One of my core beliefs as a writer is that it is impossible to effectively improve one's craft without benefit of an audience. While there is something to said for workshopping, there is an inherent upper limit to the utility of feedback from jealous peers, arrogant hacks and English majors intimidated into paralysis by the burden of their own knowledge of historic greatness.

There is no arguing the value of having a dedicated pedant point out one's overzealous use of subordinate adverb clauses, or a sharp-eyed editor calling one out for a sloppy change of tense or confusing switch in perspective. Sometimes it can also be nice to have a parent, friend or lover's heartfelt assurance that the work positively oozes with talent.

None of the things, however, are a viable substitute for an actual living, breathing, warm-blooded audience of disinterested persons whose only loyalty is (or is not) inspired by whatever quantity of entertainment one has managed to encode into the page with words, sentences and punctuation.

This is why I wrote my first novel -- my so-called "practice novel" -- directly on the Web, with the progress of each chapter informed by strangers' responses to the previous. In this way I hoped not only to supply myself with a steady supply of pressure to keep at it, but also to learn in nearly real-time which of my literary conceits were functioning as designed and which were falling flat.

No one was more surprised and delighted than me when it turned out that the audience for Simon of Space was highly enthusiastic. Even before the telling was halfway complete I was being inundated with more feedback than I knew what to do with. Not that it was all positive, naturally -- the most valuable hints came from those who were disappointed, critical and incredulous.

I opted to self-publish the resulting manuscript, mostly as a keepsake for those readers who had stuck with me and helped me out so much during the four months of its writing. I was fairly shocked when it started selling like hotcakes.

Journalists from four continents contacted me for telephone or e-mail interviews, earning me minor mention in several well-known publications from the Singapore Straits Times to G4's Attack of the Show. I scored a regular column in Footprints, a quarterly community journal, and was invited to write an article for Australia's Cosmos science magazine.

I was also contacted by a traditional publisher from the United States called Ephemera Bound -- and that's where my run of good fortune came to a screeching halt.

Ephemera Bound's principals were candid about their limited reach as a self-described "very small publisher." It was their feeling, however, that a professionally edited hardbound edition of my book distributed through major booksellers might give me sales numbers I could use to seduce a larger publisher down the road. This seemed to me to be a reasonably modest goal, and I was thankful to Ephemera Bound for having the confidence in me to risk investing in what would amount to a "reprint" since my work had already appeared online.

During a Q&A telephone conversation early in the negotiations process, Ephemera Bound put significant emphasis on grounding my expectations in reality. They assured me in no uncertain terms that I wouldn't "get rich" by publishing with them; they wanted me to understand that it was highly unlikely my book would end up on anyone's bestseller list. What I would get, however, was the prestige of being distributed in hardcover by a bricks-and-mortar publisher with solid ties in the industry -- something that might make a very favourable impression when I approached someone bigger with a new work.

Ephemera Bound's Deanna Dahlsad emphasized that, on top of this, their distribution channels could definitely get more copies into people's hands than an independent author with no marketing budget printing through Lulu. "Otherwise there would be no point!" she laughed.

Ha, ha, ha.

I was offered a very competitive royalty rate, and given the power to veto objectionable edits. I was electronically introduced to their resident editrix and felt assured that she understood the key concepts in the book. Finally, I signed a publication agreement with Ephemera Bound in September of 2005.

My first warning sign came in November 2005 when the editrix, the late Marsha Rogers, asked me to send her the manuscript in unstyled plain text broken into segments no larger than 125 kilobytes in order to best accommodate her obsolete word processing software and her extremely slow dial-up Internet connection. While this didn't exactly reek of professionalism, I was willing to be flexible and did as I was told. I uploaded the files, sent a link, and asked Marsha to let me know if the posted files were indeed readable to her.

I didn't hear back from Marsha for many months. Having no experience in the editing of books, I had no idea how long the process should take. By the summer of 2006, however, I was becoming concerned about the delay.

I attempted to contact the principals at Ephemera Bound, but received no replies to my e-mails and no response from the voice-mail messages I left at their offices. Ultimately, I wrote directly to Marsha to ask whether something untoward had happened to Deanna and her husband Derek -- had they gone out of business?

