Take a look, as Silks Vault has been suspended since January 1st, 2008 by the state of Wisconsin.

I have no problem giving my advice, opinion or the benefits of my experience to other authors. But I don’t owe it to them. It’s choice.

I’m only saying if we have the mind set that we’re privileged to be published, and that we owe it to other writers to give something back (how it is back anyway when it’s ours and was never theirs?) we’re sliding down a road that can devalue what we do, what we’ve accomplished.

We’re all entitled to see life as we see it.

I can’t agree. Being published isn’t a privilege, and it’s not a matter of owing. I don’t feel I owe new or aspiring writers anything because I’m published.

I choose to give my opinion, and would certainly not stay silent if I knew of violations or underhanded practices in the business. But this isn’t because I’ve been privileged or because I owe anyone. It’s because I believe there’s right and there’s wrong.

Being published isn’t a privilege or a right. It’s a job. It’s work. It’s a profession.

I was with Romance Foretold from the beginning of that venture when there were three imprints…including the one for which I wrote, Dark Star Publications. Then RF became RFI West and that was when the real problems started. It was the same old/same old with books sold and not accounted for, royalty checks not sent on time or never sent at all, money owed the cover artist…the whole shebang. When several of us at RFI West had had enough, we went out and started Amber Quill Press. Because we knew what it was to be cheated, we had no intention of allowing the authors who took a chance on us to ever know the same problems we’d had. We also tried to warn those authors who steadfastly refused to leave RFI West. They wouldn’t listen.

And therein lies the biggest problem here: writers who refuse to listen.

You don’t want to believe you’ve been had. That’s just human nature. When you realize you have been screwed, it’s usually too late. The bewilderment becomes hurt which becomes anger…not only at the publisher but at yourself for being a fool…and then comes the desire to get even. Some do it on a blog. Some do it via email to Yahoo groups. Some do it with the law.

Report what you know to Piers Anthony. Report it to Preditors and Editors. Several thieving publishers have been brought down via the web and they will continue to be brought down only if writers do what they do best: write. Put your experience out there for others to see. Go on groups and tell your tale. Let other people know what’s going on. In this instance, ignorance is definitely not bliss.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: authors owe something back to their struggling peers for the privilege of being published. What better way than to help protect them from the unscrupulous? Don’t be afraid to speak out. Don’t be afraid to step on toes.

And be very careful about these new startup publishing outfits. They are going to come out of the woodwork now. Some will make it; most won’t. Most will have good intentions; some won’t. Do your homework.

Charlee

As Nora has said time and time again, publishing is a professional undertaking, not an effing Girls Club. Get over the loyalty issues already, and do what’s best for you.

And for the sake of all the authors and editors I know at Silk I hope this gets resolved before there are anymore problems.

And no, to SK’s statement above, royalties are not supposed to be late sometimes. Real life does not get in the way of a legitimate publisher paying their authors as per the contract. Real life is their problem.

Computers do crash. That’s why data is backed-up. Sent to Iraq? If that was a possibility, said publisher should have a solid contigency plan in place for the running of his/her company. None of that excuses non-payment to an author for work delivered as per contract.

Example sent to young author

Dear Sir,
As I see from this present submission, you have some difficulty following or understanding direction. As I also see from the beginning lines of your story, you seem to have a problem with women.

At this time, we are not interested in obtaining your story. Might I suggest removing all the formatting symbols and, etc. and adhering to the submission guidelines when you submit to another publisher.

And the response from author

Hi,

I visited your website by a fatal mistake and I ask you to remove all my personal data from your database. I wrote a letter to the editor, who appears to be very unprofessional in my eyes (see at the bottom) and I think that if anybody visits your website and asks a question, should be treated accordingly.
In marketing strategies, managers are taught to treat their customers and employees well, as anybody may buy products; this is psychology of behavior and success.

I have done nothing bad, I’m only look for a dark-fiction market like in a shop where I expect that the shopman does not hit me in the face because he doesn’t like the book I want to buy.

I think you have problem with writing submission guidelines and communication. No more information than this was included on your website: Your manuscript must be submitted in Times New Roman, 12 pt., Justified, RTF or .doc format, and 1 1/2 spaced. – Might I suggest removing all the formatting symbols – where is the information about formatting symbols on your website? –

I did nothing; I only sent you a story, a fiction and if its content makes you believe that I have a problem with women, it is offending…

Many websites use complicated wording and good submission guidelines are always understood well.
A professional editor never offends his possible authors.

My first story disappeared, so you shouldn’t have written me that “Please correct this and resubmit. �?

Attachments may also disappear, so I sent it again, as I didn’t know what you received.

I hope you will have better days some day and I want to apologize for doing such a fatal mistake and visiting such a depressive source of information on the Internet and I’ll delete all links to your website immediately.

Now that that is out of the way maybe you will understand what I ment by ripping into unsuspecting authors. Next time read my words in the context they were written.

