I have to say the article makes for astonishing reading. A few of the accusations I was familiar with - such as a number of authors not being paid - having had exchanges with the authors myself. I was also aware of the crazy contracts she was getting people to sign up to, apparently described by publishing experts as "onerous and outside of industry standards". But the rest of the Times article reads like a horror show and includes:
- that she'd threatened authors with lower royalties and defamation lawsuits if they defected.
- had the company's membership of the Romance Writers of America suspended and barred from attending their conferences.
- added clauses to contracts without notifying the author.
- created fake badges to attend conventions without registering.
- that she had a previous conviction for embezzlement.
- that she'd set up multiple publishing accounts on Amazon (10 alledgedly) which is wholly in violation of their terms, and used employee names, addresses and tax IDs to open additional accounts (seemingly without telling them!)
- that when their production manager, accounts manager and editor in chief all resigned at once, she filed a police report claiming that her production manager had embezzled from the company which resulted in her being arrested in her home. No evidence was ever provided of the alleged embezzlement.
I thought the situation with
Ellora's Cave a few years ago was bad but this is on a whole new level.