Yesterday Romance Writers of America notified its membership that Dreamspinner Press, a 12 year-old publisher that has made its reputation on publishing gay romance novels for a female audience, has been removed from its list of approved publishers due to a protracted period of failing to pay authors royalties.
According to the member notification, Dreamspinner Press had been on probation as an RWA Qualifying Market for missing author payments since October 2019. In July of this year, RWA sent Dreamspinner Press a list of five demands, which included that Dreamspinner pay the authors owed monies and provide a thorough and transparent detailing of their current status on payments. This communication was followed up with a second one that contained information on payments owed to specific authors who reached out to us to ask for our advocacy. A reply was requested by August 6, but to date, RWA has not received any substantive response from Dreamspinner, and multiple RWA authors notified the organization that they remain unpaid. As a result of their failure to respond and/or rectify the complaints, RWA has banned Dreamspinner Press from their Qualifying Markets list, and Dreamspinner will lose privileges to participate in RWA events and publications for at least three years.
A recent article in Publisher’s Weekly chronicled the problems that have been developing at Dreamspinner over the past year and half. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/82199-dreamspinner-press-restructures-as-authors-cry-foul.html