I’m sad to say that, after an attempted reorganization, Samhain Pubishing has announced that they will be closing their doors on Feb 28th 2017. All the books they publish, including The Rebuilding Year; Life, Some Assembly Required; and Sole Support will be withdrawn from sale at all distributors.
You can still buy Samhain books until the end of February, and there is a 50% off sale on their website. They have promised to remit royalties for all purchases, so hopefully, if they follow through, (unlike with ARe) the authors should not lose money if you buy now. (Although payments will be delayed as they complete the wrap up, so some authors may feel a pinch from that.) Personally, I would be happy for you to continue to buy my books through the month.
I hope to re-release these books in the future. I’m even thinking about an audio book for The Rebuilding Year – it might be a fun project, so if there’s a narrator you really want to hear doing John and Ryan, let me know.
Publishing is a tough business right now. The crash of ARe, leaving publishing houses with five-figure losses from unpaid royalties, didn’t help. I wrote before about ways to support authors and I want to re-emphasize denouncing piracy. Speak up when friends or family members are downloading music, images, or books, without paying for the commercial products. If we want art and creativity to continue to flourish, we must make sure we don’t support a culture of entitlement. I have already sent over 20 take-down notices for pirate sites with Rejoice, Dammit, my holiday story that came out less than 2 months ago. I don’t know if preventing piracy could have saved any of the several LGBTQ romance publishers who folded in the last year, but I do know that fighting massive theft losses should not be part of anyone’s business model.
Thanks to everyone who bought my books through Samhain – they have been one of my solid sources of income. Go forth and check out favorite authors, like Heidi Cullinan, Joanna Chambers, and K.J. Charles, and see if they are making suggestions about buying their books in this time of transition. If you own Samhain books in ebook form, it’s smart to back them up somewhere other than just your ereader, since the publisher will no longer be available for replacements. If your device crashes there is no guarantee that copies will still be in retailer archives to reload them. (Hopefully they will, but keeping a back-up of your books is always smart.)
This loss of another good publisher is sad (although not unexpected – their ability to come back from the mess of almost closing previously was always going to be a huge endeavor.) But the books and the writing and the publishing community will continue. Thanks to everyone who buys and supports all the good stories out there 🙂
🙁 Another sad closing. I’ve enjoyed a number of books from my favorite authors at Samhain and will definitely back up my library before the closing. I usually buy A.M. Arthur’s books, Heidi’s books, Amy Jo Cousins, L.A. Witt, JL Merrow, Mel Bossa, SE Jakes, etc. there – as well as some favorite Het authors. I was never disappointed in the quality of the books or the publisher. I do worry about everything being controlled by Amazon and prefer to buy from publishers or direct from authors when possible. I hope things improve because I know that the continued belt-tightening will drive some authors to other avenues to make a living – and then we all lose even more.
Samhain was one of the places I thought was doing things right – good quality and reasonable prices – I don’t know what issues caused their problems but I’m sad to see them go.
I do worry about AZ becoming such a monopoly – even now a lot of authors are moving to KU and Kindle Select where AZ insists on being the only outlet for the books, which also means no format other than kindle available. IMO there’s already too much concentration of the market. I do hope that at least ibooks may become a viable alternative with money behind them, although it is ARe, with its independence and multiple formats, that I miss most. Sadly, there are excellent authors who have dropped out of writing because they can’t make enough per hour to be worth it. I’m lucky with my day job that I have a cushion for events like this.
It is so sad… I really hope things take a turn for the better. I love reading your books and I read all of the authors Sadonna just listed. ARe closing was such a shock… I will keep watching for more of your books. Hang in there
Thanks – and yes – Heidi Cullinan writes about going suddenly from 4 books to release this year to 20 with the re-releases. It’s going to slow down new stuff and burden some authors, plus the interruption of sales income from all of those. I’m lucky it’s only a fraction of my releases.
So sad to see Samhain closing, but I hope more authors will be able to take advantage of the audiobook opportunities. Love to hear The Rebuilding Year, perhaps Nick J Russo or Derrick McLain would be able to do your guys justice. I will be on the lookout and, as ever, awaiting your next brilliant book!
Thanks for the suggestions (and the kind words) – yes, it’s going to cost authors, in lost revenues while the books are pulled, the cost of new covers, etc, but I do hope the freedom to control the books, and for those who self-publish, the gain in royalty share, will make up for some of that eventually. With the extended rights option being one of the wins, for audio and translations. I’ll keep Nick and Derrick in mind.
I am very sad about Samhain; Amber Quill last year was another hit. Their books were of good quality, nicely formatted and well edited. I worry, like you, about the authors that are publishing only with amazon. I do not like buying from them (makes no sense to keep strengthening a monopoly) and it may well limit the books I am willing to buy. Smashwords is a good alternative, and the file uploading is not difficult.
It would also help authors if more of them had newsletters or blogs so that readers could learn about new releases. Authors could also have an amazon author page (for which there is no need for exclusivity) and readers can “follow” them from there, too. I used ARE to get notifications of new releases from plenty of authors, and now I have found out that many of them do not have websites, blogs nor newsletters, so it is going to be difficult to find out about their new releases. Queeromance Ink, the website you mentioned in previous posts, will be a great help (I already subscribed to the newsletter). It can only help authors to be a part of it, whether they self-publish or not, especially since not all small publishing houses have newsletters.
Thank you, Kaje, for your books; Like the Taste of Summer was the first m/m book I read. I am looking forward for more Tracefinder and The Family We Keep…and Dag, from Nor Iron Bars a Cage, could maybe, who knows, hopefully, have a book of his own?
Yes, Amber Quill was another good quality press that could not survive. Authors are going to have to find new ways to connect with readers, and be creative, to avoid sliding into acceptance of monopoly. I hope Queeromance Ink will turn out to be useful. We’re getting new custom search fields added right now.
I’m glad you’ve enjoyed my books ( and that Jack and Sean brought you into the genre 🙂 ) I’m currently 90K into the third Tracefinder book, so that will be next. Dag is an interesting idea… I have a story set in the Nor Iron Bars world floating around in my head, although not Dag’s so far. (It’s always fun when some secondary character catches a reader’s attention though. Maybe he’ll spark something.) Thanks for taking the time to comment.
I am sad to hear about the closing of Samhain, and the (I really, really hope) temporary unavailability of some of your books. Hard for you, and a loss for other readers. Rebuilding Year is still one of my all-time favourite reads, and was the one book which got me into the genre. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and advice as to how to support authors.
I’m glad you had fun meeting John and Ryan, and I hope they won’t be out of print too long. We’re all figuring out how to adjust and make things work in a bit of a shaky publishing environment, but it helps that there are readers out there still looking for and enjoying the books.
Tristan James and Greg Tremblay are two of my favorite audiobook narrators! I love John and Ryan; their story is a frequent comfort read for me.
Thanks for the suggested names to put onto my list. And for the good words for John and Ryan.