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Samhain Publishing

KE-writer

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True. But it those that took 'the deal' got the rights back right away and were able to move forward Jan. 1, the day after they closed. That was my point.
 

black13

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I was an EC author and a Samhain author. This experience has not been pleasant. However the Samhain experience has been so much better. Crissy paid me every month, on the nail, for a start. The books with Samhain were thoroughly edited, received beautiful cover art, and I never saw Samhain throw money around as wildly as EC did. With EC it was a party, while it lasted, though most of us knew it wasn't going to last. Parties never do.
We had to fight EC for every concession. They held on to everything to the very last, and some authors are still waiting. Plus, they stopped paying royalties after around 2014. They sent insulting letters, badmouthed their authors on social media and elsewhere, and tried to blame us for the fiasco. I don't think they'll ever pay for what they did. They owe the IRS a fortune, or what to me is a fortune. Royalties fluctuated alarmingly, so that a few of us commented that we thought they might be making it up as they went along, but the good years were really good. They attracted authors from trad publishers, and that was because of the money.
Samhain sponsored events, helped with promotion, but concentrated on the books. I was always proud to be a Samhain author. I'm sorry to see them close. We will be getting our rights back, but Crissy is a meticulous person, and she will probably list all the books out, instead of issuing a blanket notice. The pages are coming down now, although print copies continue to circulate, and there's little anybody can do about existing copies, though no more will be produced of course.
 

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A mail-merge program might be able to do this assuming they've got the right information in the right format to do the work this way: but if they send out too many near-identical emails all at once they might be considered spammers, which would stop any of the messages getting through.

LOL, guy, that's totally not true. Companies and government institutions send out tens of thousands of identical emails to recipients every day. I'm a marketer, and the non-profit I work for sends out anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 emails a day, almost all of which promote events or services and are exactly alike. Spam is determined by each individual recipient's server, and, if tagged as spam by that server, then blocked only by that individual server.
 

JulesJones

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Re my library - shortly after I posted here I emailed the support address in an old email, had a holding reply the next day, and my library emailed to me today. It probably helped that I had only a dozen or so books and emailed support promptly with my original invoice email. Still not sure why I didn't have the books on my hard drive in the first place - I suspect I was jet-lagged when I ordered them in the previous "we're closing" and either failed to download them or put them somewhere weird when I did.
 

Old Hack

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LOL, guy, that's totally not true. Companies and government institutions send out tens of thousands of identical emails to recipients every day. I'm a marketer, and the non-profit I work for sends out anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 emails a day, almost all of which promote events or services and are exactly alike. Spam is determined by each individual recipient's server, and, if tagged as spam by that server, then blocked only by that individual server.

Lol, girl, that's totally true under certain circumstances. Like, TOTALLY. There are huge differences between major companies and minor ones, government institutions and private companies, the volumes of mail they get to send out before they're considered dodgy, and how various servers react to them. Having said that I don't think there's a difference between what you said or what I said, if you read it carefully.
 

AW Admin

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LOL, guy, that's totally not true. Companies and government institutions send out tens of thousands of identical emails to recipients every day. I'm a marketer, and the non-profit I work for sends out anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 emails a day, almost all of which promote events or services and are exactly alike. Spam is determined by each individual recipient's server, and, if tagged as spam by that server, then blocked only by that individual server.

1. She's not a guy.

2. You're wrong. There are spam services used by individuals and institutions and spam blocking lists used by large hosts and Admins. We talk to each other; we communicate with each other and we share data. I preemptively block known relays on a regular basis.

3. Individual users who are not using dedicated mailing services or properly configured clients generated appropriate headers will be blocked by their ISP, and / or by service providers, including Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, etc.

4. You try sending out 20K emails in say sixty minutes from a consumer account on Yahoo or Gmail or the like, or from a consumer end-user account at an ordinary non-commercial ISP. The mail will be throttled.
 

