Noble Romance Publishing

I am so relieved that I was able to dodge the bullet so to speak with this company. What you authors are going through is a complete nightmare. I am horrified by it.

I am guessing that probably none of the authors have taken action against them. It sounds like they won't change until somebody actually does. I would check with attorneys in the same area as the company itself. It probably wouldn't cost much to get a letter from an attorney sent, and you could then go from there.

It's horrible to know that your work is out there, and they are just doing whatever they want with it. Even worse you're not getting paid what you deserve. I hope it all works out for everyone.

GiannaSimone said:

But if she's referring to someone else – is that someone in the same firm, or a cheaper firm because they are in fact hemorrhaging and can't afford them anymore?

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"The appropriate person" could also be the publisher themselves, if there is not (yet?) a lawyer representing them "in this matter".

Definitely do not use Noble Romance. They have devolved into a publisher that is pub against author. The CEO has contempt for authors and everything normally expected of a publisher is a battle, including getting a book out on release day.

They no longer upload their books to All Romance Ebooks, because they say they don't make enough money from them. Ridiculous.

They have now started charging authors for author copies of print books, something that is not in any contract I signed with them. It took me nearly two months to get the digital copies, something every pub gets to the author on release day.

With no publishing experience or expertise, dealing with the CEO is a joyless experience and once they have your name on a contract, you are dust. The CEO looks at everything they do as a favor to the author.

Beware and steer clear.

I have written about my entire ordeal with Noble and Jean Gombart, including emails sent between us. In his own words, he puts the lie to what he told Piers Anthony. http://britaaddamsblog.blogspot.com/p/noble-romance.html

Gianna is right - he parses the contracts as it suits him. My idea is that he is daring us to sue.

My husband is a CPA and when I am in Atlanta for GRL in October, he will be at the Noble offices auditing my records. Since Mr. Gombart himself told me that Jill took everything with her, it should be interesting.

This company is a farce and as long as he insists upon keeping me under contract, under duress, I will speak out against this horrid excuse for a publisher.

Sadly, Jill was right when she said that with her, she had good intentions. At least she could lie to you and make you feel, for a minute or two, that you weren't lied to or that she did it with your best interest at heart. Gombart is juvenile in his interpretation of contracts, the publishing business, people in general.

Read his emails to me and see. Positively unbelievable, even when confronted with the exact wording, how he can parse and equivocate.

Some more blog posts about Noble.

Margie Church -- Un-Noble Behavior

H.C. Brown - Problems With Noble Romance

My blog post, http://britaaddamsblog.blogspot.com/p/noble-romance.html re: the most recent Noble Romance lunacy, with links to Kari Gregg's, Margie Church's, and others, has garnered the attention of Dear Author, Passive Guy, Emily Veinglory and others.

Still no reply to my five emails re: my intention to have my records at Noble audited. But them, they aren't answering anyone. Crickets.

http://www.thepassivevoice.com/04/2013/avoid-noble-romance/

http://dearauthor.com/news/monday-n...e-and-ways-to-make-money-over-the-lunch-hour/

http://www.eroticromancepublishers.com/2013/04/noble-publishing.html

4/22/2013 - Update on audit situation: Mr. Gombart wrote to say they will provide all records, to show me their professionalism and good faith. I wrote to say that ship had already sailed and that NRP has no such qualities.

Though he doesn't go into great detail (I suspect there's a NDA involved? No idea) Aleksandr Voinov states on his blog that he has had his rights reverted on the stories he had with Noble.

Specifically that he "purchased" back the rights.

veinglory said:

Specifically that he "purchased" back the rights.

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Which is still a step in the right direction, given how willing Noble has been to communicate/negotiate anything. I don't know the details of the agreement, though.

Noble Romance recycling stock art

What does it say when a publisher recycles stock art? Aside from embarrassment for the authors?



And it isn't the first time.

Huh. Duplicates between publishers happem, but within a publisher is rare.

I really hope the remember to pay the stock agency twice for the two uses.

I'll play Devil's advocate for this one...

Reuses of stock images within a publisher might be more common than you think. I'm pretty familiar with what stock is available (and sadly it does not get updated too often) so it's easy to spot them (and quite frankly, kind of unavoidable if you're building out a backlist of the same genre). I've seen it at a lot bigger, more reputable shops than Noble.

These smaller, non-NY publishers don't usually pay the stock image fees at all. That's done by the cover artist, and the publisher pays the artist a flat fee for the cover. Most affordable stock image sources these days are royalty free, meaning they wouldn't have had to re-purchase the image anyways.

The photographer or whoever pays this bill would have to repurchase it again for use on a second book. It is royalty free per product it is used on.

