If you’re a Dara Joy fan, listen up. If you were waiting on the edge of your ploot-ploot for the next installment, wait no more.
Jennie has given you all something to celebrate: she forwarded met the link to an excerpt from Joy’s next book, Taste of the Devil, which is due out soon.
How soon? Well, that’s the odd part: this is “a special, limited e-book edition” that is available for $10.50.
Orders are being taken now, and the book will be sent out in two weeks.
Two weeks?! There’s a request for understanding at the delay as the “expect the volume of orders to be high and we are a small outfit taking care of multiple orders.” yet there’s no mention of what format, whether it will feature some nifty Pirate-themed DRM protection, or what.Death by Ploot Ploot was available as a PDF, if I recall correctly.
So, will fans order?
Jennie wrote,
$10.50 for an e-book that takes TWO weeks to send out after you’ve ordered it? But it’s Dara Joy, right, and we all keep hoping things will improve—this time the decision not to order is easy peasy for me….
Meanwhile, Death by Ploot Ploot is still available for $4.50.
Since the original email from Dara Joy (via Cory) went out about this around two weeks ago, would that mean it would be “shipping” any day now?
I’m still wondering what happened to the “traditional publishing” they talked about back when they made their announcement that the litigation was over. To me that means paper books.
I’m very unhappy. Dara is a favorite author of mine, but I won’t have enough money until the end of January/beginning of February. I have bought all of her books, including the self-published books. I e-mailed Cory to explain the situation and she said, that they would hold a book. Then $10.50 was taken from my PayPal. I didn’t have the money and my bank charged me $34.00. I didn’t order the book and NO ONE will admit to owing me the NSF charge. I’m overdrawn in the bank because of this. That’s why I didn’t order the book to begin with! ARGH!!
A delay in shipping an e-book? Is it just me, or does that sound deranged? What, are they mailing CD’s?
Is it really that technically difficult to have a download button?
I’m suspicious. And yet, even if it’s a money grab, I can’t figure out why they wouldn’t just have the e-book available for download after the payment goes through.
Not just suspicious, but puzzled.
“And yet, even if it’s a money grab, I can’t figure out why they wouldn’t just have the e-book available for download after the payment goes through. “
That’s the way her last two novellas were distributed-a download click!
File a PayPal dispute, if you haven’t already; they’ll get the money back for you (assuming you’re within their time frame, but it doesn’t hurt to try).
Oy, and so the DJ financial WTFery starts. What the hell is a limited edition e-book anyway? They can only create, what, a thousand files? Will they be numbered?
This is nonsense. And the sheer volume of irritating pirate speak and exclamation points in that link make my head hurt. I will save my $10.50 for a few well written, well-edited books at Samhain or EC. That I can download within minutes, as it should be.
I’m confused and a tad suspicious over all of this. Why would there be a two week delay in an ebook edition? Why are they charging more than would be charged for a mass-market paperback? Why a limited edition ebook? I see no sense in that—the more you sell, the more money you make.
I’m happy for her fans if it gives them what they’ve been jonesing for, but I won’t be lining up for this one.
Is the pirate thing not over? I havent seen any pirate themed romances for a long time. I mean the vampire thing is about to expire any moment now and she’s just now … oh whatever! Unless it’s some more Matrix of Destiny i’m not really interested.
I thought she had settled with Dorchester and that that presumably meant she’d be delivering them the books she still owed on her contract? I see that she had a reprinted story in a September 2008 Christmas anthology from them, but I don’t see anything else announced. And here I thought my years-long wait for Trayed’s story might finally be over….
Ms. Joy’s website announcement isn’t doing her any favors. The copyeditor in me is just ITCHING for the electronic equivalent of a red pencil.
(shudder)
Well…you guys who decided NOT to buy the ebook are the smart ones! I bought both of her self-published novels and had to harass Cory (Dara’s boyfriend and webmaster) for MONTHS into sending them to me. In the case of Wildcat Arrows, it took almost a year to receive it!
After the announcement that Dara had settled with Dorchester, I thought things would get better and to tell you the truth, I actually received Death By Ploot Ploot within about 24 hours and the writing was much better than the previous two books. So, I went ahead and paid for Taste of the Devil thinking that it would be a similar purchasing experience as Death By Ploot Ploot. I paid in December and STILL have not received the ebook, even after several emails to Cory.
Get this…I just went to Dara’s website and read her blog announcing Taste of the Devil and I see my own name under the comments section….Cory made up a quote (see below) and put my name to it!!!!
Shalimar Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
I will be sure to purchase several copies and also ask my nearby libraries to do the same.
Best of luck,
Shalimar
[Reply]
Shalimar reply on February 3rd, 2009:
Hi – I’m Shalimar and the quote above is NOT from January 9, 2009…it is from SEVERAL years ago, prior to the Wildcat Arrows debacle. Please immediately remove my name and quote from your website as I pre-ordered Taste of the Devil in December and STILL have not received it.
[Reply]
I am so outraged right now…I cannot believe the utter gall of this team of con artists! I no longer believe ANYTHING that Dara or Cory say and I am going to do everything in my power to report them to the Attorney General of Massachusetts.
Wow. Thanks for the update, Shalimar. Sorry you went through this, but I’m sure the warning is appreciated by others thinking of ordering the book.
Darlene: That is actually why I posted here…I normally never post publicly anywhere like this…sorry, too much of a lurker I guess. 🙂
But, I am making an exception in this case, because I am through giving them the benefit of the doubt and allowing other people to be conned by Cory’s emails and the statements on Dara’s website.
The quote that I found on Dara’s website posted as a comment (from me) regarding her announcement about Taste of the Devil is actually from an email that I sent to Cory when ordering her first self-published book. That was in maybe 2003?!!! It was NEVER meant to be public, it certainly is not from January of 2009, and it doesn’t even make sense for me to urge my local library to buy several copies of an ebook.
I am totally creeped out by Cory and Dara and I think that there is something VERY wrong with them beyond the delay in sending out books. How unethical can you get?
I”M STILL waiting for my bank to reimburse me for the second NSF charge for a book that I NEVER ordered! I will never buy a Dara Joy book again. $10.50 for an ebook?! RIDICULOUS!
Marcy,
I am so sorry to hear about that! How on earth did Cory manage to charge your PayPal account? I guess he is capable of just about anything!
I hope you get it sorted out, but in the meantime, I would like to suggest that you also file a complaint with the Attorney General of Massachusetts. I am hoping that if there are enough complaints, then they will be shut down. In fact, I suspect that is exactly what happened with their self-published books….I think they got a LOT of complaints from people who never received Wildcat Arrows and that is why Dara is only doing ebooks now.
Shalimar,
I’m so aggravated with the whole thing that I don’t even want to discuss it. Cory is insistent that s/he did not order the book through PayPal, but I certainly did not! Maybe I will file a complaint. Thanks for the suggesting it.
Marcy,
I think you should definitely file a complaint with both PayPal and the Massachusetts AG.
Funny, funny….I just got an email from Cory with the ebook and he claimed that it had been sent to me on several occasions and maybe had been blocked or classified as spam. I know that is not true because I have a (paid) premium email service that accepts HUGE files and I have it set so that no email gets blocked. At worst, it is put in a spam folder (which I have checked many times to see if this ebook was accidentally sent to that folder). So his story, once again, is a complete lie.
It seems that posting my complaint publicly on Dara’s website is what finally made the difference…not the numerous emails I sent prior to that.
I have already filed a complaint with PayPal and my bank. I suppose that I will file with the AG as well. What they did to you was HORRIBLE!