Do as I say not as I do.

In the last week I’ve come to discover that no matter how you conduct yourself or how you treat others, you have no control over the behavior of those around you. When I’m told to act professionally by someone who then turns around and behaves in what can only be described as unprofessionally I’m forced to take a good long, HARD look at everything that has transpired before. It’s not an easy thing to look at your own behavior and know you fucked up. If only by trusting the word of another. And when you did it when you knew better, or at least SHOULD have known better, there’s no one but yourself to blame. Or at least that’s what it feels like. But then you take a breath, and you look at everything with a little less anger and sadness, and you reach the conclusion that it’s a classic case of ‘Do as I say not as I do.’

 

If you haven’t heard by now then let me tell you, last week the publisher/senior editor/owner/who-the-fuck-knows-what-title, resigned from Noble Romance Publishing effective immediately. Considering this person was the face of NR from the very beginning a wave of panic washed over the authors and freelance staff of NR. To say we were flabbergasted is an understatement. To say we were pissed because in the resignation letter we were told not to worry because we should still get our royalties was another understatement. But the WTFery didn’t stop there. As the authors began to discuss the situation on the authors loop one NR employee decided to take those authors to task over there lack of loyalty to a woman who’d walked out the door without a backward glance. W! T! F! Oh, wait, we’re back to that ‘do as I say not as I do’ thing again. Yep, I’m expected to give loyalty to a person that basically just gave me the finger. Sooo not going to happen.

 

To say I was angry barely scratches the surface of the emotion I felt at that point but it got better. Yes, I say that with a good helping of sarcasm. It seems someone, and we still have no clue who although we have our thoughts, deleted the NR author loop. Yep. Poof. Gone. DELETE! This was the ‘official’ NR author loop. The one where management and staff were able to send announcements and authors were able to communicate with each other in order to offer support, advice, knowledge, etc. All the publishers I’m with have a loop of this kind and it’s invaluable to an author for many reasons as I mentioned. I’ve learned so much from these collective ‘brain-trust’ groups in the years since I was first published. When this ‘poof’ happened I had one thought and one thought only. This is about to implode completely and they don’t want us to talk to each other about it. Scary for any author. Whether you’ve been in the business for years or not doesn’t matter. To have your one connection to the publisher walk and then have the only line of communication between you and your fellow authors severed isn’t just shocking, it’s terrifying because without information we’re in the dark. Now some of us might like the dark and that’s fine but when those lights go out you want to be in the same room you were always in not suddenly transported to a foreign one.

 

Now I have no intention of going over what has transpired over the internet since this all went down. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. It blows my mind the level to which some people will stoop all in the name of ‘rightness’ but I will say this. Anything and I mean ANYTHING I said in a private loop that was copied and sent to persons not in the group OR plastered across the internet for the world to see I would say ANYWHERE. I’m not ashamed of my own feelings or opinions and really don’t care for the high school playground type mentality that myself and other NR authors have been subjected to. And I’m not even going to get started on the threats that hold water like a sieve. This is NOT professional behavior. No matter how ‘right’ you think it is.

 

I’m still waiting for some sort of communication from NR. This was promised last week and while I stare at the beginning of a new one I have to do what’s right for me no matter what the new NR management have to say. I’m not prepared to turn a blind eye to things like I have in the past. Being the nice guy didn’t get me anywhere, in fact it got me covered in shit that someone else decided to fling around. Whether the new NR management can turn the company around is anyone’s guess, but confidence, respect and support have all be destroyed in the last few days and I for one, am not prepared to blindly trust again. I’ve learned one valuable lesson from all of this. And that’s to remain true to myself. When I thought something was wrong I should not have looked the other way in hope that things would change.

 

While this situation continues I feel in all fairness to myself and my readers I must remove the links from my website to my NR books. I’m not being paid for these at this time and while I love nothing more than having my work available I can’t justify lining someone else’s pockets with the money my stories earn.

 

And finally I’d like to thank my fellow NR authors for their support and friendship. While a number of you have posted blogs on this very topic I won’t be linking to them here. I feel doing so will just add to the malicious, childish behavior of those who have set out to undermine our professional standing while crying woe-is-me over a situation we had no hand in creating. This post is purely to inform my readers and friends of my position and why certain books have disappeared from this website.

 

Thank you

Rhian