I know that it even happens to poloticians because they are in a politican race, but last I checked this was a form to speak your mind and give your opionion I was not trying to attack Camille as you tried to make it appear. I just asked a question if there was documention to prove or disprove her statements? Just asking for facts like a logical person should before they jump the gun and jump on some one elses ban wagon.

If Camille’s statments are true and provable then more power to her. If they are not based on fact then why are we making such a big deal about it? Just the facts that’s all I’m asking for.

The only question and comments I made are there statual proof of what some one claims and who has the right to decide that one person’s words should be taken as gold before all teh facts are proven. What if The owner oF Silk came on here and cut and pasted every letter, statment and cash stub Camille was ever given. Every letter, every piece of documentationed dated stamped and all that jazz. And let’s just say Camille did the same thing. then we are dealing with facts.

I also mentioned I would like to see an no name left list of pros and cons to any publishign company. If your intetions are to protect unsuspecting authors for Bad or good publishers.

Pros
Publisher does a good job on covers
Publisher has several editors go over manuscripts

Con
publisher is late of payments
Publisher doesn’t do enough promitions

Now that is a site I would like to see. That way it doesn’t Have to be . This authors said this. Or I worry about being labled a problem Author. Their Identies are protected.

As stated above, all we are caring about is the bad. Is there good or is it all bad? Personaly it sounds like hit or miss. Either you are mad and then really mad or you are happy but quiet.

Since every one is having there little rant do to Camille’s rant. Question has any one checked strait to the source of the company and found out???? There is documentation to prove it all out there, to counter or prove Camille’s words.

Erm…. evidently you didn’t read Jane’s post properly… like the bit where she says she’s tried contacting the publisher for their side of the story?

Also, you obviously didn’t read the part where Camille talks about her royalty statement from Silk’s and the fact that her Fictionwise sales weren’t included on them. That’s like working for five days, but only being paid for three of those days. I’d be pissed too.

but ripping into the authors is not cool.

Sorry, I obviously missed something, who’s ripping into authors here?

I know that Silk has problems and are working to make things better for their authors. Who protects Authors from poeple, who work for such companies, doing a job and just becasue they are having a bad day or are mad at the company decide to rip into unsuspecting authors who are trying to submit to such companies. Even I have bought a book at the book store and questioned after reading it how it got into print without more work, but ripping into the authors is not cool.

Royalties might be late some times and real life gets in the way, computers crash with all the information needed to get those pretty little beauties out. If there is only one person running the purse strings in some companies, because trust is a big issue. If that persons computer or reserves service is called in….Wait what would happen if the owner got sent to Iraq?? Planning is needed for these things, but there is an authors only site, for Silk, that tries to do it’s best to keep the authors in the knowledge of what is going on.

It is sad when bad things happen and they do. And as some one above mentioned, sites, that are still young, are going to have a roller coaster ride as they go around the world and fail or iron out the wrinkles and becoem better for it. As My hopes since I know several authors and editors of Silk I’m hoping for the later.

Good or bad the jury is still out truthfully. And every one has a bad thing to say about this publisher and another publisher. On and on it goes. But then bad news sells newspapers and horror films. Personaly I don’t read papers or watch horror movies. I watch things with happily ever afters cause you know I like hearing the good.

It would be realy nice to see a comaprision to how many have problems with this publisher and who doesn’t head to head. Somethign tells me it would either be even, or go either way. but then that is my idea an anominus poll with comments hey now there is an idea.

I agree. And I don’t think Sandra and Sarah disagree all that much.

On the personal integrity front, this wouldn’t be a factor for me unless I knew the publisher (who is likely the OWNER) personally, and for a long time. Like we were childhood pals. And even then…..

I think Karen has a point. Too many writers just want it too much and sign without really doing all they should to protect themselves and the work first.

It’s often said–or I’ve often read–that e-publishers are not the same as NY paper publishers. I’d have to agree. Therefore, a writer shouldn’t jump to contract as they might with a paper publisher who is likely a big corporation and in business for decades. Even then you can run into trouble, but if a publisher is owned by an individual, or a small group of individuals, and has been in business a short time, it’s up to the writer to take all the steps he or she can to protect the work.

The contract is only important when looking at a new business in terms of the degree of business acumen it demonstrates on the part of the people handing it to you. If the contract does not even cover their butts in the event of likely to come up business scenarios, then it’s very likely that they will be in the 95% of business that fail in their first five years because they didn’t even invest the time to understand the basics of the business they are getting into.

While ideally it would be wonderful if business paid their authors first, just like in real life and in people’s homes, what gets paid first when money is tight is what’s the higher priority. Ie groceries over electric, electric over phone. In the publishing business the authors are the last to get paid because on the urgency scale, they are the least pressure.

