in very different contexts, also with the photographer’s permission.
As a final point, within traditional publishing, covers get re-used all the time. Even covers designed to illustrate a particular book get reused, just with different text.

If You Are an Author

Unless you paid for a photo shoot and exclusive rights to all photos taken in that photo shoot, do not contact another author whose cover uses the same photo (or a photo from the same shoot) accusing them of copying/stealing your cover.
If you did pay for that photo shoot, you might want to contact your photographer first in case there was some kind of miscommunication…before engaging with another author.

If You Are a Reader

Do Not criticize an author, either publicly or privately, for using the same cover photo as another author. If the author you’re trying to support said that they had an exclusive shoot, then contact the author who you think was hurt. Let the author make that call.

Filed Under: books, Graphic Design Tagged With: book-covers, books, graphic-design, stock photography

Campbell Award Eligible Writers Anthology

March 20, 2016 by deirdre 2 Comments

AnthoCover3_400
Up and Coming, the 2016 anthology of science fiction and fantasy writers eligible for this year’s John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, is now available. This award is the only award given at the Hugo Award ceremonies that is voted on by the Hugo Award voters but is not itself a Hugo Award.
Up and Coming contains 1.1 million words of fiction from newly published science fiction qand fantasy authors, and will be available until March 31, 2016.

How to Nominate for the Campbell Award

In order to be a nominator for the Campbell Award, you had to be a member of one of the following by January 31 of this year:

  • Last year’s Spokane Worldcon, Sasquan.
  • This year’s Kansas City Worldcon, MidAmeriCon II.
  • Next year’s Helsinki Worldcon.

The nomination link is here, and nominations close March 31, 2016.

Complete List of Authors in the Anthology

  • Charlotte Ashley
  • John Ayliff
  • Lucas Bale
  • Nicolette Barischoff
  • Sofie Bird
  • Derrick Boden
  • Stefan Bolz
  • David Bruns
  • Martin Cahill
  • Aaron Canton
  • D.K. Cassidy
  • Zach Chapman
  • Curtis C. Chen
  • ZZ Claybourne
  • Liz Colter
  • Nik Constantine
  • Daniel J. Davis
  • S.B. Divya
  • Margaret Dunlap
  • S.K. Dunstall
  • Jonathan Edelstein
  • Harlow C. Fallon
  • Rafaela F. Ferraz
  • Sam Fleming
  • Annalee Flower Horne
  • Ron S. Friedman
  • David Jón Fuller
  • Sarah Gailey
  • Patricia Gilliam
  • Jaymee Goh
  • Elad Haber
  • Auston Habershaw
  • Philip Brian Hall
  • John Gregory Hancock
  • Nin Harris
  • C.A. Hawksmoor
  • Sean Patrick Hazlett
  • Holly Heisey
  • Michael Patrick Hicks
  • SL Huang
  • Kurt Hunt
  • L.S. Johnson
  • Cameron Johnston
  • Rachel K. Jones
  • Jason Kimble
  • Paul B. Kohler
  • Jeanne Kramer-Smyth
  • Jamie Gilman Kress
  • Jason LaPier
  • Fonda Lee
  • S Lynn
  • Jack Hollis Marr
  • Arkady Martine
  • Kim May
  • Alison McBain
  • Rati Mehrotra
  • Lia Swope Mitchell
  • Allison Mulder
  • Ian Muneshwar
  • Brian Niemeier
  • Wendy Nikel
  • George Nikolopoulos
  • Megan E. O’Keeve
  • Malka Older
  • Emma Osborne
  • Chris Ovenden
  • Steve Pantazis
  • Carrie Patel
  • Sunil Patel
  • Laura Pearlman
  • Samuel Peralta
  • Andrea Phillips
  • Mark Robert Philps
  • Monica Enderle Pierce
  • Ivan Popov
  • Bill Powell
  • Stephen S. Power
  • Rhiannon Rasmussen
  • Chris Reher
  • Ethan Reid
  • Kelly Robson
  • Andy rogers
  • Lauren M. Roy
  • Steve Ruskin
  • KB Rylander
  • Hope Erica Schultz
  • Effie Seiberg
  • Tahmeed Shafiq
  • Iona Sharma
  • Anthea Sharp
  • Elsa Sjunneson-Henry
  • Daniel Arthur Smith
  • Lesley Smith
  • William Squirrell
  • Dan Stout
  • Naru Dames Sundar
  • Will Swardstrom
  • Jeremy Szal
  • Lauren C. Teffeau
  • Natalia Theodoridou
  • Joseph Tomaras
  • Vincent Trigili
  • P.K. Tyler
  • Tamara Vardomskaya
  • Leo Vladimirsky
  • Nancy SM Waldman
  • Thomas M. Waldroon
  • Jo Lindsay Walton
  • Kim Wells
  • Alison Wilgus
  • Nicolas Wilson
  • Alyssa Wong
  • Eleanor R. Wood
  • Frank Wu
  • Jeff Xilon
  • JY Yang
  • Isabel Yap
  • Jo Zebedee
  • Jon F. Zeigler
  • Anna Zumbro

…which is a lot of people, but there are actually more eligible authors than that. Check out this page on Writertopia for who’s eligible this year. This year’s Campbell eligibles are those who had a first professional sale published in 2014 or 2015.
Note, however, that final eligibility is determined by the Hugo Award administrator. Of note, I think Andy Weir (not in the anthology, but mentioned on the Writertopia page) could be ruled ineligible; while The Martian was initially released as a self-published title in 2011, it wasn’t really a professional sale until 2014 when it was re-published by Crown Books. However, the audio book version was published in 2013, and that may be a sticking point. Or not.

