I Almost Quit Writing When My Publisher Stole My Books
You need to protect yourself against predator publishers.
You ever feel like the world is trying to hold your writing back?
It’s as if there’s something in the universe pressing in and making sure you feel as bad about your writing as you can.
I have definitely experienced it.
First, there was the ex-wife who took it upon herself to destroy all of my stories in a bonfire. “Give up. You suck, and I’m doing this for your own good.”
Boy, that was a blow.
I finally escaped from her abusive clutches by jumping into another relationship. That time, when we broke up, she took everything I owned, including all the stories I’d been able to cobble together anew.
Lots of unsupportive people and reinforcing events made me stop writing for several years.
Determination set in, however, and I gave it another go, this time backed up by someone who did everything in her power to make sure I knew my words were wanted.
Thankfully, she’s had patience enough with this old, blind guy to stick around.
I accidentally became a talk radio personality.
I ended up falling into the radio industry by accident. Never in my life did I dream of being a talk radio host, let alone one who broadcast to an average of nine million listeners at any given time.
I spent all my time off the shows doing what I really wanted. Writing books and short stories wasn’t just a hobby. It’s what I breathed.
It was a need in me, a fire burning deep inside that would not go out.
Of course, I discussed books a lot on the shows, including ones I was working on. I used some guerilla marketing techniques by smattering in topics of my stories to guests, or how what they were talking about reminded me of something from one of my stories.
It got attention to my author’s website and finally caught the ear of a publishing company.
One of their editors was a listener and put a bug in the butt of someone higher in the company. They showed them my website and a few of my stories I had posted there, piquing their interest enough to offer me a contract for books.
I was awestruck. It was a dream come true for me. All of my life, I wanted to be a published author, to hold a book I wrote in my own hands and know I had done something people through my life told me I couldn’t do.
It was a delicate finger up to everything that tried to hold me back.
I submitted one of my books I had been working on to the publisher, and they signed the contract with me to print and do some of the marketing on the book’s behalf.
Things went great. The book sales were up, and they asked if I would be willing to do more with them.
Of course, I would! I jumped on that chance faster than the ink could dry on the pages of the contract.
They published four of my books, with nice covers and editing. I couldn’t have been more pleased.
I had to do a fairly large amount of the marketing for myself. Actually, this is something common with a lot of publishers. They might do a bit of retailing for you, but if you’re not a big name like Stephen King or Dean Koontz, you’re going to be in for a lot of legwork to get the books in the hands of your readers.
I didn’t mind that too much, though, since I had a platform already set up in the form of my radio shows.
The editors I worked with were friendly folks, and extremely helpful in making sure the books I put out were well-done and solid.
Because of that nice platform I had going, they offered me the chance to interview other authors in the stable of this publisher. I enjoyed doing it. Not only did I not have to search for guests, they were fellow novelists.
Talking to other writers about their passions gets me stoked to scribble more, myself. I was grateful for the chance to get involved, and doing it helped my reputation with the publishing house.
It went on this way for a couple of years. I was riding the wave of what I would call success.
Then they missed a payment.
This particular company made its payments to the authors twice a year.
They would do accounting in February and August, cutting the checks in March and September to send out. For some authors like me, direct deposit was available.
When I contacted one owner in February to find out how much I would expect, they said they were working on it and didn’t get back to me again for a couple of weeks after. This was a bit strange, because every time I did it before, they were forthright with how much I could predict when they sent the sums.
I brushed it off, though, as I was pretty overwhelmed by things going on with our radio station. New hosts were coming in and since I was doing a good amount of work for the station, I had to help shepherd them.
When March came around, I asked again how much I would receive, and they told me the amount. I should expect it in a week.
My wife and I had some tax money come in during that time, and were inundated with buying necessities for the coming year. It wasn’t until June that I finally thought to ask her if she remembered the money from the books coming in.
I’m blind, so I let her handle all the banking information. I’d just make a mess of things otherwise.
She searched through the history and discovered I hadn’t actually gotten the direct deposit as we expected.
I was on the phone with my contact in the publishing house that day.
The person claimed there had been some sort of mistake in the book-keeping and they’d make to correct it. I would probably not see it until the September payment was due, though, so I should get a doubled-up amount of pay.
