I did not sign any non-disclosure agreement, so I am free to speak the truth as I please, but I honestly don't think they care. Have you ever dealt with a sociopath - they create their own lies then believe them.
No, I was not asked to stay, but my agent immediately sent a notice to them for breach of contract when this all started. I had no desire to give them more money and am certain that's all that will happen to the authors remaining. I have moved on in publishing and prefer to work with a house that does not lie and actually pays their authors.
As for the inconsistencies, welcome to the Dorchester author world. IF they had ever bothered to treat authors with respect and not lie, so inconsistently that even a six-year old could catch them, then authors may have considered working with them. But as most everything has been a lie, including my factually incorrect royalty statements, why in the world would authors care to support that? The smart ones don't. Some are desperate to be published and hanging in there hoping for the best. Those fools are exactly why people who treat writing as a business get no respect. If as writers, we don't respect ourselves, no one else will, either.
If the move to digital publishing is really a "industry shift for profit" as they would like everyone to believe, then how come I know NYT bestselling authors who have been told they've had ZERO in digital sales? Does that sound profitable to you? It's certainly not for the author. If the move to digital publishing is a conscience, deliberate move by a business to jump on what they perceive as a trend, then why wasn't the infrastructure to deliver and sale in a digital format put in place before the announcement? I don't think you have to be a CEO or David Copperfield to see the smoke and mirrors on this crap from a mile away.
I'm sorry you're caught in the middle, too, and $3,500 is nothing to sneeze at! That represents a ton of work and you should be suitably angry. I think the worst case I heard is that one author at the board meeting was owed over $100k.
I don't know how any of them sleep at night.