Abandoned

Over the last few years, I have observed a disturbing trend in publishing. Many, if not most, of the small and mid-level publishers I know have gone out of business, leaving their authors wondering where to go and what to do.

The first to affect us personally was Whiskey Creek Press. http://whiskeycreekpress.com/ The owners were very close friends, and our relationship with them was a personal as well as business one. Health issues forced them to sell their company. They were fortunate. At the time, another publisher, Start Publishing, was interested in obtaining the company. We had seven books with them, so it was easier to leave them with the same publisher, especially since they maintained the original website, even with the change in ownership. They also contracted with Simon and Schuster to distribute our ebooks. https://www.simonandschuster.com/search/books/_/N-/Ntt-Lorna+Collins

In 2016, the publisher of Wild Child Publishing/Freya’s Bower closed her publishing house. At the time, she explained that Amazon’s changes had made it impossible for small-to-mid-sized publishers to stay in business. Other publishers followed.

The same year, the owner of Oak Tree Press, Billie Johnson, had a massive stroke. It was not her first, but she had recovered from an earlier one, so her authors hoped she’d do the same this time. After a year with no royalties, I decided to request my rights back and self-publish my book, Ghost Writer. Some others did the same. However, in 2018, Billie died, and many of her authors were left without a publisher.

I have helped some of these to self-publish their books, but others are still trying to figure out what they will do.

Next to succumb was Desert Breeze Publishing, one of the most ethical houses I ever worked with. I edited for them for a few years. They also published several of my friends’ books. A couple of years ago, the owner had a serious car accident. She has been in nearly constant pain ever since. This, combined with the Amazon system’s policy changes, led her to stop doing business.

The latest publisher to fold is Mundania Press. This was one of the most respected of the mid-level publishers. Through the past fifteen years or so, they acquired several other small presses. However, they have been unable to pay royalties for a few months. Sadly, they, too, have given up.

When Oak Tree closed, our dear friend, Marilyn Meredith had her Rocky Bluff PD mystery series as well as quite a few other outliers published through Oak Tree. Another publisher, Aakenbaaken & Kent (also a friend), took the series and is currently re-publishing it. Larry and I self-published the others under Marilyn’s name. They now belong to her, and she gets all the royalties.

Her Tempe Crabtree mystery series was published by Mundania. We told her we would do the same with these. There were sixteen previously published books plus a new one, which should have been released months ago. She sent me the files, and Spirit Wind it is now available as of last Saturday in paperback and ebook. (Marilyn used my name for a character in a previous book, and she is back in this one—perhaps my favorite of all.)

In addition to the seventeen books in this series, Mundania had also published several of her other freestanding books. Thank goodness, Marilyn kept all of her files. (We share the same birthday, and we’re both very organized.)

So, now I’m at work trying to re-edit and re-format all the manuscripts. She has all the front cover artwork—thank goodness because these are gorgeous! But Larry has had to re-create the back covers and spines. This one turned out beautifully, so we are optimistic about the rest of them.

Many other authors are now left high and dry with no publishers and few options. Most do not have the skills necessary to self-publish their books.

The publishing industry has undergone a complete change during the thirteen years since we published our first book—and not necessarily for the better.

Have you had any experiences with being abandoned by a publisher?

Marilyn Meredith - Tangled Webs

Today I host my good friend, Marilyn Meredith. She writes two different mystery series. Today, she will tell you about her long publishing journey with her Rocky Bluff PD series. Welcome back, Marilyn.

A Sane Person Would Have Given Up

Yes, I’ve had that thought many times as I’ve lost one small publisher after another, but I’m one of those “never-give up” people.

I’m going to tell you about my publishers for the Rocky Bluff P.D. series. It all began when a few people were talking about electronic publishing. I’d written Final Respects and was trying to find a publisher for it. During that time period, authors perused the large book of publishers put out by Writers Digest. It’s where I found a publisher looking for police procedurals, and my mystery was accepted. But—this publisher was only going to publish it in electronic form. I accepted the contract. The book looked great, but it had to be read on a computer, and the process to buy a copy was difficult. The publisher failed.

Time passed, and the Rocket eBook reader came on the scene. The next publisher I approached with the book did paper and ebooks. He published Final Respects and Bad Tidings, and though I knew books were sold, no royalties came my way until I complained. We parted company.