I Wasn’t a Member, But One of My Favorites Made the Ballot, Now What?

You can become a member of MidAmeriCon II. Voting will begin in early May. I don’t know when exactly voting will close, but typically it’s some time in July.
The Hugo ceremony will take place at the convention, Wed to Sun, August 17-21, 2016, in Kansas City, Missouri.

Filed Under: Conventions, Publishing Tagged With: conventions, hugo awards, hugos, worldcon

Ellora's Cave Update

March 10, 2016 by deirdre 28 Comments

Ellora's Cave Blog Post Header
There are a few things going on in the Ellora’s Cave world of late, so this is a catchup post. (March 16 Edit: there are some corrections, which I’ve detailed in an update at the bottom.)

Ellora’s Cave Titles Per Month Decline

I’ve previously shown a chart about the long decline in Ellora’s Cave’s titles published per month.
Here’s an update on that chart covering the last few months including January and February, probably the biggest title push months for romance publishers. January gets a big bump because many people get e-readers (or new e-readers) for Christmas, plus publishers want fresh stock for Valentine’s Day.
EC-releases-by-month-2
Year over year, you can see the decline since the events of August and September 2014 (with the layoffs and defamation lawsuit, respectively).
That chart is pretty devastating, but not as much so as looking at a chart of the quarterly releases since the beginning of 2013:
Ellora's Cave Quarterly Releases

Ellora’s Cave Author Numbers Decline

In addition to publishing fewer titles over time, Ellora’s Cave has also had declining numbers of authors, as this next chart shows.
First, before I present it, there are some caveats here:

  1. The information is taken from screen scrapes of Ellora’s Cave’s website over time, both by myself and by archive.org, so it’s limited to the accuracy of the underlying page. In at least one case, I know of an author signed to EC who never had a book published by them, but the author’s name appears on their screen scrapes. I have no idea how many authors this is true for.
    In other cases, the same author was on the Ellora’s Cave pages more than once. Right now, EC’s author page lists both Allie Standier and Allie Standifer even though her name on the former’s book cover is spelled like the latter. It’s not like editing is supposed to be a core competency of a publisher or something.

  2. Authors appear on these pages before their first EC books are published (because preorders), so this isn’t a true correlation with the books published charts above.

  3. The time intervals aren’t as linear as neat columns make them appear to be, and this causes some horizontal distortion.

Ellora's Cave Author Counts
When I first showed an earlier version of that chart, what people wanted to know was: how many new authors was Ellora’s Cave signing?
That’s a little bit harder question to answer, so I took my handy screen scrapes, cobbled together a simple Ruby on Rails application and imported the data. This involved some cleanup, as author name variants and URLs had changed over time.
Then I tried to normalize the data into quarterly time periods (save for the last, which is two months and a week), assuming people joined or left linearly along the time span between scrapes. Unsurprisingly, there’s still a huge inflection point in the third quarter of 2014.
Ellora's Cave: Authors Gained vs. Lost
Since the end of the third quarter 2014, existing authors have been leaving Ellora’s Cave at five times the rate new authors have been joining (210 vs. 41 authors, respectively).

How Many Books Have They Lost?

Ellora’s Cave has lost a ton of authors, and many more have had rights revert on some books, but not all books. The question, though, is: how many? In other words, how big is their book catalog vs. how big was it before?
That’s a question that eluded me on how to answer for some time.
It turns out that All Romance E-Books allows one to search by publisher, which is pretty genius.
Ellora's Cave Catalog Size on All Romance E-Books.
Further, archive.org has saved some of those searches. So, while I have four points of data, I can make a reasonable estimate of a fifth by adding the books published between the end of the second quarter and the end of the third quarter 2014.
Ellora's Cave Catalog Size
Between the end of second quarter 2014 and the end of the third quarter 2015 (so 15 months), Ellora’s Cave lost a net 1,037 books. In the same period, they published 345 new books, so the total books reverted (or canceled) was 1,382 books, or 92/month. (Assuming information provided to All Romance E-Books was accurate, of course.)
In the five months since, Ellora’s Cave has published 41 new books but is no longer publishing 574 books, so they’ve reverted (or canceled) 615 books, so just over 120 per month.
Regardless of how you slice it, it’s not a happy picture of what’s going on at Ellora’s Cave, and my sympathies for all the writers who still have books there and would rather not.

Robin L. Rotham’s Post

Robin L. Rotham blogged about her experience with Ellora’s Cave. She was one of the early writers to provide a declaration in support of Dear Author’s side of the Ellora’s Cave lawsuit.
What is new in this post is her revelation about how Ellora’s Cave’s alleged unilateral change of contract affected Robin personally:

3. EC made a deliberate unilateral change to the payment terms of my books (and those of many other authors) contracted before the spring of 2008, and as a result, they’ve underpaid my royalties by more than $18,000 since late 2011. Because they’d suddenly made their royalty statements long and difficult to analyze, with many and varied amounts supposedly received from Amazon for each book, I didn’t detect the underpayment until late 2014, when I audited all of my royalty statements. I sent EC a spreadsheet detailing the underpayments, demanded immediate payment and offered to accept the rights to my books in lieu of payment.

