Publishers do a lot of bad things (as the archives of this blog attest), but among the most infuriating–and, often, the hardest to remedy–is the failure to pay authors the money they are due. Non-payment of royalties and/or failure to provide sales reporting are among the most common publisher complaints Writer Beware receives.
Below, you’ll find a collection of recent offenders.
Mango Publishing / Key Lime Publishing
In January 2025, Publishers Lunch reported on layoffs at Florida-based Mango Publishing, along with the departure of publisher Brenda Knight to form her own company.
Layoffs are never a good sign, so it wasn’t a major surprise when I began hearing from Mango authors who reported that despite receiving royalty statements, they were not receiving royalty payments. Per multiple examples of official company emails shared with me, this issue goes back at least as far as the second quarter of 2024. The emails cite a variety of consumer and sales issues creating income problems for the company, with promises to “resume making author earnings and royalties payments”, or to be “catching up on overdue author earnings”, or that “settling the outstanding payments remains a priority for us.” Some authors told me that they are owed thousands of dollars.
In an August email accompanying sales reports for the second quarter of 2025, Mango claimed yet again to be addressing unpaid royalties, promising to “finalize a payment plan designed to address overdue author earnings.” Instead, in October, authors learned that Mango had gone into liquidation.
Far from a payment plan, there was apparently no plan to pay. Too bad, authors.
But that’s not the end of the story.
In October, a group of Mango employees departed to start a new publisher, Key Lime Publishing (Key Lime is a dba of Media Agency Services LLC, established in July 2025). Several of the Mango authors who contacted me were alarmed to discover that in addition to the all-former-Mango staff roster, the books on the Key Lime website appeared to have simply been moved over from the Mango website, with Key Lime “shop” links leading to a Mango page.
Was Key Lime less a brand-new venture than a way for Mango to transfer assets to a new company? PW reports:
The concerns came to light after Key Lime was created earlier this month and launched a website featuring titles that had been published by Mango, without clearly explaining to the affected authors whether a deal had taken place between the two publishing companies, or on what terms.
In looking to clear up the confusion, Key Lime publisher Hugo Villabona wrote in a correspondence with PW that “there is no financial or legal relationship between the two companies.” He added that Key Lime’s work with former Mango authors would involve “brand new author agreements,” and that they were also “in the midst” of acquiring brand new authors.
Prior to the letter from McKenney, seven of Mango’s creditor authors had individually written to PW to report concerns about the vagueness of the business relationship between Key Lime and Mango. At least one Mango author was initially surprised by the appearance of their books on Key Lime’s site, and was only given an explanation after their lawyer stepped in.
Many Mango authors have had their contracts transferred to other publishers (including a press established earlier this year by Brenda Knight, Mango’s former publisher), and the Authors Guild has been working with Mango authors to revert rights. So there are many fewer books on Key Lime’s Bookstore page than there were initially. All of them, though, are still listed on Amazon as published by Mango; and the Shop links still lead to a Mango page.
As to payment of the many thousands Mango owes in royalties, that looks like a long shot, given the fact that Mango’s liquidation is being done for the benefit of its main creditor.
Given its apparent close ties with Mango, it might be a good idea to exercise caution with Key Lime Publishing–at least until it has demonstrated that it can pay its authors.
Blushing Books aka Romance Ink
Established in the early 2000s, erotic publisher Blushing Books was one of the original digital adopters, publishing ebooks in the pre-Kindle days before ebooks were really a thing. Still in business today under the name Romance Ink, it has outlasted most of its competitors and peers. But alongside that longevity sits a lengthy history of problematic business practices and troubling author complaints.
I first received complaints about Blushing Books (BB) in 2014, when its acquisition of LazyDay Publishing created logistical and communications issues for LazyDay authors, along with royalty payment problems (you can see some of those complaints here). Reports of bullying by BB owner Anne Wills (pen name Bethany Burke) and infighting among authors followed in 2016 and 2017.
Then, in 2018, came the Omegaverse plagiarism lawsuit, with BB intervevning on behalf of its author plaintiff in ways that some observers deemed unwise. The suit became notorious enough to spawn an article in the New York Times.
In March of 2020, I received another surge of BB complaints. These comprised a variety of allegations, including predatory contract terms, erratic payment and reporting of royalties, incorrect classification of royalties on 1099 forms, unauthorized trademark applications by Anne Wills for series titles, failure to register copyrights as required by the contract, violations of KDP terms and conditions thanks to BB’s creation of multiple publishing accounts under different names, and copyright infringement (for publishing a book as part of a box set without a signed contract). A group of BB authors had hired a lawyer to negotiate the return of their rights; BB authors had also banded together to submit an ethics complaint to Romance Writers of America, resulting in BB’s removal as an RWA qualifying market for a period of three years.
