Night Shade Books is alienating its writers
Originally published at Grasping for the Wind. Please leave any comments there.
Authors Liz Williams and Brendan Halpin (aka Seamus Cooper) have recently posted commentary on Night Shade Books’ dealings with them. If these authors are being truthful (and I don’t see why they wouldn’t be, as they have much to lose) then the small press that I once names as a best publisher of the year has been doing some very unprofessional things in the background.
Liz explains her issue:
I’ve been told by Night Shade that they are unlikely to be publishing any more of my novels. I don’t know whether this includes IRON KHAN, or whether they’ll be pulling it from publication. The reason why I do not know is that my publishers have not communicated with me directly for some considerable time, despite repeated phone calls from both my agent and myself, and numerous emails asking for clarification on current and future books, and royalty statements. My agent eventually got a response by calling from an unlisted number and has confirmed that this silence appears to have been a tactic of deliberate avoidance….
The reason for not publishing the novels is that the books are apparently not selling enough copies. I can completely understand this, in the course of a recession. It’s part of the writing territory, and you have to put on your big girl pants and face it, but it is not encouraging, to say the least, to meet people who have tried to order your book from its parent press, and have been unable to do so…And like most professional writers, I would rather be given any bad news up front.
I also gather, from other writers, that this is by no means a unique experience. It is a great shame, as on the production side, NS have done a good job - at least on the first 2 books. I have briefly seen the next two, but haven’t been sent contributor copies for years: the first time I saw a copy of Shadow Pavilion was at Swecon. I will have to order my own books from Amazon if I want to see them.
Another press are extremely interested in the series and the film option is still extant. If I cannot place the remaining novel(s), I will bring them out myself.
Strangely enough, as a reviewer, I recieved a copy of each and every one of Liz’s books for review. How could the author not see them, and the reviewer, especially a lowly reviewer like me, do? Odd, to say the least. I agree with Williams about the production quality, but it seems that Night Shade is alienating its writers - its very bread and butter.
Halpin is so angry about how he has been treated, he is offering his ebook of The Mall of Cthulhu - which he says Night Shade had nop rights to - for free to readers at his site and on scribd.
Night Shade has stolen the ebook rights to The Mall of Cthulhu. They do not own them and are offering an electronic edition for sale through webscription.net, which is affiliated with Baen Books, a real publisher who should know better. Nine months ago, Night Shade made a verbal offer to pay me a small sum for the rights. I agreed. They’ve never paid me. They claimed their unauthorized edition was an oversight, and that was somewhat credible at the time. Nine months later, it’s clear that this is not an oversight. It’s a theft of my intellectual property.
I’ve given away the ebook of Mall of Cthulhu in hopes of cutting the legs out from Night Shade and webscription’s piracy of my work…. If you like it, please consider buying the Kindle edition
, published by me and sold by Amazon, who pay me regularly for the copies I sell through them. (It’s only 3 bucks! Less than a latte!)
I’m saddened by this, as Night Shade has produced some most excellent anthologies and collections as well as some great original fiction. I hope these authors and the publisher can work out the issues.