Ellora’s Cave Performs Extreme Manscaping on EC Romanticon Site

I note a distinct lack of male cover models compared to an archived version of the site. Instead, there’s a lot of flames and incensed rhetoric, but without the lovely lingering scent of church incense.
So I guess Romanticon, formerly an annual convention, is officially dead then. Not a surprise, just an…what’s the word I’m looking for?…unusual way to announce its demise.

Tina Engler Moved Back to Ohio

Tina Engler, Ellora’s Cave founder and majority owner, announced on Facebook that she’s moved back to Ohio. I don’t think this will come as a surprise.


Corrections

March 16th Update….
There are a few significant corrections that have affected the charts I’ve provided above. In the interest of transparency, I’ve linked the original versions below.

Releases by Month

This and the next section are for corrections made on March 16th, 2016.
Corrected graph is here. Link to uncorrected version.

  1. January 2013 inadvertently counted five February 2013 releases (that were also counted in February, yay weeks split between two months). This changes the scale of both monthly and quarterly charts.
  2. August 2015 inadvertently omitted one release.
  3. December 2015 missed six releases late in the month due to a formula error.
  4. February 2016 incorrectly included two re-releases. My intention was to include only first-time releases as I believe that shows a truer picture of publisher state.

Releases by Quarter

Corrected graph is here. Link to uncorrected version.
Corrections are the same as noted above.

An Early Look at Earlier Years

Okay, we’re done with corrections. New Topic.
Here’s an early look at some data I’ve imported from FictionDB’s Publisher Series Lists. I haven’t imported anthologies yet, though I have imported smaller multi-author titles.
First, it appears that their information for 2012 is really incomplete (and almost non-existent for later years), so don’t make any assumptions about 2012 based on this. Also, it appears their information includes mostly in-print books including both print and e-book versions. I de-duped any duplicate entries, keeping only the earlier entry.
That said, given that this dates well into the Kindle era, it’s quite possible that a significant fraction of these titles are re-releases, I’d just have no easy way to know that.
Lopping off the years 2001-2006 (as those also seem to be incomplete), here are the numbers for 2007-2012 imported from FictionDB.
2013 and after are from direct import.
Ellora's Cave Annual Releases per FictionDB Data

Filed Under: Ellora's Cave Tagged With: ecda, ellora's cave, ellorascave

Samhain's Announcement + Leap Day Sale

February 29, 2016 by deirdre Leave a Comment

For those of you who haven’t heard, Samhain Publishing, one of the leading small presses in romance (and horror), announced that they will be winding down operations. This follows a couple of months after their announcement that they’d become a virtual company in May.
December, January, and February are typically strong sales months for romance, with January usually having the highest number of titles published—both to get the Valentine’s Day bump, but also, in recent years, to take advantage of people enamored with new e-book readers.
That’s the bad news. Ready for some good news?
Every four years, Samhain has a leap day sale, and today’s the day! 40% off all e-book titles. Here’s their website.
Tess Bowery has a prize if you buy a lot of books.
For me, Samhain was the publisher that got me back into reading romance after I bounced out years ago. So I’m really thankful to Chrissy for bringing me back into the fold, as it were. At this point, I own about 10% of all their titles, and read all but a handful of those. Eep!
There are so many Samhain authors whose books I’ve enjoyed: Mary Hughes and Vivi Andrews for the paranormal humor, Lauren Gallagher and L. A. Witt for her unique take on the world (e.g., The Virgin Cowboy Billionaire’s Secret Baby), Cat Grant who has commented here (and also was an Ellora’s Cave author), Jackie Ashenden got her romance start with Samhain, Erin Nicholas. There are many others.

Filed Under: books Tagged With: books, publishing, romance

Ellora's Cave: Docket Item 69 Now Available (Marc Randazza Was Right)

January 12, 2016 by deirdre 13 Comments

Ellora's Cave Blog Post Header
I’d forgotten to set a due date on one January to-do item, so I missed that Ellora’s Cave v. Dear Author docket item 69 became available last week. I finally thought to check today, and have uploaded it to my Dropbox and also updated the docket.
Docket item 69 is a transcript of the case management conference that took place on January 26, 2015. There are a lot of tidbits in this 22-page document that are interesting, and I’ve included three highlights below.

Discovery Dispute Wasn’t

Screen Shot 2016-01-12 at 5.14.09 PM
Transcript of the above (emphasis added):

MR. MASTRANTONIO: Your Honor, essentially I would go forward with the depositions of the persons I would need to depose, namely the author of the article and perhaps some of her associates.
I do have some written discovery. There may be some subpoenas I have to issue as well.
The thought would be that I would do all of that. Defense counsel would not have to go through the prolonged process of deposing my clients, going through records and so forth, unless after a summary judgment motion is filed and not granted, then he would be able to take those steps.
But the thought would be that if I do my discovery first and he’s confident he’s going to win on summary judgment, we’re going to save everyone a lot of time and money in the discovery process.

