Comments on: Author Calls for Dorchester Boycott

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[...]Author Calls for Dorchester Boycott « All About Romance’s News & Commentary Blog[...]…

By: Dominique Peters

Dominique Peters — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:38:37 +0000

This is great information and makes me wonder if I should learn more about self-publishing. I am a yet unpublished author so this is kind of scary to me. I’m wondering if the authors that decided to self-publish after publishing with Dorchester had agents.

Thanks!

By: elaine mueller

elaine mueller — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:31:38 +0000

Dorchester/Leisure has been accused of cheating authors before. This doesn’t surprise me at all. And every time someone says a boycott will only hurt the authors, my response is that I won’t support a publisher that can’t be honorable to the people who produce its product. I won’t be an enabler to abuse.

By: Anne Marble AAR

Anne Marble AAR — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:30:34 +0000

maryann> I’m surprised, too. Then again, the nonpayment (and slow payment) stories were around for a long while. I think a lot of writers end up scared to say anything about their publisher. They’ve been told that if you say anything bad about your publisher, you’ll get blacklisted in the industry. Still, I’d like to think that if your publisher is not paying you and publishing books without permission, that you get a “free pass” to diss them…

As far as readers, I think a lot are upset. But maybe not as many are affected because they stopped buying from Dorchester so long ago. (At least when Dorchester sold their best-selling romance authors’ contracts to Avon, or maybe before.)

By the way, Making Light has a good post with a Dorchester timeline:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012927.html

By: maryann

maryann — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:48:00 +0000

I’m surprised so many people are keeping silent on this one. Publishers not paying authors their fair share is a huge issue…

By: Anne Marble

Anne Marble — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:09:46 +0000

Katja:

Dara Joy was the first Dorchester author that I can think of going that route. I know that I have seen Dorchester selling Dara Joy eBooks, but I’m sure I read that she won back the rights to her own work.

However, I believe that case was different because they were alleging that she broke her contract by writing futuristic romances for another publisher before delivering all the books she had promised to them. She made her complaints before they went public with theirs, and they went public in response to her allegations. Ever since the fiascos at the company, some people have started taking her complaints more seriously. Many think she still did the wrong thing, however. (BTW one of the major obstacles in her case was that her original contract with them may have given them too many rights — something eager new authors have to look out for.)

She’s not the poster child for self-publishing success stories. There were too many issues about late delivery (and non-delivery). Also, many readers complained that she should have hired an editor to go through her new work before she published it, and most people hated the cover art.

By: Katja

Katja — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 12:11:31 +0000

Wasn’t Dara Joy another Dorchester author who’s been fighting about getting paid and getting the rights to her books back for a long time now. As far as I know she self publishes these days as well.

By: Anne M. Marble

Anne M. Marble — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 02:39:06 +0000

Leigh> Sadly, some of the pioneers in paperback publishing have had … interesting… ethics. Maybe they told themselves that if they paid authors less, they could publish more books. But if they paid authors more, they could have better books.

Julie> Aha! Great points. If Dorchester has lots of followers, they can point to that and say “Look at all the fans we have.” Some companies mistake friends, followers, and “hits” for sales. When a small regional cooking magazine got itself embroiled in a plagiarism controversy a few weeks ago, they originally bragged about how many new friends they had on Facebook. They didn’t realize those were people who came to watch the trainwreck they had created. Until the snarky posts started…

maryann> Thanks! I hope this helps the authors. If there are authors who want us to keep buying their books, I hope they will tell us. Also, if anyone finds more former Dorchester/Leisure authors self-pubbing or publishing with a new press, please tell us so we can keep supporting them in their new home.

By: maryann

maryann — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 19:31:27 +0000

It will be interesting to see how long it will take publishers to get their act together. I will tell everyone I know who reads to boycott this publisher.

Thanks, AAR, for bringing another important topic to the masses.

By: Julie Leto

Julie Leto — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:24:30 +0000

The reason to stop following them on social media is to make them irrelevant. And to stop them from running contests that threaten the reversion of rights of authors.