You remember the saga of Dorchester Publishing. How they ripped off their authors and vendors, including myself, in a variety of ways, including non-payment of royalties and publishing and selling books they no longer had the rights to. The entire sordid tale is documented here, along with plenty of links to everything else. Last I reported (back in May), the new CEO promised everyone would get paid. Seven months later, dozens of authors and vendors report that hasn’t happened.
But Dorchester did send a digital Christmas card to their former authors and vendors yesterday, including ones they still owe. Perhaps the most egregious example was that of former copy editor Dave Thomas whom Dorchester still owes for 17 jobs. He received a card, and promptly Tweeted “Christmas cards are now considered legitimate currency in publishing. Wonder if BoA will accept a card in lieu of my mortgage payment?” Dorchester did not respond to my multiple inquiries, nor explain why I was one of the few who didn’t get a holiday card.
Be careful, Brian. When your card comes it might be ticking… #dorchestersucks
Me thinks whistleblowers don’t get holiday cards?
Brian, I’ve been wondering if you know (and possibly share) anything about Richard Laymon’s books revert back to his family. Also whether or or not his books will be rereleased as ebooks. (I would love to have his library on my Kindle but refuse to support the Leisure titles currently available)
Thanks and Merry Christmas!
Andrew
Andrew: I have no information, unfortunately.
Hi we’re Dorchester, and we still hate the fucking book industry. So pathetic, so messed up…
Dorchester didn’t give you a Christmas Card because they are giving you the greatest gift of all…
I couldn’t figure out how to end that, I was hoping the dot dot dot would inspire me.
I didn’t get one either!
Here’s a digital Christmas Card just for you:
http://tinypic.com/r/4rx2k0/5
Feh, you’d think they’d resolve all of this by now…
Crazy stuff. I got a card too, and I’ve been fighting like hell with them for months now to get my rights (and money owed) from them. I didn’t even open the damn e-card. I just trashed it.
Gord
And they think the vendors and authors they owe money to want a Christmas card from them? Really? Unless the card said, “Merry Christmas, your check is in the mail (really, it is),” then I think they should have limited their Christmas cards to the people they don’t currently owe money to. Of course, that list is probably quite a bit shorter isn’t it?
Absolutely disgusting – the whole sordid affair. Send Leviathan on over to them and maybe they’ll pay up then.
No card for me. Waaaah!
dorchester sucks.
Even though I’m no longer publishing with Dorchester (finally got my rights back) I got a card. But I didn’t open it. Who knows what kind of viruses it might contain.
Elysa
I’d be positively shocked if I got a holiday card from where I work.
I don’t work at P&G Laboratories, like a certain doctor I once dated, who would get a dag on CRATE of gifts for Christmas that all fit into one box but it was chock full of gifts that “glorify the company” in his words.
He even got a miniature of the Joy lemon, which he didn’t want and I still have. You can hang it from your rearview mirror if you want to; it has a little strip of fabric that forms a loop. I can’t imagine what else they want you to do with it but, when I suggested it to him (he was in his 20′s then) he said there’s no way he’s hanging “that thing” from his mirror. It isn’t THAT bad, it’s just a cute little lemon with a smiling face on it and legs that look like it’s wearing elf stockings – and arms.
He didn’t even like the book ‘Eyes On Tomorrow,’ which is a personal history of the company from its beginning in 1837 to its then-current year of 1987. I must say, he sure didn’t get into the spirit of a P&G Christmas (I also have the book, ‘Eyes On Tomorrow.’ )
I think the best thing I got for Christmas from work was when the guy who was burned over fully half of his total body surface (up his entire front, from legs to face) came in to thank us for helping him.
I was an EMT then (EMT-B, b for basic, the bottom of the ‘corporate ladder’ so to speak) and our Paramedic, whose name was Ríco, was positively shocked that the guy said thank you. He told us that what we just witnessed, the guy thanking us, was so rare we’d probably never see it again and, that if we did, it would be like lightning striking the same place twice (only in a good rather than destructive way.)
And I never have seen anyone return to say thank you but most people who WOULD thank us have no idea who we are, I mean they have no way of finding out who we are, b/c they have no memory of us saving them.
I’ve seen people come in to complain about how the paddles from the AED machine left a scar on them, and they were upset that we gave them a scar while they were in cardiac arrest (the alternative to a scar would be death), but they don’t usually come around when they want to say thank you for helping them.
It’s a good thing that expectation has nothing to do with why I became a Paramedic, b/c I can’t imagine how disappointed I’d be if I HAD expected it.