Thank you Sam for researching and posting. Starting a company and scaling are two different things. Accountability is crucial and it sounds like many freelancers and authors are unsure at best about how to proceed on their projects. Hoping all can regroup and get their stories out to their readers.
Sam, thanks for taking us through this deep dive. I'm new to book publishing (though I had an extended career in newspapers) and was blown away by Scribe's implosion. Unfortunately, there are too many companies following the same playbook in terms of how they treat employees. The truth does come out, but often not before plenty of damage is done.
I was a Scribe for almost four years and loved all my authors and believe I wrote great books for them….and on the other hand, I also got mercilessly shit on by the actual company. My story: after three and a half years of working there as my primary source of income, I requested a raise in my hourly rate. I was enthusiastically told of course I deserved one by a person Meghan pointed me to. I was so excited, and felt my commitment and work merited it. Then silence for weeks. After I asked repeatedly when the rate change would become effective, I was told I would not be getting it after all. No explanation. I pushed some more and was led to a different team member who was like, twelve, very new to Scribe, had been hired in a project management role, and was now handling all of HR. She told me she was the person who had denied my raise (I’d never even heard of her, no less interacted with her), then started listing all sorts of complaints that supposedly had been issued against me internally that somehow had never been communicated to me. Again, what??? If you have feedback for improvement for an employee, don’t you deliver that message to them? And when it involves two parties, would you not ask the other party for their interpretation of the events? I was then presented with moments where I “hadn’t stepped up into my power” and other such bullshit. Ridiculous. Not proud of my reaction, which was to tell the twelve year old that she and scribe could go fuck themselves. I submitted my resignation and was cut off from my authors, slack, and emails effectively immediately. Oh, and when I asked to see my contract because it had mysteriously disappeared from my files—looking to see if I signed any sort of NDA—I was ignored, then told they couldn’t find it, then finally presented with one they fabricated. Signed by JeVon. Total bullshit, since I joined well before he came into the picture. What’s most sad about all of this is I truly believed I was part of something big, beautiful, and of service to the authors and the world. I was so proud of the work I was doing for an “awesome” company. One last note: we were all “asked” to buy JeVon’s latest book when it was released (to be fair, we were reimbursed), read it (pure trash, complete with punctuation issues & misspellings), and post a review. I desperately wanted to slack someone, anyone, about how Emperor’s New Clothes it all was, but knew that wouldn’t be relieved well.
Thank you Sam for researching and posting. Starting a company and scaling are two different things. Accountability is crucial and it sounds like many freelancers and authors are unsure at best about how to proceed on their projects. Hoping all can regroup and get their stories out to their readers.
Sam, thanks for taking us through this deep dive. I'm new to book publishing (though I had an extended career in newspapers) and was blown away by Scribe's implosion. Unfortunately, there are too many companies following the same playbook in terms of how they treat employees. The truth does come out, but often not before plenty of damage is done.
Sam are you aware of a call being set up by a bunch of scribe authors about what to do next? I'm getting the details and can share
How can we get our money back??? I stupidly pre-paid. And have nothing to show for it.
I was a Scribe for almost four years and loved all my authors and believe I wrote great books for them….and on the other hand, I also got mercilessly shit on by the actual company. My story: after three and a half years of working there as my primary source of income, I requested a raise in my hourly rate. I was enthusiastically told of course I deserved one by a person Meghan pointed me to. I was so excited, and felt my commitment and work merited it. Then silence for weeks. After I asked repeatedly when the rate change would become effective, I was told I would not be getting it after all. No explanation. I pushed some more and was led to a different team member who was like, twelve, very new to Scribe, had been hired in a project management role, and was now handling all of HR. She told me she was the person who had denied my raise (I’d never even heard of her, no less interacted with her), then started listing all sorts of complaints that supposedly had been issued against me internally that somehow had never been communicated to me. Again, what??? If you have feedback for improvement for an employee, don’t you deliver that message to them? And when it involves two parties, would you not ask the other party for their interpretation of the events? I was then presented with moments where I “hadn’t stepped up into my power” and other such bullshit. Ridiculous. Not proud of my reaction, which was to tell the twelve year old that she and scribe could go fuck themselves. I submitted my resignation and was cut off from my authors, slack, and emails effectively immediately. Oh, and when I asked to see my contract because it had mysteriously disappeared from my files—looking to see if I signed any sort of NDA—I was ignored, then told they couldn’t find it, then finally presented with one they fabricated. Signed by JeVon. Total bullshit, since I joined well before he came into the picture. What’s most sad about all of this is I truly believed I was part of something big, beautiful, and of service to the authors and the world. I was so proud of the work I was doing for an “awesome” company. One last note: we were all “asked” to buy JeVon’s latest book when it was released (to be fair, we were reimbursed), read it (pure trash, complete with punctuation issues & misspellings), and post a review. I desperately wanted to slack someone, anyone, about how Emperor’s New Clothes it all was, but knew that wouldn’t be relieved well.
Unbelievable
Thanks for the awesome update Sam.