I can confirm that Charlie's link between the two magazines is correct, as is the involvement of Maggie Meer in both. Maggie was the original publisher, and put up her own money to launch the title. I too lost money after the collapse of Wizard Publishing, and more recently Horsepower Media.

But Charlie is very wide of the mark is his assertion that the magazine goes into insolvency to avoid paying writers. One of the reasons that Wizard Publishing failed was that it paid writers like Charlie far more than it could afford.

Horsepower Media took over the title from Turret RAI - the former was a joint company run by Maggie Meer and a company called Live Publishing. Horsepower is now in administration, not liquidation, and the next issue of the magazine will probably be produced by a new company.

The only reason that the magazine is still going is that the editorial team thinks it is worth writing, despite the fact that they have lost money on it in the past.

Followup: I just followed the link from Danny's blog to the PR about Linuxworld. (I'm off the Linux circuit completely at present, having switched to OS/X and a career as a science fiction novelist.) This appears to be the same person, unless there are two Maggie Meers running Linux magazines with "Linux User" in the title and going into insolvency rather than paying contributors.

You have been warned.

LINUX USER? And LinuxWorld? The bastards -- they've done it again!

There was a mag called LINUX USER that ran from early 2000 through 2002. I wrote for them and got paid regularly -- a big chunk of my bread and butter -- invoicing Maggie Meer at Wizard Publishing, until a couple of invoices went unpaid. I made inquiries, and got the message that Wizard Publishing was insolvent and going into liquidation (owing me £4500, which hurt -- like I said, it was a big chunk of my income). Commissioning editor was Trevor Parsons. It turned out that they sold the mag to Turret Rai PLC, and the title was owned by some other limited company -- well dodgy!

I wasn't expecting them to do this again, though (assuming it is the same outfit who burned me), but the title sounds ominously familiar, as does the connection to LinuxWorld.

I so sympathise. When Business & Finance here in Dublin went belly up it owed me 1500 quid plus VAT. And I wasn't the only freelancer left in the soup. Of course we were all unsecured creditors. Three years on the liquidation isn't finished. The only people who will get anything will the Revenue Commissioners, the staff and the company doing the liquidating.

Ouch, Danny. Sorry. But like that other guy says, it's unfortunately so common in this industry not to get paid for three months that it passes unnoticed until they vanish. Nonetheless, I think you should submit another copy of all the outstanding invoices to their accounts dept with a reminder that interest at base rate plus 8% is due on invoices over 30 days and get one of us London types to follow up for you if they ignore you.

wg

That's a bastard. As you say, it's not unknown for people to go three months without paying in this industry even thwn they are solvent. If you want practical advice, however, maybe you should change the preposition in your RSS feed, which at present says "casual dismissals from Danny O'Brien"

Stalking the wily LinuxUser and Developer magazine!