I initially had no intention of doing this.
But events and persons have forced my hand.
Earlier today it was brought to my attention that Jean Marc Gombart, the CEO of Noble Romance Publishing, has been telling other authors that all has been forgiven and forgotten, I am fully back in the fold, and perfectly happy with Noble Romance Publishing. (Hereinafter he is referred to simply as “Gombart.” I do not attach titles to people whom I do not respect.)
I do not know what else to call this but a flat-out, bald-faced LIE.
I can only assume the purpose behind this falsehood is to attempt to lure other authors who have become disenchanted with or disenfranchised by Noble back into the fold. My reasons for my public silence of late will become clear in short order, but this cannot hold any longer.
Here are the facts:
On February 5th Gombart and I had a very curt phone conversation. I wanted to know why, in the face of all the evidence that Noble Romance Publishing was not doing the right thing, he persisted in keeping my work on Noble’s shelves. In the course of that conversation, I acknowledged there was a possibility (unlikely) that I had misjudged the situation. I told him I would give him ONE chance, and one chance ONLY, to prove he was capable of delivering what he had promised. We made a verbal agreement that consisted of exactly two conditions:
1) That I would afford Noble Romance Publishing the period of two months and one week, from February 6th to April 15th, 2013, to demonstrate a one hundred percent increase over my current royalties (total of 200% of my current earnings).
2) If Noble could do this, I would consider coming back. If they failed, Gombart would give me a blanket Right of First Refusal waiver for all sequelae for my works currently held under the aegis of Noble Romance Publishing.
This was agreed to and I instructed him to write out an email and forward it to all interested parties. I received a reply, forwarded on to myself and key staff at Noble Romance Publishing, about twenty minutes after the conversation ended. In this email he stated that he was expecting a “collaboration” and that we would be working closely on social media and promotion, among other things. When I finished reading the email, I drafted a reply, which follows below.
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Feb 5
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What we discussed was that Noble would assume responsibility for demonstrating your capacity to increase my sales, absent any input or assistance from me. I have more than put in my time to promote my work with Noble, with minimal success because of the inertia of the company. The point of this exercise is for you to demonstrate to me that my work is viable and profitable to allow to remain with Noble, not to assist in promotion until after the deadline has passed with what I deem to be satisfactory results. To reiterate, those terms are:
1) Noble demonstrates an ability to effectively promote my work by demonstrating sales at or surpassing 200% of the current rate, without my aid or assistance at this time.
2) If Noble fails to do so (0-99% change, which is not 100%), you will remit me a blanket waiver of ROFR clause terms, effective immediately and on an ongoing basis, as of March 15th.
These were the terms we discussed, and they are not flexible. Particularly after the tone of our conversation, I am surprised and dismayed that you would consider the idea of me submitting anything to Noble prior to March 15th to be on the table. I thought I made my stance on that quite clear: you show me the money, then I entertain the idea of submitting further work.
Nice try, though. Revise this and make it clear to all parties that this was the agreement.
And, just a hint: trying to sneak things through under the wire is not the way to secure my ongoing cooperation.
Now things got interesting. The machine swung into full gear. I received communications from four different Noble Romance staffers in 24 hours. Fiona Jayde got to work on a new cover for Angels Cry. Casey Harris revved up the promo machine. This is where things got sticky, because I was asked about the possibility of doing an interview for Noble’s blog and some other promo. As per the terms of the letter, I refused. Now Mary Harris entered the picture.
I had always had a great deal of respect for Mary in the past and was curious to see how she operated. For the first little while, everything seemed great. But days became weeks, and I heard nothing from her regarding edits. In the meantime, I had been asked to remove certain blogs concerning the situation at Noble Romance Publishing. Although I felt this request to be far beyond the limits of our agreement, I nevertheless did so in the interest of fostering a reasonable semblance of cooperation. I then informed Gombart that I would not bend any further, nor would I assist Noble in any other way.
This was apparently taken by him and Mary Harris as a refusal to review the edits she made. These were later sent to me in a single email, in which she stated the new files had already been sent on and that no substantial changes had been made. When I reviewed said edits, I noted that I and Bryl Tyne had previously missed a problem with “Angels Would Fall,” wherein Ariel’s eyes were blue on one page and green on another. Mary noted this, but failed to mention which way she had gone. Result: I don’t know what color my own character’s eyes are. Additionally, she changed the phrasing of a key part of the story. It was a single word, but I chose that word deliberately and fought tooth and nail for it in initial edits. These were two of the larger ones, but a number of other problems cropped up on a second, third, and fourth reading.
I sent back an email, still attempting to be diplomatic, and addressed the word change specifically. I told her that was the only problem I saw that warranted comment.
Her reply was, “Only one? J.S., I’m honored!”
Fifteen minutes later an email was sent to me and Gombart.
