The Newer Never-Ending PublishAmerica / America Star Books Thread

Swordswoman said:

. . .What kind of response have people had from them so far?

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FTC is not interested. The contract is business to business (yes, we have heard all of the arguments against that time and again), not a consumer transaction. ALL consumer-protection agencies reject PA author-related complaints on that ground.

Yes, PA is misleading, does shoddy work, etc., etc., etc., but consumer-protection agencies are NOT interested. This has been explored and repeated for years here.

Look, Congress would not even bestir itself to regulate/outlaw the creepy, exploitive gimmicks of automobile financing (see today's NYTimes for a discussion), instead exempting auto dealers from the new financial regulation law, and those ARE consumer issues.

Complicating matters, like it or not, is that there are PA authors -- and we really have no idea how many -- who are satisfied with the deal.

--Ken

James D. Macdonald said:

If I recall correctly there isn't a price printed on a PA book, which was one of the barriers to getting them stocked in bookstores.

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I checked one of the free copies of my book that PA sent me, and there is no price on it.

ResearchGuy said:

Complicating matters, like it or not, is that there are PA authors -- and we really have no idea how many -- who are satisfied with the deal.

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That, to me, is the truly amazing part--i.e., that some people like and defend PA and their business practices. However, that would not protect PA from the law if they were found to have engaged in fraud.

I represented a telemarketer in a mail fraud case in the 1990s who was convicted even though we were able to produce in court customers who were happy with the deal they made and the merchandise they had received (i.e., overpriced water purifiers and near-worthless "prizes"). The problem was that the government could produce plenty of customers who felt deceived and defrauded, and the jury sided with them (and rightly so, to tell you the truth).

But if I were a prosecutor, what might give me concern about the fraud aspect, especially in a criminal case where the burden is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, is that PA doesn't really defraud anyone out of their money. If PA practices fraud (and I think they do), it is when they induce people to sign the contract in the first place. There is no fraud by PA in inducing authors to buy their own books, which is when PA actually gets their money. PA simply promises to print "x" number of books for such-and-such a price plus so much for shipping, and that is what PA does. The books are certainly overpriced, and may even be of questionable quality, but neither of those would ordinarily constitute fraud.

I seem to recall that recently there's been talk that it was necessary for PA authors to "prime the pump" by self-purchasing some of their books to get those listed as available in certain formats. Now if PA was making any of those claims then that might be considered fraud.

OK, OK. I was wrong about "price printed on". Thanks to everyone for pointing that out . If a PA author manages to sell a book at any price, with all the roadblocks built in by their "publisher", they've done amazingly well.

Just thought you guys might want to see this book.

Queen of Swords said:

Just thought you guys might want to see this book.

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OK. My mind has boggled and my flabber has been gasted. And my noun/verb agreement warning bell has passed its latest operational test.

Queen of Swords said:

Just thought you guys might want to see this book.

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Over the span of only one decade, PublishAmerica's authors have touched a million lives, and then some. They are the ABC's most effective advocates. What they're saying is that America's Main Street readers and writers can, and do, change a world.

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They like to harp on that million, but at 40K authors and 10 years, 1,000,000 just isn't impressive.

At. All.

1,000,000 / 40,000 / 10 = 2.5

So, on average, each PA author touched a whopping 2.5 people... otherwise known as their parents and a sibling, or spouse and kids.

I wonder if they bothered to edit it.

But they're now claiming 50,000 authors, so wouldn't the result be 2?

It really bothers me to think that whether or not someone is prosecuted for illegal behavior might be dependent on how much it was worth. Hell, kids are arrested for shoplifting items that cost far less than a hundred dollars. I know that's not quite the same thing, but it really disturbs me to think some FBI agent would be up there saying, "Oh, they only stole five million dollars from people last year? Call me back when it's fifty and then we'll talk."

Queen of Swords said:

Just thought you guys might want to see this book.

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You can get the whole four-volume set for only (Ack! Gasp!) $39.95

I find it sad that the whole process is so dependant on money. Not enough money to make it worth their time. What about the victims forking over money they can't afford to fork over on books they can barely sell? What about the people living paycheck to paycheck thinking PA's promises will make their lives better? Why are they so insignificant? And as far as I can see it, PA uses legal maneuvering to keep themselves justthisclose to the right side of the law. There HAS to be a prosecutor or someone out there who'd get pissed enough about the principle to finally give PA what they deserve. It'd be nice to see one person who put people before the damned money.

Besides, I'm sure Larry and Miranda can foot the bill for the time and effort

DreamWeaver said:

Someone's started a dedicated thread for this exact discussion. Check out http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=185642

Or, if my link-fu doesn't work, look at the $99 for my rights back! thread

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Wow, has everyone seen this astonishing page? I screen-grabbed it.

Returning Your Rights

by PublishAmerica


Price: $49.00

Product Description
In the Ordering Instructions box, write the title of your book. You will receive the termination documents by mail.

