Friday, November 23, 2012

Publisher Woes Part 3!!!



Well, it looks like it's time for legal action. The 90 days as contractually stipulated that I gave Noble Romance to correct my breaches of contract has gone unanswered. I even had the courtesy of giving them about a week's notice that the deadline was approaching. On the 90th day, I sent another email, exercising my right to terminate the contract, as is very clearly outlined in my contract. Here is the specific clause which is included in contracts for both books I have with Noble (there's more to this clause, but this is the part that is most damning to Noble):

"VI: Term of Agreement
In the event that either party commits a material breach of the terms of this Agreement, the other party may notify the party in breach by providing a written description of the breach which shall be delivered by certified mail. If the breach is not corrected within 90 days after such notice, then the aggrieved party may terminate this Agreement and all rights granted the Publisher will thereupon revert to Author at the time of the termination.

Upon termination of this Agreement for any reason, Publisher will remove listing of the Work from its website and all download-based distributors and advise Books in Print that that particular ISBN is no longer in print. Publisher may continue to sell existing stock of physical formats (diskettes, CD's, cassette tapes, print books) but may not create new physical copies of the Work."

Well, guess what – I'd consider owing me money on each book for over a year constitutes a material breach, and not answering my certified letter, as I was obligated to send, and did so, honoring the terms of the contract on my part, constitutes not correcting breaches. Not even a fucking acknowledgement of the receipt of my letters. Therefore, I am within my rights to terminate said contract. Which I most certainly did.
Clearly, Noble Romance Publishing has no intentions of acting professionally, or ethically. Hell, they're outright stealing from other authors! You may find of particular interest, how they are violating the copyright of Aleksander Voinov. Here is his blog post outlining the outright thievery of his work: http://aleksandrvoinov.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/noble-romance-has-violated-my-copyright.html

I am appalled at the behavior of people who consider themselves savvy businessmen. Excuse me? What freaking planet are you living on that lying, cheating and outright stealing make a savvy businessman? I've learned several things over the last months and it is not pretty. I am not at liberty to discuss a lot of what I know, because it's not my place to tell it, but trust me, these people running Noble have got no idea what it means to be in business. In this day and age, just about everything communicated via the internet is legally binding. You can't say that the person in charge (Jill Noble) who signed the contracts had no authority to make changes to those contracts and renegotiate them as necessary, and that the communications via email aren't valid, then turn around and say you are enforcing the electronic contract, because clearly, that person who signed the contract in the first place (Jill Noble) wasn't authorized to do so! If email or internet communications aren't valid, then I have news for you – none of the contracts signed electronically are valid at all either. Which means I, and only I, hold all rights to my work. And if you dare say that my email terminating the contract isn't valid, well guess what? There's a certified hard copy heading your way. Nothing more legally binding than that – and you are required by the terms of the contract to honor it!

As I said initially, it's time for legal action. It seems the only way these people will behave professionally, ethically and legally is by forcing them to it. I'm ready to do so. So are others. I've put my paperwork together and am filing an official grievance with RWA. And please spread the word – if anyone aspiring to be published is even considering Noble on their short list, advise them to get the hell as far away as they can as fast as they can. It will only cost them money, heartache and aggravation.

I very strongly suspect Noble will not last through the long haul, but the sheer pig-headedness of TIIC will keep them hanging on as long as they can bleed more money from their authors. The problem is, enough of those said authors have had enough of the bullshit and are no longer willing to let themselves continue to be treated as garbage. I know I'm not. Game on! (If only I could say that about the NHL. Whaaa! What is wrong with this world?)

Oh, and check this out:  Noble has a new meaning! http://jswayne.wordpress.com/noble-romance-publishing/