In other words, Steven Mastrantonio, counsel for Ellora’s Cave, stated the very discovery plan that Randazza later claimed they agreed to, in contradiction with Mastrantonio’s filing in docket item 48.

Ellora’s Cave Offered A Settlement

Screen Shot 2016-01-12 at 5.36.12 PM
Excerpt from screencap:

[THE COURT:] Has there been any settlement discussions? What has been the plaintiff’s demand?
MR. MASTRANTONIO: Your Honor, the demand was to have the article retracted and for $50,000.
THE COURT: Has there been any offer in the case?
MR.RANDAZZA: No, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. Well, then there is no need for mediation, arbitration, summary bench trial if there is not any real efforts at this point. If you are so far apart, I’m not going to waste anyone’s time in that regard.

You’ll note that the Curious post is still up, and was later the subject of a relatively small correction post.

Judge Asks About Another Case…That Randazza Worked On

Screen Shot 2016-01-12 at 5.35.34 PM

THE COURT: Am I mistaken? Maybe I’m thinking of another case or another issue. Is there not a case out of the Sixth Circuit? Wasn’t there a case down in Cincinnati involving a cheerleader of some sort who was the subject of a blog or subject of some disparaging remarks?
MR. RANDAZZA: Yes, Your Honor.
THE COURT: And didn’t she prevail at trial or something of that nature?
MR. RANDAZZA: It was Jones versus Dirty World Entertainment, Your Honor. I actually worked on that case.
THE COURT: Did the plaintiff receive, what, $38,000 in damages there?
MR. RANDAZZA: It was overturned on appeal.

It’s actually the only case law I could find on CDA § 230 in the Sixth Circuit. Still, gotta be disheartening to be opposing counsel when the defense’s attorney is so so so far ahead of you.

Filed Under: Ellora's Cave Tagged With: dear author, edca, ellora's cave, ellorascave

Ellora's Cave: Some Laurann Dohner Title Reversions

January 2, 2016 by deirdre 15 Comments

Ellora's Cave Blog Post Header
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:

  1. Claws and Fangs
  2. Lacey and Lethal
  3. Mine to Chase
  4. Propositioning Mr. Raine
  5. Raine on Me
  6. Something Wicked This Way Comes Volume 1 (an anthology with one of Laurann’s stories)
  7. Something Wicked This Way Comes Volume 2 (an anthology with one of Laurann’s stories)

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.

What Will Become of 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.

In Other News….

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.

Also: Amber Quill Press & Samhain News

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.

Filed Under: Ellora's Cave Tagged With: amber quill, ellora's cave, ellorascave, laurann dohner, samhain

Ellora's Cave v. Dear Author Suit Dismissed by Judge

December 18, 2015 by deirdre 8 Comments

Ellora's Cave Blog Post Header
Today, a dismissal order in the Ellora’s Cave v. Dear Author case was filed by federal court Judge John R. Adams. Here is the entire body text of that order:

On October 22, 2015, the parties contacted the Court to confirm that the parties reached a settlement agreement on all claims. Therefore, the docket will now be marked “settled and dismissed without prejudice.” The parties may submit within thirty (30) days of this order a proposed entry setting forth different terms and conditions relative to the settlement and dismissal of this case, including dismissal with prejudice, if they deem it necessary. If approved, the proposed entry shall supplement this order. This Court retains jurisdiction over the settlement.
IT IS SO ORDERED.

Therefore I’d like to make a point clear again: despite the rumors circulating that the judge ordered the settlement, let’s put it this way: what the judge wrote shows that claim to be far from reality based.
In my limited experience reading dockets, however, it’s unusual for a completed settlement to be “without prejudice.”

Links to More Authors Speaking Out

(a.k.a. The Department of Holiday Shopping)
Right after the settlement was announced almost two months ago, there was a pall of silence for a bit, but since then, quite a few more authors have spoken out about their experiences with Ellora’s Cave.
Here are some of those links with a summary of each. I’ve listed the authors in alphabetical order by first name.

  • A.M. Griffin posts asking readers not to purchase her Ellora’s Cave titles (the “Dangerously” series). Her post also has links to her non-EC titles, including some under other pseudonyms.

  • Ann Jacobs posts about having first published with EC in 2003, and how her eyes were opened. (Ann still has a motion pending in the Ellora’s Cave v. Dear Author case claiming she’s owed $193,000 in back royalties.) Ann has also asked readers not to purchase her EC books while they’re still at EC. Here’s Ann’s Amazon author page.

  • Cait Miller started out with Ellora’s Cave in 2003, which is fairly early. Quote: “Maybe two years ago my sales had dropped so drastically that I started to question my books fit with EC.” Note that this was before the Dear Author article and thus the lawsuit. She doesn’t have any non-EC books available at this time, so I’ll link to her author page if/when that changes.

  • Denise A. Agnew has asked readers not to purchase her Ellora’s Cave titles while she’s still at EC. Here’s Denise’s Amazon page.

  • Frances Stockton started out with Ellora’s Cave as a Paranormal Historical line for the company’s Cerridwen Press imprint, which later became their Blush imprint. Frances’s Amazon page is here, and her non-EC title is here. I’ll speak to Jaid Black’s comments on Frances’s post in a separate entry.

