Strategic Book Group / Strategic Book Publishing / Eloquent Books / SBM

rejectME

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Have your friend pass all the correspondence on to the Florida Attorney General.

Any correspondence she had with SBP? I believe that she queried them, but I'll tell her to forward all the emails if it will help. By all means!
 

AC Crispin

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I heard from a writer the other day that's hopping mad, and since I know Robert Fletcher reads these boards, (Hi, Mr. Fletcher. Pay up, please. We have a court order!) I'll summarize what she said here, using no names.

This writer signed onto WL Literary, and paid Fletcher 280 or so for her critique and to be put in touch with an editor. The EDITOR then proceeded to contact the writer directly and charge her almost 3000.00 more for lousy, substandard "editing" that most of us would call "poor copyediting" and nothing more.

This writer is hopping mad.

And knowing that one of his own freelancers is ripping off HIS writers behind his back is likely to make Fletcher hopping mad, too.

(smiles sweetly)

-Ann C. Crispin
Chair, Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.com
 

Kerry Morgan

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Hello all- I do have another thing about Eloquent Strategic- but I wanted to explain my absence- he is okay for the most part but hub was hit while on his harley (in the break down lane no less) so I have been crazy busy trying to cover everything-

I now know for a fact that they are not reporting royalties correctly because more people have contacted me and sent my book to me for a signature (because I advertise that I'll do that on my site- but yeah some are friends not all though ;) )- are not showing up-

They aren't keeping track- and I can't keep track on amazon except that it isn't getting very good sales because I have no time to market-

But people have bought the book- from my site and others- and it isn't showing up on the royalty report at all.

I'm waiting to see if something changes in a week as it is a new month- but I'm checking by IBSN number so it should be accurate-

How in the world can someone fight against that? How do I know how many books have been sold because they won't put a hit counter on the site THEY create to sell my book from which I have to link to-

This is really ticking me off because unless someone contacts me- I have no way of knowing how many books I'm NOT getting the royalties from because they state plainly in the contract- they will not send out royalties until they reach 25 $

I believe- because of the people who have contacted me- that they are not reporting accurately so they don't have to pay their royalties-

How 'bout THEM apples?

Kerry (who will be posting more regularly as soon as hub heals from his accident- leg issues but that is close to it- bad bad cut back calf- but nothing major that would end his karate career was severed- just has some healing to do....)
 

James D. Macdonald

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Kerry, if you haven't contacted the Florida AG yet (or even if you have), now's the time, with all the written records of how many you know were sold, and how many you've been paid for. The Joe Friday Nothing-But-The-Facts.
 

rejectME

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After turning down EB's generous joint venture offer of $895 to publish her work, my friend got the two email follow-ups that i mentioned previously and apparently yesterday evening she received a voice mail from "Linda in the customer service department at Eloquent Books, who wanted to know how everything is going with her book and to disregard the message if she was already working with them. She was advised that if she was not working with them, to please call Tanya Martinez at 561-414-3320. I don't know who Tanya is or where she is, but apparently the phone number from the voice mail was from Florida. I believe she's already sent a follow up note to the A.G.
Apparently this guys will not quit...
 

Kerry Morgan

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Anyone ever heard reference to Strategic and Eloquent and subsequent companies using the term Strategic Book Group? There is a new logo on my site which has this title- I hadn't seen that logo before- Just wanting to know if that was seen before- it could be me- but I don't think so-

Also Mr. Macdonald thank you- I am working on getting written proof- or at least email proof that says yes I bought your book- which will serve as a count with names to send to the AG of Florida-

I KNEW that was sketchy and wrong especially after that one employee said that sometimes they don't even get paid.

I bet that's not true- but I bet a lot of authors don't know the real number of books they've sold either because they will not give us any control over that web site they create- nor will they let us just use our own which I created for the sole purpose of being able to keep track.

Kerry
 

victoriastrauss

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The company has officially changed its name to Strategic Book Group, and abandoned the long-standing pretense that all the different operations--agencies, editing, publishing, marketing--are not connected.

The AEG Publishing Group website still exists, but if you click on Book Publishing at the top of the new Strategic Book Group website, you get this (somewhat ungrammatical) message:

AEG Publishing Group has changed its name to reflect our expansion.

Our new name is Strategic Book Group. For more information please visit www.StrategicBookGroup.com.
There's an interesting disclaimer as well, which possibly sheds some light on the sudden name change:

"Please note that AEG and SBG are NOT affiliated with Anschutz Entertainment Group, Inc. and their affiliated companies AEG Live, AEG Teleworks, AEG Creative, AEG Marketing, AEG Merchandising, AEG-TV, AEG Live Tours, and AEG Exhibitions."

If, on the other hand, the name change was another of Fletcher's attempts to dodge negative publicity, I'm proud to note that Writer Beware's Alert is the second result on Google in a search for "Strategic Book Group.

- Victoria
 

DaveKuzminski

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Sounds like he got a <sarcasm>friendly letter</sarcasm> from someone with even more lawyers than Writer Beware. ;)
 

James D. Macdonald

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Awwww.... Too bad about that AEG name, particularly when they were promoting it so hard. As recently as the 3rd of August Boppin' Bobby put out a press release that said, "AEG Publishing Group Reaches a Milestone: New York Publisher Releases 1,000th Book"

The lies start in the headline, when they call themselves a "New York Publisher." Unless "Boca Raton" is Spanish for "New York," that is.
 

Old Hack

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It would be better if the name referred to the rat's other end, but I guess we can't have everything.
 

BenPanced

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As Arte Johnson was so fond of saying, "Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry EEEEENteresting." I tried posting a link to the story about the AG suing Bouncin' Bobby to the Facebook group, but it won't let me. I get a "this message contains material that has been tagged as abusive by members of Facebook". Good way to silence the critics!
 

rejectME

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As Arte Johnson was so fond of saying, "Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry EEEEENteresting." I tried posting a link to the story about the AG suing Bouncin' Bobby to the Facebook group, but it won't let me. I get a "this message contains material that has been tagged as abusive by members of Facebook". Good way to silence the critics!

They probably rigged that after I posted the link to the lawsuit findings, which were later removed. You could, however, post the content of the article in the comment.
 

BenPanced

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They probably rigged that after I posted the link to the lawsuit findings, which were later removed. You could, however, post the content of the article in the comment.
I'm just going to be a good little Do-bee and drop it. They'll probably find out on their own soon enough.
 

BenPanced

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Been nice knowin' ya! I went ahead and posted the link to the FL Attorney General's announcement so they don't come after us like the jelose loosers we are.
 

rejectME

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Been nice knowin' ya! I went ahead and posted the link to the FL Attorney General's announcement so they don't come after us like the jelose loosers we are.

The posts by BenPanced and myself are still up. Donnette Davis emailed me and, as previously mentioned by Jim, doesn't have much knowledge of what's going on. She is the person who replaced [FONT=&quot]DeleiriousGirl and seems to be somewhat of an independent contractor. When I mentioned employees not getting paid, that seemed to strike a note with her. While she wasn't overly pleased about the posts with the links to the lawsuit, being on the Facebook site, she seemed to appreciate that we were actually concerned for others. I could be way off base.

I thought it was interesting that someone posted today, asking if SBP/EB gets books onto shelves.
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