Mall of Cthulhu Sequel Update! (Now Updated!)

UPDATE: Read the update to the whole thing here.

I've gotten a lot of inquiries about the sequel to The Mall of Cthulhu.

So here's the update:  the sequel is partially written and completely plotted and is in limbo.

Here's why.

Basically, despite the great things Night Shade Books has done for this book, this is not a publisher I can do business with anymore.  They are either unable or unwilling to honor their contracts.

Night Shade has stolen the ebook rights to The Mall of Cthulhu.  They do not own them and are offering an electronic edition for sale through webscription.net, which is affiliated with Baen Books, a real publisher who should know better.  Nine months ago, Night Shade made a verbal offer to pay me a small sum for the rights.  I agreed. They've never paid me.  They claimed their unauthorized edition was an oversight, and that was somewhat credible at the time.  Nine months later, it's clear that this is not an oversight.  It's a theft of my intellectual property.

I've given away the ebook of Mall of Cthulhu in hopes of cutting the legs out from Night Shade and webscription's piracy of my work.  (Guess what, Cory Doctorow?  My problem is piracy and obscurity!) If you'd like a free electronic copy, scroll down here, or go to scribd.  If you like it, please consider buying the Kindle edition, published by me and sold by Amazon, who pay me regularly for the copies I sell through them. (It's only 3 bucks!  Less than a latte!)

I was due a royalty statement from Night Shade Books on March 1.  Some time in April, they sent an inaccurate royalty statement. It listed a smaller advance and a higher cover price than was accurate.  My agent told them they had made errors in my favor, and they agreed to send a corrected statement.  We're now staring down June, and I have no idea how many copies The Mall of Cthulhu has sold or if I'm owed any money.  I would not be owed anything other than the revenue from the stolen ebook rights if the sales figures on the first royalty statement were accurate.  But since none of the other numbers on that statement were accurate, I don't have any reason to trust the sales numbers.

I was paid my advance for this book, but I have no confidence that I'll ever know if I'm owed more money.  If I were to be owed money, I have no confidence that I'll ever be paid. Night Shade's business model appears to be disappearing for months at a time, offering elaborate apologies, and then disappearing again.

In short, I can't do business with Night Shade Books anymore, and, despite the beautiful editions they put together, I strongly advise other writers and agents not to do business with these guys either.  I would ask that anyone who hasn't yet bought a copy of Mall of Cthulhu please take the free copy and pay $2.99 for the Kindle Edition if you'd like to see me get paid for my work.  Given Night Shade's unwillingness or inability to provide an accurate accounting of sales, I don't believe I'll see another dime from hardcopy sales.

(Liz Williams, author of the fantastic and wonderfully inventive Snake Agent, has been having similar problems with this publisher.  Her comments are here. I know other people are having similar problems but have yet to take their complaints public. I hope they will.  Night Shade has built their shaky business on producing beautiful books that they are able to place in Borders, but they've also gotten a lot of talented editors and writers to work for them, and all professional writers and editors need to understand that getting into business with this publisher is an incredibly risky proposition.)

So what about the sequel? 

Well, as you can imagine, it's unlikely that another publisher would want to put out a sequel on its own. I may be able to wrest the rights back from Night Shade given their multiple breaches of contract, but who knows whether I could get Mall placed with another publisher anyway?

But I am thrilled beyond belief that people enjoyed this book enough to want more.  I do write for money, but I also write for love.  I wrote Mall mostly because I just wanted to read a book like that. It's the book I have wanted to write since I was twelve years old.

So I would like to make the sequel available.  Knowing that I won't get paid for it, I'm going to have to make it a back burner project.  (I've got 3 kids, a dog, and a mortgage, so the remunerative writing projects are going to have to wait).

So here's my current thought:  I'm thinking I will put the sequel, entitled Dog Walk of The Dead, up in installments.  I can do it both here and on scribd.com.

Here's what I need from you:  since this project runs on love, not money, I'm gonna need people to show some love for the book.  This can take the form of comments here, tweets, facebook posts, comments on scribd, emails to mallofcthulhu at gmail dot com, or pretty much anything that lets me know I'm actually writing for an audience and not just amusing myself. 

I'll put the first installment up in the coming week and future installments pretty much as I get time.  (I've got about 80 pages done so far, so that should hold us for the first 3 or 4 installments, I'm thinking)

A caveat: Night Shade did hook me up with a great editor, Janna Silverstein, and a great cover artist, Scott Altmann.  I can't afford to pay either of them to work on this project, though of course I will welcome feedback on what's working and what's not as the project goes along. And I guess fan art would be cool too and would certainly be posted here.

So, whaddya think?  Is this worth doing?  I welcome your comments below, your twitter thoughts @seamuscooper, and your emails to mallofcthulhu at gmail dot com.

Comments

[Guy]

Sorry about your issues with NS. They do put out a handsome book. Have you contacted their e-publisher?

Two suggestions -- put out an edition for us non-Kindle folks, and put up a Paypal link for those folks who would like to drop a buck or two as you publish the sequel.

