Numerous authors and agents have accused Dorchester Publishing of withholding or delaying royalty payments to authors, and of publishing unauthorized ebook editions.
At Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, authors claim they have not been paid in years. An extensive comments thread is worth a read.
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.
Chris, an executive from Dorchester, makes an appearance. I love it when that happens.
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.
(Not that it’s the same guy or anything, but I had flashbacks to when another dude named Chris made the mistake of popping in to a comments thread here. Good times.)
An author or two pipes in:
I am a Dorchester author. I am among those who have been questioning things for quite some time. I am among those who are owed royalty statements and answers regarding compensation and contracts. Chris has been my editor from the beginning of my relationship with Dorchester, and I feel compelled to say that he is certainly not a “douche” as someone so eloquently described.
And while you’re soaking all that in, the Mystery Writers of America has delisted Dorchester from their Approved Publishers List.
The complete memo after the fold: ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
