"This [Riptide Publishing abuse and racism problem] is really, really big. And right now, there's not an anonymous venue to discuss it. Goodreads doesn't permit one, and others are disabled or non-functional. That's not to provide a venue for trashing victims. Quite the opposite. It makes it hard for people to discuss wider issues without ramifications. I've been told things nobody will say publicly without certainty of anonymity. There are reasons for people to leave, for people to fear, and for people to stay, and they're complex. I'm not sure what the solution is, but just want to put that out there. Voices are stilled because they can't speak without fear of retaliation. Even after all this."
This blog has been set up to give a forum for people to speak anonymously. Blogger does not record IP addresses, and you can comment without giving an email address or other identification.
MAKE SURE YOU SELECT 'ANONYMOUS' FROM THE IDENTITY OPTIONS, ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE A GMAIL OR GOOGLE ACCOUNT AND YOU ARE LOGGED IN
If you want to ask me to set up a special post on a topic, my email address is logophilos@gmail.com, or you can leave a comment on this post.
Discussion on Goodreads regarding Riptide and Sarah Lyons is here, and on Santino Hassell, here.
Please be kind to each other, and be mindful you are talking with people who are distressed about the situation.
Ann Somerville
Ann Somerville
28 comments:
Was Sarah Lyons stating an opinion or statistical facts? It is commonly known all throughout marketing professionals that PoC on brand covers generally equaled lower sales. This has never been a secret. Until affirmative action, and other like policies, PoC were rarely seen on any brand covers in the past.
I was also under the impression that at least this part of Xen's account seemed uninformed about the realities of publishing. This is not to diminish the fact that it might be hurtful to hear this stated so bluntly but I read at least that one part of the exchange with Sarah as her commenting on an unfortunate but widely known fact.
The publishing industry like many other sectors of society is being challenged to be more diverse and it can be. To accept the status quo is to believe that society will never change. Same sex couples in many countries can now be married but if people didnt campaign for that then nothing would have changed and same sex people would still be criminalised, as they still are in many countries. So we shouldnt think that the publishing industry cant change.
http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2017/04/riptide-publishing-director-stresses-importance-of-diversity-in-romance-fiction
Sarah Lyons has recognized that diversity in romantic fiction is needed and she has spoken about this. Maybe her resignation was influenced by the allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour. This wasnt just about race.
Were they friends? I saw the text messaging screen shots, and it appears to be a conversation between two friends.
Our society is in the process of change, change is slow. This happen back in 2014!
I absolutely agree that Sarah made some ridiculously stupid and offensive comments. She is not someone that I would love to support. I'm glad she is gone, and I'm glad Riptide has acknowledged their dissatisfaction with Sarah and Kate.
I do feel, however, that Riptide has made changes over the past few years. I can understand the comments about PoC on covers a while back, but they HAVE since put more PoC on covers and had more books featuring PoC characters. I see that there has been a move in the right direction over the past couple of years. Is it perfect? No, but not much in our world is right now as we try to continue to bring attention to all of the groups who are being marginalized. I think Riptide is doing a good thing by taking a step back to make sure they are doing the right thing, but it looks like they had been working on that and made some improvements.
Were they friends? I saw the text messaging screen shots, and it appears to be a conversation between two friends.
Yes, it does appear that way, but it was not.
Xen was an author trying to get his book published. Sarah Lyons was the editor who was supposed to be helping him.
It should have been a professional conversation, but she started sharing unsolicited details of her personal life, her sexual appetites and needs, with a queer man over whom she had considerable power.
The whole mess is documented here on Xen's website, where he clearly explains that this was unsolicited and unwanted.
Allegedly it was unsolicited.
"Allegedly it was unsolicited. "
Okay, anonymous, you can fuck off with comments like this. I'll leave yours up to make the point, but I will delete any more bullshit casting doubt on the assertions by victims. Xen had to close off comments on his post because of death threats and abuse. No one is going to use this blog to do that to him or any one else speaking out.
This is a place where people affected by Riptide/Lyons can speak anonymously. It is not a place for Riptide/Lyons stans to try and alter the narrative of victims themselves. You take that crap to your own place.
