Ridan Publishing

[victoriastrauss]

"My husband has signed three US publishing contracts and not only is he wedded to those companies “for life” he’s wedded to them in death as the terms extend for the length of the copyright which is 70 years after his death."

He should be so lucky. At some point--without a doubt, in his lifetime--the publisher will take Michael Sullivan's books out of print, and he'll be able to request reversion of his rights.

Even for those rare books that don't go out of print, copyright law provides for creators to demand reversion after 35 years.

Although I'm all for author-friendly contracts, and thankful that Ann and Nathan have been able to get free, Ridan's author termination provision is a sign of its lack of real-world experience. Publishers need to guard their own interests--and allowing your authors to boot you to the curb anytime they want is not good business practice.

- Victoria

 

[Deleted member 42]

I think MacAllister pretty much nailed it.

 

[Terie]

I’ve spent several hundred hours on these files: Correcting OCR errors, ebook formatting, cover design, marketing copy writing, proofreading and so on.

I was never given the changes for the last book so I couldn't have put it out. As soon as I get it I will turn it she'll have a return copy within 24 hours.

The woman can't keep her story straight for a mere 12 hours! Does it take hundreds of hours, or could they each have been turned around in 24? And if each could have been turned around that quickly, why weren't they?

Seriously, she needs to stop digging. Every post she makes over at the Kindle boards just makes her look worse and worse.

 

[Sheryl Nantus]

The woman can't keep her story straight for a mere 12 hours! Does it take hundreds of hours, or could they each have been turned around in 24? And if each could have been turned around that quickly, why weren't they?

Seriously, she needs to stop digging. Every post she makes over at the Kindle boards just makes her look worse and worse.

I was under the impression, and if someone wants to correct me please do so - but I thought Ann had handed in all of the books. There wasn't anything outstanding from Ann's side.

I think this could be used as the best example of why an author should avoid a one-person operation. RS seems to have been overwhelmed over a year ago and it's only come to a head due to the infamy she's created by screwing over one of the most famous authors in the world. And she only reacted to *that* because Jim Hines got involved.

Prime example.

Don't go with one-person outfits. Period.

 

[twiharder]

I feel bad for her husband.

.

I don't. Michael J. Sullivan has never had a delayed release. He gets his money on time, in fact, I suspect he's got to live quite well off the royalties that Ridan scrapes in from all her other authors. He didn't step up when Robin, apparently couldn't cope (except that she coped quite well with all her ego stroking self publicity tours). I put him in the same basket as Robin. As the internet falls on her head, he's going to be crushed too.

I feel bad for Orbit.

 

[Foinah]

I don't. Michael J. Sullivan has never had a delayed release. He gets his money on time, in fact, I suspect he's got to live quite well off the royalties that Ridan scrapes in from all her other authors. He didn't step up when Robin, apparently couldn't cope (except that she coped quite well with all her ego stroking self publicity tours). I put him in the same basket as Robin. As the internet falls on her head, he's going to be crushed too.

I feel bad for Orbit.

Momentary derail.
Ha! I admit to a bit of ignorance here ~ When I saw ORBIT I was thinking, "Wow. I loved that book."
I then followed my train as it derailed off the tracks and thought Robin was married to John Nance, the author of Orbit. Snerk.
But then the coffee kicked in and I had my D'OH moment. Orbit Books.
Got it.

Carry on.

 

[Deleted member 42]

Please desist from discussing family members of the publisher.

 

[AC Crispin]

Update on the StarBridge titles: the StarBridge books available for sale as e-books on Amazon, B&N, and Kobo.com have now been transferred back to me and my collaborators. We will be working to create new editions with different covers, updating the files to take Ridan's name off them, etc., but the books -- and the money -- are now ours, rather than Ridan's. Ridan cooperated on sending us the files, and we have confirmed that royalty payments have been paid. Ridan has NOT removed the books from its website yet; do not purchase my books there or on iTunes, where, for technical reasons, there is difficulty transferring the titles.

Re-launching the books with new covers will take some time, obviously. I'd also like to have them available in hardcopy and as audio books. We're investigating ways to do that.

In the meantime, the current editions will be for sale on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, and Kobo.com, and the payments will go in their entirety to me and my collaborators. So if you were thinking of purchasing them, you can do so and know that your money will go to the authors and not Ridan.

