Something is very rotten in the state of Dorchester.
Both Jane Litte and I have been pretty frank about our hesitation to recommend or buy books from Dorchester since it is relatively well-known that some authors haven’t been paid royalties for years. I know Dorchester’s decision to go digital-first has meant some very tricky and pain in the ass changes for authors, particularly when they were anticipating and planning for a print release that was rescheduled at the last moment for a digital release sometime in the nebulous future.
But I thought the Dorchester drama was, for the most part, over – until I received an email in my inbox from author Jana DeLeon.
DeLeon received the rights to her work from Dorchester on 15 September 2010. She even sent me a PDF of the rights reversion in case I doubted her story. She hasn’t been paid, nor has she received royalty statements in months, but now she has a bigger problem.
Over a month later, her digital books are still on sale pretty much everywhere. (Please note: links to books on sale ahoy. I’m going to do something horrible and ask you NOT to buy them. Please. Do not buy them. I have no faith that DeLeon or any Dorchester author I link to would ever see a dime.)
Her books, including “Showdown in Mudbug,” are online at Amazon.com, and there’s a paper copy available, too. Barnes & Noble also has her books for sale for the Nook, and independent retailer All Romance also has them listed for sale.
Why? Short answer: Dorchester, despite being contacted by DeLeon and her agent, Kristin Nelson, hasn’t stopped their digital distributor from selling them.
On 9/20/10 my agent sent the first request to Tim DeLong that they take down the ebooks that had reverted. He replied that they would take them down when they did the next data update to the retailers. That did not happen….
On 9/23/10 my agent informed me she had asked Tim for a date when they would do the update and removal but had as yet received no response.
On 10/1/10 my agent sent an email to Tim Delong and Chris Keeslar, demanding that they take down the books that had reverted and she clearly spelled out that they had no rights to sell what they did not own. Chris responded on 10/4/10 with apologies claiming her email went into his spam folder and he’d just received it. He agreed that the issue needed to be looked into right away.
As of today, 10/14/10, we have still heard nothing and the books are still for sale.
I sent DMCA notices to the appropriate departments at both b&n.com and amazon.com, per the instructions on their website. I have received no communication from either site or their legal department. I included a copy of my reversion rights contract with the DMCA notice. My agent has contacted Dorchester every week since the rights reverted and asked them to remove the listings. I have not contacted them directly as my agent handled all the reversion contract negotiations with her attorney.
Today is 20 October 2010 – and DeLeon’s books are still on sale.
But wait, there’s more – DeLeon put me in touch with Leslie Langtry, another Dorchester author.
Langtry’s rights were also returned from Dorchester, and her digital books are still for sale at Amazon and other digital vendors. But Langtry finds herself in an even more uncomfortable situation: after her rights were reverted, her book Guns Will Keep Us Together was offered as a free digital download for Kindle:
[They] offered it free for three weeks, despite my agent’s repeated attempts to get it taken down. GUNS debuted as the #2 free download for a while and stayed in the top ten for about a week and a half. It remained in the top twenty another few days and finished at #57. During that time, I was getting 10-12 friend requests on Facebook and my other books were all in the top 1,000 paid kindle downloads. GUNS debuted in the top ten on the Paid kindle bestseller list and stayed in the top 50 for a while. All of my books are still being sold by Dorchester on Amazon, and now I’m getting 15-20 friend requests a day from readers.
The problem with this is that fans are asking where they can find my books since Dorchester isn’t selling hard copies now. I hate to recommend them to Kindle when I know all the money is going to Dorchester, but I hate the idea of losing a budding audience. It is very frustrating.
I’ve had my rights since mid-September and to this day, Dorchester is still selling my books and profiting from them. I truly believe I won’t even see a royalty check from this. My agent, Kristin Nelson, has repeatedly asked Tim DeYoung and Chris Keesler to “cease and desist” since the ink was dry on the agreement. They have either given excuses or refused to answer.I don’t know what to tell my readers. If I tell them not to buy my books, I could alienate a new audience. If I tell them to buy them, Dorchester gets all the money.
This is theft, plain and simple.