A few days later Deanna wrote from a new e-mail account, explaining that the address to which I'd been directing my correspodance was one she "never used" (despite it being the avenue of all our previous communications). She went on to explain that Marsha was, in fact, waiting on me and this was why the process had stagnated. "What is she waiting for?" I asked, perplexed.

"The manuscript."

Now, let's put aside for a moment the fact that the entire manuscript was available on the Web in copy-paste friendly electronic format. Let's even forget, for the moment, that I asked Marsha explicitly to report back to me on the feasibility of the material I made available to her. In the end, poor Marsha hadn't understood what a link was, and had simply stared in confusion at the URL I had e-mailed her and, somehow, taken it as my cryptic way of suggesting that I'd send her the manuscript some other time.

"Are you sure this woman is qualified to edit science-fiction?"

I e-mailed the full manuscript as a Microsoft Word formatted attachment. Marsha replied to say she had received it intact. Relieved, I promptly put the project out of my mind again.

I heard from Marsha next in October 2006. She had nearly completed her revisions, but she needed me to do some minor rewrites in four or five different chapters. Due to the thickness of family life and work, it was a full two months before I turned those rewrites around and sent the updated chapters in question back to Marsha. "My apologies for the delay!" I wrote.

In January 2007 I wrote to Deanna at her new e-mail address to gently ask after any kind of tentative timeline for releasing the finished book. Readers had been e-mailing me, wanting to know when they could revisit the adventure (which had since been pulled from the Web as a part of my contractual obligations to Ephemera Bound). Deanna never wrote back.

In May 2007 I was contacted by a California-based producer named Matt Chapman who was interested in negotiating a film adaptation option for the book. His first question to me was whether anyone besides myself had any stake in the film rights. I told him quite honestly that, to the best of my understanding, no one had any stake in the film rights at this time, but that Ephemera Bound had explicitly asked me to inform them of any activity with regard to the property in order to keep them "in the loop." Thus, I told Matt Chapman that we would be obliged as a courtesy to consult with Ephemera Bound before proceeding.

I wrote to Deanna. I wrote to Derek. I left numerous polite (but increasingly insistent) messages at the Ephemera Bound offices.

No reply was forthcoming.

Finally, after ten business days had elapsed, I wrote to both of them stating that all reasonable means of communication had been essayed with no result and that therefore I would be proceeding with film adaptation negotiations without their input.

Deanna called me at work right away. She implied that I was a very impatient person for not waiting longer than ten days for their response, adding, however, that at least this time I hadn't accused of them of being out of business. Ha, ha. She told me that I was free to negotiate the option deal with Matt Chapman as long as any agreement included a proviso reiterating Ephemera Bound's right as exclusive book publisher. "We have no interest in holding you back," she said. "We just want to make sure the rights we've negotiated for are protected. After all, if it does get made into a movie we'll sell a heck of lot more books!"

Who could disagree? Further, she asked that I carbon copy Derek on the negotiations in the unlikely event that something should come up that could harm Ephemera Bound's stake or conflict with our standing publication agreement. I promised that I would do so.

Matt Chapman and I began negotiating via e-mail, with every missive carbon copied to Ephemera Bound. Chapman Media's basic option agreement was quite reasonable and required very little modification, so this process went quickly. After a week or so Matt sent me a contract with instructions to print two copies, sign them, and mail one back to California. He further enthused that he had managed to score a meeting with a relatively senior person at a major studio, and was preparing to pitch the film adaptation idea in just a matter of days.

That's when Derek wrote to say that Ephemera Bound already owned any and all adaptation rights, and that from now on Chapman Media would have to negotiate with him instead of me.

Nice.

There was a rapid exchange of e-mails as we, and our duly appointed legal advisors, disagreed over the implications of the language in the publication agreement between Ephemera Bound and myself. Though the facts were against him, Derek dug in his heels and threatened to break off all negotiations, not only jeopardizing the upcoming meeting at the studio but also potentially killing the film option deal altogether.

