Comments on: Chrissy Brashears Files Suit Against Ellora’s Cave

By: emily

emily — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:42:28 +0000

Not commenting on this at all would be about as sensible as ignoring an elephant in the room. You don’t have to poke the elephant with a stick, just acknowledge it is there and take that into account.

By: kirsten saell

kirsten saell — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:02:53 +0000

Because it is so small, authors think publishers are their friends and feel the need to step in and stand up for them. They aren’t your friend and they have a team of lawyers to do the job. Publishers can be friendly with you and vice versa, nothing wrong with that. But this is business not a fricking sorority. I am a contract writer, and my allegiance is to myself. I know, bitchy, but that is my personality and it is the truth. I am not part of the company, but an independent contractor.

In this instance, I think the compulsion to take sides has a lot to do with blatant self-interest on the part of authors. It isn’t that someone is dissing my girlfriend (be she Tina Engler or Crissy Brashear), it’s the fact that if my publisher is negatively affected, I could be negatively affected.

By: Shiloh Walker

Shiloh Walker — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:27:54 +0000

I generally think it’s a bad idea for an author to gossip about any publisher period. Offering opinions? That’s different and my opinion is that this is between EC’s owners and Samhain’s owners

Actually it’s not an unnecessary party~Crissy OWNS Samhain. She doesn’t work for them. She owns it. So in effect, it is between the two owners, although you’re right in the sense that Samhain, the business, isn’t involved. That was poor wording on my part and I apologize, but it doesn’t change the truth of the statement either.

By: Caitlin

Caitlin — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 06:33:13 +0000

I really don’t understand much about lawsuits but this kind of thing is annoying…

I generally think it’s a bad idea for an author to gossip about any publisher period. Offering opinions? That’s different and my opinion is that this is between EC’s owners and Samhain’s owners

Why the heck does that matter? The suit is between Brashears and EC. I don’t see why Samhain’s name is being dragged into it because it has no relevance whatsoever. So the woman works for Samhain now. The whole issue is between Brashears and EC.

The Smart Bitches website made a passing mention of Brashears now working with Samhain, but this isn’t even mentioned at all in Jane’s post because it’s irrelevant. Why bring up unnecessary parties? It over complicates things.

By: Melissa Schroeder

Melissa Schroeder — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:50:21 +0000

Patricia,
One thing I like about epublishing is a lot of the openess of it. I still have NY authors who don’t believe I make the percentage per digital copy I do because so many of them signed for much less. They were told that was the going rate.
And you are right. There are two sides to every story and there doesn’t always have to be a BAD guy.

By: Patricia Briggs

Patricia Briggs — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:22:58 +0000

The problem with being a business is that businesses are run by people. People get crabby/upset/whatever with each other. Very few people who are friends can go into business together and stay that way forever. Money/finances/business plans all raise conflicts.

The problem with being an e-publishing business, is that people who read e-books hang out on the Internet and gossip about their favorite things: in this case e-publishers. Gossip on the Internet never goes away. Ten years from now people can search this blog out.

And the biggest problem with being a publisher is that if you tick off your authors . . . you are ticking off WRITERS. Writers (or so I’ve heard on one of my favorite movies — Throw Mama From the Train) write. And writers who are e-published, write on the Internet.

I don’t think bringing all this out into the open is necessarily an unhealthy thing. In the old days, the big NY houses tried all sorts of stuff they never would today. My own publisher, Ace (who has, for the last fifteen years been terrific to me — and I’ve not heard anything bad about them in that time) was responsible for publishing Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings without giving him any $ when TLOTR first was published in the US. Since they weren’t paying the author (due to some strange laws or lack thereof that have since changed) the Ace books were cheaper than the books brought out by the publisher who had contracts with Tolkien (DelRey, I think).

Tolkien was blessed with rabid fans who forced their bookstores to send the Ace editions back to the publisher. Ace eventually contacted Tolkien, sent him royalties and begged him to talk to his fans so that they would quit boycotting Ace. Without the spread of information, Tolkien would have been without recourse.

Certainly a lawsuit is news, especially one that might have an impact on EC or Samhain authors. It is probably not an excuse for jumping automatically on anyone’s side. There is not necessarily a “bad” guy involved in a lawsuit, just two parties who are unhappy with each other and need an outsider to arbitrate. This is to stop matters before people start a Hatfield/McCoy incident.

By: The overwhelming femaleness of e-publishing…good or bad? « The thing is…

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:49:35 +0000

[...] April 8, 2008 in blogs, epublishers Big news this morning about Christine Brashear, who is currently with Samhain Publishing and was previously a part of Ellora’s Cave. Ms. Brashear is filing suit against EC and its shareholders. Not being of a legal mindset, I don’t understand it enough to comment on it but you can read about the whole thing at Smart Bitches and Dear Author. [...]

By: Melissa Schroeder

Melissa Schroeder — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:20:28 +0000

I don’t think the posts in themselves have been gossipy at all. While I do wonder who pointed SB to the filing (let’s be honest that unless the bitches have nothing better to do, they would not have known about it unless someone pointed to it-and this is my little gossipy bit, lol) but I find it newsworthy within the publishing world.
What I do find gossipy are some of the author comments, not on this site. I publish with both companies, and have had decent experiences with both. That being said, it is always best to remember that epublishing, and really romance publishing, is a small world. Feelings are hurt, people think they have been screwed, and in this day and age, they use online resources to attack(again, not talking about the posts, talking about the comments). I know there are publishers I would never write for because of their practices, or my experience with them, but other authors LOVE them. I know there are people who will never write for companies I do because of some problem in the past.
There is probably some right and wrong on both sides. Because it is so small, authors think publishers are their friends and feel the need to step in and stand up for them. They aren’t your friend and they have a team of lawyers to do the job. Publishers can be friendly with you and vice versa, nothing wrong with that. But this is business not a fricking sorority. I am a contract writer, and my allegiance is to myself. I know, bitchy, but that is my personality and it is the truth. I am not part of the company, but an independent contractor.
My attitude is sit and wait. Hopefully, everything will be tidied up soon, any wrongs will be fixed, and we can move on to the next big publishing scandal.

By: Ann Bruce

Ann Bruce — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:01:21 +0000

Karen, if I sound hypocritical, I don’t mean to be. I’m not trying to deter people from commenting; I’m just stating my own.

Anybody care to start tallying the “good guys” — meaning stable, approachable, trustworthy, and generally author-fair and -friendly — in epublishing? Loose Id, Changeling, Liquid Silver?

Automatically in some people’s minds, because of a lawsuit between EC and a former employee, both EC and Samhain are being labeled the “bad guys.” This lawsuit isn’t about unhappy authors who are not getting paid on time or at all or about working with a controlling narcissist (yes, I just finished reading Lisa Kleypas’s Blue-Eyed Devil) who makes threats of a personal nature, yet some people are interpreting the lawsuit to mean EC and Samhain are no longer reputable.

By: Robin

Robin — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:44:33 +0000

Two things here being said in this filing by Christina Brashears that I think are of interest… *Request Inspection of the books.

Here's the Ohio statute on the rights of a shareholder to inspect corporate books and records.