Now, I asked a few digital folks what they’d do. One suggestion I received was that the author continue to pester Amazon and BN with weekly email messages. It doesn’t seem that Dorchester will be that responsive. I also know from my own experience that small bookstores like All Romance are pretty responsive so if you contact them directly about a rights dispute, you would likely see those books removed. However, if Dorchester isn’t answering, and Amazon and BN aren’t either, you might also try contacting Ingram and Overdrive, the two major digital book distributors, directly. If the book is for sale at any retailer, it’s probably coming through either or both of them.
ETA: I’m informed that not every retailer uses Ingram and Overdrive, though some do. Some buy direct from the publisher. Either way, it seems that the best option is to make as much noise as possible, in as many places as possible.
I am not at all an expert in the backstage mechanics of digital sales, but I should think a month is more than enough time to have this corrected and the books removed from on-sale positions.
For any author, this is a ridiculously sticky situation and I don’t envy your position.
From my perspective, I would say to any reader looking for a new book to read:
Don’t. Buy. Dorchester.
And it costs a lot of money to sue.
Becky, I think it’s great you got the book! I really love having new readers. And I’d rather you got it free anyway!
After noticing the logo, I had a thought.
When the company’s initials are “DP” I guess it’s pretty much a given that you’re going to get totally fucked.
Jana: Customers will order the book with the lower price!!!
And those of us who are following this travesty will make sure to order the right one AND get the word out for you, as well. I’ll tweet it.
I see absolutely no reason for you to wait. Strike now while readers are outraged on your behalf!
Julie – but doesn’t amazon automatically lower the price of all books to equal the lowest price offered? I think that’s what it says in their terms of use. (sigh) I guess I am going to have to do it anyway.
Thanks for your support and I will let you know when they’re available!
Okay, Dorchester might not have any money: but Amazon, B&N and the like DO.
Have your lawyer write to them. They are supporting the illegal distribution of your book by not pulling down the listings. I’m quite certain that big booksellers do not want to be associated in any way with illegal dealings.
Dorchester is not in bankruptcy. They have reorganized to move to e-books and trade and dropping mass market, so bankruptcy rules do not apply.
That said, I don’t know any Dorch author getting paid. Many are not getting paid royalties for years, but I know some that haven’t even been paid advances after years. Our contracts give us the right to an accounting, but this isn’t happening either, so not only are authors not getting paid, they are not even aware of how much they are owed.
Wow. I just submitted my manuscript to Dorchester. This is good to know. Thank you!
To be honest, I don’t know about them automatically lowering prices…I mean, a lot of my books are up from secondary sellers at lower prices than the publisher. Why would this be any different?
Either way, do let me know and let’s get the word out! This is absurd and I’m very sorry it’s happening to you and others.
Julie – yes, I am checking into hiring a copyright attorney to see what is required to move on amazon and b&n.
Deborah – true, they are not in bankruptcy (yet). But I’m not the one who originally said that, either. For the case of piracy, however, it makes no difference. For the case of royalties, I’ve already given up ever seeing any.
Rima – you might want to pull that submission.
Wow, when Deborah Macgillivray – the author who personally stalked and threatened readers who gave poor reviews to her books – chimes in to say Dorchester’s bad news, that’s gotta mean Dorchester’s fallen on pretty hard times.
Speaking of copyright, did Dorchester actually file a copyright form with the US copyright office? If this case goes to trial, that will/might have an impact on damages. So please do some research on this aspect as well.
I agree with others. Get your cover-art ready, format your books and start selling them yourself unless there’s a legal reason not to. Make every attempt you can to capture the money via self-sales that you can. 70% of the cover price vs. nothing means that even if you capture only 10% you’re still making some significant money well compared to zero.
What’s really distressing me with this is that the agents involved don’t seem to have any power over the situation. Am I mistaken in thinking that a literary agent is supposed to be looking out for our business welfare in these situations? Do they really have no more power than the author?
Wow, these guys have a lot of stupid to do this to their authors. The lack of response from Amazon and B&N says they don’t give a crap either. IMO, it just gives them a bad name that such a serious matter is left to sit, it should be given top priority. Dorchester people need to be arrested for thievery and thrown in a hole!
@AQ: You can search the copyright registry. There are entries for the books in question here.
http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First
I just want to say: Guys, that sucks. I’ve read both Jana DeLeon and Leslie Langtry. Please let me know when your books are available for legitimate purchase, and I’ll be happy to buy them.
