Ellora’s Cave and Elephants in the Room

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Or why it is not enough to research publishers once, at the start of your writing career. Diligent authors need to keep tabs on the industry at large, especially on already-established publishers. Because you never know when one is going to melt down…

Anyone who has been involved in romance publishing for the past few years has followed the apparent downward spiral of erotic romance publisher Ellora’s Cave (EC). I’m not going into the charges, countercharges, previous actual court decisions, judge’s comments, author comments, editor and cover artist comments, social media responses from EC principals Tina Engler (aka Jaid Black) and Patty Marks, or the very real phenomenon of the Streisand Effect.

Since EC has already demonstrated a willingness to threaten bloggers, authors, and other critics with SLAPP lawsuits* to silence their concerns about the company, let me state right now: this post is my opinion only.

I’ve loved many EC books in their time. EC authors are among my closest friends in the business. EC inspired me toward my first halting attempts to write original erotic fiction publishable in their genre. Well before EC launched the Dear Author lawsuit, I’d already stopped querying EC for my own work, but that was simply because I felt that EC and I were probably not a great fit.

Tina Engler herself had a big part in my decision, and her actions after the lawsuit reinforced my avoidance. Over and over, she did not display the professionalism of an owner of a multimillion-dollar publishing company.

 

I’m now adding my tiny voice to the groundswell of social media protests against how EC is handling criticism of its apparently unstable empire.

I will no longer buy EC books in digital or print form, nor will I borrow their available books from libraries.

I will not review any future EC titles until such time as the company has either gone out of business and reverted those books to their authors, or until EC comes to its senses and evolves into a responsible business again.

I will not beta-read new or reprint novels that I know for certain are being aimed at EC, though (as per Filigree’s Rule) I will not attempt to dissuade those authors.

I will look for non-EC books by EC authors, and give their work special consideration for reading and/or review.

These are my perfect rights and opinions as a private reader. The fact that I’ve documented them on social media does not make them a crime in a capitalist society.

Here are links to relevant and interesting commentary on Ellora’s Cave.

The Digital Reader comments here: http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/09/26/elloras-cave-sues-dear-author-book-blog-defamation/#.VChmAPldU1I

And here: http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/09/26/elloras-cave-sues-dear-author-book-blog-defamation/#.VChnW_ldU1K

The original Dear Author post that started this round of lawsuits and threats: http://dearauthor.com/ebooks/the-curious-case-of-elloras-cave/

The Dear Author response to EC’s suit: http://dearauthor.com/misc/elloras-cave-sues-dear-author/

A good overview of romance reader/reviewer responses: http://thebookpushers.com/2014/09/28/our-reply-to-elloras-caves-recent-actions/

The AbsoluteWrite.com’s huge-but-worthwhile thread on Ellora’s Cave (starting with the most recent page as of this post): http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=808&page=25

For EC authors and supporters who need to share more detailed info, here is this great link from Deirdre Saoirse Moen (whose books you might buy…for a modest sum you can get A Sword Called Rhonda.

* Update 9-29-2014: that lawsuit is widely viewed as ill-considered on EC’s part, as the defendant is a lawyer – and has engaged the services of a very skilled legal firm. No one in their right mind at EC would want the case to go to discovery, let alone a jury trial, considering EC’s prior legal mistakes and the earlier and chronic complaints from authors.

General opinion is that EC therefore brought the suit not necessarily to win again the Dear Author blogger, but to create a chilling effect on all other criticism.

That has failed. Check out the Twitterverse for #notchilled to see the latest comments.

Update: 10-22-2014: Courtney Milan (whose books you should also buy to support this kind of detective work) has a link to a PDF of the defendant’s brief filed by The Randazza Group here. It is a thing of beauty, and not so steeped in legalese that ordinary people can’t follow it. It also appears to eviscerate the claims of Ellora’s Cave principals. On several levels.

Ms. Milan also has a long and informative blog post about where the case is at at the present (10-22-2014).

Update 10-22-2015: Case settled. Some information and speculation here, which will probably remain speculation since the matter is over and the terms are confidential. We’ll know by inference if the case favors Dear Author/Jane Litte more than Ellora’s Cave, if the aforementioned DA posts about Ellora’s Cave remain on the DA blog. That was EC’s surface goal: to remove such clear-cut and damning statements against it. The ‘Chilling’ effect against other authors and bloggers was probably the real goal all along.

I’d say it backfired horribly and expensively on Ellora’s Cave.

***

There remains the matter of hundreds of EC authors who haven’t been paid whole or partial royalties since (allegedly) February 2015. Plus the potential class action lawsuit that may be brought by authors who claim EC has historically and chronically misrepresented royalty income in EC’s favor…and weighted by suspicious data losses in financial tracking that give the appearance of possible embezzlement and the attempted concealment of same. Plus the looming possibility of bankruptcy for EC.

No one has any idea where this will lead for Ellora’s Cave and EC’s authors. All I know for certain is that if I were a new author in the erotic romance business, I’d avoid EC as a publisher until I knew how stable and solvent they really were.

So we’re back to my opening statement on this post, from over a year ago: do your damn research, folks…and keep doing it.

Update May 22, 2016 (links coming soon): Deirdre has last month’s detailed and disheartening analysis of EC titles…though with only publicly available data, she admits it’s not perfect. The analysis does appear to show that many authors were leaving EC years before the DA post, including authors of the company’s still bestselling books. (That disconnect made possible by EC’s seven-year contract term.) 

As of May 2016, many of the EC anthologies have been reported as suspended and their stories will be reverted to their authors.

EC is now (vaguely & apparently) threatening legal action against the RWA for libel, over information EC’s Patty Marks initially did not dispute when discussing the issue with RWA representatives.

More than one ex-EC author, with reverted books being reissued via self-publishing or other commercial houses, has said they are essentially ‘toning down’ the sex in favor of plot, to make the books more relevant outside the erotic romance genre.