Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

Maryn said:

I wonder--aloud--what it takes to put together a class action suit where the disparate people owed money act as a single unit.

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I wonder that, too.

I know there was talk about it, but I'm not on any of the angry author loops so I don't know what came of it.

Honestly, I don't care that much about the money (for myself). For me, it's mostly the principle. But for others, with more books and less outside income? Damn. They need to get paid.

I imagine, in this case, what it would take is a lawyer or lawyers willing to work for free. I believe 'pro bono' is the term. You've got the aggrieved class, writers stiffed by Ellora's Cave, either from non-payment of royalties, or from being unable to afford expensive buy-out clauses. They probably don't have money for a long, drawn-out court battle. Then, if the writers' case prevail, who are they going to collect from? By all accounts, EC has no money to pay a judgement with, and is pretty good at ducking, dodging and stalling.
So, a good-hearted lawyer, or... say, I don't suppose that EC has stiffed a lawyer or loved-one-of-lawyer, over the years?

Give a shout-out to Popehat, and see if any of their pro bono compatriots might be interested.

Maryn said:

I wonder--aloud--what it takes to put together a class action suit where the disparate people owed money act as a single unit.

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The problem with this approach is that I don't believe there's enough money left in the company to attract the lawyers for this to happen.

On a related note, another possibility is involuntary bankruptcy, but one of the problems is one has to demonstrate that the group of creditors (at least 12) filing the petition is owed a minimum of $15,775. Without statements, it's difficult to prove that (though one could probably use a year's worth of prior statements, especially if one also supplied an Amazon sales rank history for the prior year and the unpaid one). At one point, I tried to search for case law on this, but I gave up in exasperation.

I believe at that point one could subpoena Amazon et al to determine how much one was owed in royalties.

Note that if the company is forced into bankruptcy its administrators will then control the business's assets in order to ensure the creditors are given the best chance of regaining their money. In the case of publishers, their assets are their physical stock--which doesn't exist in an e-publisher--and the rights they hold. So writers whose publishers go bankrupt do not get their rights back for quite a while, and sometimes don't ever see their legal return. It's not always a good thing.

How is that different than the situation that's currently happening?

Authors are reporting not having been paid royalties since June 2015. Most people's reversion requests are denied.

I'd rather see EC's income going to legitimate creditors instead of into the principal's pockets. And I'm really not sure how many creditors there would be, other than authors... my theory is that they're using author money to pay the rest of their bills (and themselves).

Deirdre said:

How is that different than the situation that's currently happening?

Authors are reporting not having been paid royalties since June 2015. Most people's reversion requests are denied.

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I know, I know. But some people are getting their rights back, I think.

Captcha said:

I'd rather see EC's income going to legitimate creditors instead of into the principal's pockets. And I'm really not sure how many creditors there would be, other than authors... my theory is that they're using author money to pay the rest of their bills (and themselves).

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Editors, designers, jacket designers, those bare-chested blokes who seem to have been employed to attend conferences... all need to be paid.

Old Hack said:

I know, I know. But some people are getting their rights back, I think.

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Apparently I hadn't posted the reply I've had open in a tab for over a week.

Since April 11, EC's lost about 1/6 of its titles on Amazon. (4/11: 3,049, 8/6: 2,498) Half of those lost have been since June 1. (6/1: 2,744 vs. yesterday's)

Old Hack said:

Editors, designers, jacket designers, those bare-chested blokes who seem to have been employed to attend conferences... all need to be paid.

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They need to be paid with the company's money, not mine.

But I assume any that are still working with the company are being paid, or else they would quit (a luxury authors don't have). With the "we don't edit or promote" approach, though, I don't think there are significant expenses associated with putting out new books.

Captcha said:

They need to be paid with the company's money, not mine.

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I know they do. I was pointing out how many potential creditors there could be, in response to your earlier comment, "I'm really not sure how many creditors there would be, other than authors".

But I assume any that are still working with the company are being paid, or else they would quit (a luxury authors don't have). With the "we don't edit or promote" approach, though, I don't think there are significant expenses associated with putting out new books.

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I suspect they were paying a lot of those creditors royalties, which means they'll do a lot of work upfront before they realise they're not being paid. Just like their authors.

Titles on Amazon

A lot of titles of mine, anyway, are old print copies, that Amazon probably has in stock. EC should not be selling any of my print copies any more, so that's the only way they can be there. EC was allowed six months to sell outstanding print copies, but all my reversions are way past that.
I have started reissuing my books, so seeing these straggling old copies is very annoying.

All I want to know is... Where is my year's worth of royalties?

DexyDoo said:

All I want to know is... Where is my year's worth of royalties?

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Paying for legal fees, stupid websites, and whatever else the principals decide to waste our money on?

Captcha said:

Paying for legal fees, stupid websites, and whatever else the principals decide to waste our money on?

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I heard that. :-/

black13 said:

I have started reissuing my books, so seeing these straggling old copies is very annoying.

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Since they can be resold many times over many years, though, that's just the reality.

I've been behind on what I'd hoped to be monthly updates, but there's an ever-dwindling number of titles. More surprising is that they've added 7 authors since mid-August. (Not all have releases yet.)

Ellora's Cave authors, check your email for a closing and rights reversion announcement.

I heard that but I have received nothing. I was taken off all their "lists" years ago. But I did see on facebook something about a date of December 8

Any more news? I know Twitter blew up yesterday afternoon, about it.

I haven't received an e-mail, but from what I've seen of the one others received... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ct4xHCnWAAASwxk.jpg it's typical EC bullshit. Instead of doing the right thing, they're offering authors their rights back... in exchange for giving up any rights to outstanding royalties.

And since EC hasn't bothered to issue royalty statements for well over a year, and can't really be trusted to have issued accurate royalty statements prior to that, authors have no way of knowing exactly how much they're giving up. Nice.

Captcha said:

I haven't received an e-mail, but from what I've seen of the one others received... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ct4xHCnWAAASwxk.jpg it's typical EC bullshit. Instead of doing the right thing, they're offering authors their rights back... in exchange for giving up any rights to outstanding royalties.

And since EC hasn't bothered to issue royalty statements for well over a year, and can't really be trusted to have issued accurate royalty statements prior to that, authors have no way of knowing exactly how much they're giving up. Nice.

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What a scummy move. I'm sorry you and the other EC authors are having to put up with this (still).

The only way that could legally work is if the artists were work-for-hire, and were paid an up front, one-time fee. I suspect many of them worked for royalties, though.

I'm wondering how easy it'll be to remove the EC logo without extensive Photoshop training/experience.