The Old Neverending PublishAmerica Thread (Publish America)

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bikrpreacher

Re: I do not know this for a fact

I saw that and almost posted it. Very sad to read.
 

DaveKuzminski

Re: Re:Allow me to add a little something here.....

Violet, PA has already broken their release agreement on several occasions. They've ordered the printing and sold books they no longer has rights to and they've permitted people to comment negatively in the PA forum about those authors who left after getting a reversion. The reversion's gag provisions do prohibit permitting any aspersions from taking place in a site either party operates.

But like I've said, PA's broken their reversion agreement on several occasions.

By the way, here's a site with a list of volunteer lawyers who work with the arts: dwij.org/matrix/vla_list.html
 

ProandCon

D James - Re: I do not know this for a fact

D James Quote:
"I can't see PA going that far, really. Do you think they'd want their business practises brought out into the open like that? They do well because they float just under the radar screen.They know it.

Of course, like Jim, I'm not a lawyer, nor I do I play one on TV."

Possible bad advice to giving out there D James telling PA authors that you doubt PublishAmerica would most likely not sue them. Some PA authors may not see violating stipulations of the PA agreement as a serious issue and may thinks it's worth the gamble to violate the PA agreement after reading your comments.

Who knows what PA may do as the noose tightens or a book released from their publishing house becomes a best seller.

You somewhat saved yourself by saying you were not a lawyer after giving out your shoot from the hip advice.

Bottom line:

Consult a lawyer to protect yourself.

Would actually changing the names of the characters, book title and pen name of a nonfiction book actually be enough to say it's a new publishable book? Would PA come after you? Do you like to gamble?

P&C
 

Ed Williams 3

To all our new posters...

...let me extend a personal, Juliette, Georgia welcome. I normally post a good bit here, but I was in Las Vegas this past weekend and was in Atlanta today. Hopefully my butt will be in one place for a few days now.

I took a look at the PA boards before I came here, God, it is like the life has been sucked out of them. I wonder what's going on?

Back from Sin City, and wishing to return,

E3

:evil :evil :evil
 

D James

Re: D James - Re: I do not know this for a fact

"Possible bad advice to giving out there D James telling PA authors that you doubt PublishAmerica would most likely not sue them."

Never gave advice. I offered an opinion. For those who don't understand the difference, consult a lawyer before acting.

"Who knows what PA may do as the noose tightens or a book released from their publishing house becomes a best seller."

I doubt they'd know it's the same book.

"You somewhat saved yourself by saying you were not a lawyer after giving out your shoot from the hip advice."

Again, I offered my opinion. There's a huge difference.

"Would actually changing the names of the characters, book title and pen name of a nonfiction book actually be enough to say it's a new publishable book? Would PA come after you? Do you like to gamble?"

Personally, I'll wait out my contract. I have enough in the works that I can feel confident doing that.

However, I don't fear PA coming after me with a lawsuit. Why? They have too much to lose.

Just a point ... I never suggested that anyone change their book and submit it to another publisher. I simply reminisced about an old posting of Jim MacDonald's.

D James
 

BeckEaston

Fill me in...what happened in that Post?

Who and what are they talking about. Did I miss something?
 

triceretops

Re: Fill me in...what happened in that Post?

they're talking about the CBS employees who got fired because of the George Bush military service scandal--It was reported by Dan Rather, who is retiring after taking so much heat for this. Although it's actually debatable whether this
problem affected Rather's decision to early retirement.


Tri
 

DaveKuzminski

Be very quiet

Tomorrow, P&E goes hunting for bear. They want to play in the literary field, they get rated for it. Look for the entry on the New page late tomorrow night that will be dated 13 Jan 05.
 

vstrauss

Re: No Haggerstown office for the AG

>> Peggie McKee does not work for the Office of the Attorney General. There is no Haggerstown office. The Baltimore office has no position of Citizens Response Coordinator.<<

There is a Hagerstown branch office. It's listed on the Contact page of the Maryland Attorney General website: www.oag.state.md.us/contact.htm and also on the page that lists Consumer Protection Division offices: www.oag.state.md.us/Consumer/offices.htm

There also is a Peggy McKee, Citizens Response Coordinator...in the Baltimore Office of the Attorney General. Here's her online phone directory listing: www.dbm.state.md.us/phone...87&OID=149

All of this took me about 10 minutes to find out using Google. I really think we're going a bit far afield with the conspiracy theories here.

