Does this sound familiar?

On her blog, Susan Renee' Claridge talks about why she terminated her relationship with her publisher:

http://networkedblogs.com/OhKQE

Whew!  Since I am currently submitting manuscripts to publishers I am glad to know that this one is not on my list! 

It makes the loss of L & L Dreamspell as a small press even more devastating.  They were forthright in every respect. Even after closing, the yahoo group is still operational, L & L Dreamspell former authors still supporting each other as we seek new publishers. 

I do know that sometimes there are misunderstandings in the eager rush to publish.  That was my case with PublishAmerica and I am glad that relationship is terminated.  I am much more careful these days.

I finally got all of my rights back from PA, and of course won't use them again. Rebecca Buckley with her RJ Buckley Publishing, has published 3 or my books, including the one that DK has such a great story in, The World Outside The Window. However, the contracts on two of those are up, and I now have them back. She still have Neon Rainbo, and I have the Rinky Dink book and the Windows book. I will publish the Rinky Dinks with Flint River Press, but am not sure about the Windows. Rebecca has been very forthcoming, upright, professional, and has lived up to everything she said when I signed with her, and I don't regret it at all. I registered Flint River Press because I wanted a place to put my own books without going through anyone else. I've found the royalties are nearly non existent for an independent, so it doesn't appear to matter who they are published through, unless one secures a contract with a major publisher. Once again, I stick with my reasons. I am simply too old to go through the find and agent, submit a query, get turned down, and start over part of the business. So far it's working fine for me.

Familiar to whom? I am fortunate that I have not experienced what that writer has. Although I have experienced the publisher of my first text filing bankruptcy, and in its course, dropping the line my text is in. So they're not publishing a second edition, even after they asked me to write it (which I did) and gave me a generous grant to pay for the artwork.

They also, so far, have screwed me out of 7 months of royalties, since they said federal bankruptcy law prevents them from paying that debt. They said they'll pay from July forward and are petitioning the court to pay the back royalties, but I'm not holding my breath on the latter.

 All of this is very disappointing, as those royalties helped pay for my younger daughter's college tuition. To make things more difficult, they won't release the rights for the first edition to me, just the rights to the second. When they run out of copies, the termination contract  lets them print it on demand for whichever adopter (that text has 76) still wants it. This makes it hard to find another publisher, since everyone wants full rights. That said, I am in talks with one who is interested. So we'll see.

From what I have observed on various forums it is common to have issues with publishers.  Even if they start out great, things seem to change over time.  Things may get better as self-publishing continues to gain steam.  Publishers may be competing more often for author manuscripts and providing better service.  In reality, publishing is a service.