I'm not sure how many of you have heard, but the vendor All Romance eBooks is closing. The CEO Lori James gave us authors about 4 days' warning to get everything in order and...wait for it...not be paid for the fourth quarter.

Right?!

Well, technically, we'll be paid $.10 on the dollar, if we agree to their terms. I haven't yet. And guess what? I magically have no sales this quarter! I've got 30 sales of my free book listed, though. I don't make a ton of money from ARe, in fact, my self published books probably bring in about $5-$10 a quarter. BUT there are always sales. Now, there are none. I'm hearing from other authors, that in the space of just days, their sales have been dropping. So when I log in, I see a table that shows me which book, how many downloads, etc. People are seeing their books that have already been sold dropping. Shady, shady, shady.

A friend had $59 two days ago. Today it shows $57. It might not be much, but she isn't even getting what she's earned, now it's dropping? That's BS. I'm getting $0 instead of my normal $5-10, or I guess, my $.50 that they want to pay me instead. Thanks a lot. The Ellora's Cave lawsuit of Dear Author really set a crappy precedent for all of us watching. We now know how expensive and time consuming it is to deal with a lawsuit, so it's definitely not worth $70K+ to sue for my $5.

As a reader, how does this affect you? If you have bought any books at ARe ever, you will lose your entire library at midnight tonight. They didn't even tell their readers, or give them any time to download hundreds of books. The site will go dark, the email links will die, and instead of giving everyone a fighting chance by leaving the site up for a few months, the entire place is going dark. I've even heard reports of readers losing books out of their library when they go to download. I repeat, shady.

Writer Beware has a really good summary of the email we were sent, if you want to read the full post.

I'll clip the part that's from the email, because I think it's important you guys see it.

On Wednesday, December 28, All Romance eBooks--a romance-specific ebook distributor and publisher that also distributes general fiction and nonfiction through its OmniLit imprint--dropped a bombshell. In mass emails to customers and authors, ARe's owner, Lori James, revealed that her company was closing, and that in lieu of full payment, authors and publishers would be offered a fraction of what they were owed.

The exact why of the ARe closing remains a mystery (the emails make generic references to losses and poor financial forecasts, but provide no specifics). As to the what, here's what we know so far.

- The ARe website is going dark at midnight on December 31, 2016. Customers were given just four days to use their credits, download their purchases, and backup their libraries. Authors were given just four days to decide whether to accept ARe's offers of "settlement".

- ARe is offering just 10 cents on the dollar to authors whose books it distributed. Per the email, "We will be unable to remit Q4 2016 commissions in full and are proposing a settlement of 10 cents on the dollar (USD) for payments received through 27 December 2016."

- ARe is offering no payment at all--zip, zero--to authors whose books it published. In a different email, published authors are offered rights reversion on condition that they consider this "a negotiated settlement of your account to be 'paid in full'.

- In order to receive these settlements, ARe is requiring authors to waive their right to pursue legal redress. They must agree that "no further legal action be taken with regards to the above referenced commissions owed."

- ARe is staying open until December 31, but is offering settlement only on payments received through December 27. Romance Writers of America, in a statement on the closing, calls this four-day no-payment zone "unconscionable."

- ARe is saying nothing--publicly at least--about reimbursing 2017 advertising purchases. Just days before the closure announcement, ARe sent out an email soliciting ad buys. Many authors took advantage, or had already bought ads.

- ARe is doing all of this because, it claims, it wants to avoid filing for bankruptcy. "It is [our] sincere hope that we will be able to settle this account and avoid filing for bankruptcy, which would undoubtedly be a prolonged and costly process." Yes, it would--and it would also make ARe accountable to its creditors.

By now, you guys know that I'm writing Hockey Romances with a slight paranormal twist as Kenzie MacLir. In D'Tale Magazine reviewed our anthology Icing the Puck and it's a great review. I'll link it here, so you can read it on the site.
In D'Tale is a free e-magazine, and I always enjoy getting it in my inbox every month. 

So for a little while now, Heather Lire and I have been working on a super secret thing, and together we are Kenzie MacLir...

And now, I can tell you, we have a novella in the Hockey Anthology Icing the Puck! Our story follows the further adventures of the New York Empires. The first book is called Going All In. We've joined the wonderful authors Isabo Kelly and Stacey Agdern who have created some fantastic hockey players!

 As of now, both books are $.99 for a limited time. 

Pre-orders for Icing the Puck are set at all major ebook retailers, and I can't tell you how excited I am about this. 

I love my Highlanders, and I've got some news coming on that front too, but right now, I'm enjoying the sexy Norse hockey god we've written. Hopefully you will too!

I played hockey for my university for a few years, so hopefully all you hockey fans won't feel like the authors have never watched a game in their lives! 

Pre-Order links here:


Amazon         Kobo        iBooks        Smashwords        Barnes and Noble 
                                             All Romance eBooks



And now, the amazing cover...

OH MY GIDDY AUNT!!!

You guys, Kobo has stepped up and put Highland Destiny back up! No answers as to why it was pulled, or why it's taken so long. (It's been since at least September), but it's up now and that's the important thing.


So click on the book cover to take you directly to Highland Destiny at the kobo store.
Or just click here.

Hi guys! In November I was tweeting a Kobo discount code and the links to my books when I realized I couldn't find Highland Destiny there. Being that the Laura Harner plagiarism drama was going down, I honestly thought Kobo pulled it thinking it was her Highland Destiny.

 (if you want to know more about her plagiarism, Jenny Trout has a good summary here and here Quick and dirty is I can't prove she plagiarized me, and my publisher can't do anything, but other authors are taking legal action. I've kept silent on the whole thing, because I was very hurt-she was a friend! Perhaps it's just coincidence she used my children's and my names in her books? and my plots, and other similarities?- and I was waiting to hear back from New Concepts Publishing. As of now, her apology was crap, and the RWA has banned her  for life).

But no, it was my Highland Destiny that was missing, and no one at Kobo seems to want to help. My publisher and I have been working since November to get it back up. Smashwords has said that Kobo needed a different size cover image. We re-sized and re-sent. Don't ask me why a book that's been available at Kobo for 5 or 6 years is suddenly not there anymore. 

But the short version is that I'm working hard to get someone at Kobo to answer me and to fix this. In the meantime, Highland Destiny is still up everywhere else! So if you use a Kobo, I think you can side-load an epub so you can grab it at All Romance eBooks and they have rebates and sales quite a bit, so you'll probably get it for cheap. 

I want to apologize again, but unfortunately since it's not self-published, I don't have much control. My publisher and I are working hard to figure out why all the "fixes" we've been told to do haven't fixed the problem. Especially when this isn't a new book! So, bear with us, and fingers crossed we can get Highland Destiny back up at Kobo.

Thanks for understanding, guys, and once more, I'm sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.