SFWA Puts Night Shade Books on Probation

Night Shade Books is on probation as a SFWA qualifying market, due to complaints that Night Shade has acted “against the contractual and legal interest of authors” in some instances.

New SFWA president John Scalzi issued a public statement explaining that for the duration of the year-long probation, sales made to Night Shade will not qualify authors for SFWA membership. Sales may retroactively qualify after the probation ends.

Night Shade issued a public apology for the problems, and promised to deal with outstanding issues. The Genreville blog at Publishers Weekly has some background on the situation.