How Torquere continues to implode, or, "Good Lord and Butter"

So, here's the latest update from Torquere:

"Sales we (sic) lower from distributors end of October than September. We are paying the editors their invoices from the books that have released. We are not ignoring the fact that we are behind on royalties and we are trying our very best to get things above water."*

Now, let's break this down, shall we?

Item the first. What does it matter to the authors who are owed money what kind of sales in there were September and October 2016? There are authors who are owed money from as early as 3rd Qtr 2015. In the thousands. The money all Amazon vendors received on Oct 29 was for August 2016. TQ still hasn't paid any author that I know of for April, May and June of 2016, and now they're using August money to pay editors rather than putting it away to pay authors? 3rd qtr 2016 royalties are due out no later than Nov 30. Do we think anyone will get paid? No, because by Torquere's own admission the money is gone!

Item second. They're not ignoring that they're behind. Except they are. By the accounts of at least 20-25 authors I've seen on social media, they've stopped answering emails. They're not giving rights back, even though they said in a public update they would. At least when they were issuing reversions they were better than other failing pubs, but now they're playing the we keep your books and your money game just like the rest.

Finally and, I think, more importantly, they're paying their editors with the recent payment from Amazon.

Goggles.

Yes, editors need to get paid for work done. However, as an LLC, it is the owner's responsibility to do that with her own money if paying the authors what they have earned ends up leaving her upside down. The onus is not on the authors to pay the businesses' bills. By contracts that the owners of TQ signed, the money earned by authors is to be paid to them no later than 60-65 days (and in some cases 30 days) after the end of the quarter. That 30-40 percent (with many at 35-45) should NEVER HAVE BEEN USED FOR ANYTHING ELSE.

So. Where is the money? Low sales are not to blame, because regardless of how much or little an author made, they should get paid. I know maybe 5 authors who are owed upwards of 50K all told. That doesn't count the other 100 or more authors and what they're owed for 2nd and 3rd qtr 2016. It's time for all TQ authors to stand up and demand to know where all that money went. Speak out. This needs to be stopped.

* I did remove a few more personal remarks from the email to be as fair as I can.

XXOO

Julia

How publishing works redux, or pay your damned authors

So many things to talk on today. Let me gather my thoughts.

Ooohhhhhm

Okay, first I want to talk about the EC-like complaining the owners of Torquere are doing. On Twitter, one says: Cont)but I am pretty fed up.I am done playing nice and trying to pacify people.Things are what they are and ARE being resolved.That is all.

The other says: When people are putting all they have in to try & fix things attacking them doesn't inspire a desire to work harder. Just a thought to keep.

Once again, blaming the authors for their failing. You can't misappropriate thousands of dollars of authors' money, not pay the for books you have a contract to pay them on, and then expect them to believe you when you say things are being resolved.

This is not OUR fault as Torquere authors. We wrote books, promoted them, and helped sell them. Kristi and Joanna then took that money, and spent it. There's no, "Oops, I tripped and lost 20K". There's no overhead that should ever spend the money of a press' authors. This was someone taking the money and spending it, and then not being able to figure out what to do when it suddenly caught up with them because authors began to wise up.

In an update to the author list this weekend, the owners said the payment they were about to receive from Amazon was disconcertingly low. Really? That payment is for July 2016, and has been posted in Amazon since the 15th of August in report form. If you're really trying to make things work, make things right, you should be on top of the incoming revenue as soon as you have access to the information. You should also be putting that money aside to pay the quarter it is actually earned in, not to try to pay off debts you owe from third qtr 2015 onward. That's right. At least one author hasn't received a full payment for anything since 2nd qtr 2015. That's April May and June, 2015. On the Torquere site sales. That qtr paid for Jan-March 2015 on distributors.

Asking for payments and demanding rights reversions for breach of contract are not attacks. They are sound business decisions from authors who have been treated at best unfairly, and at worst criminally.

Pay your authors. Then you don't have to deal with all that nasty hand holding and pacifying people who earned money they will never see.

Julia

Blaming authors for Publishing Failure

Or, how fast can Torquere Press LLC turn into EC?

Pretty fast.

In a statement issued to authors today, owners of Torquere Press LLC Kristi Boulware and Joanna Talbot admit to having financial problems and basically tell the whole of their authors they're not getting paid unless a loan can be procured. Not only that, they blame the authors who pulled their books between January and April 2016 for this failure, saying those authors leaving TQ caused them to not have enough money to pay overhead.