As far as understanding what an authors contract covers in what circumstances, an author has three options: self education, professional consultation, or ignorance. Understanding a contract and how clauses interact might seem like a lot, but authors and publishers are bound by the terms of the contract. Up to the exact wording. (Which is why sometimes vague wording can work for an author and other times sweating verbs and conjunctions is very important.) IOW, the contract matters HUGELY but it is up to the author to understand what is an enforceable clause, what clauses have time tables associated with them, what laws will override a clause in what circumstances etc.

As for relying on integrity… *sigh* This may label me a cynic, but about the only way that I would believe a publisher would put my royalty check above saving their business, feeding their kids or meeting their house payment would be because the penalty clause in my contract made paying me first a bigger imperative.

I believe it is bad for e-publishing in general because we get lumped together. I wish it were like the pizza business…but e-publishing is just too new in the minds of potential authors and readers. Sales-wise we are still in the infancy stage of the game against print. There are a few exceptions like New Concepts and Ellora’s Cave which have been around for a longer period of time.

I don’t believe it is mismanagement either. There is no excuse to not pay your authors when they get a % of the income. Even in your pizza analogy, what would happen to that business if it didn’t pay its vendors, didn’t pay the heat and light bills, didn’t pay its employees? Authors come first, owners come last, not the other way around.

And given the bankruptcy proceedings of Triskelion, a lot of us are finding out the contract really doesn’t matter, which was a huge shock to us.

What it all really comes down to is the personal integrity of the owners/publishers. There are only two ways to attempt to determine that, in my humble opinion: 1) chat with the owner/publisher if at all possible and 2) talk with as many of the current authors as possible (past ones too if you can locate them) and discern how they were treated by the company in regards to payment as promised, communication, and professionalism in the business.

Even then, its possible to make a mistake. Even more than one. I know because I did make those mistakes when I followed an editor rather than my instincts. It cost me four full length novels, two short stories and three works I edited.

For everyone communication is key. Communication with the company, communication with the authors represented by that company, communication within your writing groups, communication with new authors. For newer authors the biggest problem is knowing where to turn to get that information. For too many of us, we learn the lesson late. But hopefully, we do learn the lesson.

Happy writing to all of you. Keep scribbling your wonderful stories and looking for places of integrity to submit them to, whether they be electronic or print. That is the best any of us can do; live well and let your muse inspire you!

I do believe that most businesses start out with very good intentions. The reality, however, is that after the excitement of opening the doors there’s a business to run and not everyone is good at that and they soon find they’re over their head. That’s when the floundering starts which results in all the stress and bad feelings.

I would suggest another thing for authors to look at when it comes to determining the business savvy of a new publisher. The contract. When they look at it, the author should look at how thoroughly the contract protects the House’s rights in all potential situations. The structure of the contract, how completely it handles the risks on their side of the business is a pretty good indication of the business sense of the people starting the company. I’m not talking a contract that rips an author off. That’s a bad sign too. But a fair contract that reflects the reality of the business to me is a must because my contract is not the only one the house will be signing. They will also sign with distributors, other authors, production companies, etc. In my search for a new e-house, I checked out a couple recent start ups and despite personal recommends for the people starting them up, after looking at the contracts I decided not to submit. While I absolutely hope these publishers succeed, I didn’t feel comfortable with the only thing I had which reflected their comprehension of their side of the business.

I don’t think this reflects badly on epubs per se, though. All small businesses have their share of incompetents.

The “five years rule” comes from the 20th century bricks and mortar world, and is of limited value for Internet business. YouTube got bought by Google ~18 months after starting, and two good epubs–Loose-Id and Samhain–are well short of five years.

Money problems are the end result. Revenue/income is a result of how your business is doing, not a cause. Run a business badly, and eventually the money crunch will come. That’s far too late to act as a warning sign.

Sites like Piers Anthony and Editors and Preditors do good work as early warnings. But again, the slide has begun by then–not much help to the people who are already with a problem house, unless they heed the signs and move on.

So what’s an author to do? These suggestions are based on a number of years I spent researching Internet companies professionally:

1. Google the term “due diligence” (with the quotes) to get an idea of what you can research, how and where.

2. Publishing is a business. Check out the owners’ previous business experience. If it’s their first business, they have a lot to prove.

3. Check out the owners’ previous business(es). This is great info, past performance is far more informative than current promises. You’re not looking for failure–presumably if it succeeded, they wouldn’t be in this new business–but for how they did business while it lasted, and how they closed it.

4. Put on a customer hat. Buy from them, ask a question, fake a problem (but don’t go overboard!), request a refund, etc. Would you do business with them again as a customer?

Those are a few basic things you can do to get a picture of how likely an epub is to stay doing business well, and treating you well. You can do a lot more of course if you have an understanding of small business yourself, or access to restricted info, contacts etc.

Be careful out there :)

Mike, Atlantic Bridge Publishing and Liquid Silver Books.