Liquidators for embattled Victorian publisher Shawline have confirmed hundreds of authors and the tax office are owed more than $800,000.
The Ballarat-based business is in liquidation amid claims of unpaid royalties and dishonoured contracts and affected authors are losing hope of clawing back their share of the $840,000 debt.
It is expected none of them will get what they are owed because 12 former employees, the liquidators, and a string of creditors are first in line to be compensated from Shawline’s meagre remaining assets.
Liquidators Adrian Hunter and Robyn Erskine, of Brooke Bird, said in a letter to creditors many authors had lost money, but there were “limited available funds” and it would not be possible for them to “work free of…