From Samhain Publishing:
It’s with a heavy heart that we announce Samhain Publishing will be closing at the end of February. Due to the declining sales we’ve been experiencing with this changing market we’ve come to the sad conclusion it’s time to call it a day.
The last of our new titles launch February 21st; I hope you will check them out and support them as you have so many other Samhain titles through the years.”
Link to the rest at Samhain Publishing
The issue of audio rights (and who cashes the money for the audiobooks) is a burning question for former EC writers as well, Alicia. Can a bankrupt and liquidated company still accept money that technically is not theirs?
I was wondering how the other Romance publishers were doing since All Romance went under.
I agree that it does sound a bit odd to release just before the doors close. However, they are giving notice, which gives Samhain brownie points in my book.
I’m no longer up on the Romance Genre or the small house publishers – I quit writing Romance in 2012 – but Samhain had a good reputation back then, I’m sorry to see them go.
I think that’s what’s so disappointing about Samhain, they were ostensibly one of the good guys until Last year When they started playing this game with authors.
This is an open letter from a Samhain author from back in July when they announced they weren’t really closing after all, and I think it reflects the general anger that people involved with the company are feeling.
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/13592377-an-open-letter-to-samhain-publishing
Thanks for the link; I can feel the author’s fury through her words.
The bigger question: if the publisher closes, what happens to the author’s rights in, say, that audiobook with the ten-year grant of audio rights. Will the author see a penny of that money?
Scary stuff.
my guess would be they are already totally prepared for their 2/21 releases, so they go ahead and release them.
that sounds like it would be the right thing to do to me.
they are giving people a few weeks notice which was a big complaint about all romance. So I say cut them some slack. you know they had issues cause they contemplated going out of business last year… looks like they were not able to fix those issues.
XYZ Construction will go out of business Jan1. However, since we have all the plans and drawings, we will break ground for an exciting, new 21 story office building Dec15.
breaking ground on a new building is the start of a lot of work
the launch of a book is the end of a lot of work
If they have already printed the books, the only additional expenses are to ship the books (and manging money)
Yes, this brings up the problem of returns, paying royalties, shipping additional stock, etc. But these things are in play no matter how long after the release they shut down.
Isn’t there the issue of first published rights?
And as you mentioned the royalty payments for authors.
XYZ Construction will go out of business Jan1. However, since we have all the matrial purchased and staged at the site, we will break ground for an exciting, new 21 story office building Dec15.
your time scale is still way off. it takes a very long time to build a 21 story building…. now if they were a 1 month away from completing the building it might be comparable… depends on how much more capital they have to sink in to complete that building. I expect with the books it is low and with the building it would be high.
I think a more comparable example is my hamburger stand is closing at the end of the month. I get a monthy order of hamburger meat and it just arrived. Should I throw it away and close today or should I use it until the day I want to close?
Feed my construction crew. We have everything but food mobilized.
Not sure if this is the case, but a company like Samhain might have pre-orders already purchased before a release date; the release would fill all the pre-orders so they don’t have to provide a refund.
Samhain is doing the honorable thing and paying off all of their debts. They are not filing bankruptcy. Contracts are not transferrable unless it were a bankruptcy; and again, they are not doing that. All companies should be this honorable when they close down. It’s a shame. They were a pioneer in their field and started a lot of author’s careers.
I will grant that Samhain is treating it authors better than some other romance publishers of late, but I wouldn’t like to be the poor sod who get their book published on the 22nd, not least because I doubt there will Much in the way of royalty payments.
If a book goes on sale now they will pay the royalties when due. There is a fiduciary responsibility to pay royalties. They are not declaring bankruptcy so they will get paid when they are due.
I don’t understand that, either: launch 2/21 and close 2/28? Is that in the hope of gaining a last bit of money a week before the end?
Yeah, I don’t think it’s the changing market so much as it is Samhains wishy washy we are closing , no we’re not Routine that they’ve been pulling for the last year.
Although knowing the company, they’ll be back up and running in the spring, they’re bit like the energiser Bunny that way, or a cockroach.
Lemme get this straight: You’re gonna close 28 February, but you’re still gonna launch a new book the week before you shut the doors? You’re a special kind of stupid, aren’t you?
Didn’t they announce something similar a year ago?
http://www.thepassivevoice.com/2016/02/samhain-closing/
Only to reverse course shortly thereafter?
http://www.thepassivevoice.com/2016/06/exciting-news-samhain-set-to-keep-publishing/
Maybe it’s because I’ve been in academia too long, but I smell a rat.
Oh, I was coming here to ask that. This is starting to remind me of how furniture and mattress stores would always have “going out of business” sales but somehow, never go out of business.
I thought that was just a local thing… more than one had “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!” painted permanently on their windows…
To do it properly, the owner has to do his own commercials on local TV.
In my hometown, we had a Kmart that did that all the time. Announced they were closing, but then that brought in enough business for them to stay open. Maybe that’s what happened last time. The announcement got them a big enough push to keep the doors open.