  • Jane Leopold Quinn posts her own story.

    I’m out of the mix since I’m one of the authors who paid money to get my rights back. I’ve never spoken up in public before about this, but to see people claim that EC won the lawsuit and DA apologized is NOT what has happened. I’ve been wanting to speak out but wasn’t sure what venue to use. This is as good a venue as anywhere. EC still has its fans, but the public should at least take into account that many, many authors saying the same things about a publisher just might be telling the truth.

    Jane’s Amazon author page can be found here.

  • Kate Sherwood published one novella with Ellora’s Cave and describes her experience. As for timing, she says:

    I asked for my rights back, I think for the first time, shortly after EC sued DA. I just didn’t want any money from my writing going to support that kind of nonsense. I was refused because my sales were still above the threshold. Fair enough.

    Kate’s Amazon author page can be found here.

  • Kelly Jamieson has told her story here. She first signed with Ellora’s Cave in 2009, and points out that she became dissatisfied with EC in 2012. I mostly know her as a Samhain writer and have read quite a few of her titles for that house. Kelly’s Amazon page can be found here.

  • Titiana Ladley spoke out on Twitter:

    Dear readers, please don’t buy my remaining 3 EC books. If EC can’t remember 2 pay me, then I hope you forget 2 buy. Thanks! #notchilled

    Titiana’s phasing out that pseudonym, and here’s her first title writing as Josie Jax.

Best of luck to all the above authors! (Especially those still waiting on reversions from Ellora’s Cave.)
Also, here’s a recent post from Tymber Dalton who has some important points about contracts.

Filed Under: Ellora's Cave Tagged With: dear author, ecda, ellora's cave, ellorascave

Ellora's Cave: Former Managing Editor Speaks Out

December 11, 2015 by deirdre 35 Comments

Ellora's Cave Blog Post Header
This post was originally going to be about the Dear Author settlement, but then Ellora’s Cave’s former Managing Editor, Nina S. Gooden, spoke out. So I’ll cover that first.
Second, It appears that the gears are finally starting to show some traction and we’re starting to see visible signs of the Ellora’s Cave v. Dear Author settlement.
I’m going to give a summary of those recent developments, then I’m going to discuss a few rumors going around and my take on those rumors. This is likely to be the first of several such posts.
And, at the end, a follow-on to my previous Ellora’s Cavemen anthology post.

Ellora’s Cave Former Managing Editor Speaks Out

Nina S. Gooden posted this eye-opening (and mind-boggling) post today.

In the summer of 2013, I interviewed to work for Ellora’s Cave. I remember the initial conversation like it was yesterday. In order to find a quiet space, I sat in my sister’s van in North Carolina’s muggy 90-degree weather. That’s how badly I wanted to work for this company. I was hired for what I thought would be my forty-year plan. I left my long-term boyfriend in Las Vegas, as well as another Managing Editor position, and moved out to Akron, Ohio to be the Managing Editor for Ellora’s Cave.

She talks about the heartbreaking treatment of authors:

Even now—with several years’ worth of distance between me and the conference room that made me develop what my friends jokingly called a “mild drinking problem” for the duration of my stay in Ohio—I get chills thinking about it. The blatant disregard for authors as a whole, the almost maniacal plans to keep authors locked into contracts that were unfair, just so they couldn’t publish elsewhere…the whole situation broke my heart.

…and…

I don’t know why I thought that a group of people, who had laughed at a story about an author not being able to pay her medical bills because of missing royalties, would somehow care that I needed this job to maintain any kind of reasonable living situation.

Then, after she was laid off with the other professional staff in January:

Ellora’s Cave hasn’t answered a single one of my emails in the last year—except to tell me to email other addresses. My pleas for them to respond to background checks phone calls or to provide the promised letters of recommendation have gone unanswered. When I tried to contact them, asking for the paperwork for my curiously empty IRA account (an account EC should have been contributing to), all I heard was the crushing sound of disinterest. I hate that I am now on the other side of what the frustrated, frantic authors I helped hurt must have felt.

I’ve been in similar work situations (in another industry) and can deeply resonate with this post.
The entire post is worth a read, and it’s also a great cautionary tale for why you, as a writer, should negotiate the hell out of your contracts.

Dear Author Revelations about Court Costs

The Dear Author Defense fund page was updated yesterday, complete with the rather staggering amount of fees:

To date, I have paid the following in fees:
Randazza Law Firm: 115,712.29
Lefton Group: 2,855.00
Expert witness fee: 5,075.00
Brennan, Manna & Diamond: 8,936.06
The total was: $132,578.35

Note that the legal fund raised $55,086 (before fundraising costs from gofundme and PayPal), hence the vast majority was not covered by the fundraiser. Jane Litte adds:

I am so grateful for everything you all did to support this fund, and given everyone’s generosity, I just did not feel comfortable doing another round of fundraising. I should also note that Marc Randazza discounted his normal rate, so while fees were very substantial, they could have been even more.

Jane Litte’s Error Corrections

As covered in this Dear Author post.
My commentary follows:

I made some errors and want to correct them:

  1. Tina Engler has represented that she has not purchased a house in West Hollywood and has not indicated to me that she did.