Also, thanks to Robin Sullivan, Ancestor's World, (StarBridge 6) should be appearing for sale on Amazon and B&N in a day or two, with Voices of Chaos (StarBridge 7) to follow in a week or so.

While this is obviously not what I had hoped for when I published with Ridan, I hope that all this publicity about the StarBridge books will bring them to the attention of more readers, and those who wish me well will consider buying copies, not out of charity, but because they are fun reads.

 

[MadGastronomer]

Hooray! I can't wait! I'm reading Silent Songs now, and I'm really excited to be able to pick up the next books when I finish this one.

 

[shaldna]

Not for nothing, but how many times have we seen troubled publishers offer these very same lame excuses to justify their unprofessional behavior?

The issue I have, and have stressed for the last year, is that just because she may or may not have personal issues, if she, or anyone else, is going to set themselves up as a professional operation then they MUST be professional at all times. This means having the safeguards in place so that, in the unfortunate event that you cannot run your business, that there is a system in place to ensure that all those people who are relying on you are not let down, inconvenienced or damaged by it. Look at it this way, do you think if the CEO of Random House has a personal tragedy that operations at RH would cease? No. Fact is, 99% of people would never even know.

It doesn't matter if you are a one woman shop or a multi-national publishing house, step up or step away.

The woman can't keep her story straight for a mere 12 hours! Does it take hundreds of hours, or could they each have been turned around in 24? And if each could have been turned around that quickly, why weren't they?

Seriously, she needs to stop digging. Every post she makes over at the Kindle boards just makes her look worse and worse.

I think she needs to stop belittling authors. She has basically made out that she had to work so damn hard because the books weren't ready (implying that Ann didn't do a good enough job and Robin had to do it) and then futher put Ann down by the line 'those few hundred dollars' which implies that it's all a big fuss over nothing.

It's not classy and it's not professional.

I though Robin would have wised up a bit to how her behaviour comes across and how it can damage her reputation back when she was banned from here, but I see that she's still in blissful ignorance - a bad show for a publisher which, by their own admission, relies heavily on social networking and direct contact with readers to sell their books.

I don't. Michael J. Sullivan has never had a delayed release.

What you have to note is that Ridan was initially set up with the sole purpose of publishing Michael's books. Taking on other authors came later.

Update on the StarBridge titles: the StarBridge books available for sale as e-books on Amazon, B&N, and Kobo.com have now been transferred back to me and my collaborators. We will be working to create new editions with different covers, updating the files to take Ridan's name off them, etc., but the books -- and the money -- are now ours, rather than Ridan's. Ridan cooperated on sending us the files, and we have confirmed that royalty payments have been paid. Ridan has NOT removed the books from its website yet; do not purchase my books there or on iTunes, where, for technical reasons, there is difficulty transferring the titles.

Re-launching the books with new covers will take some time, obviously. I'd also like to have them available in hardcopy and as audio books. We're investigating ways to do that.

In the meantime, the current editions will be for sale on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, and Kobo.com, and the payments will go in their entirety to me and my collaborators. So if you were thinking of purchasing them, you can do so and know that your money will go to the authors and not Ridan.

Also, thanks to Robin Sullivan, Ancestor's World, (StarBridge 6) should be appearing for sale on Amazon and B&N in a day or two, with Voices of Chaos (StarBridge 7) to follow in a week or so.

While this is obviously not what I had hoped for when I published with Ridan, I hope that all this publicity about the StarBridge books will bring them to the attention of more readers, and those who wish me well will consider buying copies, not out of charity, but because they are fun reads.

Thanks for the update Ann, and sorry it didn't work out for you.

But on the plus side, there are clearly a lot of people who want to buy (and have indeed tried to buy) the books.

 

[Chris P]

I must say reading this thread for the last two years has been quite a learning experience, not to mention sobering. The irony is that Robin's active presence on AW got our interest up, and we wouldn't have paid so much attention to the current woes had she not. I don't want to be cavalier about someone's suffering, but the fishbowl she put herself in on AW has taught me quite a bit about publishing.

 

[Terie]

In the meantime, the current editions will be for sale on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, and Kobo.com, and the payments will go in their entirety to me and my collaborators. So if you were thinking of purchasing them, you can do so and know that your money will go to the authors and not Ridan.