WDusty

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Lol, girl, that's totally true under certain circumstances. Like, TOTALLY. There are huge differences between major companies and minor ones, government institutions and private companies, the volumes of mail they get to send out before they're considered dodgy, and how various servers react to them. Having said that I don't think there's a difference between what you said or what I said, if you read it carefully.

Sorry for not seeing your a woman, but your statement is still false. You're saying that if a publisher/company sends out too many of the same emails (such as Sahmain sending out too many merged emails), they'll be targeted as a spammer. That's not true. You then also apparently assert (above) that there are different email rules for "major" companies compared to "minor" ones. Also totally untrue. (And just what governing body would decide what a "major" or "minor" company is?) Spam is not determined by the volume of emails delivered. And the size of your entity (company, org., etc) is irrelevant. It's determined by a.) volume of emails received *on a single server*, and filters on *that* server, which track things such as subject lines and attachements, etc.
 

WDusty

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1. She's not a guy.

2. You're wrong. There are spam services used by individuals and institutions and spam blocking lists used by large hosts and Admins. We talk to each other; we communicate with each other and we share data. I preemptively block known relays on a regular basis.

3. Individual users who are not using dedicated mailing services or properly configured clients generated appropriate headers will be blocked by their ISP, and / or by service providers, including Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, etc.

4. You try sending out 20K emails in say sixty minutes from a consumer account on Yahoo or Gmail or the like, or from a consumer end-user account at an ordinary non-commercial ISP. The mail will be throttled.

1. I see that.

2.) No, I'm not. If certain companies work together and have an agreement in place, sure that's possible. But there is no built in, global mechanism that automatically blocks emails because an entity sends out a few thousand emails. And we *are* talking about a company sending out a few thousand emails (to authors), not millions. Remember, we're talking about a publishing company that has delivered emails to its authors many times before. Have you ever heard of newletters? Do you think it's possible a publishing company might send out newsletters or advisories to its authors? Probably. So sending out a merged email reverting rights would be no big deal.

3.) We're not talking about individuals. We're talking about a publishing company that has doubtless routinely sent out thousands of emails to readers and authors previously.

4.) Again, we're not talking about about personal gmail or yahoo accounts. We're talking about a company on a corporate account set up with their hosting service, and sending out emails to its authors.

If Samhain wanted to send out an email alert to its authors, I'm certain they would have no issue doing that. And I'm sure they've most likely already done that many times before.
 
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Old Hack

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Sorry for not seeing your a woman,

What about my b woman? Did you see her? Heh.

but your statement is still false. You're saying that if a publisher/company sends out too many of the same emails (such as Sahmain sending out too many merged emails), they'll be targeted as a spammer. That's not true. You then also apparently assert (above) that there are different email rules for "major" companies compared to "minor" ones. Also totally untrue. (And just what governing body would decide what a "major" or "minor" company is?) Spam is not determined by the volume of emails delivered. And the size of your entity (company, org., etc) is irrelevant. It's determined by a.) volume of emails received *on a single server*, and filters on *that* server, which track things such as subject lines and attachements, etc.

No, my statement isn't false.

You don't seem to understand how this stuff works, nor do you seem happy to listen or learn. So I'm going to back off from this now, because this is a thread about Samhain, not about how emails are handled. But you might want to read The Newbie Guide To Absolute Write, and spend a little time digesting that.
 

gingerwoman

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Samhain ebooks are still being sold on third-party sites.

Hope the authors actually see those sales.
The emails received talked about that and how we have to wait until each site does their last pay out. She also said that she has doubts ARE will pay out, which is about them not Samhain, but that we will get a last payment from all the others.
 
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thethinker42

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The emails received talked about that and how we have to wait until each site does their last pay out. She also said that she has doubts ARE will pay out, which is about them not Samhain, but that we will get a last payment from all the others.

Which is insane. Our contracts state we'll be paid monthly. There's no clause to allow them to suspend royalties like this, especially not indefinitely.
 

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Lynne, I am certainly not defending EC's behavior over all. I was merely talking about rights reversion and how it was quick and simple for those who took 'the deal.'