  2. She has not gone on any recent Rodeo Drive shopping trips.

  3. The principals of Ellora’s Cave did not receive “no interest” loans.

  4. It has been represented to me that, at the time of the post, most or all authors had been paid within their individual contracts.

  5. Finally, Patty Marks has not said that the company will be entering bankruptcy or that any contracts will be sold in bankruptcy.

My commentary:
First, note that the correction is quite limited in scope given the wide-ranging narrative of the Curious post.

  1. Tina Engler has represented that she has not purchased a house in West Hollywood and has not indicated to me that she did.
    I’d previously mentioned that I’d found Tina Engler saying it was a lease. That said, it was a mistake, not a lie (nor defamatory!), and Jane’s context in the Curious post is still relevant: it’s an expensive place to rent, too. This correction seems to be all about Tina Engler’s ego.
  2. She has not gone on any recent Rodeo Drive shopping trips.
    @ataglanceRMC pointed out that Tina Engler said she was looking at houses in the area at the time that she checked in from Rodeo Drive. That said, Jane Litte’s statement wasn’t defamatory, nor was Tina Engler even a party. This correction seems to be all about Tina Engler’s ego.
  3. The principals of Ellora’s Cave did not receive “no interest” loans.
    This was actually not one of Jane’s representations, but something from the Brashear case that Jane cited. Maybe Ellora’s Cave should have fought harder on that docket.
  4. It has been represented to me that, at the time of the post, most or all authors had been paid within their individual contracts.
    Note that this assertion is very carefully worded, quite scathing, and says absolutely nothing about what Jane thinks the truth is, nor what the truth actually is, nor what you should believe.
  5. Finally, Patty Marks has not said that the company will be entering bankruptcy or that any contracts will be sold in bankruptcy.
    …but that says absolutely nothing about whether or not Ellora’s Cave is a going concern.

Instead, what we have are the following:

  1. A still-on-the-table legal action by author Ann Jacobs—perhaps including other similarly situated authors—with an unknown amount of downside risk. Ann claims that she alone is owed $193,000.
  2. Some authors have reported that they’ve been paid up through February 2015. Some have stated they’ve received payments covering periods as late as June 2015. So far as I’m aware, apart from the open questions about the royalty rate changes that Ann’s case is predicated on, no one is currently more behind than Feb 2015 or more caught up than June 2015. Under typical publishing-industry contracts, this situation—a publisher leaving authors’ royalties in arrears for many months—would constitute breach of contract. (I am not a lawyer and won’t be giving legal advice. Ellora’s Cave authors should read their contracts carefully and consult an attorney if they have questions or desire remedies.)

Department of Rumor Control

There are a lot of rumors floating around, so I’ll cover a few this time and more later.

Rumor: Ellora’s Cave Won the Lawsuit

(Rumor source: now-deleted facebook post by RT Booklovers Convention; here’s their apology.)
Fact: This rumor is false. The lawsuit was settled, which can be more accurately translated as: both sides lost.
Fact: Also, technically, the case is still not over. The judge noted a settlement had been reached on Oct 22, but there has been no stipulated motion to dismiss, nor has the case been dismissed by the judge. There is still the matter of Ann Jacobs’s motion to intervene, too.

Rumor: Dear Author’s Statement Was “Obviously Court Ordered”

(Rumor source: Emma Paul.)
Fact: When the court issues an order, there’s an item on the docket. There is no such item on the docket. Also, the copy of the order is downloadable by anyone unless it is noted as sealed. None of the judge’s orders are noted as sealed.
As of this writing, there have been no docket items since the judge’s note of the proposed settlement on October 22. When the settlement is final, the case is finally dismissed, and that has not happened yet.
Additionally, EC supporters can probably believe Ellora’s Cave’s lawyer on this (document here):

Finally and most egregiously, Mr. Randazza filed his brief within 10 minutes after local counsel for Defendant and undersigned had spent two days and many hours working toward terms of a tentative settlement agreement.

This was not ordered by the judge. Plaintiffs and Defense approached the judge the following day with a proposed settlement.
Anyone with a PACER account can verify that my copy of the docket matches the court’s record.
If you wish to do so, here are the steps:

  1. Create a PACER account on www.pacer.gov.
  2. Log into Ohio Northern District’s case filing system at ecf.ohnd.uscourts.gov.
  3. When the next page loads, click Query along the top.
  4. Enter the case number on the query page: 5:14-cv-2331 then click Run Query. (It may want you to verify the case number first.)
  5. You’ll see the home screen for the case. As you can see, I generally go to the docket report.
    ec-v-da-suit-home-screen
  6. Click Docket Report …
  7. The next screen will allow you to limit the dates of the entries; if you don’t, it’ll run you thirty cents (last I checked; it may be forty now). Click Run Report.
  8. You will see this report. I’ve uploaded a PDF copy so that you can see that my Dropbox copy of the docket really is what’s up on the court’s site. Feel free to fact check me.

Here are all the orders by Judge Adams, larger (bolded) and smaller. I’ve linked to my dropbox copies, but you’re free to spend money downloading them yourself.

