Even More Iris Print
June 17th, 2008 The BabesWhile we are very happy to finally hear from the owner of Iris Print, her passive aggressive babbling is getting on a lot of people’s last nerve. Her attitude is clearly not professional. Even if the authors and writers did make things public, that is no reason for one to air professional grievances in public.
To help clarify/point fingers of blame, Lynch posted this update to the Iris Print blog overnight:
6) To the people crying lawsuit: just so everyone is aware of what’s at stake here, there are exactly 3 Iris Print books that are under a royalty contract. 3 books, a grand total of 5 creators. The total amount of money owed those creators for quarter 1 2008 is under $200. Combined. 1 has been paid, 2 are not owed a cent, and the remaining 2…well, I won’t make any excuses there. Quarter 1 statements are late, and the squeaky wheel gets the grease. The creator that was paid is the one that actually contacted me about it. The other 2 will be paid shortly, and I’m not saying that makes it all right, but it’s a bit absurd seeing so many people so very, very upset about an eighty dollar check that nobody asked for.
7) Why the statements are late: it takes a lot of time and sifting through records to create the statements, and I’ve had a lot of other things on my list of priorities lately, especially considering the small amounts of money we’re dealing with. Most publishers only pay royalties annually; in retrospect, I probably should have done the same, but I thought the prospect of getting paid 4 times a year instead of once would be more attractive to the authors. (Sarcastic comments about the actual frequency of payments and disparaging comments about my work ethic are welcomed and appreciated.)
8) Say what you will about my crappy communication, but I pay my debts. I see a lot of people ranting about authors and artists not getting paid, and only one of these claims has a grain of truth in it. One artist that turned in final pages for a BL Twist story did not get paid for them–this is because the pages were turned in after the deadline, and the artist’s contract explicitly stated that if work was turned in late, the cost of finding replacement material would be deducted from the artist’s payment. At this point, the magazine had been cancelled anyway, but if it had not, the artist still would not have been paid, because I had zero usable pages. I felt justified in withholding payment in this one case, and as the artist in question never contacted me to dispute the issue, I considered the matter closed.
In all seriousness, if there are any other artists or authors who feel they are owed payment for work they have done, I ask them to please step forward. If anyone aside from the 2 people mentioned in point 6 and the 1 person mentioned in point 8 has not been paid for their work at this point, I assure you that this was an oversight, and it will be corrected immediately. -Kellie Lynch
Tina Anderson posted her anger at being used as a scapegoat in Lynch’s first blog update:
It’s not about the money, it’s about updating me with the status of my title–it’s about letting me know how many units were sold, even if only two units were sold in three months! [BTW who's restocking Amazon?] [Who sold books to Neko-Jin?]
What I find hilarious is this obvious attempt to deflect your failure to follow-through on your contractual obligations [you know, the part where it says you'll sent quarterly reports!], by taking a jab at me and accusing me of trying to boycott you and suggesting that I lied to you about Carrie. Carrie if my rep, I approached her so I wouldn’t have to deal with this shit anymore; you made it clear that I was difficult and you didn’t like dealing with me [shit, I even took blame for that in my blog!] so I went and procured a nice person who has patience with people–and what did you do? Same shit different day, you ignored her. No one said she was a lawyer, so quit fronting.
You know what? Fuck you.
That’s right, I said it. I won’t delete it. I don’t care if another pub ever works with me again because I said it. I’m sick and tired of being the one that’s accused of spawning drama when it comes to you! G*d bless the erotic fiction community for coming to the aid of R.W. Day, and they have been the most critical of you–and rightly so, yet sure as shit if you didn’t call me out personally in your blog as organizing a boycott, and bringing criticism to you. Thanks to Tina this shit is hitting my fan—she’s just a wanky bitch, how could she do this me… -Tina Anderson
R.W. Day sums up the whole mess nicely:
I’m glad she’s finally come out with it, but I really think the snarky tone she’s taken about Tina is uncalled for. Personal dislike does not excuse a person from the standards of good business behavior, and that includes communicating regularly with one’s business associates, whether you owe them money or not.
Also, working at a public law library, I know more than one attorney in sole practice who uses Hotmail, Yahoo, and yes, Gmail as email providers. I have no idea whether Tina’s rep is a lawyer or not, but you can’t judge someone’s professional status by their email. -R.W. Day
Day isn’t the only one who’s a bit shocked at Lynch’s lack of professionalism:
I agree wholeheartedly with RW Day that the snide comments about Tina Anderson and her representative are unprofessional but then, we shouldn’t be surprised as Ms Lynch hasn’t been professional since “Connections” was published, as far as I can see. A boycott of the books is unfair? Well, that’s certainly what we do over here in the UK if we are unhappy about something. Voting with your feet. Or in this case with your plastic.
However, the sentence of Kellie’s which sums the whole debacle up is this: it’s a bit absurd seeing so many people so very, very upset about an eighty dollar check that nobody asked for. It’s patronising, flippant and proves that she has no idea, or doesn’t care, that she’s done anything wrong. Also - “most publishers pay royalties annually.” Really? None of the many publishers I’ve worked with do, not even the big ones.
If this refers to RWD’s payment then this is “absurd” in itself, for RW has been emailing and writing on a regular basis for about four months - at least one of the letters was registered, too. Nobody asked for? Unreal. And whether it was $80 or $800,000 or 80 CENTS, it makes no difference. If you are contracted to provide regular sales reports (she didn’t) and pay royalties on TIME (she didn’t) then that’s what you DO.
Manners maketh the man as they say, and professionalism, honesty, clarity and politeness maketh the publisher, perhaps. -Erastes
It’s sad to say, but maybe as buyers we should take a long, hard look at the next company who comes around and tries to offer us nicely packaged boysmut.
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