Dark Regions Press:

[Dr Eric Vornoff]

It appears the Dark Regions Patreon is still up.  I quit their collectors club last year in disgust.  I also am on the hook for the red letter, four volume, Plague set.  Only Kiernan's Plague of the Womb was announced.  $500.00.  Couple of others DR books as well.  I just don't know what to say.  

[Martin]

If you follow the link the Bev posted it shows that they listed that they were for sale three times. Jan 4th, April 30th and June 5th. In each post he stated that the company had been profitable for the last two years. I doubt that the claim of profitability would have stood up to scrutiny. Having dealt with financial systems, from the technical side, I know that anything paid for but not delivered cannot be reported as profit. You can report it as a positive sale but must report the liability of the owed value. That includes, product sold but not delivered, Gift cards sold and not delivered and any item remaining on a layaway plan. Complete speculation but I believe he was trying to sell to avoid having to shut down, but the clock ran out. I stopped ordering from them long ago, so I have no skin in this game. I would recommend any person with outstanding orders contact the financial institution used to make the purchase and file a claim. When The Nocturnal Reader's Bos shut down, I had two orders that were older than the time to file a claim. They refunded both. Hope people are able to recoup any lost funds.

[dannyboy121070]

I feel for anyone who gets burned by this. I've only had one small press death ever effect me, and I managed to bully my way into at least getting a book that was comparable in price to the pre-order that I was losing, but a lot of other folks ended up with nothing. A lot of people got taken for lifetime membership money with that one.

I learned a long time ago to stop paying for pre-orders. CD at one point owed me a few dozen books. I have no idea how many it's down to now...I'd have to e-mail Mindy to find out for sure, but it's probably around ten, most of which are from the various book clubs and other nonsense that I foolishly joined up with. DRP turned me off long ago with their endless desperate e-mail newsletter, to the point where I had to have them marked as spam because they were getting so annoying.  I was going to mention another press that I see going down a similar road, but that's just my conjecture, better kept to myself.

I wish everyone the best of luck in getting their money back, or at least some comparable replacement from DRP, if they still have any in-stock books.

[Splync]

I wish everyone the best of luck in getting their money back, or at least some comparable replacement from DRP, if they still have any in-stock books.

I wonder what they did with their stock of books, if there were even that many. 

This is pure speculation, but I think they sold their Lividian titles back to Lividian. Brian offered brand new copies of Heart Shaped Box to his Patreon supporters a few weeks back that came from a seller "that had gone out of business" and whose warehouse "was a mess."

And then SST just offered a handful of books that were from a seller who didn't pay for their allotment of titles.

In hindsight, both were probably Dark Regions. And given the Lividian titles, I wouldn't be surprised if Chris went through the warehouse and returned whatever third party books that he could. 

As for first party titles, I don't know how many they might have. Their paperbacks have been Print on Demand for years, so they shouldn't have any of those physically in stock, and most (if not all) of their hardcovers had sold out over the years. 

It's likely only odds and ends in the warehouse.

[sholloman81]

Yeah, I've been trying not to wade into this mess but it's hard not to vent considering that I am a person who is definitely getting burned. I've got five pending pre-orders with them, which are also my oldest pending orders (2019). I believe that I paid for all of them via Paypal; so, with the age of the orders, there's no way I can dispute the charges per Paypal policy and am basically screwed out of the money & books. What especially hurts is that, as a part of a "special" DRP offer back in 2019, I had pre-ordered & paid for the last two CD Doubleday series books (the Stand & Pet Cemetary) which was supposed to save me money. Because of that, I passed when CD offered their copies of the Stand for pre-order. Now the book has sold out and I have no way to grab a copy other than crossing my fingers and hoping one become available closer to the publish date, not to mention having to shell out another couple hundred bucks for it. Trying not to wish ill towards anyone, but at the moment, I'm pretty pissed toward DRP and its owners. And it may not be fair, but I don't think I'll ever be supporting Weird Press either knowing that they are/were even tangentially associated with this press and the family that owned it.

[RonClinton]

I wish everyone the best of luck in getting their money back, or at least some comparable replacement from DRP, if they still have any in-stock books.