  1. Docket item 15: Marginal Entry Order granting Plaintiffs’ 13 Motion to continue.
  2. Docket item 18: Marginal Entry Order denying the stipulated 16 Motion for Extension of Time to Answer.
  3. Docket item 21: Case Management Conference Scheduling Order.
  4. Docket item 22: Memorandum Opinion and Order denying Plaintiff’s 12 Motion to remand to State Court.
  5. Docket item 24: Marginal Entry Order granting Defendant [Jane Litte’s] Motion to attend the case management conference by telephone. (I didn’t bother downloading this one.)
  6. Docket item 26: Order rescheduling the case management conference to 1 /26/2015. (I didn’t bother downloading this one.)
  7. Docket item 30: Order. The Court held a case management conference on 1 /26/15. As Plaintiffs confirmed they do not intend to pursue the motion for temporary restraining order that was pending, Plaintiff’s 5 motion for temporary restraining order is hereby denied.
  8. Docket item 37: Order and decision denying the non-party’s motion to quash (Doc. # 31 ). This was @pubnt’s motion.
  9. Docket item 41: Trial Order. Jury Trial set for 3/21/2016 at 09:00 AM in Courtroom 575 before Judge John R. Adams.
  10. Docket item 57: Order. Defendants have filed various motions, including a Motion for Clarification Regarding Preliminary Discovery, Motion for Leave to Supplement the Record in Support of Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment, and Motion for Further Discovery Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(d). The Court will conduct a hearing before Judge John R. Adams on these motions on 10/8/15 at 11:00 AM in Courtroom 575.
  11. Docket item 67: Order granting the Parties’ Joint Motion to continue the October 8, 2015 hearing on various motions. The Hearing is RESET for 10/22/2015 at 11:00 AM in Courtroom 575 before Judge John R. Adams.
  12. Docket item 68: Marginal Entry Order granting Plaintiffs’ Motion to redact Exhibit #13 of the opposition. (Doc. # 64 )(Related Doc # 65 ).

And that’s it. There are really only two substantive rulings in this case: denying Ellora’s Cave’s motion to remand the case back to Ohio state court, and the denial of @pubnt’s motion to quash the subpoena to Twitter to discover @pubnt’s identity.
To those spreading this rumor: put a couple of bucks where your mouth is and support accurate information.

Rumor: If I Buy an Ellora’s Cave Book Through Amazon, the Author Will Get Paid [by Amazon]

This is a misunderstanding of how royalties work. In the case where an author is unagented, the process is:

  1. Amazon pays the publisher.
  2. The publisher pays the author.

For an agented author:

  1. Amazon pays the publisher.
  2. The publisher pays the agent.
  3. The agent pays the author.

If #2/#3 isn’t happening, it’s not going to happen any more reliably because the customer bought the book through Amazon. However, when there’s a publisher that’s having payment issues, what it does add is a third-party that can be audited and/or subpoenaed.

Rumor: Ellora’s Cave Had a Rogue Employee Who Lied to the RWA

(Source: facebook commenter)
The source of the RWA’s censure against Ellora’s Cave was Patty Marks. (Court docket item 54-1.)

Rumor: Ellora’s Cave Proved Three Authors Were Lying in Court

(Source: Tina Engler)
This is false.
Fact: Nothing Ellora’s Cave submitted about any author was proven to be true in court. There were no rulings about the factual nature of any evidence about any author submitted in the case.
Except, of course, for @pubnt. Somehow, I don’t think that’s what Tina meant, though.
It’s not proven until the judge or jury agrees; please see above for all the judge’s orders. No jury was ever selected as the case didn’t get to the voir dire stage.

Ellora’s Cavemen Anthology Contract

I’ve been given a copy of what claims to be a 2008 Ellora’s Cave Cavemen Anthology Contract. (Note: it may be until sometime Saturday 12/12 before this document syncs)
I don’t know that this contract is specifically the same as any that were signed. I just noticed the following things about this particular document.
Screen Shot 2015-12-10 at 5.17.01 PM

  1. It licenses the work as one of six works included in the anthology. I see no provisions for other numbers (e.g., 72). Therefore, I don’t see how Ellora’s Cave is authorized to publish the 72-work omnibus volumes of Ellora’s Cavemen anthologies without an additional or substantially different contract.
  2. I see no provision for reversions.

Obviously, if you have questions about your contract or the remedies that may be available to you, then your lawyer is the appropriate person to answer your questions.

Filed Under: Ellora's Cave Tagged With: dear author, ecda, ellora's cave, ellorascave

Ellora's Cave: About Those Cavemen Anthology Boxed Sets

November 28, 2015 by deirdre 32 Comments

Ellora's Cave Blog Post Header
A couple of weeks ago, I got a heads up that Ellora’s Cave would be announcing new boxed sets of their Cavemen anthologies. There’s been something gnawing at me about that, but it didn’t occur to me until today what that was. I’ll first go through a few things that I don’t think are going to happen.
Sure enough, they went up for pre-order a few days ago.
EC-cavemen-boxed-set-2

Cash Grab by Ellora’s Cave

One question/comment I’ve heard is: this is a cash grab.
Well, technically all books published are something of a cash grab, if they’re not free books. I don’t consider that particularly remarkable.
For a set of twelve volumes that were previously $3.99 each in digital, that’s a rather massive discount. It suggests that the old pricing was far out of line with current market conditions. It’s also kind of insulting to the authors to discount that deeply. And there are other problems, which I’ll go into in a bit.
Granted, with quite a few authors continuing to report late royalty payments (example), one wonders if the anthology authors will be paid promptly and accurately.