Monday, November 19, 2012

Disney Recap - The Highs and Lows

So it's time for a Disney recap. The return and resulting week since have been chaotic, to say the least, so I haven't had a chance to get to it until now. As for the chaos, well, I'll get to that in a little bit.
The day we arrived was sunny and warm, perfect Florida weather. Plane was on time, we got on the bus and when we arrived at the Grand Floridian, we didn't even have to go inside. A concierge greeted us and took us to a cart where they drove us to our building and checked us in in the room! Going for the Club Level was a fantastic idea, and surprisingly, wasn't that much different in price – we definitely got our money's worth!
Throughout the day, the main room of our building is a mini-cafĂ©. There's breakfast in the morning, snacks and lunch throughout the day, afternoon tea, happy hour, desserts, everything. The kids loved it – they'd go down and grab some food and sit at one of the tables, watch the Disney videos.
This time around, we didn't plan every second. We decided what to do when we got up, with the exception of a few dinners and lunches. Donald Duck was #1 on the hit list for the little guy – he somehow had developed an obsession for the crabby duck, and luckily we had some really awesome interactions with him throughout the trip – dinner and breakfast at Chef Mickey's (where they sang Happy Birthday to the little guy to his amazing delight – he almost knocked Minnie over he hugged her so hard! Lol!) But Donald was the man on this trip, and we saw him in every park we went to.
This was little guy's first time being big enough to ride a lot of things and he loved Space Mountain so much he went on twice! He likes the wild roller coasters – I personally am not much for them, and definitely not any that go upside down, but I can see he's going to freak me out for years to come as he tries scarier and scarier coasters!
Anyway, we spent one day at Downtown Disney, and the last two visits, we just didn't have time, so I was really glad to check it out. We all had a great time checking things out, and had a nice lunch. We saw Wreck-It Ralph, too. Cute movie, we all really enjoyed it.
Epcot was awesome – the annual Food & Wine Festival was in full swing – we somehow manage to hit that every time we go. We joked about eating our way around the world – lamb chops, egg rolls and pot stickers, ravioli, hot dogs & kraut, Swedish meatballs – you name it! The kids had a blast getting the snacks, and finding a corner to eat it while we watched the street performers of the local country doing their thing in the courtyards.  And we finally, after ten years, we met Princess Aurora – DD's all-time favorite. We actually went and waited for her to come out, thanks to the awesome lady who let us sneak in on the Aladdin and Princess Jasmine line after it was closed. She was the best and we had a blast hanging out with her as the line moved along.
The one thing I do recall from my first trip in 1976, was that back then, the characters just walked around randomly. While waiting in line and spending a few minutes with the characters was awesome, the very spontaneous moment of seeing them just hanging around the park was truly magical. Been a long time since they did that.
Anyway, our last day was in the Magic Kingdom. We had lunch reservations with Cinderella, so we spent the morning there. And while we were there, the new Fantasyland was open for Dress Rehearsals! Everything but the new Be Our Guest restaurant in The Beast's castle was open! We met Gaston – check this guy out:

Is he perfect or what?
We tried a LeFou's Brew at Gaston's Tavern, and it was actually really good. Creamy and citrusy, but with a hint of carbonation. We got to see the Little Mermaid ride, and Belle's Village, so it was literally the best day. Lunch was delicious – I've yet to eat anything at Disney that wasn't.
We relaxed and packed that afternoon, since we had tickets to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, complete with parade and all sorts of special events. Snow on Main Street, coca and cookies, etc. We arrived, got our wristbands, which they check just about everywhere, and h it a few rides. Then waited for the parade. As expected, it was amazing – every character, film, etc. was represented and done really well. The dancers and performers come right up to the kids and really get them involved. I have to say, as we shared our turkey leg and watched the parade, no one does it better than Disney.


And isn't the castle just beautiful?


The holiday decor was incredible. But I'm not surprised - it is Disney after all!
But that was where it all ended. Shortly after the parade, DD is not feeling well. Her stomach. And of course, it's not long before she's in the throes of whatever this is. Thank you to the ladies in First Aid who helped us out – it was a rough night, but might have been worse if we hadn't found you!
Poor thing was up all night and halfway through, DH is not feeling well. And they had the same thing for lunch, so now I'm worried about food poisoning. But when the little guy woke up the next morning in similar shape, I knew it was worse. We'd gotten a bug. At least it was the end of the trip, but now we had to go to the airport and fly home! Poor little guy was in the throes of it in the airport, the plane, etc. At least, everything was on time, and we made it home early in the day. Where they all proceeded to pass out. By that night, they were starting to feel a little better, so I made them soup, ginger ale and the whole bit.
By the next afternoon, I was down for the count, and far worse than the rest of them had been. Figures. At least my office happened to be closed on Monday, I was still in sad shape as I dropped the kids at school, after missing two weeks (!!!).
To top it all off, the day job has been incredibly busy, it's budget season, so there's been no time to breathe and because of our trip, I couldn’t take any additional time off to cook the annual two-day sauce for little guy's birthday. He was quite happy with pizza though, and next year, we'll get back to normal. I hope. Is there such a thing?