Just curious, does anyone know what did the rights holder to Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm did to get the illegal copies removed from Amazon?
I won’t buy any book from Dorchester. I don’t know what else to say other than I am behind the authors 100%. I’m not an author myself—a humble reader, me—but I respect authors and what they do enough that I won’t buy pirated books. Good luck, Jana.
@Courtney: While I see the following titles for Jana:
[ 1 ] DeLeon, Jana Mischief in Mudbug. TX0007133984 2009
[ 2 ] DeLeon, Jana Rumble on the bayou. TX0006450683 2006
[ 3 ] DeLeon, Jana Trouble in Mudbug. TX0007041640 2009
[ 4 ] DeLeon, Jana Unlucky. TX0006956699
I don’t see the one Sarah listed in her post. Showdown in Mudbug
I’m a Dorchester author whose rights have not been reverted (not for lack of my agent’s trying). However, let me chime in here and say I NEVER want a reader to feel guilty for reading my work—either as a free download from Borders or Kobo, (Distracting the Duchess was available as a freebie a few weeks ago, but now is back for sale.) or because the reader plunked down her hard earned money for my books. It doesn’t matter to me at this point if I won’t see a penny from that sale. For the sake of my blood pressure and sanity, I’ve let it go.
Of course, I’m also hoping the reader will enjoy my Dorchester titles enough to follow me to Kensington where I’ll be writing as Mia Marlowe (and will eventually see the payment I’m due from those sales!) But that’s another issue.
Everyone has a different take on what’s happened with Dorchester. What I don’t want to do is sever a connection with a reader over it. I wrote those books with love. If a reader accepts them the same way, I’ve been paid. In full.
Yes, I’ve already checked the copyright situation and am fixing that for the last book.
Jeffe – my agent has done everything she can do. She has attorneys who have done everything they can do. The simple matter is that anyone can steal your intellectual property and the only recourse you have is to sue. If they’d stolen my stereo they’d be in jail. What this industry needs is a change to the law.
Thanks to SBTB for getting this story out. I hope more blogs and news sites publish this.
Yikes, this is terrible. I’ll signal boost over on my blog for what it’s worth. My sympathies to the affected authors. 🙁
Emily – I certainly have NO problem with readers having my books. In fact, if you got them for free, even better! My problem is that book piracy is a very real problem for authors to begin with. The LAST person who should be stealing from us is our publisher. ALL of my anger is directed at Dorchester. I love my readers and hope every one of them enjoys the heck out of my books.
SRC – I totally agree. Thanks so much to Sarah for running this and getting the information out there. Perhaps having this information can save some heartache down the line.
Theft is theft – Is it legal for you to walk in and sell their office furniture? No, kick ‘em hard with every avenue you have available. Maybe their business practices are why they are going bankrupt, what comes around, goes around. They owe these authors money made for selling what is not theirs to sell.
Emily, while I would love to be altruistic, the truth is that each of my four books took at least six months to write and more to edit. That’s at the very least, two years of full-time work. I love writing, but I can’t do it for free. I have to feed my family, pay the bills, etc.
Thanks, AngR and Anna!
I have to agree with Leslie. I don’t care if readers got my books for free in the fray or if I ever see a dime for those that were paid for, but I can’t afford to write for free forever. Unless someone wants to give me the winning lotto numbers. LOL
This is just … wow. Horrible for the authors, and a lot of my favorite authors were Dorchester authors.
I won’t be buying Dorchester any longer.
What Dorchester is doing is just plain wrong on so many levels. The authors should sue any online retailer that sells their books without permission.
@Leslie Langtry – which is why I’d like to pay you for what I consider the (inadvertant) illegal free download of Guns that I got last month. Please let me know how I can send you at least *something* – I know it’s not much, and only from one reader, but I believe in supporting my authors.
I am flabbergasted by the nerve of some people.
Not Dorchester – hell, publishers behaving like dickwads is so common as to be the norm.
But a certain bullying, lying scumbag turning up in a respectable forum like she has any place to open her nasty mouth. Yes, Deborah MacGillivray, you. What the fuck are you doing here, and why do you expect anyone to listen to you?
