The Dorchester/Leisure Publishing Ban

I just got told something horrible. Seriously horrible. Imagine that you just did a huge amount of work. You're tired but proud of yourself for everything you've achieved. Payday finally rolls around, but instead of finding a paycheck in your mailbox you find nothing but air. ‘It must be late- I’ll give it another day or two,’ you think. When days turn into months turn into years you start to realize… you’re not getting paid anytime soon. You turn to your fellow workers to ask if they’ve gotten anything, only to discover that they haven’t either.

And there’s a lot of you.

This is currently what’s going with Dorchester Publishing & their Leisure imprint. Over 150 people (with more reporting in each day) have either had extremely late or no payments from Dorchester. Yet the publishing company is still selling copies of their books. Now some of you might think “but what if these are authors whose books really don’t sell? Well, the guy that started getting the word out about this is none other than Brian Keene, one of the bigger names in horror. He might not be as instantly recognizable to the non-horror savvy person as Stephen King’s might be, but trust me- he’s a pretty big deal & the bookstore I work in sells quite a few of his books. There’s no way that he wouldn’t have a paycheck. So what to do about a publishing company that isn’t paying the people who are the ones putting out the product & effort that keeps them in business?

WE BOYCOTT THEM.

That’s right, let’s hit them where it hurts: in their wallet. Don’t buy their products. This will show them that us the public support the people they are robbing of a paycheck & that we aren’t going to support the greedy fatcats who are refusing to pay these people the money they earned. This might mean that you’ll miss out on a few books, but trust me- it’ll be for the greater good.

For more information, check out Brian Keene’s site for the latest information on this topic.

(Click on the picture above for the current list of people & organizations that aren't being paid by Dorchester.)