Many years ago I was approached by a publisher in Turkey who wanted to translate and publish my Alex & Fiona series for their Turkish audience. I questioned other authors who had been approached by this company, and closely read over the contract before agreeing. They quickly worked through the first book, sending me cover samples and sharing the translation progress with me. All the while, I'm being assured that my advance was coming soon, soon, soon.
Book 1 went out quickly and soon they were sending me book 2's cover. At this point I was pissed. I hadn't seen on cent of my advance, yet I already knew book 1 was selling simply by the amount of readers from Turkey contacting me to let me know how much they enjoyed the book & wanting to know when book 2 would come out (of course I had no idea).
I continued to question when my money was set to arrive & the woman I'd been dealing with all those months assured me they were simply running behind, but my payment would be coming. Oh, and I was supposed to receive 1 copy of each book in their new Turkish format...those never arrived.
Eventually, contact was scarce, until I was told the woman I'd been dealing with no longer worked there. After that I never heard a single word from the company again. That was in 2011.
Here I am, many years later, and I'm still receiving messages, follows, tags, and comments from my Turkish readers. I'm soooo happy you're all enjoying the story of Alex & Fiona, but I want you all know that I've never received a single dollar from the publishing or selling of this series in Turkey.
This publisher took not only my 3 books, but numerous books from numerous other authors, without paying us for our work. This is theft, plain and simple. And because of the fact that this company is outside the U.S., we are pretty much left without any way to get our money. The contracts aren't worth the ink and paper used to print them.
Again, thank you so much for reading my books! Unfortunately, I won't be allowing any translations of newer books by ARVO.
Here are a few (of many) "Author Beware" articles about this company:
http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2011/12/publisher-alert-arvo-basim-yayin-of.html
http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=96172.0
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?232625-Publisher-Arvo-Basim-Yayin
http://www.crimetime.co.uk/mag/index.php/showarticle/1816
Too bad these weren't around back when ARVO first contacted me. :(
