Because I think you deserve to know.

Most of you who read this blog are scrapbookers.  And as many of you know, I have focused much of my last three years in this hobby on becoming involved professionally in the industry.  I was thrilled, when in late 2007, I was asked to become a part of the Simple Scrapbooks team for the 2008 year.  After my term expired, I was also asked back for the 2009 year.  Of course, that offer never came to fruition, because less than a month ago it was announced that due to difficult economic conditions, Simple Scrapbooks would ceased to be published.

Simple Scrapbooks was one of several magazines owned by CK Media, a company that also publishes Creating Keepsakes and Paper Crafts magazine.  When my role at Simple ended, I naively thought that my past invoices with CK Media would be paid promptly.  I couldn't have been more wrong.

For more than a year, I was a loyal contributor, submitting my work exclusively to them. They entered into a legal contract with me to pay me for my contributions. I am now owed thousands of dollars in past due invoices. I have friends and colleagues who are owed much, much more than me. Those debts are currently being negotiated by CRG Partners to be paid at a rate that is a fraction of what is actually owed.

And yet CK Media continues to conduct "business as usual," soliciting work, accepting contracts, and promising payment in full to contributors, even when there are no funds to back up these promises. I find this completely unacceptable.

If you have had any work published by CK Media and submitted contracts prior to December 8, 2009, I highly encourage you to call CRG Partners at 801-816-8420. The deadline for negotiating the amount owed to you is March 11.  Do not wait for CK Media to contact you.

And if you are considering submitting work to any CK Media publication, I hope you will do so knowing that it is highly unlikely they will uphold any contract you enter with them.  I, myself, have made the extremely difficult decision to stop submitting and accepting assignment work from any of their publications.  I cannot offer my support to a company whose business practices and ethics differ so greatly from my own.