Attempt to Hit a Bestseller List

If you look, there are virtually zero anthologies that have hit the NY Times Bestseller lists recently[1] and none that I can recall were romance boxed sets. So that doesn’t strike me as probable. Besides, some of these stories have been published for more than a decade.
When I looked at all the Ellora’s Cave authors who’d left who were New York Times or USA Today bestselling authors, quite a few of them did make the USA Today list in a bundle of some sort. Still, those were far newer works than most of the Ellora’s Cave Cavemen books.

The Big Gotcha

It’s been gnawing at me for a couple of days that there was a bigger issue. I re-read the contracts I’ve seen, wondering if it covered repackaging like that, or if a story was bound to a specific volume. That seemed okay. I didn’t re-read the rest of the contract again until today.
That’s when I realized the problem.
Here’s one of the contracts from 2006 from Ann Jacobs (p. 13 in this ECvDA exhibit):
Ellora's Cave Anthology Royalty Rate
Note that it covers royalty rates for books with 1-6 works, but not books with 7-72 works. Other contracts included in that document have a similar structure.
Near as I can tell, Ellora’s Cave would need to pay 6.25% of cover price for each of the 72 authors in each work, or a total of 450% of the cover price for authors with similar (pre-mid-2011) contracts.
One wonders if EC’s new contract with Amazon translates to 35% or 70% for 99-cent books. Either way, they seem pretty screwed by their own terms.
The good news for them is that those Cavemen boxed sets are only pre-orders at this point, so they’re free to unlist them.

Update: Screenshot from a 2008 Cavemen Contract

Royalty Section of an Ellora's Cave Cavemen Contract
Again, this is built around a 6-works anthology, not around a 72-works anthology. There is no defined royalty rate for a 72-works book.
As Ann Jacobs mentions below, there is also no reversion clause. Zip.

List of Authors in the Cavemen Series

Alexa & Patrick Silver
Alicia Sparks
Allyson James
Angela Knight
Angelia Sparrow & Naomi Brooks
Anna J. Evans
Annie Windsor
Anya Bast
Ari Thatcher
Arianna Hart
Ashleigh Raine
Aubrey Ross
B.J. McCall
Brigit Zahara
Callista Arman
Cara Carnes
Cathryn Fox
Charlene Teglia
Charlotte Boyett-Compo
Cheryl Dragon
Cheyenne McCray
Cindy Spencer Pape
Cricket Starr
Cynthia Rayne
Dawn Halliday
Debra Glass
Delilah Devlin
Denise A. Agnew
Denise Rossetti
Desiree Holt
Diana Hunter
Doreen DeSalvo
Elayne S. Venton
Elisa Adams
Elizabeth Lapthorne
Fiona Jayde
J.C. Wilder
Jaci Burton
Jaid Black
Jan Springer
Janne Lewis
Jenna Reynolds
Jory Strong
Kate Douglas
Kate Hill
Kate Willoughby
Katherine Cross
Katie Blu
Kimberly Dean
Kris Starr
Kristin Daniels
KyAnn Waters
L.A. Day
Lacey Alexander
Lacey Thorn
Lani Aames
Lena Matthews
Liddy Midnight
Lillian Feisty
Lora Leigh
Lyla Sinclair
Lynn LaFleur
M.A. Ellis
Madison Hayes
Mandy M. Roth
Margaret L. Carter
Marianne LaCroix
Marly Chance
Mary Wine
Mary Winter
Megan Kerans
Melani Blazer
Melany Logen
Mlyn Hurn
Myla Jackson
N.J. Walters
Natasha Moore
Nicole Austin
Nikki Soarde
Paige Cuccaro
Patrice Michelle
R. Casteel
Ravyn Wilde
Rebecca Airies
Regina Carlysle
Renee Luke
Rowan West
Sahara Kelly
Samantha Kane
Shelley Munro
Sherri L. King
Sherrill Quinn
Sherry James
Shiloh Walker
Solange Ayre
Sylvia Day
Talya Bosco
Tawny Taylor
Tielle St. Clare

Oh, And…

If anyone cares to share a Caveman anthology-specific contract, at least the portion with the royalties and reversions, I’d love a screen shot.

Edit Notes

[1] I intended to qualify this with a timespan, and was having difficulty searching the NY Times lists the other day and wound up giving up, accidentally omitting the timespan. It definitely used to be easier to make the NY Times list with an anthology than it is now. Edited to add recently.

Filed Under: Ellora's Cave Tagged With: ellora's cave, ellorascave

Ellora's Cave: Laurann Dohner's Subtle Announcement

November 20, 2015 by deirdre 17 Comments

Ellora's Cave Blog Post Header
Earlier today, Laurann Dohner updated her facebook profile to show Ellora’s Cave as a former employer rather than her current one.
Laurann Dohner • Ellora’s Cave is her Former Employer
A bit later in the day, she removed Ellora’s Cave from her work history entirely.
Laurann Dohner • Job Title NY Times Bestselling Author
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….

Filed Under: Ellora's Cave Tagged With: ellora's cave, ellorascave, other-authors

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