Ordinary Day

Bad news about Barnes and Noble

Thu, 05 Mar 2015 17:44:26 GMT

Dammit, B&N, are you people trying to shoot yourselves in the feet? Because it sure looks like you’re hunting for bigger and bigger guns to do just that.

Spotted on Dear Author today: news that Barnes and Noble secretly partnered with Author Solutions to sell print on demand and other services to self-pub authors.

Why is this a problem? Because Author Solutions, as detailed here by David Gaughran and here on The Digital Reader, Author Solutions has a terrible reputation in the writing community. And they are in fact being sued for their practices of upselling useless marketing crap to authors who sign on with them.

What particularly pisses me off about this is Gaughran’s description of how all Nook Press users are at risk of having their data handed to Author Solutions.

I was already cranky at B&N for taking down the Download buttons off their portal on the web site for Nook users to get to their libraries. But as a Nook Press author, I am deeply disturbed by this news, enough that I will seriously be considering removing Faerie Blood and Bone Walker from Nook Press, deleting my account there, and using Smashwords to deploy to B&N in the future.

Fellow indie authors, I urge you to get up to speed on this development, and to stay far away from B&N’s Author Services, and from Author Solutions in general.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

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Jane Litte and Dear Author Defense Fund now active

Fri, 03 Oct 2014 16:06:16 GMT

As has been announced today at Dear Author as well as Smart Bitches Trashy Books, Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches is now administering a defense fund to support Jane Litte and Dear Author in the Ellora’s Cave v. Dear Author case.

So if you have any interest in this case and would like to help support Jane and Dear Author, there’s now a way to do it. Check any of the links for Sarah’s announcement on the matter, and what their expectations are as to how to handle the money. There’s a bit of data as well as to what Jane herself is doing to pay her attorney–who, being a pretty high-profile lawyer, is not cheap, even though he’s discounting his hourly rate for this case.

I’ve donated, and will continue to keep an eye on this case myself. More news as I have it.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

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Ellora’s Cave v. Dear Author update! Also, Boosting the Signal!

Wed, 01 Oct 2014 16:27:27 GMT

It seems that the Ellora’s Cave v. Dear Author lawsuit has started getting traction on other major Internet sites as well as mainstream media. Jezebel has picked up the story here, and Liberty Voice has a post up here. And as I reported yesterday, the L.A. Times picked up the story too.

Meanwhile, for those of you who may have missed it on either Dear Author or the Smart Bitches site, Jane has put out a call for authors, cover artists, or editors who are willing to testify in the case. (People associated with EC, obviously.) Relatedly, Courtney Milan has an offer up to help people who may be afraid to testify and break anonymity. (Another reason why Courtney Milan is awesome, and I’m happy to be a reader of her work.)

So things do appear to have proceeded past the filing stage, and the romance genre’s presence on the Net continues to be heavily focused upon this. More as I hear about it.

Meanwhile, I do have one EC author who’s pinged me to take me up on the offer of a Boosting the Signal post. While Boosting the Signal is still technically on hiatus, I WILL be running her piece–as well as a piece this Friday from fellow Carina author Sheryl Nantus, AND a piece from long-time online-and-local author pal Chrysoula Tzavelas. Be on the lookout for these to come. I’ll be having some pieces forthcoming from Dragonwell Press as well.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

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Updates on the Ellora’s Cave vs. Dear Author lawsuit

Mon, 29 Sep 2014 16:49:35 GMT

For those of you who may have missed the news as it exploded over the weekend, Jane Litte and the Dear Author site are being sued by Ellora’s Cave. As you might expect, there was a great deal of brouhaha over this, not only on Dear Author, but also over on Smart Bitches.

However, there are new developments as of this morning. Jane reports on Dear Author’s Monday news post that she’s now retained the services of Marc Randazza, a story also picked up by The Digital Reader.

It’s very worth noting that a bunch of Jane’s commenters were urging her to go talk to PopeHat, and that the guy she’s now hired is spoken VERY highly of on that site, calling him a First Amendment badass. This is promising news indeed.