The good news is that I did receive a communication from Samhain over the weekend (as I'm sure that others on this board received as well) and they explained where they are in the process. That's all I wanted was some communication on this...glad they took the time to do it! Much happier now with at least some idea of timeline.
 

anne.arthur

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So a handful of Samhain authors whose last name begins with A received a Contract Addendum yesterday. Nope, not a reversion of rights notice, as we were led to believe, but a Contract Addendum to sign. Complete with a covenant not to sue, because, you know, withholding our royalties is a breach of contract. Several of these authors who've received it have sent it to lawyers to review, and as of this morning, no more of these addendums are being sent out because Samhain is again "reviewing" the language.
 

Maryn

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Gimme that pillow. I need all the screwed-over authors to scream loud enough their former publisher hears them.
 

KE-writer

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I wish Samhain would give authors the option to just get a rights reversion and that ends it. I would sign off anything they wanted. I don't have a huge list of books with them, they were no longer selling, so this is just torture for someone like me. I don't have ANY money to lose at this point. Just give me my rights back so I can control my book, put it back up for sale, and move on. I guess when you have a lot of authors to deal with in various stages of importance, this is what happens.
 

amergina

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This whole mess is entirely on the head of the publisher, not any authors.

It has nothing to do with author "importance".

Samhain knew it was closing, and they had to have known they were closing a lot longer than they led on. All of this paper work should have been done before March 1.
 

gingerwoman

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So a handful of Samhain authors whose last name begins with A received a Contract Addendum yesterday. Nope, not a reversion of rights notice, as we were led to believe, but a Contract Addendum to sign. Complete with a covenant not to sue, because, you know, withholding our royalties is a breach of contract. Several of these authors who've received it have sent it to lawyers to review, and as of this morning, no more of these addendums are being sent out because Samhain is again "reviewing" the language.

So they aren't offering us our rights back at all in that document? Or they're only offering them back if we promise not to sue for final royalties being withheld over our contract agreement time?
 
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thethinker42

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So they aren't offering us our rights back at all in that document? Or they're only offering them back if we promise not to sue for final royalties being withheld over our contract agreement time?

Basically, your rights revert upon signing the document, which also waives our rights to sue, agrees to the withheld royalty payments (which is a violation of our contracts), etc. It's an appalling document.
 

thethinker42

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We'll see what my agent says about that.

They might try to push this on unsuspecting authors, but agents are a whole different creature.

From what I hear, every agent or lawyer who's looked at it has said "OMG NOPE." My lawyer is definitely not impressed.
 

Sheryl Nantus

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From what I hear, every agent or lawyer who's looked at it has said "OMG NOPE." My lawyer is definitely not impressed.

Exactly.

Agents are professionals who want to get the monies owed them as per the contract signed with Samhain as well - along with, obviously, wanting to help their clients.

I suspect Samhain grossly underestimated how much they could roll over both agents and authors.
 

KE-writer

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I got my document. I signed it. I have no sales any more, I am losing out on NOTHING. Some of us are pee wees compared to others. I am grateful to Samhain for taking a chance on me. I wasn't a bestseller at all. I'm 100% fine with what they sent me. No qualms. There are other authors just like me who lose out on nothing by signing. Good luck to the rest of you.
 

anne.arthur

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I haven't even gotten the document to read yet, but I'm in a frustrating position of just wanting to sign it and deal, and wanting to let my agent go over it first (said agent never negotiated with Samhain on my behalf, only looked over the original contracts). I'm launching a new series next week that is directly tied into 3 of my 8 Samhain titles, and it was my hope that this new book would boost sales of the old series. Literally the day after I hit publish on the pre-order date, Samhain hit us with the "we're closing, we'll revert rights starting 3/1" bullshit. It's now 3/8 and I don't have my rights back to these books. A solid week after we were told rights would revert. I live alone and I'm the sole income earner. I've been a full-time author since last January, so I need those books back up for sale ASAP. I get the owner trying to cover her ass, but dude, I've got my own ass to think about here. Grrr....