I was all set to write a blog post…but you remember what else was happening in March 2020. The post, along with other plans and hopes, fell by the wayside.
Anne Wills did seem to be responding to the concerns. In a letter sent to authors in September 2020, she announced that BB would switch from quarterly payments and statements to monthly accounting, and that a royalty management firm had been hired to handle these tasks.
Problems solved? Not exactly. In 2021, BB made the New York Times again.
In interviews with The New York Times, a dozen Blushing authors and seven former employees described a haphazardly run business that frequently failed to pay authors on time, and threatened them with lower royalties and defamation lawsuits if they defected. Some writers who spoke to The Times discovered they were not being paid for books that Blushing was selling through certain online vendors or in audio format. Others were locked into contracts that gave Blushing “permanent and exclusive” rights to their books and pen names, which publishing experts called onerous and outside of industry standards.
The article, which overviews BB’s history and acknowledges Wills as a digital pioneer, detailed a really eye-popping range of questionable business practices in addition to the payment and reporting problems, from the predatory contracts and multiple KDP accounts mentioned above (including accounts opened by Wills using BB authors’ names without their knowledge), to refusal to establish an escrow account for royalties, to paying bestselling authors while ignoring others, to recycling work-for-hire books by re-packaging them with new covers, and more. It also revealed that Wills was charged with, and pled guilty to, embezzlement in 2000, in two cases not related to BB.
In 2022–maybe to get ahead of all of this?–BB re-branded as Romance Ink.
Fast forward to September 2025. Once again, I’m receiving complaints. Multiple BB authors have contacted me to report that their royalties are months or even years in arrears–going back as far as 2023, in one case–or that payments are late and sporadic, with authors constantly having to chase the payments they are owed. Ditto for sales statements, which are sometimes provided without accompanying payments, or not provided at all. Emails and messages are often ignored, as are attempts to contact BB via the secure form authors are supposed to use for accounting questions, which some authors told me is no longer functional. Although at least some BB contracts include a provision that ensures rights reversion if the publisher fails to make payments for 90 days and the problem isn’t corrected within 45 days of notification, authors who have attempted to invoke that clause have had no success.
Additional complaints include failure to remove books from sale even though their contracts hve expired or rights had been reverted, and the discovery of translated editions the author had no prior knowledge of.
The fact that BB publishes under multiple names makes it difficult to research on Amazon and other retailers, but it has at least one book scheduled for this month, so it does appear to be actively publishing. It isn’t clear if it’s currently open to submissions–its Write For Us page suggests that it is, but the submission forms writers are directed to are non-functional (which would fit with the complaints I’ve received about the non-working accounting contact form). There is an email address for submissions, though.
Bottlecap Press
Complaints about this one are already out there in the wild, but I’ve gotten a number of reports and am including it here for increased visibility.
Bottlecap Press is a chapbook publisher that has been operating since 2014. It has a reputation for quality; unfortunately, it also has a reputation for not paying. Multiple authors have contacted me to report that royalty payments and statements are months behind schedule, with their questions and requests going unanswered, or answered only by boilerplate emails claiming that the publisher is “working on it”. Some authors who placed orders for their chapbooks reported long delays in receiving them; others, who didn’t receive their orders and followed up with questions, abruptly had their contracts terminated.
Bottlecap’s owner, Craig Mullins, has been willing to revert rights on request, and, per authors who paid for books they never received, provide refunds. Even so, these problems have been an issue at least since 2023, and they are still ongoing, judging by the complaint I received just last month.
I reached out to Mullins for comment last December, and did not receive a response.
Bottlecap has an F rating at the BBB; you can see the complaints that generated the rating (to which Bottlecap did not respond) here. The BBB is not a major source of publisher complaints, so that’s a signal that things are pretty bad. More complaints in this extensive Reddit thread. Authors Publish also has a caution.
I am a writer who recently had my chapbook contract with Bottlecap Press terminated without warning. See my post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/publishing/comments/1pouits/beware_bottlecap_press/
It looks like Reddit removed your post. Feel free to add it here as a comment.
Thank you for this very informative update on publishers not paying royalties. I wish I’d known about these types of scams when Tate Publishing stole the royalties and payments of over 1000 writers, reneged on their contractual promises, then plea-bargained their way out of jail by agreeing to pay authors their initial investment only (I was awarded $75K in my suit against them, which I’ll never see) over a 20-year period. Writer Beware has made me much more aware of the types of scammers out there and provides valuable alerts when something ‘stinks’ in a publisher offer. Thank you for all you do Victoria!
Tate was one of the worst. Also one of the very few where the scammers got at least some degree of comeuppance, even though it wasn’t enough.
Has anyone spoken out about Rose Harbor Publishing, specifically their writing tests, where ghostwriter author applicants must submit over 15,000 words worth of writing?