“Here is J.S.’s response. I doubt he will ever admit we did a great job for him.”
My response?
“This was completely uncalled for, but it is telling:
I am more than willing to and capable of giving credit where credit is due. In every respect.”
From this point, I stepped back from the entire debacle and waited. The books were re-released, and I will give Casey Harris a great deal of credit: She worked her tail off to promote my work. It didn’t pay off, though. Oddly, my royalties actually dropped. Banner headlines, dominance of the blog for almost three weeks, and my covers the first things anyone saw at the Noble website all failed to stimulate sales. This was not her fault, though. The word was out about Noble, and nothing was going to change that.
In the meantime, a number of my former colleagues at Noble asked me what was going on. I answered them with perfect honesty and explained in great detail what had been agreed upon, what Gombart had undertaken as a result, and my feelings on the subject.
On April 16th, a full month and a day after Gombart was supposed to have sent me a ROFR waiver for all my works, I drafted and sent one of my own. I stated explicitly that I required his signature upon it within 24 hours of receipt and that the waiver I had drafted was the only one I would accept. I also explained that an electronic signature would not suffice and that I required his physical signature on a scanned, printed copy of the document.
This went ignored.
On April 18th, I sent him another breach of contract notice. This time I actually attached the contract and parsed it point by point, highlighting the problem areas. I had previously seen that Gombart went to Piers Anthony at HiPiers.com to refute the charges Noble authors were making, and Mr. Anthony’s response struck me as quite reasonable: “If I have complaints from named persons I can forward to the company for redress, I will.” No problem. I forwarded the same missive to him as well.
My breach of contract notification went unanswered. Again.
However, Mr. Anthony posted the following on his website as part of his May update regarding Noble:
JS Wayne sent the publisher a very specific list of contract violations—that is, selecting passages in the the contract. These include ignoring a previous breach of contract statement, pretending ignorance of it, continuing to sell a book after it was reverted, failing to get author approval for changes in the manuscript, failure to provide author copies, failure to provide raw financial data for an independent audit. In sum: this publisher knows no law. It appears to do what it wants without regard to author rights or preferences, ignores complaints, and retaliates against those who do complain. Until these named complaints are resolved, this publisher should be avoided.
I stand by the assertions I have made previously here on this very blog; on AbsoluteWrite’s Water Cooler; and elsewhere concerning Noble Romance Publishing. While the art and publicity departments remains and have become, respectively, of excellent caliber, the editorial and management end lamentably remains of the same quality that prompted the initial complaints.
And now I hear that Gombart is putting it about that all is forgiven and he has managed to win over one of his most “vitriolic” opponents. Jim Butcher called this “Vader Syndrome.”
My silence was predicated on two points: One, I have a code of honor. When I give my word, I don’t go against it without a very compelling reason, and putting all this out prior to the expiration of the agreement and giving Gombart a chance to prove he was a man of his word would have violated that. Two, I did not wish to chance alienating Changeling Press’s management, who have thus far proven to be everything I used to think Noble Romance Publishing was.
However, I take it personally when someone who holds contracts and his company’s obligations in such low regard turns around and claims to other authors that we’re now great friends, et cetera et cetera blah blah blah. While my reputation is very important to me, the fact is my reputation means nothing if it is used in such a deceitful and underhanded manner. Not, in retrospect, that I should have expected any better from Gombart. This whole Mephistopholean bargain was undertaken for what I felt to be good and honorable reasons. To then have the terms blatantly ignored and the ensuing actions I have taken dismissed as unworthy of concern is nothing more than par for this particular course, but to use my name as a seal of approval I never gave is completely beyond the pale.
In brief: If you do not hear from me directly that I have returned to the Noble fold, it has not happened. I can assure you that it cannot and will not happen from this point forward. I am and remain as staunchly opposed to Noble’s business practices and unethical activities as ever before, and will continue to strongly recommend authors steer well clear of this house.
I retain all the emails from all parties concerned, paper, electronic, and .pdf formats. Rest assured I would not make such allegations without the wherewithal to support them. From here, gentle readers, I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions and make your own decision regarding where my loyalties lie.
And, not at all incidentally: Public notice is forthwith given that, breaches of contract having been asserted in accordance with the terms of the various contracts I have with Noble Romance Publishing, not once, but twice, and ignored not once, but twice, effective as of today the rights to all my works are hereby reverted to my sole control as the creator and copyright owner. Any works published by Noble Romance Publishing in my name are so published in direct infringement of my copyright to such works. The rights to these works have reverted to my sole control effective as of this post, to do with and distribute as I see fit, in their original state or in an edited form that omits any and all contributions that may be considered property of Noble Romance Publishing.
“The question is not who’s going to let me. The question is who’s going to stop me.” –Ayn Rand
Until next time,
Best,
J.S. Wayne