Good luck getting the contract vacated. --Guy Anthony De Marco

[Monkey_puncher]

Wow that stinks. I bought the hard copy of Mall of Cthulhu and loved it. Please do put up a Paypal link or something so that we can show our thanks, or use one of the epublishing sites to sell the updates.

[SarahT]

Bring it on! I feel privileged to have beta-read a couple of short portions of DOG WALK OF THE DEAD, and I am *so* ready for the rest of the story.

I bought the paper edition of MALL twice: once for me, and once for the fiction collection at the library where I work. I regularly put it up on the "Books that will make you laugh out loud" endcap display. I sincerely hope there's a paper sequel someday so it can go there as well.

Fight the good fight, Mistah Cooper. Charlatans of the publishing world must be stopped!

[Jason]

That's horrible. It's too bad you can sue them into oblivion. The PayPal idea mentioned above is something you should consider.

[Doug]

Your agent must be really stupid to tell them they made an error in their own favor. Who would do that?

[Seamus]

Yeah, he's not the brightest bulb, but he's an old friend. What can you do....

[Jvfriedman]

Yikes, man.

I bought, read, and loved Mall of Cthulu.

A friend (who's launching her own imprint, so she knows from such things) saw who published it and had good things to say. (I've sent her the link to this post.)

I eagerly look forward to the next book in the series, but I understand that Shakespeare got to get paid, son.

Thank you for writing a great book.

[Cassie]

I've been looking for Kindle books for my vacation at the end of the week, and a friend suggested your book. Reading this, I'm completely sold--we need to support our authors, otherwise they won't be able to write! I'm clicking through to buy the Kindle version now.

Best of luck with the sequel!

[M. Cochran]

Don't give up writing the sequal and don't give up the fight to retrieve what's rightfully yours.

[ksullivan]

I am absolutely horrified to read this.

I'm the friend-launching-an-imprint mentioned by JVFriedman above, and I was ecstatic to see that Night Shade had released the book when she showed me her copy over the weekend (incidentally, she almost didn't get it back. I was about two clicks away from buying it when I got her link to this post - I MUST read this book and will now read the eBook version). Night Shade produces absolutely stunning editions and some really wonderful authors/worlds, and a large part of what I want to do with my own imprint is to produce books that are half as good.

...however, the other part of what I want to do with my imprint is to be fair, ethical, and transparent when dealing with my writers. I am absolutely APPALLED to see what Night Shade has done to you here, and more than that, by their handling of the situation. It's utterly inexcusable, and I'm so sorry you're dealing with it.

[James Minz]

We regret any problems you may be experiencing with your publisher. As per the request of your publisher, we are in the process of removing MALL OF AMERICA from webscription.net.
Allow me to assure you and your readers that webscription.net distributes only those titles for which a publisher warrants they control e-rights. We take things like Warranty and Indemnity clauses quite seriously, and are acting in good faith to resolve any issues as we become aware of them. Our websites provide multiple ways to contact us, and if you are ever aware of such a situation, involving your books, or the works of any other authors, please do contact us.

Best wishes with the sequel to MALL OF CTHULHU

--James Minz
Baen Books

[Josh]

You might want to consider the ransom method for the sequel. A couple of small-press RPG authors have worked on this method. The barebones idea is that they set a value on the effort plus costs and profit, and take donations that are held in escrow until that value is reached, at which point the book is released for free to everyone. I don't know the under-the-hood mechanics, but Greg Stolze (http://www.gregstolze.com/index.html) has put out quite a few products under this method, and might be a person to contact about how he's dealt with the situation.

[Karl-Johan Norén]

You should contact Webscriptions and Baen directly. In the cases I know of, they have been very responsive with regards to author issues. I just saw that Elizabeth Moon had had the same problem as you, she contacted them, and after they had checked things out they sent the royalties direct to her.

[Danny Adams]

Do you have Paypal? I don't have a Kindle and I get frustrated with e-books I can't read offline (mainly since I don't have Internet access at home), but I'd be perfectly willing to download the book from Scribd and Paypal you $3 directly. :)

[Seamus Cooper]

Thanks to everyone for your support. I really appreciate it.
@ksullivan--they really do put out beautiful editions. They also hired a fantastic editor and illustrator and publicist to work on this book. Thanks for your support, and I look forward to buying books from your imprint!

@James Minz--well, I sent email to support@webscription.net on May 4 of this year explaining the situation. and received no acknowledgment. I'm glad you are taking action to remove the book. I'd like to see some information about how much money I'm owed from your unauthorized edition as well.

@DannyAdams--Both MALL and the first 2 parts of the sequel are available for free on this site with a nice little Paypal button for those who feel moved to donate! Thanks for your interest!

@Josh. Sounds interesting. I will look into it!

[Kartar]

I'd be happy to pay for a subscription/ransom-ware - I enjoyed the first book enough for that. Anyway commiserations on your publisher troubles - after five books I've come to assume there'll be at least one marketing/royalty/project/editing/etc disaster per book. :(