Norilana Books (Vera Nazarian)

[LindaJeanne]

Somehow, this reminds me of the news story I read a few years back about a woman who had embezzled millions of dollers from her employer over a number of years -- and spent every penny of it on lottery tickets.

Very sad situations, since both took huge risks on unethical behavior that was almost certain not to benefit them in any way. You have to pity them for clearly having an addiction -- but it doesn't excuse the behavior.

I sudpect thr woman in the news story I mentioned had every intention of paying back the money she "borrowed" from her employer as soon as she won the lottery. And the more money she lost, the more desperate she was to contine the behavior in hope of winning.

This situation seems erily similar.

 

[eqb]

I'm still gobsmacked at Vera's explanation that her bankruptcy was personal, so the authors aren't listed as creditors, but on that same statement she included income from Norilana sales because that was a case of "doing business as" the Norilana name.

 

[Deirdre]

Oh, and as part of that twitter exchange, she asked me to post this here:

http://webnews.sff.net/read?cmd=read&group=sff.people.vera-nazarian&artnum=56767

And what I posted on the SFWA forums in response to a thread there:

At the risk of stating the obvious and tired that it apparently still needs to be said: that's not all rights. Non-exclusive rights are still rights.

 

[eqb]

Read carefully. She's now returned ALL rights, EXCEPT where authors choose to allow her non-exclusive rights.

This is progress, however slow and incremental. However, as stated above, there's still the matter of repaying back royalties to her authors.

 

[Deirdre]

I'm still gobsmacked at Vera's explanation that her bankruptcy was personal, so the authors aren't listed as creditors, but on that same statement she included income from Norilana sales because that was a case of "doing business as" the Norilana name.

Yeah, that's B.S.

Business issues are all over her filings. See the note about Tanith Lee, for example.

The two loans from Kevin J. O'Donnell, Jr. were business operations loans. If it's not a business bankruptcy, too, then why were they listed? That's ~2/3 of her bankruptcy discharge.

She also certified, under penalty of perjury, that her list of creditors was complete -- and as Norilana is a sole proprietorship, that would have to include notifying her authors. Generally, it'll include accounts you may not owe money on just in case you're wrong.

And if she's making "nice" payments now that involve monies owed authors from before her filing/discharge date, that opens a nice can of worms. O'Donnell's heirs can petition for the discharge to be reversed due to dishonesty (for having intentionally omitted the debts before and now preferentially paying them).

What's not clear to me in this kind of case is what happens in the following scenario:

1. Anthology is created and accepted by sole proprietor publisher. Let's say it earns out after 10k copies.
2. Anthology's sold 7.5k copies.
3. Publisher files chapter 7, but continues operating.

So the question at the back of my mind: does the counter continue clicking on from 7.5k or does it reset to 0? I could see accounting arguments either way, actually. I just don't know the answer, and I'm not gonna spend a bunch of time looking up case law on this one.

You can look at it from the perspective that an author earning out their advance is accruing a liability that, once it passes a certain threshhold, is payable. And that bankruptcy could even reset those accrued-but-not-yet-payable liabilities.

Regardless, they should have all been notified, because then there would be no question whether any monies were due or being hidden or authors being preferentially treated (illegally so) over other creditors.

ETA: At one point I was studying for the Certified Managerial Accountant exam, and my husband passed the CPA exam. I was a Controller of a small company and handled the sale of a business that was rather messy. After that was done, I put an "I quit" notice on my desk with my keys, and left the office, never to return to the world of finance and accounting. However, I'm still fascinated by edge case questions in accounting, especially once the IRS offered to fly me to Hawaii to testify in the criminal trial of one of said business's employees. Nothing like having the Secret Service show up your first Friday on the job. Srsly.

 

[Deirdre]

Read carefully. She's now returned ALL rights, EXCEPT where authors choose to allow her non-exclusive rights.

I get it, but she is intentionally missing my point. We know there's no additional misconduct with royalties going forward if she's not receiving new royalties for authors other than herself or for public domain works.

She apparently doesn't want other people to think she has turned over a leaf and has clean hands going forward.

