It’s been a very strange night. Hell, it’s been a strange month! Since last I was here, I managed to take first place in the Sigma Tau Delta literary conference at SUU with my paper, “Word Wizardry.” Some of you who have been following me since the beginning may remember this particular concept, but just in case you need a refresher, check out Gianna Simone’s blog from the April Noble Romance blog tour!
While the tour was wonderful and I harbor some great memories, things have not all been roses and sunshine with Noble lately. Tomorrow, uppermost in the minds of most Americans will be a guy who looks a little something like this:
But what I’m thinking about today is a turkey that looks a bit more like this:
You see, today I had the inexcusably bad taste to inquire as to why five of my works, which I demanded removed from Noble’s site three weeks ago, are still up on their site and third party resellers in direct, flagrant breach of Noble’s own contracts. Here’s the email chain that developed between me and Mr. Jean Marc Gombart, CEO of Noble Romance Publishing:
From: J.S. Wayne [mailto:jswayne702@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 1:30 PM
To: jgombart@nobleromance.com
Subject: Why is my work still up?
Noble no longer has contractual rights to five of my works. Remove them
forthwith, or explain what makes you believe you are not subject to the
terms, specifically the termination clause, of Noble contracts.
On 11/21/12, Jean Gombart <jgombart@nobleromance.com> wrote:
Dear JS Wayne,
It is not because as your publisher and according to the contract we
mutually signed, we have the rights for these books still for a few years.
From: “J.S. Wayne” <jswayne702@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2012 12:59:36 -0700
Subject: Re: Why is my work still up?
To: Jean Gombart <jgombart@nobleromance.com>
Wrong. Those contracts have been terminated for cause. You are now
committing copyright infringement and theft, which I will pursue in
the courts.
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1:25 PM (6 hours ago)
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to Jean
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I would also remind you that your failure to address the initial
issues in the contractually specified timeframe is what nullified
those contracts.
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1:26 PM (6 hours ago)
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to me
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Totally unaware of that, to the best of our knowledge, we Noble Romance
are in compliance with the contract we have with you.
If you have any specific complain, please share it with us, we will find a
solution to it.
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1:33 PM (6 hours ago)
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to Jean
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Try checking your email. There is a notice from October 29th, a DMCA
takedown notice four days later, and a warning of civil and criminal
charges pursuant to my breach of contract notification received 30
July 12 by Noble’s attorney of record and emailed July 26th to James
Noble. Removing my work is the only acceptable solution at this point,
and this is completely nonegotiable.
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1:36 PM (6 hours ago)
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I understand your concern but the problem is that we did not find on your
previous written complain that any of the issues, you were speaking about,
were a real issue and we do not think that we were in breach of our
contract.
If you still remain convinced that something is missing, please share it
with us, if it needs to be taken care of, it will be done very quickly.
(emphasis added)
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1:50 PM (5 hours ago)
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The issues were real enough to warrant me spelling them out very
clearly and demanding written acknowledgment and reply. If that isn’t
real enough for you, it’s more than real enough for my attorney. You
can call me if you wish to discuss this further, but I have made my
stance and what I deem acceptable at this point quite clear. The time
for negotiation is over, and I gave you every reasonable opportunity
to do so. Remove the works I specified.
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2:27 PM (5 hours ago)
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I am not negotiating anything, I am still running after facts and will
gratefully have any issue fact based resolve very quickly.
I am not looking for any agreement, just looking to do the right thing for
you and us.
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3:04 PM (4 hours ago)
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Take my work down in twenty-four hours or my next communication will
come via an attorney. You have no goodwill left to burn with me.
For a number of reasons, I’m going to omit any editorialization on these emails. I think they speak for themselves. However, lest there should be any question or thought that I am the only person having these issues, Aleksandr Voinov, one of the owners of Riptide Publishing, was inspired to write this yesterday concerning his own issues with Mr. Gombart and Noble Romance Publishing:
http://www.aleksandrvoinov.blogspot.com/2012/11/noble-romance-has-violated-my-copyright.html
Also, the lovely Gianna Simone had her own inimitable Jersey take on the matter:
http://giannasimone.blogspot.com/2012/09/publisher-woes-part-2.html
This is only the tip of the iceberg, folks, and it’s not looking like it’s going to get any prettier from here. For my fans and readers, I ask you once again. PLEASE DO NOT purchase any of my work published by Noble Romance Publishing. There are options available from Black Velvet Seductions, Cleis Press, and my own self-published work. If you decide to boycott Noble utterly, however, please check with any Noble author whose work you enjoy before doing so. It is possible they may not have the same issues and problems that I and so many of my fellows have. Just because some of us have a beef right now does not mean all of us do.
However, to all new authors looking to get published, I can only urge you to steer well clear of Noble until this mess is resolved. Trust me, publishing cred is great, but sometimes the price you pay in the long run is just too high. I’ll be paying it for some time to come.
With that said, I’m off to bed, folks. Morning’s going to come early in this neck of the woods.
Until next time,
Best,
J.S. Wayne
(P.S. All the information recorded herein is either factual or the original author’s opinion and is recorded here for the sake of public information, knowledge, and inclusiveness, and is herein presented without malice. To cut a long story short: No libel or slander here, guys. Sorry about your bad luck.)
