Contract Release!

[Toni1953]

Received the below email:

Dear Toni LoTempio:Your contract with PublishAmerica for A Spy in the Hand will soon expire. If you would like for the contract to be renewed for another seven years on the same terms and conditions as specified in the original contract, please send a signed response in reply to this e-mail indicating your assent to renewal. Your typewritten name at the end of your reply e-mail will suffice as your signature. If you do not reply, the contract will expire, all rights will revert to you, and your book will be out of print. Have a good day,PublishAmerica Support So now...when my contract is up in april, can I then rework this book and resubmit it? Can I trust them to remove it?

[Terie]

Congratulations, Toni!! :partyguy:

Yes, you can rework and submit the book elsewhere...and I'd suggest you retitle it, too, just to be safe.

[Parametric]

Congratulations! :D

[Toni1953]

and, additionally, I just got this:

Dear Toni LoTempio:

We are in receipt of your request not to extend the contract. As such, your contract for, A Spy in the Hand, will expire and your book will go our of print on 4/1/2011. This emails serves as your written notice of such.


Thank you and have a good day,
Hannah
PublishAmerica Support
hannah@publishamerica.com (hannah@publishamerica.com)



I will definitely retitle! Change character names and some of the plot, too.

FREE AT LAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:snoopy:

[Arkie]

I don't think you can trust PA to remove your title from the various web sites (Amazon, et al) and I don't think there is such a thing as a POD being out of print. Mine is still out there more than four years after release, new and used.

[James D. Macdonald]

Get it in writing. In hard copy. With a signature.

The email isn't good enough.

[Chris P]

Strange; I thought most PA contracts automatically renewed unless you opted out of renewal in writing. Check your contract. PA's confused, or your contract is worded differently than mine.

And listen to Uncle Jim: get this in hard copy with sigs that clearly terminates their publication rights. Examples of the termination agreement have been posted and discussed elsewhere here.

[B.L. Robinson]

My (older) contract specified that the contract had to be renewed and signed by both parties three months prior to the actual expiration date or it would automatically expire, which it did a few days ago.

[Blake M. Petit]

Congratulations, Toni!

[merrihiatt]

Congratulations!!!! Good advice to check your contract for the exact wording on what happens regarding rights reversion.

[Toni1953]

and today i got this:

Dear author:

Your book A Spy in the Hand, has shown no sales for longer than a year.

At this time you may want to have your book's publishing rights reverted back to you.

We can arrange that.

Go to www.publishamerica.net/RevertingRights.html (http://www.publishamerica.net/RevertingRights.html) and instruct us to return the rights to you. In the Ordering Instructions box, write your name and the title of your book. You will receive the termination documents by mail. There are no strings attached to this termination except the $99 processing fee that covers our administration costs and our de-listing obligations to vendors and/or wholesalers. You must choose a shipping option to activate your rights return instruction.

Thank you for having been a PublishAmerica author, or for sticking around if that's what you prefer!

--PublishAmerica Author Support Team


So tell me - do they know what they are doing? (rhetorical question)
Uncle Jim is right - I've got to get this in writing.
I don't trust them.
I'd feel safer if they were out of business for good.

[Chris P]

Yep, PA's confused and hoping you don't notice. Make them honor the email saying your pub rights go back to you on April 1. ("OUR of print"? Well done, PA editing department). Get your release in writing and don't pay a dime.

[Shrouded]

Sticking around? That's very professionally exclaimed.

[tlblack]

That's a last ditch effort to get $$$$ out of your wallet. Others are receiving that offer, some already out of their contracts, (recently), and for the low price of $149.

[DaveKuzminski]

A legitimate and professional publisher would release the rights upon noticing sales had fallen below reasonable numbers without charging a fee. So what does that make PublishAmerica since it's charging a fee?

[Alphabeter]

A traditional printer run by cons who are no artists.

[Toni1953]

i disagree...they are artists - SCAM ARTISTS!!!!!!!!

[Gillhoughly]

Dear author:

Go to www.publishamerica.net/RevertingRights.html (http://www.publishamerica.net/RevertingRights.html) and instruct us to return the rights to you. In the Ordering Instructions box, write your name and the title of your book. You will receive the termination documents by mail. There are no strings attached to this termination except the $99 processing fee that covers our administration costs and our de-listing obligations to vendors and/or wholesalers. You must choose a shipping option to activate your rights return instruction.



Dear PA support,

Per my original contract my rights are to be returned at NO CHARGE on the specified date. There is nothing in my contract that requires payment of any kind for this to happen.

(You can quote from the contract here)

You've already sent mails confirming the return of rights. No processing fee was mentioned in any of them.

In addition to those I need a signed hard copy of confirmation of my return of rights sent to the address below. Email confirmation is not sufficient for my tax records.

Have a good day,