If you made a pledge for 25 Library Terrace, you will have received the following email from Unbound at the end of January:
We are writing to let you know that, sadly, 25 Library Terrace will not be published by Unbound. Natalie has decided to explore other routes to publication and we wish her the best of luck.
The amount you pledged has now been automatically credited to your Unbound account.
This can be redeemed immediately for use on any other Unbound book. And will be available on your account for two years from today.
Or email support@unbound within 30 days of receiving this email and we will transfer the cash back to you. We will process all refunds together at the end of this 30 day period and will contact you again then once this process is underway.
Thank you once again for supporting this project.
*****
The email address in the message, to which you needed to respond, is incorrect and should read support@unbound.com
Unbound went into administration last week.
If you asked for a refund, you will then have had an auto response saying (roughly) that refunds will be made within 30 days. And if you followed that up after 30 days to ask where the refund was, you’ll have had a further auto response saying that emails will be dealt within 7 days.
I’m sad to report that although Unbound has now reincarnated as another company and are promising to pay their authors the royalties they are owed, amounting to tens of thousands of pounds in some cases, this does not apply to pledgers money which is being dealt with by the Administrators.
It is unclear if there will be any money available for pledger refunds. I understand that HMRC have first call on any funds.
The only bright spot on this particular horizon is that some people I have been in touch with have been successful in getting refunds for Debit and Credit card payments, and that Paypal have been particularly quick in refunding.
I would suggest you do this quickly as there may be a time limit on making a claim.
If you have the emails mentioned, particularly the one which says a refund will be made in 30 days, you may be able to use these as evidence.
I am absolutely not an expert on banking, so I am just reporting the experience of people who have contacted me.
I cannot tell you how sorry I am that refunds may not happen. This is completely beyond my control and in common with other authors, I am powerless to do anything about it..
I do not have the email addresses of my pledgers and cannot contact them individually unless I happen to know them personally. This blogpost, which I will also put on Substack, is the best I can do.
If you would like to read about what has happened, this article in The Guardian came out on 18th March, and this one in Printweek came out yesterday.
I do have news about a new home for both The Sewing Machine, and 25 Library Terrace, but I will put that in a separate post.
Once again, I can only apologise for all this.
Natalie
