Doubledown Writers Face Bad News

Anyone who was writing for Doubledown Media knows that the company has been in bankruptcy. Now, the bankruptcy process can be a beautiful thing, even when you're talking about liquidation. A court supervises the sale of assets and distributes the money among those who are owed. You don't get the full value by any means -- maybe only pennies on the dollar. But it's something. A client of mine went bankrupt a couple of years ago and I've realized at least 40 percent of what I was owed. That's much better than a goose egg.

However, this process depends on the courts being able to sell assets. And that's the bad news for Doubledown creditors, including writers. According to Folio, at an auction last week, there were no "acceptable" bids for any assets, even including the customer lists:

According to the auction notice, the minimum bid for Doubledown’s Dealmaker was $100,000. For Corporate Leader and Trader magazines the lowest acceptable bid was $50,000. The minimum bid for Cigar Report was $25,000.

Corporate Air, meanwhile, carried a minimum bid of $55,000. Doubledown previously received an offer from a company called Private Air Media—which is headed by the magazine’s founder Dee Dee Morrison—and Knight Images Inc., for $50,000.

These are pretty low numbers as it is, so I suspect the chance of writers recouping any significant amount are next to nothing. My sympathies to those who were screwed.