That would also presume that one is able to make contact with Chris...from what I gather from those who have tried, everyone's in the dark (up to and including father Joe Morey's Weird House Press announcement) as Chris has gone completely dark and non-responsive, and has apparently been so for months. We'll have to all see how this shakes out and I may turn out to be completely wrong, but if I was a gambling man, I'd bet that customers are not going to receive any kind of compensation from DRP, either product or refund, and this may stand as the largest economic default on pre-order investment in the 85-year history of the horror small-press (using Arkham House in 1939 as the starting point). Most of the posts I've seen are from customers with multiple, often expensive books in pre-order limbo...I never had the faith to do pre-orders with them, but many, many others seem to have done so. It's now apparent that this was a business heavily invested in corralling pre-orders as a vital part of their business structure, and in that measure they succeeded, which leaves an inordinate number of customers with outstanding pre-orders...from what I can anecdotally tell from the sidelines, only CD rivals them in that regard.

[Martin]

Already reached out to Amaranthine. DRP never ordered the books, so they won't be sending any their way.

I'm going to see what can be done on the credit card side, but unfortunately I think we're past the window in which I could dispute the charges. We'll see though!

I agree with Ron's statement above. Sean's statement, that I attached concerns me that Dark Regions knew what they were doing and hoped to sell the business before the house came down. Basically, Dark Regions was taking customers money for pre-orders that they never actually ordered. That would allow him to claim that money as a profit since there was no matching liability. I strongly suggest anyone with a pre-order from another publisher reach out to see if your money was used to actually place the order. The reason is that your financial institution may look at that as merchant fraud and refund you even if the normal dates have passed.

[Boggle Champion]

In early June I received a copy of Atlas of Hell (Midworld) from Dark Regions.

I bought it on a promotion where you'd get a free paperback for every $20 spent, and a limited Hardcover for every $100, plus free shipping on orders over $100. I ended up receiving 3 Lividian paperbacks, 1 Dark Regions anthology, a Weird House Press book and Earthling's The Spirit of Place...all for $116 w/ tax.

...Yeah, not surprising that this was not a sustainable business model.

[Splync]

In early June I received a copy of Atlas of Hell (Midworld) from Dark Regions.

I bought it on a promotion where you'd get a free paperback for every $20 spent, and a limited Hardcover for every $100, plus free shipping on orders over $100. I ended up receiving 3 Lividian paperbacks, 1 Dark Regions anthology, a Weird House Press book and Earthling's The Spirit of Place...all for $116 w/ tax.

...Yeah, not surprising that this was not a sustainable business model.

Solid business model...

[Sock Monkey]

In early June I received a copy of Atlas of Hell (Midworld) from Dark Regions.

I bought it on a promotion where you'd get a free paperback for every $20 spent, and a limited Hardcover for every $100, plus free shipping on orders over $100. I ended up receiving 3 Lividian paperbacks, 1 Dark Regions anthology, a Weird House Press book and Earthling's The Spirit of Place...all for $116 w/ tax.

...Yeah, not surprising that this was not a sustainable business model.

I always assumed that the free paperbacks and limited editions offered during these promotions were old DRP stock from before Chris took over. I figured there were some titles that just lingered in stock and this was a way of moving them out of the warehouse. I don't know how this promotion was even remotely profitable.

[saginawhorror]

According to my records I only lost out on the pirates of the old world ebook. I quit collecting them a couple years ago. 

[Boggle Champion]

I always assumed that the free paperbacks and limited editions offered during these promotions were old DRP stock from before Chris took over. I figured there were some titles that just lingered in stock and this was a way of moving them out of the warehouse. I don't know how this promotion was even remotely profitable.

I checked my emails and saw that the offer was from January, right around the time the company was first put on sale. Sounds like he was desperately trying to raise some money at that point.

[Splync]

From author William Meikle:
"Still no contact from DRP with anyone as far as I can tell. At this stage I have to assume they're dead and gone. I've had all my DRP books pulled from Amazon to stop DRP selling them and not paying my due royalties . Other authors are doing the same."

Even the authors are in the dark about the whole situation.

[Ben Staad]

Yuck. Bad news indeed.

From author William Meikle:
"Still no contact from DRP with anyone as far as I can tell. At this stage I have to assume they're dead and gone. I've had all my DRP books pulled from Amazon to stop DRP selling them and not paying my due royalties . Other authors are doing the same."

Even the authors are in the dark about the whole situation.

 

[Martin]

Anyone still with outstanding orders from Dark Regions and needs documentation for your credit card company this link is to the paperwork filed August 12th with the state of Oregon dissolving the company as of
July 1st.
Content Manager WebDrawer - SOS - Corporation - Business Entity Filing Records - 87604691 (state.or.us)

PS: Chris Morey's phone number is on the document if you want to reach out regarding a refund.