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Hedone Anthology authors were told we'd be paid by Jan 15th - which was months later than contracted. Then we were told we'd be paid by Feb 15th, which came and went with no payment or contact. Some of us emailed Hedone Books to ask for an update, but had no reply. Then 2 days ago some of us saw...

... on social media - and not on Hedone's socials - that Hedone Books is closing shop in March. Hedone hadn't told us that. Some of us tried emailing Hedone again to ask about payment, the one paperback contributor copy we were owed under contract, and about the reversion of rights for our stories.

They only replied to some individuals then, before finally issuing a group email to anthology authors yesterday, to say they were shuttering. Our guest editor has been left to handle payments to us - that should have been the job of Hedone Books. And where our contract talked about discounted...

... a stressful time dealing with all of this. I am generally going to be patient with delays if people communicate those clearly. But a payment date - especially one that's late, then delayed twice - should not lapse without contact. And you can imagine that it's then anxiety provoking when ...

... the people supposed to pay you appear to be going out of business, without telling you that themselves. (I also noticed yesterday that Hedone Books deactivated their Bsky account and closed their website.) Anyway, I emailed @victoriastrauss.com / Writer Beware about all of this yesterday too.

Because it's not how things should work in publishing. I understand that a press might close for whatever reason. But where contracted issues are concerned - like payments, rights, etc - those should, at a minimum, be something the publisher proactively communicates about. Not like this mess.