Yes, I suspected that answer. I decided to do some checking outside of my publisher.
Remember when I mentioned I had interviewed a lot of my fellow stable-mates on my shows? I still had their numbers.
After speaking to ten of them, I had a clearer idea of what was going on.
Most of them, too, had not received their due.
My concern grew.
The people within the company were becoming less forthright in their answers, telling me they’d get back to me on stats and sales when time permitted.
I had a close working relationship with these people, because, by this time, I was a part of their marketing team. They were using my shows to help push sales of other books they had put out and paying me for the advertising time.
Other authors I hadn’t interviewed began getting in contact with me on their own behalf. They, too, could not get hold of people within the company, had not received payments, and more.
I had a feeling what was coming.
That September, they cut everyone off from communication.
They ghosted, leaving those of us in their stable in the lurch for anything we had earned from sales of our books.
For two weeks, I and many others did what we could to reach out to them, but it was to no avail.
Finally, the company sent out a form email to everyone that stated the publishing house was closing and they would no longer be acting as publishers for the books already out there.
The problem grew.
Another couple of weeks passed, and I was extremely vocal about the events taking place on my shows.
It was, I suppose, enough of a smear going on that one of the “former owners” finally got hold of me.
I told them I wanted my books released from their stable because of their egregious violation of the contract.
They claimed they could do nothing because they “technically did not own” the publishing house any longer. “No one has the right to sign the proper paperwork.”
I knew my books were still selling, because I could see the change in rankings happening on, for instance, Amazon. When I told them I wanted the pay from those books being sold, they said since I signed the contract “with the company,” not them, they were not responsible for the debt.
They didn’t owe me anything.
The most frustrating thing is the after-effects.
The books published through this house are still selling. I can see the ranks going up and down, and the name of the company that published them is still right there on the page of the books.
I think one of the most frustrating aspects of all of this, aside from the blatant caca the former owner tried to pass off on me, is that I have sequels to some of those books.
They are written, edited, and fully ready to go to market. They would probably do reasonably well, since the first books in their series are still moving.
But I refuse to publish them, though self-publishing would be a completely valid way to go. I can’t stomach the thought of people having to buy those first books to understand what’s happening in the sequels.
I can’t fathom giving those people more of the money that belongs to me. It’s all still going right into their pockets.
So these stories, which I think are great, are sitting on my hard drives collecting proverbial electron motes of dust. They’re never going to see the light of day.
I’m not sure what I can do about the whole situation.
On one hand, I could get an attorney and try to cut through the mire of paperwork and bull to get the money I am owed. Would that be worthwhile, though? It’s not like the books are making millions. At least, I don’t think they are.
It would likely cost me more in lawyer fees than I would get back from this publisher and their cohorts.
I could also re-publish the books on my own, but in order to do so and not get blasted for copyright violations by Amazon, I’d have to rewrite them significantly.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to do that. They’re already written. I don’t want to do it again.
To top all of that off, since the books appear under my name on Amazon and other bookstores, every time someone goes to my page they have the potential to keep throwing money at these people. Do I really want that, too?
The books would be directly competing against my own name.
All of this made me have a long re-think about my writing career. I almost quit entirely because of it.
After all, it’s yet another blow to an already hard life when it comes to anything I have written. Is it really worth still trying?
I guess at this point it’s obvious I decided to keep writing. I won’t let people like them, or the others from my past, stop me from doing something I really love.
But, I tell you, it’s hard to put the fingers to the keys sometimes when you have this sort of thing leaning over your head.
Be careful when dealing with publishers.
If you’re going to keep writing yourself, I applaud you. The world always needs more creative people.
If you do, though, please make sure you always have yourself backed up by the best contracts you can muster.
Have a lawyer look it all over, and make sure there’s a clause in there somewhere that if a breach like this happens, you’re still going to get what you deserve.
That way, you will always know you have one less thing to worry about if someone tries to take advantage of a terrible situation.
Keep striving to “be the best you that you can be” at this moment. Remember, no matter who you are or what you're going through, you are worthy of being loved. Don't let anyone teach you anything different.