Meanwhile, I’m seeing the #notchilled hashtag springing up on Twitter, and several of the authors I follow are speaking out passionately on it.

Like Courtney Milan, about whom I’ve posted before as one of the small but growing set of romance novelists whose work I REALLY like. Courtney’s letting Ellora’s Cave have it with both barrels on her own blog as well as on Twitter:

Ellora's Cave has switched their business model from making money with their authors to making money off their authors. #notchilled

— Courtney Milan (@courtneymilan) September 29, 2014

Fellow Carina author Ella Drake ALSO has words to say about this–because SHE’S had some experience as an EC author, too:

We don't need an outside blogger to show us the doubt we already had. #notchilled

— Ella Drake (@Lori_Ella) September 29, 2014

And with Ella in mind, I’ll make an open offer to any Ellora’s Cave authors whose sales are impacted by EC’s implosion and by readers backing out of buying their work: if any of you have non-EC titles you’d like to encourage people to buy instead, come talk to me and I’ll run a piece for you on Boosting the Signal.

ETA: Couple more links as people continue to post about this:

The Book Pushers have proclaimed that, moving forward, they won’t be reviewing Ellora’s Cave releases and invite EC authors to submit non-EC titles for review instead

Novelist and blogger Barry Eisler is deeply unamused at EC’s behavior, along with the rest of the Internet

Jenny Trout has choice, pungent words for some individuals who’re pleased that DA is getting sued

Bad Menagerie posts about how they’re exactly the small-time bloggers that many are suspecting EC is trying to intimidate

Wendy the Super Librarian breaks out her Little Miss Crabby Pants persona, and goes into detail as to why EC’s behavior is a problem for everyone

Book blogging site KBGBabbles expresses its concerns

Deirdre Saoirse Moen has an EC Author Exodus Support thread

And OH YES: the LA Times has picked up the story

More to come as I find it.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

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Today in disturbing publishing news

Sat, 27 Sep 2014 18:32:43 GMT

News has broken since yesterday that Ellora’s Cave has sued Dear Author, specifically over the post DA did here, talking about the publisher’s history and how they appear to be imploding now, and basically asking WTF. EC is suing DA for defamation. Jane Litte of DA, being involved in the suit, cannot really post about it in depth. But Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches posts about it here.

There is a great deal of WTF to be had here, in no small part because Jane Litte was reporting on Things That Actually Happened. This used to be called “journalism”. But if this suit has its way, it could now be called “defamation”.

I’m not an Ellora’s Cave author, but I do know folks who are, and who have been deeply worried about developments with that publisher. That there are EC authors who are not getting paid for the work even though their work continues to be on sale concerns me deeply. So does EC authors being afraid to speak out publicly about what’s been going on.

And now DA is being sued?

This is, in a word, bullshit. I know from following the Dear Bitches Smart Authors podcast that Jane is herself a lawyer, so she’s got background to understand the level of bullshit involved here. But I really hope that the Ohio courts will smack this down, and if Jane winds up calling for help with a legal fund, I’ll be throwing her what bucks I can spare.

ETA: I’ve been linked to! So here, if you’d like to see other links cropping up on this matter:

Her Hands My Hands stands up to join the Streisand Effect starting to spread about this.

The Digital Reader reports on the matter, including an explanation of what SLAPP is (note: Jane Litte reported a lack of anti-SLAPP laws in Ohio, which could prove to be a problem).

Vacuous Minx reports on how EC has bailed on a prior lawsuit before, and speculates on likely outcomes of this case.

And although this is a post from earlier this month, prior to news of this lawsuit, Writer Beware reported on the EC implosion and warned writers off of submitting new work to them.

Pete Morin has a link off to the actual complaint filed. Which I have now read, and it’s interesting to note that EC is specifically stating that the assertions that EC authors aren’t getting paid are false, and they seem to be trying to make a case for the DA post being a cause for EC authors having a panic rush–rather than oh, say, EC authors themselves reporting that this shit is going down and DA’s post reacting to that.

The Passive Voice has a post up also linking to the complaint, and some analysis of what will be happening now both in the post and in the comments.