In a move that has veteran authors, neophyte wordsmiths, and industry insiders alike raising eyebrows, Noble Romance’s entire library of works has vanished literally overnight from ARe’s virtual shelves. Since my work had already been pulled at my own request via a DMCA takedown notice, I was not surprised in the slightest not to find my own work there. My biggest fear was that Noble would pull the usual “deny, deny, deny” tactics and forcibly reinstate my work so that they could continue to profit from it while giving me and other authors the proverbial finger.
Interestingly, the pendulum seems to have swung the other way.
A couple of weeks back, Noble Romance finally bothered to send out royalty statements. Almost two weeks late, and riddled with errors, so no new ground being broken here. However, a couple of authors immediately pointed out problems with their statements. So I sent mine over to Lori James, the COO of All Romance eBooks, as did a few other authors.
Lori’s reaction to the requests was to send a bluntly worded email to Jean Marc Gombart, CEO of Noble Romance Publishing, to ask why authors were suddenly playing 20 Questions with her about their Noble royalty statements. His reply was that he would “call tomorrow.” This was the last I, or to the best of my knowledge, any other Noble author heard on the topic…until now.
Margie Church posted on her blog this morning about the sudden disappearing act. At last report, her post had garnered over 300 hits, and climbing steadily. While the prevailing mood among Noble authors seems to veer toward stunned, I really don’t see this as surprising per se. However, it does raise a couple of ominous questions concerning who did what, and why.
WHODUNNIT?
Believe it or not, this question DOES matter, because of its implications for authors and the future of Noble Romance Publishing. So, let’s examine the possibilities here.
If ARe did it:
We can assume that the promised phone conference did not go in Noble’s favor. Gombart undoubtedly tried the same face-saving evasive tactics he has attempted so often in the past, and they didn’t work. At this point, Lori James said, “My company does not need to be embroiled in your house’s internal politics, and I am far too supportive of authors’ rights to resell your product only to have you give authors a fraction of what their work should actually be paying them under contract.” So negotiations ground to a halt, Lori James severed the connection to Noble, and all’s well that ends well. Now there’s a model for what other resellers should be doing with Noble Romance authors’ work right now, until the powers that be find their way back to the straight and narrow.
In this paradigm, ARe deserves unmitigated applause for standing up for the rights of authors, a state of affairs that has not been echoed by many other third-party resellers since all this occurred. As a matter of fact, no matter what, ARe deserves this applause. My DMCA notice was acted on literally overnight, banking a great deal of goodwill with me that I hope to be able to reward in due course. This is how a bookseller should react to information that authors are getting the short end of the stick from their publisher, especially when said authors give them the paper trail to prove that they actually do own the rights and that what the publisher is doing is nothing more than theft. In doing it this way, ARe demonstrated whose side they’re on: authors’.
If Noble did it:
We can assume that the promised phone conference did not go in Noble’s favor. Gombart undoubtedly tried the same face-saving evasive tactics he has attempted so often in the past, and they didn’t work. At this point, Lori James said, “My company does not need to be embroiled in your house’s internal politics, and I am far too supportive of authors’ rights to resell your product only to have you give authors a fraction of what their work should actually be paying them under contract.” So negotiations ground to a halt, but instead of Lori James pulling the plug, Gombart tried his usual arrogant “How dare you question my business practices or ethics, even though I’ve routinely proven myself to be the antithesis of ethical?”
This is perhaps the more likely of the two. Gombart told another author, Brita Addams, that he was not obligated to put books up for sale at ANY third-party reseller and that he was only posting her re-release, Serenity’s Dream, to ARe as a favor to her. This after telling her three days previously that, concerning the release date for Serenity’s Dream, “complain are not welcome” and that the release was done “as a favor.”
Therefore, it is reasonable to suspect that Gombart pulled the plug with ARe as part of his ongoing attempt to “teach authors how to behave.” He clearly resented being made to put the books up for sale, and it seems likely that he was looking for an excuse to sever that tie altogether. If this is the case, it had nothing to do with being aware of the realities of modern publishing and everything to do with proving, like any petty dictator will do, where the true power in this situation resides. It’s just another example of a wannabe Napoleon penalizing those who dare to ask relevant questions such as “Why aren’t my royalty statements here on time? Why are your authors contacting me to find out how much their books made?”
The problem with this possibility is that no publisher with a shred of common sense would willingly sacrifice revenue from a third-party whose sales frequently outperform those on the publisher’s home website. Especially not 410 books’ worth of revenue (this estimate pulled from Noble’s own website). If this actually did go down with Noble axing the deal, it certainly signals a potentially fatal blow to Noble’s bottom line…and for what? ARe is far less likely to miss Noble’s sales than Noble is, because they’ve got thousands of books still up for sale. Noble, however, is gasping and wheezing for revenue, a state of affairs only exacerbated by the fact that they have not had a new release since June 6th. This, in its turn, paints a more damning picture about Noble’s public perception right now than any number of blog posts.
IN CONCLUSION
My own lawsuit is currently working its way through the bureaucracy of the Fulton County State Court (one devoutly hopes). I know of several other authors who are gearing up for similar suits. I will be keeping an eye on these events and posting updates as warranted. In the meantime, I will echo the sentiments I have expressed here on more than one occasion, sentiments which many of my fellow Noble authors are now broadcasting through their own social media:
Please DO NOT purchase any of my work which is available under the Noble Romance aegis. Write to Noble Romance Publishing and tell them how you feel about authors’ rights being treated in such a shabby cavalier fashion. If you want to read my work, check out my offerings from Cleis Press, Changeling Press, Black Velvet Seductions, et al. Please do not give money to a company who doesn’t care enough about the people who provide their product to pay authors what has been contractually agreed upon and who views its own contracts as only of benefit to the company. Tweet it, blog it, G+ it, Facebook it…but let Noble know you support authors’ rights. And one more time, please give Lori James and ARe a big hand!
Until next time,
Best,
J.S. Wayne
