Silver Publishing

[madmumbler]

I am not personally involved in any way with Siver Publishing, but I'm posting because this morning I've had yet another person approach me (and these are people whom I feel are trustworthy) for info/asking if I've heard scuttlebutt about them and relating troubling issues they are having with Silver. Late or no payment for books they know were sold (going back months) as well as late/no payment for editing services.

I'm hoping by posting this, we'll either get an official response addressing (and/or correcting) these issues, or at the very least if there are flames behind the smoke, others will feel more comfortable coming forward reporting their issues.

If it'd only been one person, I never would have mentioned this. But I've had enough people asking me now I feel it really should be brought up here so anyone timid about speaking out can feel more comfortable doing so.

 

[silverpublishing]

Madmumbler, just to address the points you've mentioned.

Distribution sales are only paid when we receive them. I'm assuming the authors that might have contacted you would most probably be referring to distribution sales for places like Amazon, who pay 60 to 90 days AFTER the end of the month of the sale. Thus they are only paid over when we receive payment for them. Some distributors pay 45 days after the end of the quarter, which would mean the payment falls into the following quarter and sales will only reflect in the following quarter.

If these authors are missing book sales, they should be able to monitor it via their author log in which all our authors have access to and contact us if they see that there might be a problem so it can be sorted out immediately.

In the past 6 to 8 months we've experienced extreme growth and due to this we've had to make internal changes to our admin department as well as the normal hiccups that occur which in turn has delayed payment up to 10 days the past two quarters. We've overcome these hurdles and the changes made in the process rectifies this issue.

As you've said, you're not affiliated with Silver Publishing so you wouldn't be aware that any issues or concerns are discussed in our private author forum which all authors have access to thereby keeping them up to date on what's happening, when and where. Our authors are always welcome to post about concerns or ask questions. Even directly to the publisher.

At no point in time has any of our authors or editors never been paid royalties unless there was nothing to pay over. If an editor or an author has not been paid for something there is obviously a problem somewhere in the system that needs to be brought to our attention. Again, an email directly to the publisher would sort this out ASAP.

Silver Publishing isn't, nor have we ever been, in any financial problems. From my point of view, what most do not take into consideration is the fact that most publisher have a 400% growth in a period of 3 to 5 years. We've achieved that in 6 to 8 months. This has caused quite a bit of hiccups in the general process but it has all been things that have been sorted out. It is completed expected that hiccups can occur.

Feel free to have the people that have contacted you, to email the publisher and address their issues so that any problems and concerns can be sorted out. Without these concerns being voiced to the publisher, they cannot be rectified in a timely fashion.

 

[madmumbler]

Thank you for the quick response and information. I have already passed this forum link on to everyone who's contacted me for their reference.

As I said, normally, I wouldn't have posted something like this, but I've had no less than six different people approach me. (And yes, I did tell them they should email the house directly about their concerns.)

Glad to hear you are responsive to concerns and on top of things.

 

[michael_b]

I am with Silver and, so far in my experience anyway, they've been extremely responsive to any questions or issues I've had.

I'm teamed with a top-notch editor and am pleased to know that, should I submit other stories to them, she and I will be teamed up once more.

My book doesn't come out until November, which means no royalties will be paid out until sometime in April--I think that's right--so I can't address any royalties payment issues.

I can say the scuttlebutt is that Fictionwise is running very late with payouts according to several other publishers I speak with. Amazon is hit or miss on whether payments are late or not. Whether those payments match up with their online sales tool is also a crapshoot, in part, due to their 'return policy' on ebooks. They are late for some publishers, not for others. ARe, as always, remains on the ball with their payments at net 45 days--or less.

 

[Dee Carney]

Allegedly, Silver is in financial trouble and unable to pay authors.
Link to one author's experience:

http://mercyceleste.blogspot.co.uk/?zx=c6aa28c294b49494

IOW, be careful of a publisher offering 60-70% royalties...