So I did the exact opposite of what any lawyer will advise you to do: I elected to dissolve the impasse by laying down my every defense. I chose to explicitly assign the adaptation rights to Ephemera Bound, so that negotiations could continue. I trusted in Ephemera Bound to appropriately safeguard our mutual interests, and told them so. I asked them, if possible, to secure a modest amount of money for me in order to cover my legal costs.

A few days later Deanna telephoned to report that negotiations had once again stalled. The sticking point was my fee. "He insists he has absolutely no money for fees," she claimed.

"Alright," I said with a sigh. "I guess I'll take yet another one for the team -- forget about my fee."

Matt Chapman telephoned me next, also to report that negotiations had stalled. It seemed that Ephemera Bound was stubbornly insisting that the option agreement could not go forward without securing a fee for themselves -- and one an order of magnitude greater than what I had been asking for, to boot.

All he wanted to know was if the fee demand was coming from me. I told him how I had retracted my demand. He thanked me and hung up.

I don't know how he did it, but he did it: the option agreement was executed by Chapman Media and Ephemera Bound the very next day, and I received one of those fruity Hollywood gift baskets by courier -- truffles, chocolate, ribbons. It was signed, You're a star! M.C.

The next phase of Matt's plan was to try to arose some interest at the gigantic and much ballyhooed Dan Diego Comic Convention. I sent him artwork so that he could have printed materials prepared, and made available to him a copy of the manuscript for use in his pitches. Also, inspired by his convention idea, I decided to lease a vendor's booth at the Toronto Science-Fiction Expo for August 2007 in order to peddle books, raise awareness, and ignite some enthusiasm for the upcoming hardcover release.

The booth was expensive, however. I put out a call to my readers to chip in any money they could, and then hit up friends and relatives. The response was very heartwarming but, when all the expenses were tallied, I still didn't have enough money to order the quantity of books I'd need for the expo.

I wrote to Ephemera Bound and asked them three questions: 1) Could they give me a release date for the book, so I could include it in my printed materials? 2) Could they send me any Ephemera Bound materials, like posters or pamphlets, for display at my booth? And, 3) Would they be willing to contribute any amount of money -- even a tiny amount of money -- toward my being able to attend?

At this point it should have been a foregone conclusion: there was no reply.

That's pretty much when I officially started to become disgruntled. Did Ephemera Bound have absolutely zero interest in promoting our mutual interests? Could they not even be bothered to provide me with the vaguest of anticipated launch dates? Considering that in the wooing phase they had promised to be a powerful partner when it came to promotions, was it too much to ask for fifty bucks for gas money so I could drive into the city?

In order to find out, I wrote to Marsha and asked her, once again, if Ephemera Bound was still in business. As before, I received a reply directly from Deanna just a few hours later. Her note was terse: there was no release date for the book as of yet, they would be sending me no Ephemera Bound promotional materials as promotions were exclusively the responsibility of the author, and my "demands" for money were considered rude in the extreme, utterly ignorant of the needs of the many other Ephemera Bound authors whose promotional needs also had to be considered.

Chapman Media stepped in and offered to cover 50% of any losses.

So I borrowed more money, attended the expo, sold some books, and chatted up lots and lots of interesting people. The event was a reasonable success (and a lot of fun), with the notable exception of the embarrassed hesitation on my part whenever someone asked when Simon of Space would finally be available in stores.

In November 2008 Derek wrote to say that the release date had been fixed as 14 February. He also told me that the royalty rate I had been contractually guaranteed was too high, and that I would either have to accept a lower rate or they would not publish the book. In return for this concession, he promised me a better royalty rate on the follow-up softcover edition.

In December 2007 he contacted me to ask if I would design the cover for the hardcover edition. I asked how much the job paid, and he told me it paid nothing. Since we had originally discussed having an outside illustrator do the cover, I asked him how much he had been planning to pay another illustrator, and suggested that I would be willing to offer a considerable discount for a chance to earn a little cash to offset my expenses on the project. Derek reiterated that he was unwilling to pay me any amount, and that his position was non-negotiable. I wished him good luck with the outside illustrator.

In January 2008 Derek forwarded to me a sample layout of the cover, complete with an original illustration from a hired designer named Ashley Bosch, as well as a galley proof of the manuscript in electronic format for my approval.

