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Blushing Books Publications (formerly ABCD Webmasters)

veinglory

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These are spanking story sites owned by ABCD webmasters. I list them as not recommended based on multiple author complaints but wonder if there is anything else on the open internet about their non-payment of authors?

e.g. herwoodshed.com, wickedvelvet.com
 

CaoPaux

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FWIW, there's an allusion on Piers Anthony's site re: Wicked Velvet (under Bethany's Group).
 

Listener

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Has anyone published with these folks lately? How are they with:

* timeliness of payment
* fairness of royalties
* promotion of your books
* responsiveness
* helpfulness to the author throughout the process
 

SiennaBloom

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Blushing Books: Are they good to work with?

Has anyone published with these folks lately? How are they with:

* timeliness of payment
* fairness of royalties
* promotion of your books
* responsiveness
* helpfulness to the author throughout the process

I buy a lot of books from Blushing books publications and was inspired by a series called Corbin's Bend to write my own series. I had planned to submit to that publisher but I'm wondering if authors are not being paid? This is based on earlier comments in this thread. Perhaps the problem mentioned earlier no longer exists?
 

SiennaBloom

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I can add that they had another publishing branch called something like Lazy Day publications and from what I have heard on social media, they closed it a bit ago. The authors who had books published in them seems rather upset about how it was handled but did not share the details. I am working on a series to publish with them and am not really concerned about using them. I know that they tend to put out multi author series, so I can't just submit the first and second books in the series to them and see how it goes, I will need to write the whole series first. Maybe they would allow me to retain the series, but its been encouraged by authors who publish with them that I get the whole series at least drafted first.

Like a lot of publications, they have had editors leave. I thought their books were not well edited for a while in 2015 but I think it is really improved. They seem to be weak in content editing but at least the copy edits have much fewer errors. I can't afford a content/developmental editor and have to rely upon Beta's for that. I wish they had a stronger editor for developmental edits for their share of the royalties but again, that may change with a new editor coming on board.

Authors who publish with them are hesitant to say anything critical. Is that because they have nothing negative to say or because they are afraid to say something. I'm going with the evidence I have... nothing to be too concerned about.
 

JustWonderin

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That was 100% a typo.

Thank you for the info! I think I'm going to submit.
 

Mack Brinson

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I published with Lazy Day, which was bought out by Blushing Books a couple of years ago. I know of at least three purchases of my book (which BB had) in the time since the buyout occurred. BB has not paid one cent. Now, I see that my book is no longer on Amazon. I know of at least one other author who was with Lazy Day at the beginning who has had a similar experience. I'm not a prude, but I find their core business repulsive and wish I'd never gone with LD.
 

SiennaBloom

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Mark, Lazy Day is closed. I think you need to pursue getting your rights back.

I published with Lazy Day, which was bought out by Blushing Books a couple of years ago. I know of at least three purchases of my book (which BB had) in the time since the buyout occurred. BB has not paid one cent. Now, I see that my book is no longer on Amazon. I know of at least one other author who was with Lazy Day at the beginning who has had a similar experience. I'm not a prude, but I find their core business repulsive and wish I'd never gone with LD.
 

Zombie Fraggle

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If for no other reason, I wouldn't trust a publisher that still doesn't realize one of their retailers closed up shop two frakkin' months ago.

https://twitter.com/BlushingBooks/status/833753610739658752

The goo dot gl link goes to the ARe web page for that specific book, which is now a blank page containing the message, "We are sorry, this site has been taken off-line."

So, nope.
 

M.N Thorne

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I was thinking about publishing with them. However, I will pass on them as my BDSM publisher.
 

Mack Brinson

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Unfortunately, I had a book that was published by Lazy Day. When Blushing Books bought out Lazy Day, mine was among their acquisitions. My book is not erotica of any sort. Since Blushing Books acquired my book, I've not received a cent in royalties, though I've been told by more than one person that they purchased the book from Amazon.
For awhile, I was on Blushing Book's mailing list as an author. For at least a year I've had on contact.
My book does not show up in Blushing Book's listings and is no longer listed on Amazon.
I plan to review the initial contract with Lazy Day and, if there are no legal prohibitions, I will republish the book under a different title.
Needless to say, I am not a fan of Blushing Books.
 

JustWonderin

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They only want books featuring "power exchange" anyway. So despite all the other reasons not to submit there is another one.
 

mrsmig

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Blushing Books, owned by erotica writer Anne Wills (aka Bethany Burke, her pen name), has come under fire for the usual small press foulups plus some other shenanigans: late or absent payment of royalties, rights grabs, threats and intimidation, multiple Kindle publishing accounts (in violation of Amazon's TOS), etc. The situation caught the eye of The New York Times, which posted this article today (it may be behind a paywall if you've used up your quota of free NYT reads this month).

Adding this to the BR&BC subforum just as a matter of record.

Blushing Books
 
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Maryn

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Sheesh. I know other genres' publishers get into trouble, too, but over and over and over, erotica publishers can't pay what they legally owe, screw authors out of royalties and rights when they fold, and just in general make me sorry that's what I write.

Maryn, cranky
 
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ChaseJxyz

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OH MY GOD I KNOW WHERE I HEARD OF THEM BEFORE

They were the publisher at the heart of the Addison Cain omegaverse lawsuit! Here is an article but the tl;dr is:
  • Cain and Blushing Books publish het omegaverse stories, gets very popular
  • Another writer also publishes some het omegaverse stories, gets popular
  • Cain tells Blushing to do something about it and they collude that Blushing will send DMCA/copyright claims stating that Cain "invented"/owns the copyright to het omegaverse stories and ah geez Blushing Books is doing this on their own! Cain had nothing to do with it! But what can she do her publisher wanted to do this not her!
  • Some poor judge had to be told about heat cycles and wolf pack dynamics as part of this lawsuit
  • The collusion thing is revealed in discovery and things did not go very well for Cain and Blushing, as one expects
So yeah, Blushing Books was already known to be Objectively Terrible in certain circles. Also I see Addison Cain is in this new article, too, so I'm gonna have to read it and see how involved she is with this, too. My (entirely unsubstantiated since I haven't read it yet) theory is that she's doing this for revenge, since Blushing DID pay a settlement to the other author/publisher since the DID get all those books taken down from Amazon/Barnes and Noble/etc and the author lost out on a ton of sales (and also had to take them to court which is not cheap).

ETA: Okay, so Cain getting that first little rebellion going WAS because of the omegaverse lawsuit, but that in itself isn't the story here. But, wow, Wills really was extremely shady. It's kind of a bummer they barely mention the omegaverse lawsuit and don't even link to their own article about it.
 
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veinglory

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Blushing has been around a long time relatively speaking (1991) with rumbles of weirdness for a long time. I had some non-payment reports going back to 2007.
 
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