I hope you will be putting the books on Smashwords and Fictionwise, too, for those of us who purchase our e-books from those sites.

 

[shaldna]

In slightly related news, Michael Sullivan clearly has time to post on the Kindle boards about how awful we are because we actually use industry correct terminology - several references to Robin Sullivan and why she was banned.

http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,128570.msg1902838.html#msg1902838

Apparently we are 'squelching' Robin Sullivan from 'speaking up'

 

[MadGastronomer]

I hope you will be putting the books on Smashwords and Fictionwise, too, for those of us who purchase our e-books from those sites.

Yes, please do! I use a Sony.

 

[Sheryl Nantus]

In slightly related news, Michael Sullivan clearly has time to post on the Kindle boards about how awful we are because we actually use industry correct terminology - several references to Robin Sullivan and why she was banned.

http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,128570.msg1902838.html#msg1902838

Apparently we are 'squelching' Robin Sullivan from 'speaking up'

To be fair, that was before this entire story broke.

He hasn't posted since RS made her initial statement on the KB about her "troubles".

 

[Sheryl Nantus]

Michael Sullivan posted the following statement to the Ridan thread on Reddit - he hadn't posted since the entire situation started four days ago.

"Wow, you go offline for a few days to concentrate on writing and all hell breaks loose. I'm not going to go through and respond to this thread just going to make a couple of quick comments.

• First of Ridan is my wife's company my only association with it is I've helped with some covers and when I was self-published I had some books published through it. It really is a "one woman show" (which is probably the biggest part of the problem.
• Second. Robin has had a number of personal items (of which I'll not discuss here. Which meant that many Ridan things fell through the crack. Yes she was late with two payments to A.C. but that's been resolved and she's working to transition authors from Ridan to self-publishing because she knows she just can't give that enterprise the attention that she once did.
• Robin is a HUGE writers advocate and has done a great deal to help authors, both her own, and those who listen to her advice online. She was responsible for selling thousands of books for her Ridan people (and no not just me) and has helped to put hundreds of thousands of dollars in their pockets. She is, however, a one woman show and when real life problems occur they unfortunately bleed overs to others. It wasn't an attempt to "do them wrong" it was a matter of she had a lot of her plate and some things fell off.
• Robin transferred all of Ann's book over to her now (she had Ann setup accounts and then she posted all the books. She didn't have the content for the last one, but that was recently given her and she has already turned that over to her. I see that #6 has already gone live and I expect #7 will any day now as well. It should be fast, but is outside of Robin's hands as A.C. has the files.
• Yes, I MADE Robin go on vacation. We had planned it out long in advance, it was already paid for, but more importantly she really needed some time away. Yes that delayed things by 7 days but in the grand scheme of things that 7 days was probably the best use of her time. Sometimes when you need to recharge so you can can come back strong."

I believe most of this is what Robin's already posted on KB and elsewhere but at least now we have a response, of sorts, from her husband.

Make of that what you will.

 

[thothguard51]

While I understand Michael defending his wife, his explanation only covers the 7 days while on vacation.

 

[Stacia Kane]

Michael Sullivan posted the following statement to the Ridan thread on Reddit - he hadn't posted since the entire situation started four days ago.

...and she's working to transition authors from Ridan to self-publishing because she knows she just can't give that enterprise the attention that she once did.

I believe most of this is what Robin's already posted on KB and elsewhere but at least now we have a response, of sorts, from her husband.

Make of that what you will.

So Robin is terminating her contracts with other authors because she can no longer run Ridan, or can no longer run it unless the number of authors is lowered? Am I reading that correctly?

 

[thothguard51]

I think Michael is talking only about those authors who have requested release from Ridan.

As far as I know, that only includes Nathan Lowell and AC Crispin...

 

[MadGastronomer]

Yes she was late with two payments to A.C. but that's been resolved and she's working to transition authors from Ridan to self-publishing because she knows she just can't give that enterprise the attention that she once did.

She's working to transition authors? Meaning the authors who have already terminated their contracts?

And again I note that nothing is said about orders going unfulfilled. RS never addressed it over at KB, either. Just vague "balls were dropped" language.

As a sidenote: The unclosed parentheses make me twitchy.