I wrote back with some recommendations for improving Bosch's design, as well a list of concerns about dropped letters, spelling inconsistencies, and other problems with the text.

The next week I received two "review copies" of the book -- a softcover edition printed for final checking before going ahead with hardcover production. I thanked Derek for sending it to me, and included in my mail my continuing concerns about typos and the composition of the front cover layout, as well as the book's dedication to my brother being missing. The product was otherwise marginally passable, but the whole process had emotionally exhausted me to the point where my ability to care was severely eroded...I just wanted to goddamn book to come out already.

Since Ephemera Bound had no connections for distribution in my home country of Canada, I decided to shop the review copies around myself. My most potentially lucrative contact was with the manager of Toronto's Bakka science-fiction bookstore. She was very encouraging, but told me she could not make a deal without a physical copy of the final product in her hands -- a review copy was not sufficient. "No problem -- the launch is on Valentine's Day!" I assured her, and we booked a meeting for the week after that.

On Valentine's Day the hardcover edition of Simon of Space became available for sale through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and direct from Ephemera Bound. I eagerly awaited the arrival of my contractually stipulated free copies, and the beginning of the marketing and promotions phase which Deanna had promised would include interviews and, if they could swing a deal in Canada, book signing events.

Ha...ha.

Within a couple of weeks I learned that several readers who had ordered their books direct from Ephemera Bound had had their credit cards charged, but had received no product. I was informed that any attempt to e-mail or telephone Ephemera Bound was met with stony silence. So, naturally, I tried to contact Ephemera Bound on their behalf in order to ask after the unfulfilled orders, as well as my own missing copies of the book.

You guessed it: no response.

Two more weeks went by. Some readers received their books, but many others did not. I hadn't received mine, either. Moreover, I was alarmed to note that no promotional efforts were coming out of Ephemera Bound -- not even the modest PR announcements released to market their other authors. In fact, the only mentions of Simon of Space in the whole wide world were those that had been put out there by me, personally.

This time I would not be able to write to Marsha in order to get her to shake Deanna awake, because Marsha had died of cancer. I was left with no other option than to post a query on Deanna's personal blog, asking her as politely as possible given the circumstances why she had time to post trivia on the Web but not to return my telephone calls.

No response.

My next note outlined my grievances formally, described what modest steps would satisfy my concerns, and advised Ephemera Bound to govern themselves accordingly lest I instigate legal proceedings against them for breach of contract.

Deanna wrote back right away.

She claimed that promoting the book -- which had previously been described as "a co-operative effort" and also as my "sole responsibility" -- was none of my business. She told me my copies of the book were already on their way to me in the mail. She concluded by refusing to discuss the issue of the unfulfilled orders, since this would violate the privacy of the buyers in question.

Of course, my meeting with Bakka came and went, cancelled because I had neither merchandise to present nor a reasonable explanation to offer on behalf of the publisher. Over time, more readers received their books until there was only one exception I was aware of: a loyal reader in Alberta, Canada who had written to me hoping to find some answers. He had repeatedly tried to contact Ephemera Bound to no avail, even going to far as to scan and transmit a copy of his credit card statement.

When Derek troubled himself to reply to my fresh round of contact attempts, he reiterated Deanna's position that he would not discuss the case of the Albertan's missing book since doing so would be a breach of buyer-seller confidentiality. He also included the news that Ephemera Bound had, to date, sold twelve copies of the book.

Twelve copies, a month after the launch. Twelve.

When I initially released the self-published edition, I sold about twelve copies every day. With the meagre promotional powers of some random idiot with an Internet connection, I managed to move a few hundred copies within a month of the initial release.

Ephemera Bound, with all its industry connections, distribution channels, and the respectability of a traditional bricks-and-mortar company, had barely managed to sell copies to my twelve biggest fans -- fans who had already bought the first edition, and also picked up a hardcover as a gesture of support. In other words, Ephemera Bound had managed to reach the same fucking people I had already reached and no one else.

The only effective difference between traditional publication and self-publishing was that the book now sported a much crappier cover, had acquired new and bewildering typos, and my share of the profits had diminished by 80%.

