Whatever her reasons to pull this; cowardice, financial trouble, the moon was in the sixth quadrant and a psychic communicating with the dead told her it was the right move; what she's actually done is sell herself short with this move. For a quick cash payout from the publishers she's not only showed herself willing to take orders, but shown a very vocal portion of her audience that she doesn't care about them. Whichever way you look at this, she's onto a loser. The publishers she's in bed with don't have the first clue about anything (that doesn't bode well for her future writing). The audience that were spurned by her moves, will spread the word that she's not to be trusted. Plus, she'll have to have some kind of best-seller on her hands, because there's not a cat-in-hell's chance she'll be able to go the donation route again.
And to add insult to injury, all those people who might have gone the donation route will now be less likely to take that route. Word spreads fast around stuff like this, especially in genre circles. Her name is mud. It'll take a long time for that mud to wash off the whole idea of donation based writing.
Oh, and yes, I do blame the publishers over all. Without their bullying tactics there would be no victims. Come on, writers, grow a set. These old codgers who run the publishing industry are nothing without you.
*has eaten all the chocolate hob-nobs, but there are some custard creams left
