Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Ignorance is NOT Bliss

For the last year I’ve been dealing with well, a high risk pregnancy, a new baby and other stuff. During that time one of my publishers fell apart and I was oblivious. Now I’m not one to bad mouth a publisher, but enough is enough.
Aspen Mountain Press has failed to provide me with royalty statements for the last year. I’ve received exactly 2 checks since October 2010 and both were under $15 for seven books. I’m sorry, but even if my books weren’t selling on their site, they are on the third party vendor sites.
As of today most of the third party sites have taken down books from Aspen Mountain and their home site seems to be unavailable due to maintenance. Yeah right. I’m hoping this is the demise of them so I can finally get my rights back and self-publish my seven books.
I have made several attempts to contact the publisher via, email, phone, snail mail and certified letters. Said publisher has ignored all attempts.
So this blog today is to request that if any readers want to purchase my Aspen Mountain books – PLEASE DON’T. Wait until the end of the year and you’ll be able to get them for cheaper when I self-publish them!
The moral of this story is to stay current with your publishers and make sure you’re getting statements and the money owed. I wish I wasn’t so oblivious and discovered this far too late in the game. Maybe I wouldn’t be battling to get my rights back.

4 comments:

  1. Wow, Amber. Thanks for sharing this. It happens to others with other epubs too. Here's hoping you get your rights back. Good luck.

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  2. I'm hoping you hear from them soon. If not, time to consult a lawyer to see about getting your rights back. Also have you tried to track your sales with Amazon?

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  3. Ack! How awful. I had to go back and do a quick check to see if any of your books I've ordered since last Oct. were from them. They weren't thank goodness, so now I'll just wait until they're self published.

    I hope you get all that cleared up. But seriously, what a headache.

    There is a publisher I'm about to work with that I was worried about because I'd read some stuff from back in 2007 about them. But I contacted three or four of their authors, and They seem okay. Fingers crossed.

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  4. So sorry to hear this. It's always a mess when a pub goes under. Best wishes with this!

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