3mo ago

Boundless (previously Unbound) has informed over 238 authors they won't be getting paid royalties on books they already sold

The company changed names and was sold in a stock restructuring. They took the money from community backers, refuse to deliver the books to them. Now they claim they have no responsibility to pay author's royalties for books already sold, they also don't have money to deliver or ship books. Half the people who work there quit. It's 238 authors who are collectively owed more than £650,000.

Link is one YouTuber's account of the situation from the POV of an author.

Here's a news article about the situation: “If I wasn’t so f*cking angry, I’d laugh”: Boundless delays author payments

And another: After Unbound’s Collapse, Boundless Faces Uphill Battle to Rebuild Trust

6 comments

Under the crowdfunding system, funds were taken in from supporters but there's nothing in the contracts that indicated that funds needed to be sequestered. This meant customer pre-order money could be used for general business operations rather than being held in escrow for specific book fulfillment.
So instead of giving people what they paid for, they just "used it" (stole it) for other purposes.
The decision affects 238 authors and agents owed £657,000, nearly 8,000 website customers who pre-ordered books owed £391,000, and other trade creditors owed £829,000.
That's a helluva lot of money to steal!
"There is a misconception of this being an easy thing to do. It’s not. Administration is not an easy path and not somehow evading all responsibilities. It's hard, there are obligations and expenses involved." she said. "If we had not done this necessary process, we wouldn't be sitting here now. It would have been liquidation."
It seems easy enough to me: you take people's money for a product, screw over your suppliers and contractors, and walk away with whatever you got in salary, bonuses and expenses. Why are you saying that "you're not evading responsibilities” when you:ve clearly and publicly admitted you've decided not to pay anyone what they're owed, nor deliver product that people have paid for and which in some cases you have in stock?
She added: "We are acutely aware of the disappointment this causes for authors and partners, [...] Writing to followers on Facebook, [one author] said unpaid royalties owed to him by Unbound – royalties that Boundless said it would honour, even as it disclaimed legal responsibility to do so – amounted to over £20,000.
£20,000 is a helluva lot more than "disappointment", lady!
- That's only the listed creditors on the earnings side (authors, banks and customers), they also owe another million and a half to providers (shipping, printing, etc.). They owe over £3.4 million total.
- "There is a misconception of this being an easy thing to do. It’s not. Administration is not an easy path and not somehow evading all responsibilities. It's hard..." - you pay for your coffee. Barista gets out of the coffee shop, comes back in 5 minutes chewing a bagel: "It's hard to make coffee these days! Btw, we're out of beans"
- Yeah, it's the victims' fault!
- Did this happen to him before?

6 comments