Discovered Authors: why-oh-why…

…must you treat me this way? I don’t agree with airing my issues in public, but don’t want anyone else to have similar problems. As usual, I don’t suggest you shouldn’t use the company, as everyone’s experiences are different: read mine and make your own mind up.

Communications between myself and the company have now dried up. Even the previously email-friendly accounts man has stopped replying to my emails. I finally realised that I can’t be amicable any longer? There is a fine line between exceedingly patient and doormat, and I don’t wish to be the latter.

To refresh your memory, my book was released Feb 07. My first royalty statement was due about 6 months later – it arrived, late, but was never paid. After a certain length of time, my contract stipulated that the rights to the book would revert to me (after contacting the company lots of times). The sum that was not paid was VERY small, so I thought it odd that this wasn’t taken care of. An oversight, I thought. So the rights to the book returned to me in Feb 2008 – the company still sold it. I enquired after royalties and was subsequently sold that I hadn’t sold any books…then that I hadn’t sold the qualifying number of books to get paid that period. I did my own research and contact Nielsen, who confirmed that I had sold books (more than I thought).

Since then, I’ve been trying to get paid. It’s not a lot of money, but there’s a principle at stake here, I think. Any money is good for me, but I can’t understand why a company would refuse to pay such a mediocre (to them) sum? I really want to believe it’s all been an oversight, but when everyone stops replying to my weekly emails, I’m not sure that it is. Why can’t people/companies just play fair?

It’s important to note that I did not self-publish, but was published under a traditional contract, after the Undiscovered Authors competition.