City Owl Press (COP) describes itself as a "cutting edge indie publishing company, bringing the world of romance and speculative fiction to discerning readers." Co-founded in 2014 by authors Tina Moss and Yelena Casale, COP publishes romance, paranormal, fantasy, horror, and mystery, and has a large staff (including an unusual number of copy editors) and a substantial catalog of books and authors. Subsidiary rights are repped by Brower Literary & Management.
Until recently, a websearch on COP would have turned up little to raise concerns: no author complaints, a regular publishing schedule, positive reviews, coverage in the trade press, approval as a qualifying market by Romance Writers of America. However, there is a kind of alchemical process that I've witnessed many times over my years with Writer Beware, where long-standing strains and stresses within a publisher--hidden from public view and often from the authors themselves, who don't realize how widespread the problems they've experienced are until they start comparing notes--abruptly reach critical mass and boil to the surface in the form of a rush of complaints.
That process began for COP in January 2024. Over the past weeks, I've heard from multiple COP authors who cite an enormous variety of issues, described by most as long-standing, of which the most frequent include:
