Eternal Press

Lordofthehunt said:

Damnation Books and Eternal Press have been quietly sold to a new owner, Spero Publishing run by Alan Leddon. Alan has reached out to the authors in an effort to mitigate the lousy circumstances Kim Richards Gilchrist heaped upon her authors. So far Alan has been honest, direct, and forthcoming, and truly wants to repair relations with the DB/EP authors moving forward. The new owner can be found here:https://www.facebook.com/Spero-Publi...7643/timeline/

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All well and good, but one of my friends applied for an editing job at Caliburn, which is one of their imprints.

She found out that:

A) Editing pay is a joke or should be, the highest flat fee being no more than 160.00 for a 110K word novel. The editor is assigned one book/story per month.

B) Or -- Instead of a flat fee for editing a book the editor can get 10% of the author's net earnings on that title (after the author is paid) until such time as it ceases to be published by Caliburn.

She decided not to work for them, given those choices. The flat fee isn't enough to cover the time an editor has to put in on a book. Even basic proofing racks up a lot of hours. Taking the 10% means no immediate payment and no guarantee of pay should the book tank. Even Walmart pays better than this!

I would recommend continuing to avoid Caliburn/Damnation/Eternal. Things have been tumultuous on the author loop and with the new owner and his officers. Thus far, the change has been fraught with difficulties and constant staff turnover. The leadership is completely unprofessional and constantly sending placating messages that things will get better, but I doubt it. Nothing going on now would inspire confidence in a sane person and I plan to simply step away from the whole mess when my contract term has expired.

I can attest to the chaos in the author loop. Constant turn over. Unprofessional discussions. Lots of concerns about late, wrong or lack of payment of royalties. No one seems to be getting publication dates. Lots of discussion about great things in the future, but very little, as JinxVelox stated, to inspire confidence. Publisher has asked for resubmission of basic documents repeatedly to different addresses. Discussion about pseudonyms not being protected.

Debating whether to pay the extortion to get my rights back or hire an attorney. After such a long wait and after seeing the quality of the edits I received, will at least have the conversation with an attorney first.

I think the worst part was the "leaking" of the pay spreadsheet by a disgruntled employee, which revealed sensitive personal information. And, yes, just as Caracy said, people are constantly being asked to resubmit information, including PayPal addresses.

Poor or non-existent record-keeping; "officers" getting angry and storming off, because they are accused of embezzlement, and throw the same accusation back at the owner... The situation has just deteriorated month after month and Caliburn/Damnation/Eternal is the definition of a hot mess.

It's funny. This was my publisher for my first two books years ago. It wasn't so bad back then, but it wasn't recommended on the P&E either. I actually made a couple hundred bucks, but I see zero amounts now and yet my books are still available to buy.

I considered it a lesson and moved on. Never again did I submit any more works to them. The best decision I ever made with my writing.

Undercover said:

I considered it a lesson and moved on. Never again did I submit any more works to them. The best decision I ever made with my writing.

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Did you get your rights reverted? I hope so. You can do better on your own without that sort of "help."

Gillhoughly said:

Did you get your rights reverted? I hope so. You can do better on your own without that sort of "help."

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No, unfortunately. I tried too, several times.

Yikes. Please don't stop. If the new management is serious about making things right, hammer at them. Cite the lack of sales and that you want the issue resolved. They may revert the rights just to not have the extra emails in their box!

Not these guys. The paranoid side of me thinks they take in submissions to hold hostage until you are forced to buy back the rights or kiss the story good bye. In my paranoid version of the story, they are using the fees they collect to open up that brick and mortar site they keep talking about and to pay for the production of the erotic coloring books they are so excited about. Whether that is true or not, I have not idea. Keep in mind I'm a writer with a really big imagination that likes to fill in the illogical gaps.

ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE:

I have been in touch with Victoria Strauss of SFWA Writer Beware fame with the issues I know to be true. She requests all Caliburn writers and editors with concerns to send her documented evidence as I have. She wants to put out a notice about the new owners and their inability to run a professional organization ethically, but she needs more people to corroborate my story. Please, please do so. I'd hate to see others get tangled up in the same web. Victoria has assured me that all reports are kept confidential.

The latest on the publisher. He just sent me this link to crowd fund this publishing endeavor through a brick and mortar location: https://www.gofundme.com/2c3pzqnn/

Sounds like he had more turnover and instability going on to the point he wants strangers to fund him.

Meanwhile, the excuses continue on the author's loop as the month ends. Per Alan, everything that goes wrong is someone else's fault.