 

[Soccer Mom]

Oh man, that is awful. As a former AMP author, I'm sad for them. I hope Silver makes things right, but the emails from the owner don't make me feel hopeful.

 

[amergina]

It has that AMP feel to it, doesn't it?

I hope the author of that blog post has contacted Writer Beware.

 

[StormMoonPress]

IOW, be careful of a publisher offering 60-70% royalties...

While we don't usually comment on other publishers' threads, we felt compelled to make a quick note here in response to Dee Carney's message.

The problem with Silver Publishing at this time has nothing to do with the royalty rate they're offering. The owner has admitted to a gross mismanagement of funds, choosing to reinvest in his business rather than pay his authors. Plenty of small presses offer high royalty rates and still manage to pay their authors on time.

~K. Piet
Marketing Director
Storm Moon Press, LLC

 

[WildScribe]

While we don't usually comment on other publishers' threads, we felt compelled to make a quick note here in response to Dee Carney's message.

The problem with Silver Publishing at this time has nothing to do with the royalty rate they're offering. The owner has admitted to a gross mismanagement of funds, choosing to reinvest in his business rather than pay his authors. Plenty of small presses offer high royalty rates and still manage to pay their authors on time.

~K. Piet
Marketing Director
Storm Moon Press, LLC

And I can vouch for that. You've been wonderful to work with.

 

[firedrake]

Shame that the sorry business was made public in such a mean-spirited, vitriolic manner.

 

[VanessaNorth]

Shame that the sorry business was made public in such a mean-spirited, vitriolic manner.

Really?

So she should have accepted that she would never be paid almost a year's worth of back royalties, and just gone on letting everyone think that Silver is a peach to work for?

Pardon the language I'm thinking and not saying here, but it's a shame her publisher stole from her, and good for her for shining the light on these practices so they won't have the opportunity to do it to others.

 

[veinglory]

Shame that the sorry business was made public in such a mean-spirited, vitriolic manner.

I think it is a shame most of the authors did not disclose the company has failed to pay royalties and is using their authors like a payday loan office. Thus letting other authors sign up for this unfortunate role unawares. Good on Celeste for posting a calm and fact-based report of her experiences, I just went and bought two of her non-Silver books in support.

 

[firedrake]

Yes, he fucked up. He fucked up big time. No one disputes that and his emails to Celeste don't offer any comfort.

However,

a few of those authors that Celeste called 'cowards' stand to lose a damn sight more than her, way more. I think they were hoping that things could be sorted out before lawsuits started flying about. After all, once the lawyers get involved, everything freezes and absolutely nobody wins except the lawyers.

I'm not defending him or Silver. But I see little that's 'calm' in Celeste's post.

 

[veinglory]

Maybe it's a matter of perspective. Silver is still accepting submissions and I run a blog that tries to give new authors relevant information about epublishers.

An author already with the press probably benefits from keeping it under wraps, an author considering submitting there most certainly does not.

Of all the authors involved, including those who withdrew their own books and left Silver, only one seems to have place more weight on that second group. Something I myself didn't do when I was with Chippewa Press and they started failing to pay royalties on time.

 

[firedrake]

Maybe it's a matter of perspective. Silver is still accepting submissions and I run a blog that tries to give new authors relevant information about epublishers.

An author already with the press probably benefits from keeping it under wraps, an author considering submitting there most certainly does not.

Of all the authors involved, including those who withdrew their own books and left Silver, only one seems to have place more weight on that second group.

I do think that Silver are foolish to carry on accepting submissions and the fact that they seem to have loads of sub calls at the moment strikes me as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I can see their 'logic'. More submissions means more sales means more royalties, but it's all skewed. it doesn't solve the current issues and just creates issues further down the road.

I certainly wouldn't sub to them at the moment. I'd like to think it'll get sorted but, as I said, once people start talking of lawyers, then no one wins.

