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.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

How does that contradict environmental concerns?

Most bigger publishers and established companies need to print at scale to reach acceptable prices and save their margins. Then, they most often sell directly to distributors or outlets, hoping that they'll sell them. I'm sure they want their stuff to sell, but they don't lose money if it doesn't. Having tons of books sitting in the warehouse of a distributor is kind of staple of that model. I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

But if, as it seemed to be with the person I quoted, your concern is over-production of goods. Then the model described isn't exactly the best? A Kickstarter where you know how many customers you have before printing would be much better to avoid over-producing. Print on demand. Now, I'm sure there's a ton of nuances about the efficiency of printing one book vs a thousand, or through shipping, storage, etc.

FOMO certainly isn't something that would drive me to purchase at item I'm not particularly interested in the first place, but it can serve to sweeten the deal.

FOMO does affect me in other sphere of purchases, I agree. It can affect our decision-making.

 

[chuckdee]

But if, as it seemed to be with the person I quoted, your concern is over-production of goods. Then the model described isn't exactly the best? A Kickstarter where you know how many customers you have before printing would be much better to avoid over-producing. Print on demand. Now, I'm sure there's a ton of nuances about the efficiency of printing one book vs a thousand, or through shipping, storage, etc.

Crowdfunding is a completely different model. Some companies do that in order to shift the responsibility left. Others prefer the more traditional model where their time isn't spent in the crowdfunding churn.

 

[humble minion]

Crowdfunding is a completely different model. Some companies do that in order to shift the responsibility left. Others prefer the more traditional model where their time isn't spent in the crowdfunding churn.

My impression is that many fairly established publishers (Onyx Path for instance) use crowdfunding because it means that you no longer have to go quite so deep into a financial hole during the development/printing of a new product, with any future payoff many months away once it can be sold. It de-risks, somewhat.

Having said that, Green Ronin have generally not used crowdfunding until the past few years. They crowdfunded an M&M corebook reprint, a Cthulhu book, Valian Adventures, and now this. Most of their stuff is done the oldfashioned way, as far as I'm aware.

 

[Swanosaurus]

And I find it funny that you give charity to GR because they represent something you want to support, where the reason where they're asking for money in the first place is because a huge amount of printed books are sitting in warehouses owned by Diamond, which kind of directly contradicts your environmental concerns?

I don't have a problem with publishers printing books - and I'd prefer GR getting these books back to sell them themselves, instead of Diamond selling them off for a song, forcing GR to reprint and o/orquickly push out more product (if they can) to stay in business.

I just prefer the idea that a business could be about producing a limited amount of good products to a business being about selling as much as possible. The former might mean that the business ends up being less profitable, so they might have to ask for help. And I'd rather lend them a hand by giving them some money than by buying product from them that I wouldn't have bought otherwise.

The thing is that I really like GR for being inclusive and outspoken about it, but I'm neither into class&level systems nor into superhero RPGs. I bought the Blue Rose line for the setting, but everything else they put out makes little sense for me to buy. So I'd rather just give them money.

 

[Seramus]

My impression is that many fairly established publishers (Onyx Path for instance) use crowdfunding because it means that you no longer have to go quite so deep into a financial hole during the development/printing of a new product, with any future payoff many months away once it can be sold. It de-risks, somewhat.

Onyx Path also has a record of their products being "mostly done" by the time they start crowdfunding. Buyers don't have to wait so long, it gives Onyx Path a good indication of how many people they should print for (+some more), and if the the crowdfunding is wildly successful they can spring for some extra art and the like.

 

[Morrus]

Onyx Path also has a record of their products being "mostly done" by the time they start crowdfunding. Buyers don't have to wait so long, it gives Onyx Path a good indication of how many people they should print for (+some more), and if the the crowdfunding is wildly successful they can spring for some extra art and the like.

It’s what we do too. The KS doesn’t launch until the book is done.

 

[dbolack]

And, in my own observation, there's a persistent idea that folks need to "deserve" help to get it, and goodness help us if anyone who doesn't "deserve" it gets a red cent.

Not that they can ever define deserving or undeserving....

That's why I put up that bit about the Foglios. They don't need justification to ask, but I could perhaps forestall someone else scoffing at it by volunteering that personal tidbit.

They are good people.

 

[dbolack]

Having said that, Green Ronin have generally not used crowdfunding until the past few years. They crowdfunded an M&M corebook reprint, a Cthulhu book, Valian Adventures, and now this. Most of their stuff is done the oldfashioned way, as far as I'm aware.

There have been a handful more things. They've done it with select products for at least half their life, but it hasn't been a significant portion of output any given year ( at least by my definition of significant )

 

[crazy_cat]

There have been a handful more things. They've done it with select products for at least half their life, but it hasn't been a significant portion of output any given year ( at least by my definition of significant )

Green Ronin have a $360K The Expanse new edition crowdfunder, via Backerkit, due to fulfil later this year.