I’m going to keep this short and sweet. Or, short and sweet for me. I do tend to ramble.
At this point, anyone plugged in to the business side of the romance industry is aware that there have been industry rumblings about my publisher, that a big blogger wrote a post about those rumblings and now that blogger is being sued. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, Google is your friend. I’m not going to rehash that mess here.
What I am going to do is make a couple things clear, because they obviously need to be cleared up.
First, yes, I have removed the publisher’s titles from my site. I hadn’t planned on doing that yet. I say yet because before all of this came to light, I had requested my rights be reverted on the basis of low sales. That is the one and only reason I asked for them back. After everything hit the fan, my visitor count shot through the roof. While I’m sure many of those visitors were among those who are boycotting the publisher, I don’t want my reversion to be put at risk by this increased traffic. The books are still available for sale. I’m not going to be handing them out for free or begging people not to buy. I just don’t want an unnatural bump in sales to tip me over to the point I don’t qualify for rights reversion.
I have seen snippets of statements I’ve made on a forum quoted in ways that, in my opinion, do not reflect my thoughts on what is happening. Furthermore, the larger number of statements made, the ones discussing the nuts and bolts of the contracts and contradicting rumors and speculation, are being ignored. I guess they aren’t sensational enough in the face of this debacle.
My decision to not publish with this company was made at the beginning of this year, long before any of this happened, when my last book tanked and my editor left. I had to wait to request a reversion because one of my books had been given away for free last year, technically making it ineligible for reversion until this month. Now, instead of planning what to do when I get the rights back, I’m planning how to start over with no backlist, because that has become a very real possibility.
The publisher was good to me. It accepted five of my stories and gave me a start in this business. This whole mess pains me.
So, here I am. Starting over. I’ve been through worse in life and this is just a small bump in my road. I’m okay and don’t need anything but for people who like me to keep liking me.
The great thing about this is that I get a chance to move in a new direction with my writing. Or more accurately, get back to my roots with mainstream contemporary romance. I have six manuscripts outlined, three of those mostly written, so I have plenty to keep me busy over the next couple years.
Thanks to everyone who’s supported me over the past four years, and don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.
Voirey