A publisher recommended by a friend accepted the next two books in the series, Fringe Benefits and Smell of Death, and did a bang-up job producing paper and ebooks but decided publishing was not what she wanted to do.

I met Billie Johnson, the publisher for Oak Tree Press. We became good friends, and she took on the next books in the series. The books looked great, I received royalties, and we were both happy for a long time. Then something unexpected and terribly sad happened: the publisher had a stroke, and the company could no longer continue.

What now? Mike Orenduff of Aakenbaaken and Kent is in the process of republishing all the books in the series. The latest is Tangled Webs. I am delighted to be with this new company.

As an aside, some of my stand-alone books were also published by Oak Tree Press. My host for today, Lorna Collins, who is also a dear friend, volunteered to edit and publish them on Amazon for me. I’m so grateful to her for doing such a huge job for me.

Am I bit crazy for not giving up? Maybe, but I don’t think so.

You can purchase Tangled Webs here: https://tinyurl.com/yabj9z9f

Too many people are telling lies: The husband of the murder victim and his secretary, the victim’s boss and co-workers in the day care center, her stalker, and Detective Milligan’s daughter.

Marilyn Meredith writes the RBPD series as F. M. Meredith. She once lived in a beach town much like Rocky Bluff and has many friends and relatives in law enforcement. She’s a member of MWA, 3 chapters of Sisters in Crime, and serves on the PSWA Board.

Webpage: http://fictionforyou.com

Blog: https://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com

Facebook: Marilyn Meredith

Twitter: @marilynmeredith

Tomorrow I’ll be talking about speaking engagements: https://www.susantuttlewriter.com/

Why Attend Writing Conferences

We just returned from a weekend at the California Crime Writers Conference. As always, we had a great time, saw old friends, met new ones, and learned a great deal.

We’ve attended conferences since shortly after our first book was published, and we’ve been asked why. Here’s my answer.

I suggested we attend the Maui Writers’ Conference a few months after we published our first book, 31 Months in Japan: The Building of a Theme Park. We had already planned a trip to the island for the same time, and one of my favorite authors, Gail Tsukiyama, was a presenter. Larry said he’d rather surf. That is, until he found out one of his favorites, Terry Brooks, was a speaker. Oh, and he realized the cost of the conference was tax-deductible.

He finally agreed to go, but said he’d drop me off in the morning, go surfing, and pick me up in the afternoon, except for the time Terry was scheduled. I agreed.

Once we arrived and he saw all the topics available, he decided maybe he’d go to one or two. It was a good thing we had another few days in Hawaii following the conference, because he never went surfing. Alas, the conference is no more, but we still have the memories.

We heard some awesome people speak, learned a great deal, which we’re still using, met some wonderful folks with whom we’re still in touch, and had a blast.

One person we met became the inspiration for our protagonist, Agapè Jones, in our cozy mysteries, Murder…They Wrote and Murder in Paradise.

We enjoyed spending time with others who understand when you complain, “My characters just won’t do what I want them to do.” They nod sagely, because they’ve been there, too.

Our first book was named a finalist for the EPPIE award, so we decided to attend the EPIC conference (EPICon) the following year.

This conference was smaller than Maui, but some of the attendees have become dear friends.

I met one of my writing partners at the first one. Together with three other friends, we’ve written the six Aspen Grove sweet romance anthologies: Snowflake Secrets, Seasons of Love, An Aspen Grove Christmas, The Art of Love, Directions of Love, which won the EPIC eBook Award, and our latest, …And a Silver Sixpence in Her Shoe, soon to be available as an audiobook. She also introduced us to the independent publisher, who published our romances as well as our mysteries.

We also met the publishers for whom I have edited and formatted as well as several of my freelance clients.

For quite a few years, we presented classes and workshops at EPICon. Those became the foundation for speaking engagements, which we’ve been doing a lot more of recently.

Last year, we attended the Left Coast Crime Conference in Monterey, CA, where we got together with one of my publishers and several of her authors for dinner. We’d met her through a previous conference.

While in Monterey, we spent an evening with a friend who lives there, attended some great presentations, and participated as presenters on panels, made new friends and learned more about our craft. We also got to hear Elizabeth George and Sue Grafton again. We’d met both of them at previous conferences.

Why do we attend conferences? We have opportunities to network with other writers and industry professionals. We learn a lot. We keep current on the state of the publishing industry. We return home inspired and ready to get back to writing again.