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What do you want to bet the "termination documents" don't actually terminate the contract, but merely spell out the requirement$ to do so?

M.R.J. Le Blanc said:

I find it sad that the whole process is so dependant on money. Not enough money to make it worth their time. What about the victims forking over money they can't afford to fork over on books they can barely sell? What about the people living paycheck to paycheck thinking PA's promises will make their lives better? Why are they so insignificant? And as far as I can see it, PA uses legal maneuvering to keep themselves justthisclose to the right side of the law. There HAS to be a prosecutor or someone out there who'd get pissed enough about the principle to finally give PA what they deserve. It'd be nice to see one person who put people before the damned money.

Besides, I'm sure Larry and Miranda can foot the bill for the time and effort

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The feds do it all the time. They don't generally go after drug traffickers unless the amount involved is over a certain threshold (except, perhaps, in cases of violent gangs). Below that, they let the cities, counties, and States handle it. The feds go after the Big Guys, because they feel it's a better use of their resources. I doubt that PA qualifies as a Big Guy. If anyone goes after PA, my money says it will be a state or local prosecutor, not the feds.

But I keep coming back to an issue I recently raised, and had never really thought about before--PA doesn't use fraud to get people's money. PA uses fraud to induce people to sign that lousy contract. By the time people are spending money buying books, they pretty well know what PA is and how they operate--at least in the sense that they know that PA has no marketing, publicity or distribution, and that the author is responsible for all sales. They buy their own book based on their pie-in-the-sky dream that they can make that system work because their book is so irresistably good that people will buy it and book stores will stock. But at that point PA isn't deceiving them--they are deceiving themselves. That might make fraud hard to sell to a jury.

Why We Wrote

*Why did you write?
*How did it change your life?
*How did it change the life of others?
*What about people who can't read?

Oooooh, my!

From The Publish America Report by Rev. Sinthyia Darkness and Thomas Myers

Okay, she has a flaky name, but this stuff might have some chops behind it in regard to PA's weirdness this year:

One of their debts was to the finance company that owned the "groundbreaking" Print On Demand printing equipment that is at the heart of this publishing company. Last January, their lease was terminated by the finance company for PublishAmerica LLLP's refusal to pay them and the printing equipment was removed from the building.

This left PublishAmerica in a precarious position indeed because at this same time Lightning Source Inc. canceled their contract with PublishAmerica leading to court litigation.

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I rather love this bit:

The content of the English Blog site, Hellocopter.org was diligently removed from the Internet after Meiners was reported to the IRS and investigated for non-profit fraud. Apparently Meiners "donated" $200,000 from himself to himself. Neither our source or we could find out whatever became of this investigation. However, Meiners' websites did disappear and he stopped soliciting donations.

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I've always wanted the IRS to get this bunch. They took down Al Capone, why not PA and their sloppy bookkeeping?

.

Also regarding the printing equipment: http://www.legalmetric.com/cases/patent/mdd/mdd_108cv01881.html

I hadn't heard about the printing equipment being removed, but that explains why PA was filling orders so slowly.

I wonder if Miranda gets e-mails from Nigerian scammers.

Bartholomew said:

I wonder if Miranda gets e-mails from Nigerian scammers.

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Sure. Asking why they can't get the books they ordered.

--Ken

Gillhoughly said:

From The Publish America Report by Rev. Sinthyia Darkness and Thomas Myers
.

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This is good stuff. (I enjoyed Part 1 even more.) Do we know when we can expect Part 3?

Bartholomew said:

I wonder if Miranda gets e-mails from Nigerian scammers.

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Miranda is so shameless that she sends emails to Nigerian scammers.

Gillhoughly said:

. . . I've always wanted the IRS to get this bunch. They took down Al Capone, why not PA and their sloppy bookkeeping?

.

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Yep. Government does not really have a dog in fight between disgruntled authors and PA. It DOES have a dog in fight over taxes.

--Ken

Okay, it was all fun and games bopping around the PA website looking at the clipart covers and shaking my head at the PAMB.

Then I got into a very dark place.

At the very bottom of the book category page there are two links. One is for PAperbacks, the other is for bargain hardbacks.

There are over 1300 titles in the PAperback link. Assuming the middle of the road activation requirement of the purchase of five books at full price (please correct me if I am wrong, I haven't been able to keep up with the offers) and an average list price of $19.95 with $3.99 shipping, that comes to a handy $155K for PA in less than a month.

Now, click over to bargain hardbacks and find another 300 or so titles. Making the same math assumptions, toss another $35K onto the stack for a cool $190K since June 30th.

That doesn't include the usual PA skullduggery with all of the noobs.

The mind . . . it boggles . . .

I'll bet that IRS investigation is the reason why Meiners has seemed to disappear from PA. Probably doesn't want to get caught up in PA's mess once the crap hits the fan...