This was posted on a friends Facebook page today, it's about Dark Regions Press. I got his permission to repost it here. The only alteration done is the removal of book titles in the last paragraph.
THE FOLLOWING IS A LONG RANT THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST TO SOME WRITERS My faith in one small press publisher in the US has been utterly eroded by a series of emails forwarded by a friend of mine-one of their authors who has patiently waited more than 18 months without sign of a royalty statement let alone actual you know cash for the books they are selling, and then accuses her of 'threatening them' because she's looking at going to the professional Grievance body of their organisation to try and get back what she's owed while they continue with 'grand plans'. I had a book come out with them, looked really nice, that was a few years ago... and likewise I've had no royalty statements so have no way of telling if they've sold *one* copy. I have other friends in with this guy, one I know is owed a lot of money... we're all very nice and patient and not saying boo to a fucking goose, meanwhile his tales of woe continue on facebook with something akin to a persecution complex. Did I mention excuses?
JAN 28: please give us until late February/early March to send payment on these royalties. Sales have been slow this month and production costs are high. We will have significantly more cash-on-hand next month and will be able to easily make the owed payments.
APRIL 6: The primary reason for the delay in your royalty statements is that my father XXXXXXX has to go through piles of paperwork for past vendor orders and other non-website collector orders to get all of the numbers together, and as my dad is currently dealing with an inheritance and potential retirement, he's sparse on time himself. We are working on it though, and I want to assure you that what I care most about is taking care of our authors, artists, editors and designers.
MAY 24: Alright folks, we know you've been waiting a while. Here's the deal: I have asked repeatedly for the sales numbers from vendor orders in the past, but since I can't get them, we will only be able to work with the numbers we have. We are going to start working on each authors royalty amounts, sale amounts and payments this month based on the numbers that we can access (website, Amazon, Smashwords, sales through vendors since I've been running DRP). Since we don't have to wait for other numbers to arrive, this task will be completed after World Horror Convention (but potentially before).
There is also a lot going on with the company at the moment as it is plagued with both internal and external problems. As the days go on I will decide how to move forward with it, but know this: I will see to it that each author and each book is handled with respect, transparency and professionalism. I want each and every author to receive the payments they are due, and that their titles are handled the right way moving forward.
JUNE 30: We will be assembling all of the numbers we have access to for all sales and other relevant information pertaining to each authors' titles. After that, we will be sending royalty payments and sales reports to all authors by the end of July.
My personal commitment: to have all author royalties paid and be in good standing with all of our authors/artists/staff by the end of July so XXX is poised for a successful 2nd half of 2013.
With staff insurgence and a lot of other problems, much of the responsibilities in the company have fallen into my lap, and it became overwhelming. However, upon moving to xxxxxxxxx we are hiring a (desperately needed) office assistant, which will help a lot with handling these kind of matters much more promptly.
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It's comedy gold, in one email he'll say 'I'm just one man' and then in another will blame staff insurgence... Now, on May 24th I sent a reversion letter for TWO of my projects to this 'threatened' publisher - very polite business-like stuff. I even wrote it following the legal template so all he had to do was sign it and return it to save him time, because frankly I'm fed up with the excuses and one of my books was contracted in 2006 and hasn't seen the light of day. May 24th - that's FIFTY NINE days ago. In that time he's ignored every mail about reversion and kept instead promising 'you'll get every penny owed' - bearing in mind he's now claiming he can't access vendor sales info pre what the last 12 months no one is going to get every cent, but that's by-the-by and for me it was never about the money but there are things going on I do not like. When a writer has no recourse but to turn to the HWA Grievance Committee in hopes of getting her money there's something very fucking wrong in the state of Denmark frankly.
You want alarm bells?
Over the last few months said publisher has donated over 1,000 stock books to libraries in the US - wonderful gesture, right? only of course he can claim these as charitable donations and get tax relief on them whereas the writers whose work he's donated won't see a bean because they're listed as non-sales. But don't worry, he's launching a huge kickstarter that's taking up loads of his time... you know the time he should have used to clear business issues that led to this complete fuck up of a situation. I'm a really patient guy, as evidenced by the fact I've watched [redacted book title 1] exist nowhere but as a name on their website for 6 years only to slip away silently, cancelled without me ever being told it's been cancelled because the guy didn't have the professional courtesy to do it. Do I expect to ever see the mythical money for [redacted book title 2]'s limited and lettered edition? No I don't. But when I see him playing the martyr on facebook it seriously pisses me off. Everyone has been really patient with this company through various transitions and the vast array of excuses... but frankly I think the authors in the HWA should take them to the GC if they haven't had their money in the next 10 days, given that was his personal commitment mark 3... or is that 4? All I can tell you is from the day the hardcover of [redacted book title 2] came out until now I've never had a single sales statement, so that's a good couple of years. What I have had to do was intervene on behalf of not one but two friends who bought copies that were never dispatched, who contacted this publisher multiple times and only got their books when I finally got shitty. And I see people say things like 'oh I really want to publish with these people' well, be careful what you wish for, I reckon.