Kameron Hurley on the conspiracy of silence about NSB that let to the current situation

[james_davis_nicoll]

Everything authors knew about the rotten abuse at Night Shade was shared in private. With a few exceptions (Moon and Williams, most notably) no one was talking out loud about what was happening. The SFWA was accomodating and gracious and gave them chance after chance. We should have spoken up. All of us.

But we didn’t. Because these guys were “nice guys” we knew, not “big megacorp unknown entity.”

Comments

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

According to Hurley, we should still keep buying Night Shade books?

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Better Bookscan numbers make either a reissue or subsequent sales of other novels more likely.

But, of course, were people buying most NSB books in numbers to make Bookscan numbers attractive, there wouldn't be a problem!

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

Also, while authors are unsecured creditors, I have no idea if NSB had any secured creditors. Which is to say, if it does go to Chapter 7, authors might at least get a nickel on the dollar of royalties or something like that. Which is better than no nickel of a non-sale.

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

In past publisher bankruptcies, distributors who have given loans to publishers and even printers have been secured creditors. Who knows if this is the case with NSB.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Okay. So Night Shade is a little like a bad bank.

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

I don't think our political class would consider any publisher "too big to fail", though.

[brett-dunbar.livejournal.com]

The problem with banking wasn't really size it was interconnectedness, a large bank is definitely too interconnected to be allowed to fail, however a fairly small bank can be as well and you might not realise it. In 1933 the USA had a devastating series of bank runs wiping out about 40% of the sector, almost all smaller banks, triggered by the failure of Bank of the United States which was only the 14th largest bank. The problem is a large proportion of a banks liquid assets are liabilities of other banks. One bank failing and its assets being suspended pending liquidation puts a bunch of other banks in difficulty potentially causing further failures. The danger of this kind of chain reaction is the reason for staging rescues and dealing with a problem very quickly. There is also the point that rescuing banks is usually profitable as it tends to be a liquidity problem rather than solvency. Outside finance neither really applies.