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/tag/deborah-anne-macgillivray/
Maybe you think we’d forget – it has been two years since you threatened and stalked Reba Belle – but we haven’t, and never will. You’re someone who should never show your face *anywhere* in the romance community after what you did.
Go away and contemplate your crimes in solitude and silence.
Other *decent* and *honest* Dorchester authors who’ve been fucked over have my sympathy, and I hope they can stop this utterly illegal misuse of their rights. I have my own publisher problems right now (not with Samhain, I hasten to add) and know how powerless one is unless you have lots of money to throw at lawyers. It sucks.
I have to agree with Julie and Keri. Don’t wait for Dorchester to take down my books. I’d put them up and undercut them.
Good luck. I hope now that this blog is outing Dorchester, they’ll act promptly.
Hey, All –
I was referred here by others, and I wanted to take a moment to address what’s being said, mostly because there’s a lot of misinformation floating about. A lot of that is Dorchester’s own fault, so I’m not pointing fingers when I say that.
Dorchester is currently switching to an all e-book and trade publishing model. Early on there was talk of this being a POD model, which is not true. This is a misnomer, because while POD technology will be involved in the smaller print runs, the actual strategy is to maintain a list very much like our old mass-market list, using IPS to do distribution and sell-ins of our print product. Larger runs will be printed on the usual trade offset presses. All of our titles will be e-books first and eventually trade paperbacks as well. It is our intent to convert our backlist, too.
Many authors were disconcerted by this development—and rightfully angered that royalty statements were not promptly forthcoming beforehand. There had been difficulties with accounting for some time, which is perhaps unsurprising, given the financial concerns that eventually forced the company to look hard and change its model. There came a wave of reversion requests/demands. These inundated the remaining staff, which was significantly reduced during the recent restructuring. That said, that staff is doing its very best to rectify past errors, protect the revenue stream and pay off all back debts. Some recent events have been encouraging. The company is also doing its best to revert those titles which are contractually in default.
From the author’s side, each individual sees her own book as priority number one—as she should. But the logistical reality is that a limited staff cannot relearn the jobs of other people and process requests for years’ worth of backlist in the same time a full staff might. Processes take longer than expected. Oversights occur. And there is the constant scrutiny from the public and the authors. Deserved scrutiny, of course.
Problems have occurred. I don’t deny that. That’s what has happened in the case of Jana. The other books mentioned in this post were sent in a suppression request earlier in the month, a suppression protocol on the 15th of each month that we have developed to get reverted titles off e-tail sites as quickly as possible given our limited manpower, though after we send the requests we have no ability to make the changes happen ourselves. Each individual e-tailer (Amazon, B&N, Kobo—which feeds Borders independently) has their own timetable and process, and all we can do is continually ask them to take titles down.
Jana’s suppressions were overlooked. I take responsibility for that, as I approved the 10/15 suppression list and did not catch that her name wasn’t on it. But as soon as I received notification—ie., saw this, as there was no other contact made—a new suppression request was created. We’re not trying to cheat anyone. We’re trying to sell the books to which we have rights, complete the deals we made in good faith, get revenue and pay people off. Then we can go back to doing what each of us got into this business to do in the first place: create books people want to read.
So, all of the books mentioned here—and for which we have received signed reversion requests that have not made specific other arrangements—have been put through our suppression protocol. It is now in the hands of the e-tailers. If any author or person knows of a title that is unsuppressed despite a reversion, please contact both the e-tailer and myself at ckeeslar @ dorchesterpub.com. I and the others here will do our very best to see the situation rectified immediately.
Regarding the free e-book giveaways: those programs were put in place by the marketing department long before the reversion requests came in, and I believed the authors were notified before reversion that they couldn’t be taken down without damaging ongoing relationships. The programs were intended to spark interest in the individual authors, interest that we hoped would spur those authors on to greater fame and ultimately fortune. We had experienced some success with such a program at an earlier date and were looking to repeat that. The programs were intended to do good, though that is perhaps difficult to see through the fog of recent events and the fear that surrounds financial uncertainty—an uncertainty that seems to be everywhere these days. To be fair, I still believe the programs WILL do good for the authors.