Pardon me? This is not how publishing works.

The simple equation of ebook publishing is this:

An author writes a book. The publisher edits it and puts a cover on it. The publisher lists it on their site and on distributor sites. Sales happen. The publisher promises to pay a % of sales to the author. This is a contractual obligation, not a gift or charitable act. The author has earned this money based on their hard work writing and promoting the book and on their talent. Payment must happen no matter how many or few sales are made. The publisher is supposed to put whatever percentage the author has earned into an escrow account until it's time to pay and only use the publisher's percentage to pay overhead and salaries.

End of story.

Now, unfortunately, due to the delayed nature of distributor payments, many times publishers don't realize they're in trouble until they have a bad quarter and end up not having enough of their money to pay bills or salaries or for that vacation they took, and they "borrow" from next quarter's author money. This is called robbing Peter to pay Paul. If the publisher is lucky, they have a good quarter next time, or their spouse has a day job, or whatever. They can pay the money back and get back on track. That's sadly not the case here.

Here's a timeline for everyone who thinks this is all brand new.

3rd qtr payments for 2015 were due no later than November 30, 2015. At least 3 authors, including TQ's bestselling author of all time, were not paid. Despite repeated email requests for information, two of these authors got no reply until they caught up with the owners on FB. One was paid via Paypal on the last day of December 2015. One finally received a check on Dec 31. 2 weeks later in January 2016, that check bounced for NSF. That was what was marked on the check. Not stop payment. NSF. Despite repeated requests for payment, the author with the bounced check was forced to turn in the owner for check fraud in late February for nearly 10K. Due to this issue, that author pulled her titles. Since mine and my wife's payment was late per the contract, we also pulled our titles because as former publishers and authors who went through the EC collapse, we could see what was happening. That was at the end of January.

The next round of payment owed were for 4th qtr 2015, payable no later than the end of February. I received my payment March 29. 1st qtr 2016 payments were due no later than May 31. I have not received it, despite a statement balance of $1558.41.

Most authors who were paid for that qtr report being paid June 30. 30 days late.

Other authors who were not paid, or who were again paid late, finally pulled their books.

2nd qtr 2016 was due no later than Sept 3rd, even by the newer contract term of 65 days past the end of the quarter. It has not been paid to anyone to my knowledge and now the letter has been issued that overhead takes priority over author payments and that up until "a few months ago" owners were still drawing salaries, which should have been the first thing to go once a check was bounced.

So I ask this. Where is the money? By statements alone, some 30K is owed to a handful of authors who have been repeatedly stiffed. That is 1/3 of what Torquere received in actual sales for THOSE authors alone. So where did all that money go? Why was author money being spent in the first place, no matter how bad the business was being mismanaged?

My advice to all Torquere authors is this: she offered your rights back. Write today and get them. NOW. Run. Write RWA and report non-payment. Write Writer Beware and report non-payment. Go public. This is theft, and it's unacceptable to ever blame authors, distributors, or advertising contracts for author money being spent on anything other than royalties.

XXOO

Julia

points to ponder if you're an author who hasn't been paid

1. Where is the money?

I hear TQ isn't promising payment until the end of June... Not from the publisher, natch. But to me, this action suggests that the publisher is out of money until the next Amazon payment comes in June 30. If this is the case, where did 1st qtr money go to? Because April, May, and June payments should have been saved to pay 2nd qtr royalties. The State Attorney General has not informed Sean Michael that the hot check has been taken care of, so it didn't go there. This also means payment will be 30 days past the 60 days after the end of the quarter. For lots of folks.

2. What's with the excuses?

Has anyone else noticed how similar the excuses are to the ones used by EC? The person who does the royalties is sick. No one else knows how to do them. Thing is, according to emails, all statements are out . I did receive mine today as I was writing this post, nearly a month after the rest of the statements went out. So if they're all done, why is it so hard for someone else to write checks and send them out?

3. Worth repeating.

As of right now, the state attorney has not contacted Sean Michael that the hot check has been paid. It's been a week since the arrest and since the claim that it was paid in full. The SAG office has sent immediate updates on the situation at all times until the alleged payment...

4.

If you would like to contact RWA and let them know you haven't been paid, please get a hold of me via the contact form here on Blogger or on my website. I have the name of the person who does these investigations and membership in RWA is not required. Sadly, since someone felt it necessary to put an author's real name in the comments here I have had to moderate what comes in, but you're welcome to reply via comment and I will see that as well.

XXOO

Julia