 

[AC Crispin]

I saw the comment above and would like to correct the misapprehension from my former publisher: ALL of the StarBridge books were turned in, edited and proofread, many months ago. I usually check the books after they are translated into e-book form. I was unable to do this for books 6 and 7 because, as far as I know, they were not made e-book ready until a day or two ago. I'm still not sure about the exact status of book 7, except that it has been proofread by me and my collaborator. You will have to forgive my non-technical language regarding the books. All of them required extensive proofreading and in some cases, editing, because of the errors introduced by the OCR process, which my collaborators and I performed.

We were not dilatory with proofreading and editing these books. It is entirely possible that Robin Sullivan was not aware that the books had been proofread, edited, and the files sent on to her, because she told me she had not had much access to the internet for months, and had not read any of my emails in a long time. She also said she had not read any of my certified letters, even though she had personally signed for one. So it is possible she was unaware the work had been submitted in a timely fashion.

Regarding her comments about poor sales: the only thing Robin Sullivan did in regard to promoting my StarBridge series was in the spring, when she lowered the price of StarBridge, the first novel, to 99 cents. She said that was the first step in starting to do promotion, and the reduction in price was temporary, to get sales going. (The book remained at 99 cents until a few days ago.) That was pretty much the last I heard from her until this past Saturday, except for a rushed note in mid-August saying that she was going to be attending to Ridan business when she got back from vacation. She promised to follow up...but did not. I felt I had no option but to terminate the contract, because books 6 and 7 were at least 8 months late.

Just wanted to set the record straight.

-Ann C. Crispin

 

[thothguard51]

Ann,

Unsure when Ridan lowered the price to the first in the Starbridge series to 99 cents but I can assure you that when I bought the first it was more than 99 cents, as were the next two. If I remember right, I think I paid $4.99 for the Kindle version, which I thought was very reasonable for a writer of your stature. I plan on finishing the series and will feel better knowing that you control of your work...

 

[Sheryl Nantus]

I saw the comment above and would like to correct the misapprehension from my former publisher: ALL of the StarBridge books were turned in, edited and proofread, many months ago. I usually check the books after they are translated into e-book form. I was unable to do this for books 6 and 7 because, as far as I know, they were not made e-book ready until a day or two ago. I'm still not sure about the exact status of book 7, except that it has been proofread by me and my collaborator. You will have to forgive my non-technical language regarding the books. All of them required extensive proofreading and in some cases, editing, because of the errors introduced by the OCR process, which my collaborators and I performed.

We were not dilatory with proofreading and editing these books. It is entirely possible that Robin Sullivan was not aware that the books had been proofread, edited, and the files sent on to her, because she told me she had not had much access to the internet for months, and had not read any of my emails in a long time. She also said she had not read any of my certified letters, even though she had personally signed for one. So it is possible she was unaware the work had been submitted in a timely fashion.

Regarding her comments about poor sales: the only thing Robin Sullivan did in regard to promoting my StarBridge series was in the spring, when she lowered the price of StarBridge, the first novel, to 99 cents. She said that was the first step in starting to do promotion, and the reduction in price was temporary, to get sales going. (The book remained at 99 cents until a few days ago.) That was pretty much the last I heard from her until this past Saturday, except for a rushed note in mid-August saying that she was going to be attending to Ridan business when she got back from vacation. She promised to follow up...but did not. I felt I had no option but to terminate the contract, because books 6 and 7 were at least 8 months late.

Just wanted to set the record straight.

-Ann C. Crispin

This sort of terrifies me. The blatant lack of concern for her business and her continuing excuses by her and her husband for Ridan's failings is just scary.

But I suspect Ridan will go on. They'll go to NYCC this weekend, sit on a panel with Colleen Lindsay and brag about Ridan and she'll get more unknowing authors to offer up their works to her and so forth, wallowing in the praise and adoration from the self-pub world who seems to have grown mysteriously silent about one of their own destroying their author base...

And the beat goes on and on...

 

[thothguard51]

Are you sure Robin is going to be sitting on a panel with Colleen Linday? The reason I ask is because on NYCC website, a search for Ridan Publishing, Robin Sullivan or Michael Sullivan does not turn up anything. Even in booth exhibits or autograph signings...

Also, Colleen's website list who she is sitting with and again, Ridan or Robin's name does not appear...

Maybe they are just going as spectators, fans, etc. Nothing wrong in that...

 

[Old Hack]

Up until a few days ago Colleen was definitely appearing on a panel with the Sullivans.