Green Ronin Crowdfunding Legal Defense Fund In Fight Against Diamond Distrubutors

Green Ronin Publishing has set up a crowdfunding campaign to help cover legal fees fighting to get back their inventory from Diamond Comic Distributors in what it describes as "a dire financial threat to our company, not just today, but well into the future".

Diamond, which filed for Bankruptcy in January, still holds the stock of Green Ronin and over one hundred other companies in its warehouse, and has asked the court for ownership of that inventory so that it can liquidate it and pay its creditors. The distributor, while being mainly comic-book focused, also serves as distributor for some toy and TTRPG companies, including Green Ronin, Paizo, Goodman Games, and Roll For Combat.

The GoFundMe had raised $17K at the time of writing, with over 200 donations.

Paizo Publishing, also affected, has announced that its upcoming releases will not be available at major bookstores or at Amazon because the company has stopped shipping products to Diamond. This includes 12 August releases and 10 September releases, such as Starfinder Player Core, Starfinder GM Core, Pathfinder Battlecry, and more.

The court has scheduled a hearing on July 21 to hear objections from the affected vendors.

My name is Nicole Lindroos, co-owner of Green Ronin Publishing. Diamond Comic Distributors' recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy has impacted over 100 independent publishers, including Green Ronin, putting us in a very precarious position. Diamond is attempting to use a legal technicality to claim ownership of millions of dollars worth of consigned inventory, which amounts to several hundreds of thousands of dollars for Green Ronin Publishing alone. This is stock that we still own and have not been paid for.

This is a dire financial threat to our company, not just today, but well into the future. We must secure legal representation immediately before the deadline to do so passes.

While there is no "good" time for someone to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of your property to sell for the benefit of their biggest creditors, it is especially challenging given that Gen Con is weeks away. Gen Con is not just a convention for us, it's our most important annual event for connecting with TTRPG enthusiasts, our business partners, and our community, and this year is no exception. We're launching new products and have already committed significant funds to cover everything from booth space, travel (flights, rooms), and most critically, the production of new books and merchandise specifically for the show floor.

Diamond’s bankruptcy and this legal action also mean that Green Ronin has lost its book trade distributor. We are looking for a new partner, but that will take some time. Book trade sales of literary licenses, currently The Fifth Season and The Expanse, are a key part of our strategies for those games. This is especially bad timing for The Fifth Season RPG because we recently received final approvals from N.K. Jemisin and the game is ready to go to print.

We simply don't have the cash on hand to do all of this, pay for an attorney, or participate in any collective legal actions with other publishers in our same position.

The banks are stopping at nothing to wring every last dollar out of Diamond - including taking several hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Green Ronin product to sell in order to pay Diamond’s debts - but they can't do that, and we've got a legal agreement that says as much. Now, we just need to secure a law firm to represent us in the courts.

The funds raised through this campaign will be used directly to cover the escalating legal fees associated with fighting Diamond's claim in bankruptcy court. This includes attorney retainers, court filing fees, and the costs of pursuing every possible avenue to recover our inventory and protect Green Ronin's assets.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I would take that Rocket Reach revenue estimate with a grain of salt. I've run into accuracy issues when getting intelligence from services like that in the past.

I wouldn't take it as gospel.

 

[Jd Smith1]

There's also the whole extreme time crunch aspect to this thing. The court date is in what, less than a week? This GoFundMe is likely one of the most expeditious way of getting enough money into their account to cover the initial legal fees. Moreso than other crowdfunding, webstore sales, bundle site deals, or bank loans would be.

That's true. But to hire an attorney on short notice, to go up against the banks team?

 

[SkidAce]

In other news, anybody want to donate £5K for a van for EN Publishing to use to take stuff to conventions? Would make our life much easier! Also, we'd love a big cake.

"The cake is a lie"

 

[SkidAce]

@Sacrosanct It IS a GR problem, that problem is of course caused by a partner they used (DD), but that doesn't mean that it's anything less then a GR problem.

This is true, but while its a problem they must deal with, its not their fault.

Sometimes when we say "That's a SkidAce problem" it comes across as they dug their own hole, etc., as if it was their fault.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

Yeah... I'm not donating money to a for-profit, no matter how great they are. It just doesn't compute for me.

 

[Sacrosanct]

This is true, but while its a problem they must deal with, its not their fault.

Sometimes when we say "That's a SkidAce problem" it comes across as they dug their own hole, etc., as if it was their fault.

Yeah. It's like blaming companies for going out of business due to sudden, massive, and unexpected tariffs.

 

[Cergorach]

Annual gross revenue itself tells you little.

But that is not all you know, you know what kind of business it is, how that operates, what products it produces, etc. If it wasn't profitable, GR wouldn't be around anymore, so you can assume it breaks even and pays (some of) the bills.

That said, these kind of sites generally either use old data or make a guestimate that is often quite wrong, not always, but quite often. Thus I was wondering how many physical books GR is selling (not per book), but how many physical books published in the last year. I've been on the GR DTRPG section quite a few times in the past few years, there's a TON of titles, but many are either digital products only, Roll20 versions of their products, bundles, etc. When you look at just the pdfs that could be physical books (looking at page count) it's kinda surprising how few titles GR produces these days. And when you look at the badges associated with it, those indicate not all that many sales... Sure, they also sell via their own site and retail, but still...

 

[Umbran]

But that is not all you know, you know what kind of business it is, how that operates, what products it produces, etc. If it wasn't profitable, GR wouldn't be around anymore, so you can assume it breaks even and pays (some of) the bills.

But, the question is whether the company actually needs assistance covering the unexpected expense of trying to claw back their property.

The gross revenue doesn't give you that. The gross revenue + vague hand-waving about products and probably being profitable for a while doesn't give you that.

 

[Jd Smith1]

This is true, but while its a problem they must deal with, its not their fault.

Sometimes when we say "That's a SkidAce problem" it comes across as they dug their own hole, etc., as if it was their fault.

Fault really isn't an issue anymore. All that's left is damage control.

 

[Jd Smith1]

But that is not all you know, you know what kind of business it is, how that operates, what products it produces, etc. If it wasn't profitable, GR wouldn't be around anymore, so you can assume it breaks even and pays (some of) the bills.

That said, these kind of sites generally either use old data or make a guestimate that is often quite wrong, not always, but quite often. Thus I was wondering how many physical books GR is selling (not per book), but how many physical books published in the last year. I've been on the GR DTRPG section quite a few times in the past few years, there's a TON of titles, but many are either digital products only, Roll20 versions of their products, bundles, etc. When you look at just the pdfs that could be physical books (looking at page count) it's kinda surprising how few titles GR produces these days. And when you look at the badges associated with it, those indicate not all that many sales... Sure, they also sell via their own site and retail, but still...

In the USA, a well-run company hopes for 3 to 4% profit, so the gross will tell you a great deal.

Couple that with the claim they can't raise $50,000 on a few week's notice, and either they're trying to offset their losses via fake panhandling, or their profit margin isn't all that great.