Or misses why that's significant.

 

[Bicyclefish]

Until this actually happens and the authors receive the funds, I wouldn't hold my breath. After all, as she says, "Crowdfunding for my own book *now* is essential so that I can hang in and not be homeless by the time January comes."

While a Kickstarter to cover royalties owed sounds to some like it might be a step in the right direction, that she spent author royalties -- whether on personal or business expenses is irrelevant to me -- makes me doubt as to whether any crowdfunding money will actually go to the authors.

I'm not holding my breath either. She's raised or borrowed an enormous amount of money over the past few years, and it's all gone to personal expenses or her own books. However lovely she is in person (and she is), she's terrible at business.

Though argue she's trapped in a catch-22, her past and present behavior don't encourage me to support a KS. I'm not saying she's a bad person. I don't know her, which means I don't know either way what her actual intentions are, but as a stranger doing research into what campaigns to support I'd give this one a pass based on the things she's said and admitted to.

 

[Marian Perera]

...that she spent author royalties -- whether on personal or business expenses is irrelevant to me -- makes me doubt as to whether any crowdfunding money will actually go to the authors.

She said,

[FONT=Courier New,FixedSys,monospace]There will be a massive crowdfunding kickstarter/indiegogo event in January on behalf of the Norilana Authors, and the proceeds will be used ENTIRELY to pay off ALL their royalties due.[/FONT]

I'm not sure how she can be so confident that these crowdfunding efforts will pay off "ALL" the royalties that have been owing for three years. I know in the past she's been very successful at getting people to pledge or donate money, but the pitcher can only go to the well so often and she seems to have burned at least a few bridges in the community.
[FONT=verdana,arial,helv,helvetica][FONT=verdana,tahoma,arial,helvetica,helv][FONT=Courier New,FixedSys,monospace][FONT=Courier New,FixedSys,monospace]

I will look for a reliable third party to administer and disburse the funds to the authors.

[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]Let's hope she finds one.

 

[Deirdre]

What strikes me as strange: why wait until January?

 

[folclor]

What strikes me as strange: why wait until January?

It's nearing the end of October, going into November. People won't be wanting to spend extra money where they don't have to. Christmas, holidays, extra expenses, all that. January will be soon enough for people to get a paycheck after the holidays and where they won't be worried about the next big expense period.

I'm not saying that's why she's doing it that way, there are a myriad of different reasons, I'm sure, that she could give us. But if I were running a kickstarter and it was for something that people wouldn't see as charitable and people wouldn't be getting extra items out of I'd wait until after the holidays.

 

[kaitie]

I've always experienced January being incredibly short in terms of money because of Christmas. Traveling, gifts, etc. It adds up and I usually have less money in January than most other times. It doesn't seem like good logic to me.

Also, is it okay to use kickstarter to pay back royalties to authors? Aside from the obvious the answer is no because that was never her money to spend in the first place aspect of it, of course.

 

[folclor]

my concern is more whether there will be enough people putting money into it and whether kickstarter or indiegogo will recognize it and allow it to go forward. From my understanding, the person running the kickstarter has to offer something in return to the investors.

 

[eqb]

She could try a personal fundraiser. For the sake of the authors, some of whom are friends, I would contribute--but only if a *neutral* third party ran the whole show.

 

[kaitie]

Part of the problem, though, is that she's had hundreds of thousands of dollars given to her, and it appears that none of it has actually gone to the authors. Considering the financial straits she is saying she's in, I'm not sure the money would go to the authors this time, either.

Like you said, someone else would need to be in control of the money.

 

[eqb]

Like you said, someone else would need to be in control of the money.

That's the key point I and others have made (or have tried to make) to her. She's lost a lot of trust over the past few years.

 

[girlyswot]

my concern is more whether there will be enough people putting money into it and whether kickstarter or indiegogo will recognize it and allow it to go forward. From my understanding, the person running the kickstarter has to offer something in return to the investors.

I don't know about indiegogo, but I'm pretty sure it's against the Kickstarter TOS. Kickstarter is for fundraising for a particular project. Not life or business debts.

