CK Media: Following the money (or lack of it)

More evidence is starting to mount of how widespread the personnel effects are going to be on CK Media's scrapbooking publications because of non-payment of their staff and contributors.

Many of the regular contributors who lost money in the settlement forced on them in the work that CRG Partners has been doing for CK Media are indicating they will most certainly not submit work or do assignments for the company again in the foreseeable future. Many familiar faces will be absent from the magazine in issues starting a few months from now.

But many of the company's "regular" staff are making it clear that they haven't been paid either, and many are now gone from the company as a result of this or the layoffs at Digital Scrapbooking and Simple Scrapbooks.

The latest to join the exodus from CK Media is their web hostess (and author of Supply Savvy: Scrapbooking) Erin Lincoln. Erin had acknowledged earlier this month on the CK message board that she was owed money from CK Media for her work for them. Now she has let it be known in a 2nd post on the board (actually dated the 20th) that she left her position with CK Media around the first of March. Her post leaves little question as to the reason why. Erin has taken a new job packing orders for a friend's online scrapbook store.

Another apparent victim of the payment problems is longtime CK Media contributor Molly Newman. A veteran of both Simple Scrapbooks and Digital Scrapbooking and a regular contributor to Digital Scrapbooking (including in its current e-newsletter format), she indicated a few days ago on her blog that she has not received any payments for her work from CK Media since December.

It is a frightening symptom of how severe the cashflow problems have been at the company when their masthead contributors were not being paid. The company is being stripped of a lot of its top talent, and they will have a hard time replacing it given their current situation.