I’m not familiar with Rose Harbor Publishing or Mary Stone Publishing, which is said to be its sister imprint. Neither website mentions ghostwriting, or money, but it’s pretty clear they are both pay to play.
If someone is applying to work as a ghostwriter, asking for a writing sample seems reasonable…I’d be more concerned about what authors are charged for services like this, and what the contract terms are.
Please add Newman Springs Publishing to this list.
Has Newman Springs not paid your royalties? Contact me privately if you prefer: beware@sfwa.org.
Yes, I’m one of those former BB best selling award winning (RWA sanctioned contests) authors.
Ann failed to pay me for2 years but somehow I still received a 1099 I had to pay taxes on.
I, on my own, by being “nice” had my rights returned in lieu of the $4000 in unpaid royalties. A number which I never was given an accounting of.
I have my books back, re-edited, recovered and self published. And I’m writing new books.
It was a sad lesson learned.
There is another possible scam going on. I was contacted multiple times about a book that I published on Amazon called Northwest Poems. The caller wants to know about my book. The caller wants to create a promotion marketing video to upscale my book level of awareness. The person is into flattery and talking great awareness marketing. Of course, at a price. the caller uses the number 346 347 7867 which is a Texas area code for many counties. Have you received any mail concerning marketing scams for books that are self-published?
Cheers,
Clarence Poisson
Block them immediately. Whether it is “technically” a scam or not, it is, at the very least, a parasite wanting to lay its eggs on an author host.
Click the “Nigerian Scams” tag in the tag cloud on the blog’s front page, and you’ll see the posts I’ve writetn about these marketing scams.
This is sad for those who used these agencies. I always tell the people I coach or writers just starting out to check Writer Beware before signing on with anyone. I also tell them to get legal assistance before signing any contract. When I was running a small press, I had a cousin who was writing a series. She would not sign on with me, because someone in her office told her that working with family was a mistake. She signed on with Tate Publishing and they eventually were shutdown by the state the were located in for not paying royalties and not fulfilling contracts. She’s never written another book. She was devastated. Check out the people you plan to work with. Editors, book designers, agents, publishers, even writing coaches.
Tate Publishing was a disaster–I wrote many posts about it. It’s one of the very few publishing scams where the perpetrators actually faced consequences: both of Tate’s principals were charged with felonies, and pleaded guilty.
Wow! That “fruit” smells bad. How is that Mango to Key Lime situation not fraud? If I were a Mango author, I’d lawyer up. As for Key Lime? No way!
Mango authors have been cheated out of royalties, and the cheating is still continuing. Mango (or rather its CEO) is still selling books they no longer have the rights to. Money is being generated off these books across all booksellers/vendors, but where is that money going? Let me give you one guess – because it’s not going to the authors. This is copyright infringement and illegal. This is a crime. Mango also neglected to register copyrights for their authors, adding more insult to injury (no Anthropic settlement money).
As for the bogus excuses as to why Mango couldn’t afford to pay authors – high print costs? Mango was deducting printing costs from print royalties, so authors were paying to print their own books. Not being paid by vendors? BS. Their biggest vendor is Amazon – and even the most lowly self-published author will tell you that Amazon pays on time. COVID? Tariffs? How handy to throw those in too. Incompetent, dishonest, unethical, and criminal. That sums up Mango Publishing Group.
I’m very impressed by the generous and dogged labor here to alert writers of such malfeasance. It’s uplifting to see this commitment.
BottleCrap Press apologizes for any inconveniences experienced. 😆
Is it just me, or does Mango’s “To whom it may concern” letter eerily resemble a sterile form rejection? 😆
And doesn’t theit open letter sound like a letter explaining why you won’t be receiving your Kickstarter support “rewards,” due to factors beyond someone’s control? Or that “printing issues” have surfaced and that’s why that expensive anthology you ordered has not been delivered yet? 😆
In Mango’s open letter, they actually invoke tariffs as a contributory factor!
I’m surprised they didn’t invoke Gaza, Ukraine, the Vietnam War, and Pearl Harbor! 😆
Covid. Supply chains. Tariffs.
Blah lie blah lie blah lie blah.
Mango throws blame and excuses around, instead of owning their inept, negligent, deceptive behavior.
I think of the comic strip Family Circle’s NOT ME specter character, running around causing havoc and chaos. 😆
A large percentage of serial killers admit their guilt after being apprehended.
Others, however, stubbornly blame demons, the environment, and other factors beyond their control.
Meanehile, check out at that body count that magically assembled itself.
😆
I have a case of Key Lime Dis-ease.
I noticed, at least the Target big box store where I shop, that they used to carry a lot of over size trade supernatural romcom or horror suspense Stephen King imitation books–some in a stall called #Tok Books–anyway that shelf space for those books seems to be shrinking–a lot–does that mean that there is publishing retraction in publishing those books??