• Kickstarter cannot be used to raise money for causes, whether it's the Red Cross or a scholarship, or for "fund my life" projects, like tuition or bills.

 

[veinglory]

The kickstarter seems to offer a typical ebook or paperback reward package

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2027984632/cobweb-bride

 

[girlyswot]

I didn't mean the current Kickstarter, I meant the proposed one to raise funds to pay off her debts to authors.

 

[veinglory]

If she says that is what it is for, it won't last long.

 

[Gravity]

The woman seems to be a master at pissing copious amounts of other people's cash down her leg.

Personally I wouldn't give her a sou, and advise her to seek professional help. Now.


John Robinson

commercially published: Abyss, Until the Last Dog Dies, When Skylarks Fall, To Skin a Cat, Last Call, and The Radiance


agent Chip MacGregor presently querying: Pitfall


http://www.johnrobinsonbooks.com

http://www.johnrobinsonbooks.com/blog.htm
check out my blog; c'mon, you know you want to.

 

[Torgo]

I didn't mean the current Kickstarter, I meant the proposed one to raise funds to pay off her debts to authors.

This is perplexing me now. So will the bail-out KS offer books as rewards, the same books that need bailing out? The books that already presumably exist somehow in potentia, lacking only orders to trigger printing and/or downloads? I guess there's a slightly bigger profit margin on printing a larger known run compared to piecemeal POD, but how otherwise does this differ from, just, y'know, selling copies of the book?

If I failed to pay your royalty on 1000 copies of a book, and then sell 1000 copies of a book for which I do pay you a royalty, then it would appear you are still down by 1000 copies-worth of royalties. So the second 1000 copies would need to be sold at 2x royalties, right? Is this what's happening? Why they not just ask people to buy the already-existing books via Amazon or something instead of via KS?

I deeply sympathise with Ms Nazarian. It's all too easy for your business - and your life - to take a left turn before you realise what's happening. But this is why publishing with small presses and one-man-bands is a risky business. It's a low-margin trade. If a Big Five publisher hits a double-figure annual operating profit then they crack the champagne open - and that's with a huge portfolio of products and divisions across which to average things.

 

[eqb]

This is perplexing me now. So will the bail-out KS offer books as rewards, the same books that need bailing out?

She can't run a Kickstarter to pay back royalties because Kickstarter doesn't allow campaigns to pay debts. All she can do is run a straight up fundraiser, no rewards, no stretch goals, nothing except donations, with all proceeds going to pay her authors.

And *that* only works if someone else handles the funds.

 

[girlyswot]

All she can do is run a straight up fundraiser, no rewards, no stretch goals, nothing except donations, with all proceeds going to pay her authors.

Exactly.

And, I kind of hate that idea too, because she won't have paid her authors their royalties (even if it all goes according to plan), OTHER PEOPLE will have paid them. But she'll get to take the credit.

 

[Marian Perera]

And, I kind of hate that idea too, because she won't have paid her authors their royalties (even if it all goes according to plan), OTHER PEOPLE will have paid them.

It might be simpler for those other people to just donate money directly to the authors. That way, they wouldn't need this neutral trustworthy third party handling the funds and they wouldn't need to wait until January either.

 

[Bicyclefish]

I've always experienced January being incredibly short in terms of money because of Christmas. Traveling, gifts, etc. It adds up and I usually have less money in January than most other times.

That's been my observation among friends as well.

This is perplexing me now. So will the bail-out KS offer books as rewards, the same books that need bailing out? The books that already presumably exist somehow in potentia, lacking only orders to trigger printing and/or downloads? I guess there's a slightly bigger profit margin on printing a larger known run compared to piecemeal POD, but how otherwise does this differ from, just, y'know, selling copies of the book?

In my experience, backers are often willing to donate more than the actual value of the rewards -- toss in some thank you credits, behind the scenes this and that, signed copies, etc -- so the profit margin via a crowdfunding campaign can be more than just selling books. As it's been mentioned, though, I'm not sure one KS can cover three years of royalties, especially when it may be difficult to draw support from outside her circle of friends.