Writer Beware: Ellora's Cave vs Dear Author lawsuit update 9/16/2015

Whelp. Things are starting to heat up, and more stuff is getting filed in the lawsuit. Most interesting is an affidavit from the executive director of the RWA saying that they'd been aware of problems at EC and had an admission from them of late payments of royalties. They first contacted Ellora's Cave in AUGUST of 2014, and Jane's blog post was in September of 2014. Meaning rumors and problems PRE-DATING the blog post. And they've suspended EC from "certain privileges" in the RWA.

http://www.courtneymilan.com/ecda/allisonkelleyaffidavit.pdf

Looks like there were rumblings long enough before Jane's article for it to cross the RWA's radar, meaning Jane wasn't the only one aware of issues and she wasn't making it up out of thin air.

I wish that'd been part of the public record sooner. It means people knew about problems at EC BEFORE Jane posted her article that prompted the lawsuit. (I know, sky blue, grass green, it was THE worst-kept secret in publishing. There have been rumors for years about problems at EC.)

http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2015/09/04/a-big-messy-ec-v-da-update-part-1-of-lots-notchilled/

http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2015/09/15/big-honking-ec-update-part-2-of-notchilled/

http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2015/09/15/ginormous-ec-update-part-3-discovery-issues-abound-notchilled/

Deirdre Saoirse Moen of course has the totally kick-ass full listing of all the documents:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11698292/ecda/index.html

She also has an interesting side-note on a DOT notice she found about EC, which might add up to nothing.

http://deirdre.net/elloras-cave-an-interesting-usdot-finding/

Now, also in this latest edition of stuff that got filed is the exhibit composed of a HuffPo article published in MAY of 2013 (pre-dating the DA article by well over a year) that is an interview with Tina Engler (who, remember, technically isn't a personal party to the lawsuit, but it was one of the points that EC brought up in their lawsuit) where she talks about shopping for her new West Hollywood house that she'd bought. (Again, one of the things that EC was fighting against.)

Huh. Looks like Jane didn't make that up out of thin air, either, hmm? Guess Tina Engler deleted all her social media accounts for nothing.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11698292/ecda/55-5.pdf

Still no word on whether or not Ann Jacobs will be allowed to join the suit as an intervening party. If she is allowed to, she's claiming damages in the neighborhood of $193k in unpaid royalties on the part of EC.

Another side note, Ellora's Cave readers are up in arms that the EC "site redesign" they did a couple of months back wiped out their libraries of books, and EC is basically telling readers too bad, so sad, no receipts no books.

Um, WTF? What the hell kind of publisher does that? Wipes out their COMPLETE customer database and libraries without backing them up?? Unless...

Well, there is plenty of supposition on my part as to the timing and the why's of how it (the "site redesign") happened, and my bet is squarely on those suppositions, which I suppose we'll have to wait to find out as the lawsuit progresses to see if I'm right or not.

Word of warning: If you're going to sue someone who exercises their right of free speech and has evidence to back up what they're saying, make sure you think it through reeeeeallly well first.

Don't fuck with the First Amendment, yo.

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War