By now you’ve probably heard about the mess with Ridan Publishing. If you haven’t, click on the links in this post to get the full story.
I’m a bit biased when it comes to Ridan. A long time ago, I was approached by Robin Sullivan and offered a chance to join Ridan. I was flattered and saw this as a great opportunity. Ridan was everything I wanted in a publisher. They knew how to sell books and had a winning business model. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out. I never heard back from Robin after I emailed her last year.
When I heard about the recent problems several of their writers were having, my first instinct was to start yelling and screaming. I refrained from doing so because this isn’t about me. My experiences with the company pale in comparrison to those of Ann Crispin, Nathan Lowell, and others.
You can read Ann Crispin’s Facebook post, Nathan Lowell’s blog post, and an article from Jim Hines that details things far better than I could. As I was writing this, there was a bit of Good News on the Ridan Front. I’m glad Robin is stepping up to fix this. Hopefully everything will work out so I’m not going to fan the flames but I will support Ann, Nathan, and the other Ridan authors.
’nuff said.
Richard Jackson 
I think the issues with Ridan really started when Michael J Sullivan got his publishing deal with Orbit. It was, essentially, mission accomplished as far as publishing goals went – Ridan had initially been started as a means to publish Michael’s books. It seems, looking back, that since then Robin started showing less and less interest in her business. Admittedly she has said there were some personal issues over the last year, but really, if you are going to run a business then you need to run your business. There should have been mechanisms in place to cover all eventualities. It’s a shame too, because Ridan seemed to be doing something that most small presses don’t do. Right now though, I, as an author, would be very, very wary of signing with them. If things continue in this course then I’m not even sure that Ridan will be around in a year.