[Publisher] Night Shade Books

I've just blogged about this. There's some links to info about the ones buying NSB. (Including the Skyhorse thread here.) http://weirdmage.blogspot.no/2013/04/who-are-people-night-shade-books-is.html

More commentary about the Nightshade fiasco:

From Joshua Bilmes, Jabberwocky Literary Agency.

From Kameron Hurley, Nightshade author.

io9 interviews Jarred Weisfeld (Start Publishing) and Tony Lyons (Skyhorse). And oh my the spin they put on things.

http://io9.com/night-shade-books-would-be-owners-on-their-controversi-470910101

eqb said:

io9 interviews Jarred Weisfeld (Start Publishing) and Tony Lyons (Skyhorse). And oh my the spin they put on things.

http://io9.com/night-shade-books-would-be-owners-on-their-controversi-470910101

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I read it. As far as I know, there's some misinformation in it.

What I think is most telling is how many times they feel the need to say they are not the bad guys. If that were true, you would not have to say it at all, althouh I could see saying it once in a disarming manner being OK. When you say it all the time my impression is that not only are you the bad guys, but you are well aware of it.

"If you went to Knopf and you were a bestselling author, you would negotiate the kinds of royalties they have" for all authors, adds Lyons. Night Shade's royalties escalated from 8 to 10 to 12 percent of retail price for paperbacks. "I don't believe that New York Times bestselling authors get that from the best and biggest publishers," says Lyons. "Those are not realistic royalties in the kind of print publishing environment we have now."

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I call shenanigans.

Un-fucking believable...

New deal on the table, I understand:

http://io9.com/a-better-deal-for-night-shade-books-authors-471411560

(Courtesy of John Ward's Google+ Feed)

I'll be sure to tell you how it all plays out in a couple months or years...

I will say that we must be very clear on this point: Jason and Jeremy are done in publishing now. They cannot be allowed to continue. If they try to return, say no.

Do not weep for self-inflicted wounds.

Looks like the freelance editors, proofreaders, and artists will not get what they are owed if the deal goes through. http://weirdmage.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-night-shade-books-sale-its-not-just.html

I wonder if the editors, artist and designers can put a lein on NSB's property, which would include intelectual property rights they have?

I might be wrong about this, but I have gotten the impression that for a company not to pay the full sum owed to their creditors, they have to either:
a) Make a deal where the creditors voluntarily accept less payment. -Which doesn't seem likely in this case.
b) Declare bankruptcy. -In this case that would from my understanding trigger the situation thouthguard51 sketched above. And any author not signed to the new deal would be assets in the bankruptcy.

I do also wonder about any inventory NSB has left, i.e. unsold books, what happens to that in such a situation? Could it be that the new owners have to compete with several thousand copies of NSB books sold cheap by someone who bought them in a bankruptcy sale?

There's still a lot of questions about this deal left unanswered. I understand that some of them can't be answered publicly, but there's things I don't see why has to be kept secret.

thothguard51 said:

I wonder if the editors, artist and designers can put a lein on NSB's property, which would include intelectual property rights they have?

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INAL, but I do freelance work and have been caught when a client filed for bankruptcy. We were unsecured creditors at the bottom of the food chain. Freelancers don't have the same type of protection that regular employees have.

They might be able to band together and hire a lawyer and/or go to small claims court, but both options are expensive and time-consuming.

I hope NSB is able to find a way to pay their editors and artists.

Jason Williams is apparently now employed at a place called "Resurrection House."

He is, by all accounts, a talented editor.

James D. Macdonald said:

Jason Williams is apparently now employed at a place called "Resurrection House."

He is, by all accounts, a talented editor.

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And someone who verbally abuses authors, from what I've heard.

Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware weighs in on Resurrection House and elucidates the Night Shade Books/Jason Williams connection:

Mark Teppo has stated that Jason Williams will be working with Resurrection House only as an employee, with the title of Acquisitions Editor, and won't have a hand in running the company. By all accounts, Williams is a talented editor. Still, even as an employee, his association with Resurrection House is a data point that writers should have the opportunity to factor in to their decision to submit. I don't think I'm alone in finding it troubling that Teppo is holding that information so close to the vest.

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Jeff VanderMeer's addendum is worth reading too:

My point in writing this post, which I did not want to have to write because it would be useful if an organization existed out there that could provide transparency in these kinds of situations…my point is simply to say: a founder of Night Shade is now an editor at Resurrection House. And that writers should know this, should look around the internet for information on Night Shade, and then should form their own opinion on whether Resurrection House is a publisher they want to send their manuscripts to. Without knowing the history, and the debate, and with it not being clear from Resurrection House’s website at this time that Jason Williams is on board with this press, it seems like there needs to be some public note about this.

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Click through for full articles etc. etc.

More on the subject from Rachel Swirsky (link via a comment on the Writer Beware article):

My only personal negative experiences with Night Shade came from Jason Williams. In reply to a request for payment, Williams wrote a very nasty letter to myself and the other writers in an anthology, implying that we were unreasonable and ungrateful to demand payment on schedule....

It was a very small incident, but the letter was so stunningly bizarre and unprofessional… that I was not surprised to hear that he was acting unprofessionally with other writers and in situations in which there was much more on the line.

I don’t know if other people will come out with their stories about his actions.... What I can say is that after what I’ve heard about Jason Williams’ behavior, I would never work with him.

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Short Story Competition

The first newsletter from Night Shade Books' new life under Start Publishing has arrived. It includes this competition:

Halloween Contest

Readers have always been drawn to tales of death, terror, madness and the supernatural...what is your story?

Writers must submit a 250 word short horror story to [email protected]. Upon email submission, we ask that writers tweet @startpublishing confirming his/her submission. Start Publishing will randomly select five stories for Michael J. Martinez author of Daedalus Incident to choose one winner. Martinez is going to critique the winner's horror story and give special writing tips.

The winner's horror story will be featured on the Start Publishing blog and the November issue newsletter. Winner will also be able to select one FREE eBook from the Start Publishing/Night Shade Books catalog.

The winner will be announced on Start Publishing's Twitter and Facebook pages on October 31st. Stay tuned!

Deadline for all submissions: October 21, 2013

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Jeremy's a talented designer and packager. I'd have no objection to working with him.

It's possible that neither Jason nor Jeremy are real villains. For a few years there, Nightshade did remarkably well for a small, undercapitalized publishing startup. It got to the point where it was occasionally beating out the Big Six in auctions.

If I were looking for someone to blame, I'd go for the small-press distributors that kept up the appearance of solvency for far too long, then catastrophically went bankrupt. That's one of the hardest hits a publisher can take. They're left holding the bag on huge debts that will never be repaid. Frequently, if it doesn't kill them outright, it leaves the publishers with no operating capital.

That's like a chess endgame where the other guy has a queen, two bishops, and a rook, and you've got bupkis. No maneuver is clever enough to save you when you've got nothing to work with.

How are things going since Start took over?

NicoleJLeBoeuf said:

Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware weighs in on Resurrection House and elucidates the Night Shade Books/Jason Williams connection:


Jeff VanderMeer's addendum is worth reading too:


Click through for full articles etc. etc.

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Niki, thanks so much for these links! I just linked your post over in the Resurrection House thread; I found out completely accidentally about this. (Yay Google!) This was ALL definitely need-to-know before querying there at RH.