Dog Ear Publishing, LLC

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this response/resolution is satisfactory to me.   It is helpful to have the courtesy of an explanation.  It does not, however, bode well for the future.  it appears this will happen again.  A better system is needed!  I'll be investigating options.
Regards,
[redacted]

Dog Ear is committed to ensuring accurate accounting of author book sales, and timely payment of author profit. We are occasionally hampered by our distribution partners, as we rely on them for both accurate data and timely payments before we are able to forward both data and monies on to our...

authors.I apologize for the long delay in compiling accurate sales data and forwarding the associated profit payments. We processed payment yesterday and the check is on its way.

The publishing industry is  notorious for slow payment of book profits from distribution clients (Ingram, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc) to publishers.Self publishers are no different that traditional publishers and are often caught in long delays.Typically we cannot forward profit to our...

authors without having received compensation from our distribution clients.I am forwarding ALL delayed profits to the author within the next 48 hours.

We cancelled Ms. [redacted]'s project and gave a full refund in May of 2015.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that the response would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
I am not satisfied with this response for the following reasons: I can understand there can be delays when Dog Ear’s distribution partners are late paying Dog Ear the sales royalties. Since my book was published in 2011 there have been a few times this has happened resulting in me receiving 10-11 checks a year instead of 12. Such delays were understandable. Starting this year, however, Dog Ear got over 4 months behind and they are still behind by about four months. When I contacted Dog Ear to ask what was happening with the late payments, they never told me the problem was with their distribution partners. I was once told the problem was they had run out of stamps!  Even when I recently spoke with their Author’s Representative, [redacted], after I complained to the Revdex.com and wrote an unfavorable Google review, nothing was said about late payments to Dog Ear from their distribution partners like they are claiming now.  This Author’s Representative told me they had been investing in improving many aspects of their operations but realized they needed to do better on their author’s payment operations.  I took that to mean they were focused on income generation and letting their obligations to forward the money they were receiving from their distributors slide. Dog Ear has on their website a system that shows how many books were sold in what months and then when the check for that month will be issued. They tell authors that there will be an approximately 4 month delay from the date of the book sales until Dog Ear cuts the author’s check as they have to wait to be paid from their distribution partners.   That is perfectly reasonable.  Please see the attached screen shot of my book’s sales and expected payment dates. The most recent check I received from Dog ear was dated August 1, 2016. That check was from the sales that took place in January and February, 2016. As you see from the screenshot, those payments should have been distributed in in the months of May and June. To date, I still have not received the payments I should have received from sales in March, April, May and June that should have been paid in July, August, September and October. Had anyone from Dog Ear told me that for the first time in several years they were having a particularly bad time with their distribution partners being much farther behind than had been the case before, I would have accepted that and not filed and complaint. That did not happen and I suspect that did not happen because it is not the case. I suspect Dog Ear may be under new ownership and they are changing the way they deal with their authors who rely on Dog Ear to pay the royalty money Dog Ear collects from the distribution partners.  They are holding other people’s money – maybe investing it in their income generation side of the business - and not coming clean about what is happening. If the problem really was with their distribution partners getting far more behind than had been the case in the past, why did they not reach-out to warn their authors to expect delays and explain the reasons to them? What they have done in this reply to the Revdex.com is first falsely claim that I have been paid up to date and then give a vailed threat that they might just start to pay quarterly. Something has changed in the way this company is doing business. My fear is that they are in financial trouble and if that is the case, the current author’s royalties are in jeopardy and new authors that pay them to publish their works will get taken advantage of. 
Regards,
[redacted]

The author and company were corresponding with Dog Ear Publishing from an email that was NOT authorized to access our system. We sent repeated emails and requests to the originating email for authorization, along with repeated phone calls. Since we deal with copyrighted material, we CANNOT BY LAW...

forward or respond to unauthorized queries. Please see screen shot #2 for the original contact information for the project.Screen shot #1 shows the current status of the project - which is finally moving with responses from the organization on 9/2.It is always the authors responsibility to ensure that current authorizations and contact information is correct within the Author Project System - please see screen shot #3 for the information the organization has registered with Dog Ear Publishing.

Thanks for the written request. I have marked your job as cancelled per your wishes and have the details with accounting for the full refund. We should have a check processed and in the mail in the next 5 days. I can email you when it goes out in the mail to assure you further. Please let me know if...

this would be of added convenience.
We wish you all the best in your future endeavors. Be well.
Warm Regards,
Matthew [redacted]
Dog Ear Publishing
Manager, Author Services
Dir. New Product Development
www.dogearpublishing.net
phone: 317.228.3656
fax: 317.489.3506

Mr [redacted] has been paid the book profit he is due. Dog Ear receives payment from our distribution partners. When those payments are received, approximately 30 days post receipt we pass those payments on to our authors.We cannot pass on funds we have not received. We are pushing our distribution...

partners to do better.We are also discussing changing our profit payment policies to match our competitors - Dog Ear is the ONLY company paying profit on a monthly basis. ALL other companies delay payment by at least 6 months, and then pay on a quarterly basis. It is prbably far more consistent, but MUCH less regular.As of today, 10/12, Mr [redacted] has been paid all author profit due.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this response/resolution is satisfactory to me. However, I must add that the handling of this situation was very disappointing. Even after I filed the complaint with the Revdex.com and sent Ray another email, I never received a response of any kind from him. In fact, it was thanks to Matt, Shelle and Ray's partner, Alan, that the issued was resolved at all. Customer service should be consistent among employees, especially the owners of the company, and I don't feel I was treated properly. Nonetheless, the issue is now resolved. Regards,
[redacted]

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted] and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me. 
Regards,
[redacted]

Hello Ms. [redacted],I appreciate you bringing this to my attention.  I want to personally apologize for the inconvenience.  Yes, you do own the files that we created for you.  And, yes, we will send those files to you immediately - today - 4/27/2015.Unfortunately, your request was never...

passed along to me or my production department.  It appears your request remained with Mr. [redacted].Again, my sincerest apologies.  Your files are being emailed to you today.I wish you luck and feel free to contact me with any questions.  Please let me know if I may be of further assistance.Sincerely,Miles [redacted]