Riptide continues to get away with murder. Everyone gives them chance after chance, while in the meantime they are toxic internally. It's bullshit that they keep getting away with it. And will do so yet again.
And if Riptide authors can't pull their existing stories, I get it. Whatever. But if you keep submitting stories to them or aren't pulling a book that isn't yet released, you are just as bad. You're not losing jack by pulling those.
"Allegedly it was unsolicited."
I'm just a reader. Beyond buying some Riptide books, I don't have anything to do with this situation. However, I did met Sarah once. I met up with an author who was attending a conference in a neighboring town. A large group of authors, readers, and con attendees went out for drinks. Within 30 minutes of meeting Sarah, she was telling the whole group about being a dom (well, really more a masochist than a dom), her husband the sub, the parties they attended, and a whole host of other details about her sexual life...totally and completely unsolicited and in public. I was not the only person in the group who had never met her before that night.
So, yeah, it seems to be her M.O.
This was well before Riptide even existed. Not sure if she had started reviewing for Dear Author at the time.
(Ann feel free to delete, since you already shut that line of "questioning" down.)
"Was Sarah Lyons stating an opinion or statistical facts? It is commonly known all throughout marketing professionals that PoC on brand covers generally equaled lower sales."
Just this tiny comment caused me to have multiple reactions.
1) Are there proper studies that document this "fact"? Are they recent? It is not good methodology to simply put out covers with 90% white people and then when purchasers choose those covers over the other 10% to say the buying public prefers covers with white people.
2) If we assume it is actual fact I argue that it can be changed. And I believe publishers simply need to do what is right. To paraphrase Justin Truedeau "Because it is 2018".
If publishers collectively decided to simultaneously increase number of authors of colour, characters of colour, and covers featuring those characters things would change. The public would simply get used to it. And even if it is only some publishers it would make a difference in purchasing habits.
3) If it is fact, or even if Sarah Lyons believed it was fact were her words professional and appropriate? How much better would it have sounded if she said something like
"Of course we are willing to publish books with main characters of colour. Right now we know that only 0.x% of our main characters are non-white and we would truly like to increase that number. We have had some difficulty promoting these books but are working hard to overcome those issues. In particular we have had success getting libraries interested. We have had a harder time with cover art. When the time comes we would want to work with you on a cover that you are comfortable with and that helps best drive sales."
And frankly I believe she did not say something like that because it was not actually a priority for Riptide or for her personally. If they actually had it as a priority it would have shown in the language she, a language professional, chose.
4) Even if is fact and her comment was considered professional by her employer that was not at all the sum problem with her interaction with Mr. McCade.
1) Regardless of facts about POC on covers, out of date or misguided and not taking into account publicity and accessibility of POC led romances, Sarah Lyons' manner of delivery and language was extremely unprofessional. If that is the RACIST policy of the company, you should at least convey it professionally and not with a fucking winking smiley.
2) Sarah Lyons has a noted tendency to escalate a conversation. Whether it's because someone brought up kink or just _because_. If any other editor, much less editorial director, regularly told their authors/clients how much they needed to get laid, the details of how they and their partners have sex, and how they best orgasm it would be bizarre. Couching it in terms of explaining your ~very special tastes~ does not make it permissible. It doesn't make it worse but it certainly doesn't make it better. You should never, in my opinion, escalate a conversation to that level if you are in control of someone's career. It's inappropriate. It's intimidating. And the author will always be at a disadvantage.
It appears the lines were blurred between their friendship and them being business colleagues. A common occurrence when coworkers are also friends.
"It appears the lines were blurred between their friendship and them being business colleagues. A common occurrence when coworkers are also friends. "
With some effort I will assume you are not trying to be provocative and that your comment is made in good faith. However it is misguided.
1 - They were not friends. Not one of the parties involved claims they were friends.
2 - yes lines get blurred with coworkers at times but it is the responsibility of the person in a position of power to not cross lines.
3 - those are not blurry lines. Describing sexual situations is way past any line.
Ann - if you wish to delete this because we are discussing the legitimacy of the complaint itself I totally understand. This is truly not the place to cast any doubt on Mr. McCade's account of events. None of the 3 parties involved claim it to be anything other than the truth. It is not our place to think we know better than them.
