I Can’t Even…

So I’m sure you’ve heard the news about ARe.

The shocking, startling, out of the fucking blue news that they are closing. With three days notice. And only offering 10 cents on the dollar for 4th quarter royalties to authors who sold through them. Up until yesterday. If anything was sold today? Or in the next few days? Too bad for you, because they’re keeping it. If you have a book with ARe as the publisher? You’re really SOL because you get NO royalties in lieu of getting your rights back.

Utter. Bullshit.

Needless to say, I have pulled my self pub titles. Dreamspinner has pulled all their books as well. Not that the site is even working right now, because so many people are trying to take care of business before the 31st. Not that it seems to matter.

For me? As a self pub author with no clout? There’s not much I can do. I know a lot of lawyers, both from publishers and individuals, are being put on the case. Hopefully it will amount to something.

To put it bluntly, All Romance eBooks has screwed EVERYONE over. In the shittiest way possible.

(yes, I know I’m using language I don’t normally. But I think the occasion calls for it.)

It could be worse. It could be like Ellora’s Cave and Torquere and Silver who lied and strung people along. It could be like Samhain who said they were closing and then pulled a “ha just kidding” out of nowhere.

There’s no way they didn’t see this coming for months now, and they could have handled it far better than they did. ARe is a retailer first, but they are a publisher as well, and what they’ve done is despicable.

Though it was just this past January, not even a year ago, that Amber Quill announced it would be closing it’s doors. And they are the only ones who have done it right. They made the decision, they went about it professionally and respectfully. They paid us what was due. And rode off into the sunset with their heads held high. I’m even more grateful for that now than I was earlier this year.

Basically, it’s crap. It’s just so much garbage. And it sucks. And it’s discouraging. So very discouraging. Because it makes you wonder if there’s a point in trusting anymore?

So I’m gonna wallow in this for a couple of days. And be mad.

And then I’ll pick myself up, dust myself off, and see what’s next.