- Victoria
 

BeckEaston

Be very quiet

I can just see you saying that. You sound like a cartoon. I have laughed so much today, I can hardly stand it. So, what's this mysterious hunting bear link?

Oh and thanks above for clarifying. I thought that's what it might be, but I wanted to make sure that I was on target. That Marti is really something. That case she wrote about was close to home for me. Her book, the clues, the research leaves a lot to be desired. (Sorry Simon, it does. I live in here too and it’s not at all what she portrays it to be.)
 

SimonSays

Simon Who

Beck - I assume you are apologizing to another Simon.

This one knows nothing about Marti or her book.
 

winniemitzandme

Allow me to add a little something here.....

Dave, one thing I failed to mention here, this publisher who is reading my ms, I didn't say anything about it being printed or released with PA, so no reason to show or say anything about anything to do with PA.

If this publisher wishes to publish the ms, haven't heard anything back yet, and if they edit it more than what I had done, then it will most likely change even more from what it was with PA. This is what I'm hoping for, they might even see where the story can be added to, making it even further from what it was with PA. In the end, I am hoping for, making the book nothing like what PA printed and therefore causing the release to be mute point anyway.

I did send the ms to two other publishers and did tell them it had been realesed from PA but didn't offer any other details, only the email with PA's email address, where in the email they stated they had agreed to release me. Nothing wrong with showing that.

Violet
 

CaoPaux

Re: No Haggerstown office for the AG

I really think we're going a bit far afield with the conspiracy theories here.
Aw, shucks. :eek:

But that does bring it back to: what the heck did the AG receive?
 

James D Macdonald

A couple of things....

One is, if you're planning to go to court, go with clean hands. No matter what the other guy did, don't you arrive vulnerable to any accusations of shady practices yourself.

The other is, when you're dealing with legitimate editors and publishers, deal with them honestly. You want them to deal honestly with you, right?
 

priceless1

Re: Allow me to add a little something here.....

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I didn't say anything about it being printed or released with PA, so no reason to show or say anything about anything to do with PA.<hr></blockquote>
To which Jim replied:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>No matter what the other guy did, don't you arrive vulnerable to any accusations of shady practices yourself.<hr></blockquote>
Violet, Jim gives good advice here. You owe it to whomever you're submitting to be honest and upfront. As a rule, I always do a check on titles that cross my desk. If I find that it's already in print, or was in print and the author failed to divulge that information, their submission hits my trash can faster than I can grease my eyelids.

Honesty and honor go both ways.

Just my opinion. Back to lurk-mode.
 

XThe NavigatorX

Re:

Thanks, Victoria. I was beginning to figure that out when my reply didn't bounce. You rock.

I'm going to try to get my hands on a copy of the original petition.
 

HapiSofi

Re: I do not know this for a fact

"If you show the signed and agreed upon release agreement to your new publisher, you are technically in violation of the provisions of the agreement. PublishAmerica could possibly sue you for damages."
That's just plain ridiculous. The whole point of a reversion letter is that you can give a copy of it to your next publisher so they'll know you've got the rights back. If you can't show it to them, it's not a functional reversion letter. Furthermore, how's PA going to know whether you showed it to them or not?

I'd ignore that provision. I think it's just PA yanking your chain: one last parting bit of manipulation and abuse.
 

winniemitzandme

Re: Okay, Lynn, Uncle Jim and Dave,

I shall notify this publisher this morning of this ms once being in the hands of PA. Of course doing so may kill it, but so be it, I had thought about doing this, now I will.

Of course, doing so may cause this publisher to decide to trash my ms, but at least they will have that option.

Violet
 

HapiSofi

Re: Okay, Lynn, Uncle Jim and Dave,

Yeah. You can overlook a prior submission history, but you have to come clean on prior publication history. You don't ever want to have an editor catch you in a fib before the contract is signed. It gives them the heebie-jeebies, because untruthful authors are so difficult and hazardous to work with. Of course, you shouldn't fib to them at all; but pre-contract, it's disastrously offputting.

Also: If your book sold a remarkably high number of copies for a PA title, play that up; otherwise, play down your sales. This may seem unintuitive. What you're emphasizing is that this is a clean market: so few people saw your book that it might as well be new. Do mention that the few people who read it really enjoyed it, assuming they did.
 