My mistake.
Only able to see one side of the conversation hard to tell. Was unsure of the context.
" you already shut that line of "questioning" down"
Anon and Sigh, I'm fine with your giving personal experiences in support of Xen. What's not okay is someone doing drive-by snark, trying to cast doubt on Xen or anyone else's experiences.
But I can also verify that Sarah is the queen of TMI, and has no boundaries when it comes to sexual discussion that I can see. Moreover, as she and Xen are the only parties to the conversation he reported, unless you think he's lying (for no reason that I can see), I don't think there's much to be gained by dissecting of whether it could or could not have happened.
Even you (generic you) had a more positive experience, that doesn't mean it didn't happen to him. Plenty of women said they had never had a problem with Harvey Weinstein, for instance. Also, Xen has particular reasons for finding this kind of thing painful—which Sarah was well aware of—so what applies to them, may not apply to someone else.
So let's allow people to talk, assume they're telling the truth. This situation needs as much sunlight and air as possible, and we have not by any means heard from all the victims of Riptide's way of doing things, or of Sarah Lyons herself, I suspect.
We should encourage people who suffered from all this to speak, and we should listen to what they want to happen now.
I have a few titles with Riptide. Sarah was my editor on every project, and she had me submit stories directly to her. One of my stories had an MC who was Asian (generalization for anonymity). I was given a sensitivity reader to address some cultural things, as well as how I wrote the ESL, which I thought was very helpful and important. When I was first given a cover proposal though, the model was very clearly Caucasian. After some back-and-forth (which involved me going to a stock photo site and finding my own models) we did settle on a cover wherein the model was Asian. The experience was more positive over negative, but of course that is only my one experience, and I didn't think anything of the fact that I sort of had to "push" for cover representation.
Being honest, I'm a little terrified about the titles I do have with Riptide. I know people are boycotting them as a publisher, which, in turn, means they are boycotting my books. I certainly don't blame readers who do not want to support Riptide's practices, but I've been hearing a lot of, "if you stay with Riptide, you're just as bad as they are." There is, of course, the option to pull my titles and self-publishing, but self-pubbing is a very involved process and kudos to everyone who does it. I just...I don't have the spoons to do it right now.
I'm glad that this has all come to light, even if it's put me between a rock and a hard place. These issues absolutely need be addressed, and I will not be submitting anything more to Riptide anytime soon. Just, as an author, I also have no idea where to go from here, at least in regards to some of my already published books.
Ms Lyons sounds like an unpleasant person. I am happy to hear Riptide is taking action to prevent this from happening again.
https://twitter.com/ElleOnWords/status/973228275999719424
In case you want to try that comment about "the realities of publishing" and POC on covers again.
FYI for those who might want to ditch a publisher but don't want to/know how to self-publish: other publishers do take previously published work. And I have a feeling a lot of the presses are more open to it right now than usual. You would have to go through the submission process all over again, of course (sorry), and your books would be unavailable for probably at least a year, but it's an option.
I'm at least 1 reader willing to support/follow an author, with the understanding it's not always straightforward to pull books, or even get them published in the first place.
In 2016 there was a major advertising shift, and POC are now seen more often on brands.
This is due, in part, to white people now being the minority for those under age 40.
Also, a large advertising firm did testing in 2015 to see if sales were still impacted when POC were used on brand covers. The study showed no significant difference.
It's pretty disheartening that this was set up for victims of Riptide, but now it's descended into arguing whether or not racists are right.
Xen Sanders/Cole McCade made the choice to make it public, therefore it is open to public debate, interpretation, and speculation.
"It's pretty disheartening that this was set up for victims of Riptide"
There's nothing stopping them commenting, and they are very much welcome here. The conversation about POC on covers and treatment of authors of colour is useful if people want to know how much progress has been made contra Lyons' claims.
It is not worthwhile or welcome if it casts doubt on victims' statements and experiences.
"it is open to public debate, interpretation, and speculation"
See above. Attacking Xen or any other victim is not on. At all.
Wonderful all the support Xen has received. Flove seeing his patreon and followers tripple.
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