Robbing Peter to pay Paul…

There is a company I used to write for. I don't any more. I don't trust them. They started out as good and solid. They appeared to know what they were doing. Appearances as we know are deceptive.

Now I'm not someone that trusts easily but I trusted them up to a point ...for a while. Then cracks started to appear. I got emails from other authors who told me about the scary things that had happened to them. Royalty payments were very late or terribly, terribly wrong and when questioned the company would suddenly ‘find’ missing money. Now, I work with money every day. That’s my job. Losing money indicates two things. One, you suck at managing money and two, you are using it for purposes of which it was not meant. What could they be? In my accounts experience I would say dodgy dealings like shoring yourself up against other debts.

Anyway, in the past as none of this was happening to me, I thought maybe other authors were exaggerating. Then it started to happen to me. Then I started to ask questions. Then my royalty payments stopped showing up on time – or at the moment not at all. They arrived weeks late and they were very, very wrong. When I questioned this half arsed way of business I was told it's because you're in Australia – ‘it takes months for stuff to arrive.’ Uh huh, sure, maybe when Captain Cook was on the Endeavour but when I send stuff to the US if takes no more than 7-10 days. I also find it odd that until I started questioning things my cheque payments were spot on with never a complaint from me. Funny about that…

This is what I know and believe. You should ask questions. You must. People who are doing the wrong thing hate to be asked questions but fuck it, do it anyway. Yep, the questions will probably be difficult and the response will be things like you ‘suck as a writer’ - and while opinion like that doesn’t bother me - saying that and not backing it up with logic makes me realize there is no logic. I refuse to accept unethical business ethics. I refuse to deal with wankers.

If you are a newbie writer and if you are looking for a publisher - ask around - email some established writers and ask what they think. They’ll tell you.

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