Listen—don’t just hear and nod your head. LISTEN!
.@iJesseWilliams, #BETAwards2016. https://t.co/EQINvF1IMC
— deray mckesson (@deray) June 27, 2016
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No idea what is going on behind the scenes here, as I have not seen the email that was sent out to Samhain Publishing’s authors at some point yesterday/last night.
What is known is that, after announcing they were closing (and firing staff/editors/etc?), Christina Brashear is now saying that Samhain will not close.
Honestly? This sucks for those authors who were ready to move on. I see on twitter that several were close to getting their rights back, and had, therefore, already started the process of having new covers made, so they could republish. That money, time and effort? Well, it’s wasted, unless Samhain decides to revert those rights anyway.
Which, from the publisher’s point of view, why would they (unless it’s in the contract)? I mean, already edited and published works that continue to sell, are passive income for them, after all.
And this doesn’t even touch on those editors and cover artists who have already moved on.
Mind you, I had seen some subtle rumbling about things not smelling all that fresh in Denmark, but nothing overt enough that I could point it out with confidence, as evidence of behind-the-scenes drama or upset. After this course reversal, I’m a lot more concerned, and disappointed. From the sidelines, this seems pretty callous and careless, as least when it comes to those authors’ careers.
I just don’t know, folks.
So I see this headline on the main page at nbcnews.com: “I was fired because of my race”
When I click through to the article, I see the actual headline is “Wendy Bell Sues TV Station, Says Firing Was Because Of Her ‘Race'” (square quotes included).
It so happens this woman is white, and was fired after writing some pretty racist, paternalistic, and condescending bullshit about an entire community, in the wake of a shooting that left five people injured; to whit:
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Listen to a smart, compassionate man.
Imbue your children’s lives with love, not with hatred.
Keep on dancing.
Torquere Press LLC and Ellora’s Cave? (now, stupidly enough, “EC for Books”–because nothing says “publishing empire” like a generic, forgettable name, hemorrhaging authors, and piss poor service)
No?
Well, the former are not only amateurs in the ‘let’s not pay royalties and give trite, tired, unbelievable excuses for that’ field. They are also criminally stupid–as in, ‘let’s write a fraudulent check for those royalties, see if that’ll shut the unpaid authors up!”
Say what you will about Jaid give-readers-the-finger-I-despise-romance-professional-victim Black, she’s too cunning for that.
She’ll just never write checks for those royalties and other bills.
Update: Julia Talbot, former owner of Torquere, has her say on this mess (as of today, only dog knows what’s next)
