Today was the be the auction of the backlist of active titles of Dorchester Publishing Authors. It's been a long couple of years. Dorchester saw it's publisher leave the "ship" at sea, then an editor stepped in to try and carry on. Finally, it fell to Chris Keeslar, who really gave it his all. And he really succeeded, to an extent. He got the business back on its feel, and started moving ahead with e-book sales and prospect of Trade Size coming, when the roof fell in. The owner of Dorchester foreclosed on himself to get back his investment. Which left a lot of authors in limbo. No publisher, no way to get rights back, and no hope for the future.
At the end of January, Chris walked, leaving no one in charge. Tales of moving offices turned out to be a post office box in a UPS station. Authors were left with no rights back, and no hope for money owed them.
In walks Amazon Publishing/Montlake. They are buying the active backlist titles, and giving the authors a choice -- transfer the rights to Montlake and allow them to put the titles out, or get rights back. I joyfully accepted Montlake's offer and am very excited about the move.
So today was a going through the motion auction. Everyone knew Amazon Publishing would be the only bidder, so it was clear who would walk away with the "toys" at the end of the game. Friday the contact is supposed to be inked.
So Dorchester author who thought they were lost in limbo, finally has a white knight who has come in and saved them.
This damsel is quite pleased to get on with my life and look forward to working with Montlake.
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