Actually, it depends on the license they get for the photo. Some stock licenses allow reuse in other projects.

That worried me enough to go and double check my contracts with the 3 agencies I use. As a photographer I certainly expect to be paid per product. It's cheap enough as it is.

veinglory said:

That worried me enough to go and double check my contracts with the 3 agencies I use. As a photographer I certainly expect to be paid per product. It's cheap enough as it is.

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Oh, I absolutely agree. I prefer that sort of model as well. Not just as a photographer. If I'm buying art to use, I want the terms to be unambiguous.

I've actually never read a royalty-free license that restricts to one "product" though I'm not contesting they exist. I just double checked the major romance stock providers I use as well as the regular stock image site and they both define royalty free unlimited usage with no mention of products (some caveats like no resale, etc). Do you have a link to one that does have it so I can read the license and see how it's stated?

I'd personally have to avoid a per-product pricing if I did find it (does a print cover and an ebook cover count as two products?) But there are plenty of great pics out there I can't touch due to the specific terms of license or they simply cost more than I will even get paid for the completed cover

Jupiter Images has a license that allows for use in multiple projects. I would assume that means you can buy a license and use it on several book covers.

Thank you, J.S.

Well sheesh, sorry to hear about authors going through issues with Noble. I think I'll pull submission from them. I did a quick search before submitting and did not see this thread.

I declined the contract. It just wasn't the right offer, and this thread had something to do with it.

tri

I was offered a contract by Noble Romance and have read quite a bit about them, here and elsewhere on the Internet. I have a few questions to ask those published by Noble.

1) Does anyone have any solid evidence that Noble Romance is withholding payment in any form? I would be interested in hearing about this, since I haven't been able to find it on the web.

2) Is the primary reason authors want out of their contract related to not liking the new CEO or actual contract violations? If the latter, please explain clearly what the actual contract violations are.

3) Regarding other complaints -- such as printing mistakes and the apparent inability to provide a 1099. Were these problems ever corrected after complaints or not?

I know that the company is not responding to those of you who claim a breach in the contract and want to end your relationship with the company. But again, I am not exactly clear about the breaches and would like to know what they are.

Thank you for your responses in advance.

writerreader said:

I was offered a contract by Noble Romance and have read quite a bit about them, here and elsewhere on the Internet. I have a few questions to ask those published by Noble.

1) Does anyone have any solid evidence that Noble Romance is withholding payment in any form? I would be interested in hearing about this, since I haven't been able to find it on the web.

2) Is the primary reason authors want out of their contract related to not liking the new CEO or actual contract violations? If the latter, please explain clearly what the actual contract violations are.

3) Regarding other complaints -- such as printing mistakes and the apparent inability to provide a 1099. Were these problems ever corrected after complaints or not?

I know that the company is not responding to those of you who claim a breach in the contract and want to end your relationship with the company. But again, I am not exactly clear about the breaches and would like to know what they are.

Thank you for your responses in advance.

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1. It's June 1 and I have not received a royalty report or payment for May.

2. If you follow some of the links in this thread, you'll see clear violations of the contract from many authors. Yes, the new CEO is unreasonable and difficult to work with, but contract violations were occurring BEFORE he came onto the scene. I'm not sure how much more evidence of shenanigans new writers want from those already entangled in this mess.

3. It's June of 2013 and I have not yet received a 1099 for 2012.

To be clear, Noble Romance ain't my first rodeo. I'm published by Grand Central, Harper Collins UK, Ellora's Cave, Cleis Press, Seal Press, Samhain, etc--and I've never seen a company treat its writers so shabbily. You cannot talk to adults the way the management at NR speaks to its writers. It's disgraceful.

Also--to be perfectly blunt--I can see no advantage to being published by NR. Sales are abysmal and they've done nothing to grow their reader base in any effective manner.

As a real-life example, my last EC release has sold somewhere between 7-10K copies since it came out in March. My latest self-pub release has moved nearly 2K copies in its first two weeks of availability. The novella NR published by me in 2009 (when I was still building my brand and stupidly sought out new publishers) BARELY earned out its measly effing advance earlier this year. As in, it's sold maybe 50 copies--in 4 years.

I clearly have readers who want to read and buy my work--but they all RUN AWAY from that novella. Why? It has a hideous cover. The editing is poor. It has no visibility.

If you want to be published commercially, for the love of all that's holy, don't make the mistake I made way back then. Aim for the very top. Find a publisher that is going to produce a quality product. Find a publisher who will push that title in front of as many readers as possible.

As a general rule, it's a good idea to default to "no" when deciding whether a given publisher will work for you and look for reasons to change that to a "yes", rather than the other way around.

What does Noble have going for it that makes you want to move it to your "yes" list?