Ellora’s Cave signal boost

I have only one novella with EC. I didn’t enjoy my experience with them, and sales were crap, so I never sent them anything else.

There’s obviously been some kerfuffle over the last couple years, and now there seems to be a bit of a movement afoot, in reaction to claims that authors and employees have been lying, stirring up trouble for no reason, etc. Authors and ex-employees have been posting their experiences as a way to counter the untrue claims. Maybe by personalizing things it will become clear that all these authors aren’t banding together to make things up.

So, my own small part of that–

I don’t have any really serious complaints about the company, not compared to other people who’ve clearly had truly horrible experiences. I found EC high-handed and annoying, but that was all. Honestly, if my sales had been better, I might have put up with the irritation of dealing with them and submitted another story. Clearly in this case, my poor sales were a blessing.

I asked for my rights back, I think for the first time, shortly after EC sued DA. I just didn’t want any money from my writing going to support that kind of nonsense. I was refused because my sales were still above the threshold. Fair enough.

But then they stopped paying me. (They’d been very sketchy before the lawsuit, but statements had eventually shown up… no discernible schedule, but… something, at least). But after the lawsuit started, they stopped paying, and stopped issuing statements. So I had no way of even knowing what my sales were, or whether they’d reached the threshold for rights reversion. Handy, right? Every now and then something would come, but there was never enough for me to establish the twelve-month period necessary to meet the contract terms.

I’ve been requesting rights reversions on a fairly regular basis since then. I don’t have reliable statements, but I’m hoping maybe I’ll hit some magic window in which my sales have been low, even if I dont yet know they’ve been low. EC refuses to even respond to these e-mails. They’ve also failed to respond to my repeated requests to be paid according to the contract.

So. That’s the simple truth. I got a statement and cheque the other day for three months, Mar-May. This is apparently part of their attempt to catch up. But they’re still behind.

So, when I hear that EC is a victim, and authors and ex-employees are lying about them? I believe the authors and ex-employees. While my own experience hasn’t been as horrible as many, it’s been bad enough that I know EC isn’t upholding their end of contracts or behaving professionally.

That’s enough for me.

 

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