I don’t counter your exhortation to the public not to buy our books, Sarah. Every consumer should be aware of the background/situation of the companies from which they buy. I just wanted to clarify what’s going on here: there’s a limited number of people trying to get things done through trying circumstances. Those people make mistakes, but they are doing their best. It is unquestionably your right to steer clear, and to suggest others do the same, but at least do so with illumination from both sides. Recognize that this is not the monolith of big business exploiting and pirating; there is a broader scale of grey involved, and that grey involves people trying to create a good greater than that of any one individual.
Sarah, I know you must see yourself as a champion of the weak or disenfranchised, and I salute you for that. Above all, I am glad that this post caused our error to be fixed. I would, however, have preferred you contact me for our comments. It would have made this more journalistic.
Best,
Chris Keeslar
Senior Editor @ Dorchester
PS – I unfortunately don’t have time to get into a long debate about processes or culpability online, so I won’t be back, I don’t think, but if people really feel they need to be heard on this score they can write to the above email address. I can’t promise a response, but I will read each and every email.
Wow! What is this world coming to? You can believe that I will be checking ALL books I want to purchase to be sure that Dorchester isn’t the publisher. I will pass this info along to all 1,000+ of my FB friends and all of my Twitter friends so they know how unethical Dorchester is!
No, the laws don’t need to be changed because there is already a civil remedy in place. It sucks, definitely, but that would be like saying all bankruptcy laws need to be changed because authors got sucked in to a terrible situation at Triskelion.
If Amazon and BN continue to sell books for which the publishers’ have no legal right to sell, then they are committing copyright infringement and can be sued for that. Neither company appears in danger of going out of business anytime soon. They would be subject to the treble damages claim and attorneys’ fees clauses in the copyright code.
Amazon does have a parity clause as do a lot of other vendors. If you price your product lower at BN, Amazon will automatically lower the price of your book at AMZN to match. It’s in the contract.
It is sad to hear that Dorchester has failed to promptly remove the e-book titles of those whose rights have been reverted. The publisher should be able to easily cancel the title from retail databases, although retailers do have a grace period of 30-60 days to remove cancelled titles from viewing, while they retain them indefinitely for people who have already made a purchase. Authors need to carefully review their publishing contracts and to look for the clauses that designate the publisher’s policy for “out of print.” Many authors have been caught short when e-books continue to be sold under a contract’s definition of out of print. However, since Dorchester clearly reverted the rights, we would assume that would mean all rights. Contacting Ingram is an excellent idea. Good luck.
Chris – PS – I unfortunately don’t have time to get into a long debate about processes or culpability online, so I won’t be back, I don’t think, but if people really feel they need to be heard on this score they can write to the above email address. I can’t promise a response, but I will read each and every email
Thanks for the damaged control.
Becky, please do not pay me for my book. I am thrilled you have it and you have done nothing wrong, whatsoever.
As to Dorchester, my books are still being sold. And this is the first time in over a month any of us or our agents have heard this line of reasoning. Or anything for that matter. It is sad it took public embarrassment to get them to respond to us.
Sarah, you are a goddess! Thank you for writing this.
Thanks so much, Sarah, for running this story. I, and I’m sure all others here, have NO problems with your journalistic integrity. And considering my agent has contacted them multiple times with no response, I can’t imagine you would have received one either.
She has, of course, been contacted now and assured that all books will come down. I can’t thank you enough for making the community aware of this issue.
It would be cool if the Dorchester authors who get their rights back form some kind of clearing house page with a list of re-issued titles, hint hint! Dorch’s releases have often been to my taste.
As for going ahead and re-issuing titles that the e-tailers haven’t removed yet, seems like a friend of mine who does some direct to Kindle releases says Amazon sometimes will give an author trouble over publishing a book that appears to be “in print” by another author or publisher. I also know that many etailers take their own sweet time removing books from their catalogues despite repeated requests.
Wow. “Jana’s suppressions were overlooked.”
Still, how many dollars more does that mean for Dorchester?
Jana, thanks for letting us know of this. You can bet your bottom writing dollar that I’ll be researching publishing houses *very* carefully when it comes time.
Meghann
Wow, Jana – Dorchester rep had the audacity to come on here and make excuses? Wow. He should pay you for all the sales that happened after you got your rights back, in addition to what he owes you outstanding (if any). Now his excuse is that it’s up to the retailer? Bet they’re still up there for another month… and if so, then you know that he’s full of malarkey.