 

[veinglory]

I think they have strengths as a publishers and hope they make it. But I wouldn't submit there right now. So that is a bit of a Catch 22.

 

[James D. Macdonald]

Calmly, everyone.

I can offer little joy to the authors who stay with any publisher in the expectation that everything will be turn out right someday, once the publisher stops paying their contracted royalties. In my experience, when publishers hit the skids they very seldom fight their way back no matter how secret it's kept.

Part of the reason is this: If there isn't any money to pay royalties there isn't any money for anything else, either. The editing suffers. The cover art suffers. The distributors put the publisher on credit hold. The best-selling authors, the ones with the fanbase, get more attractive offers elsewhere. There's even less income then.

Publishing, in the best of times, is a low-profit enterprise. The thought that future income will be so high that back royalties can be paid is unrealistic.

The authors who get out early lose less than the ones who stay loyal; the ones who were rejected, or never submitted, breathe thanks that they dodged a bullet.

We can point to dozens of examples amid the grey links in the Index to this forum.

 

[Sheryl Nantus]

I have to agree with Uncle Jim.

I'm no economic major but I can't see how this can possibly work. Unless there's a USA Today/NYT Bestseller in the newest releases it's going to be almost impossible to do the math to pay the back royalties, keep paying the NEW authors royalties and pay for all the usual expenses.

I find it awful that this publisher decided to use the money for his own purposes.

I wouldn't recommend anyone submit to them at this point. He might pull a miracle out of his butt but at this point he seems to be quite unreliable and not exactly the most honest of fellows, from what we've been told.

And, again, a one-man show. How many of these do we keep on seeing going down?

 

[LindaJeanne]

Taking on new writers to get the money to pay royalties owed to old writers...

I doubt that a pyramid scheme was ever his intention, but it looks like out of desperation, that's exactly what's happening.

 

[Ann_Mayburn]

Adding another log to the fire:

http://theofenraven.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/silver-publishings-shit-goes-public/

 

[michael_b]

Adding another log to the fire:

http://theofenraven.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/silver-publishings-shit-goes-public/

Editing wise take what is said here with a grain of salt. Theo's 'edit' of my story introduced numerous awful typos, in addition to rewriting the entire story in their own voice, gutting all prose descriptions, altering characterization and giving me advice on how to write m/m for a female audience. *shakes head* For the record, I was one of the pioneers of m/m.

 

[James D. Macdonald]

If the publisher has been accepting manuscripts that aren't publishable -- that isn't doing anyone any favors. Particularly not the authors.

If true this reflects poorly on the publisher.

I didn't see this as being aimed at the authors, but rather at the acquisitions department.

 

[James D. Macdonald]

I think that editor was very, very frustrated. Hurting, even. Like making Pablo Casals live under a guy who's trying to learn the tuba.

Realizing that the books she was working on sucked, and not being able to just put them aside and read something else, knowing that the very best she could do, if the author took all her suggestions, would be a really classy sow's ear, that hurts.

But how can she say, "The books they made me work on sucked," without hurting the authors' feelings? Darned hard.

People out in the world don't willingly read bad books. If they've had a bad experience, they try to avoid repeating it. Maybe the very next book that Silver published would be great ... but if the last one they bought was terrible they won't give the brilliant one a chance.

 

[veinglory]

I would not assume the freelance ebook editor was a final arbiter of what does and does not suck, especially when she is working with previously published authors with considerably greater experience with the genre.

 

[Filigree]

The sad thing is, there are Silver books out there I really want to buy. Though I want these authors to get money from my purchase, I don't know if that will actually happen right now. OTOH, if I hold off, those books may not be available again for years.

I'm part of a a Yahoo Group that just featured a chat/blog promo day for Silver authors, and not a one of them breathed a hint of this in public. I guess they are too scared.

My heart breaks for all of them. As I've said, I believed in some art start-ups that worked, and some that soaked me for money and product.