BeckEaston

I do not know this for a fact.

Advocates pay attention to Dave's post and contact legal representatives should you already have one. This is awesome Dave!

Navigator I have the original petition. You can contact me, I made it.

Let me explain the problem. I sent in a petition way back in November this past year. I put on that petition around 130 names that contacted me with their story. Now, I knew some authors were unhappy, and I had their names to contact from this board and others, but those authors declined or I never heard back from them. So I never added them to my petition.

Once my petition was complete, I sent it to the AG office of Beth Silverman with a letter attached saying that basically we'd been ignored and that we wanted to "initiate an investigation based on numerous author complaints" and not just "dozens" as PA suggested in previous responses.

I got a letter from Beth's office that said just what you and I were sent in email. This is where it gets very confusing. I promise you that all my addresses are spelled correctly and all my documentation with their stories were attached to said petition. I also sent mine via postal mail.

I made absolutely sure to include a clause to keep all authors names confidential. Period. I promised to do that and I did. So, when I got that email that you received I was outraged!

First, I have theories on how they got some of the addresses I don't have and have misspelled ones or inaccurate ones, but I cannot say any of those for sure. What I do know is that when someone who seeks legal council asks for confidentiality it is given, and I doubt very seriously that Beth or Larry for that matter would disclose anything I sent to them. Why, or how they got the other email addresses is the big mystery.

What I am concerned with is that all this talk makes everyone think that I had something to do with it, and shoots my credibility and my word all to hell. Frankly I am getting rather agitated at the accusations that I wouldn't do exactly what I set out to do. I am pissed off that someone provided the AG with erroneous emails, and the AG Consumer Office sent out a blanket statement in answer to MY PETITION. (How did some get the email and others on my petition with correct addresses not get it?) I am livid that this happened. I have told the AG office so on many occasions. I even got my own email back.

I will say it again. I did not have any other author who DID NOT give me a synopsis of their choice to sign said petition on that petition. This is so ten ways to wrong, and very frightening what someone can do to a person's credibility.
 

snarzler

Re: No Haggerstown office for the AG

Victoria

As the one who did the research regarding the email, I just have a few things.

1) I didn't try Google. I started with a blue directory and went up. I find that listings online are often very outdated.

2) I misspelled Hagerstown, it has one G and yes, there is an office there.

3) When I called the Baltimore office, I was told there was no person by that name or title there. Not "on vacation", that they didn't exist.
I could have 'lucked' into a new person, but given everything else they said, I had reason to believe the accuracy of that statement.

4) These complaints are handled by Postal Mail. Contact can be made through the website, but for official correspondence, paper is exchanged.
The person was aware of a complaint regarding PA and said they were "not in a position to know [of] an official decision" but there "probably hadn't been a reply yet".
When I asked about the email reply I was told "that would not have come from this office".

I'm not one for conspiracy theories regarding PA. I just think they were trying to discredit Beck and Dee (as the ringleaders)'s work and create a schism among those who are unhappy with and/or about PA.

Andrea

0]
 

AC Crispin

PA Authors on the Petition

Beck, I sure wish that a good percentage of the PA authors who signed your petition would get in touch with me.

I'll be getting into contact next week with the folks who have written to outline my strategy.

I will be sending off the copyedited ms. of my new book to Harper tomorrow. Then comes shoveling out the house, which I have rather "let go" for the last week.

This weekend I'll be working on pulling things together regarding my PA strategy.

So...it's not too late. Write to me, PA authors, at:

[email protected]

We need a show of strength for this to have a chance to work. Right now I have maybe 50 names, which delights me, but the more the merrier!

-Ann C. Crispin
 

BeckEaston

Authors on Petition

Frankly Ann, I'd actually send you the detailed outlines of each author complaints, (over 100) because all have said that they have no problem with sharing the information, and contacting authority. The problem is now that I am flat out gun-shy! I am being blamed for putting peoples names arbitrarily on a petition, and no one believes its accuracy anymore. I had the best intentions and feel I am at the top of a witch-hunt now. You know what. I went out of my way to do what I did and spent days and hours each day doing it. Now, I am pissed off, and frankly to tell the truth, disillusioned with authors who I thought were proactive in this fight. I'm just tired today.

:\
 
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