I told Derek that I was unhappy with how things were playing out, and offered some suggestions for combining our marketing efforts for maximum promotional synergy. His reply was to state unequivocally that any and all marketing data was confidential. He invited me to sever the publishing agreement according to the exit clause in the contract, which stipulated that I would have to reimburse Ephemera Bound out of pocket for any and all costs associated with the project to date.

That's right: I could feel free to buy my book back from them.

At this point I recalled how our publication agreement had been modified by e-mail correspondence when the royalty rate was changed on me. It occurred to me that if I could get Ephemera Bound to amend the agreement again by way of an e-mail discussion, I could possibly score the rights back. After all, if e-mail agreements counted as amendments, the modifications would be unassailable; if e-mail agreements didn't count after all, then my cut of the royalties would jump upward.

The key would be framing the e-mail in such a way that they would feel obliged to make a choice in how to proceed, and the available choices would be rigged with a series of Rube Goldberg-like if-then statements that would, one way or another, put the ball back in my court.

I structured my next missive carefully. It was written like a computer programme, with three options available at the bottom: 1) Ephemera Bound can choose to exercise the exit clause (and therefore pay me for my expenses to date); 2) Ephemera Bound can continue to try to sell the book, but they must set and meet a six month sales goal, otherwise all rights revert to me without financial penalty (I suggested a modest sales goal, and invited them to make it more realistic based on their experience and industry insight); or 3) they could propose a compromise position for moving forward which we could negotiate the finer points of.

Deanna wrote back to affirm that they did wish to continue selling the book. They did not want to exercise the exit clause and pay me out, and they had no suggestions for any another kind of arrangement. She did not wish to revise my sales goal number.

Thus, she had accepted my conditions: sell X number of copies within 6 months, or lose the property lock, stock and barrel.

So now it's six months later. Ephemera Bound has withheld all sales reports, and failed to ship me the copies of the book to which I'm entitled. The guy in Alberta finally got his book, but my cheque for first quarter sales never arrived. Thus, on the anniversary date, I re-released my own edition of the book, put the whole novel back on the Web for free reading, and sent Ephemera Bound a polite note informing them that the time had come to stop selling their hardcover edition.

Naturally, there was no response.

As of this writing Ephemera Bound continues to blithely sell their illegal version, and to keep the proceeds for themselves. If nothing changes in the next few days, I will obliged to serve their host with a DMCA copyright infringement take-down notice, forcing me into the company of intellectual property douchebags like Uri Gellar and the Church of Scientology.

You know, they seemed like nice enough folks. Literate, earnest, modest. But in the end they chose dishonesty, evasiveness and flimflammery at every turn. Heck, at one point Derek Dalhsad was even simple enough to try to convince me that the version of the manuscript edited by the late Marsha Rogers constituted a derivative work over which they would have exclusive control, regardless of the rightsholder of the original property. (Why do people even attempt such flimsy ruses? Don't they know that laws are searchable via Google?)

So, basically these two American dickweeds are banking on their bet that my threats of legal action are all fury and no fire (I suspect they might be in for an unpleasant surprise on that front). They've rendered my first novel unpublishable, and they imagine they can continue to collect the nickels and dimes it earns until the cows come home.

Really, the ultimate loser here is whoever tries to make a deal with me next. This is the second time in my life I've tried to navigate an intellectual property crisis by being candid, giving, understanding, tactful and forgiving -- and, lo and behold, it doesn't work. Ephemera Bound has taught me that being a nice guy fails, and that being a self-interested, demanding asshole from the get-go is the way to get the respect you need to operate.

Threats are far more effective than reasoned discourse; ultimatums gain more traction than considered compromise.

(And yes, Virginia, the world is full of lawyers -- who cost more than they save you.)

I didn't expect much from Ephemera Bound, but they utterly failed to keep even their most modest promises. Derek and Deanna Dahlsad have repeatedly lied to me, and are now in the process of stealing from me.

I am upset, but hardened.

I won't be played again.


UPDATE 08-13-2008: The Ephemera Bound version is no longer for sale as of this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, we have compliance. I repeat: we have compliance! Good riddance to dorks.