The Newer Never-Ending PublishAmerica / America Star Books Thread
- Thread starter James D. Macdonald
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Wanda, 1099's are sent when you reach $10 in royalties. Since you made less than $3, you wouldn't get one.
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Wanda, to clarify what is being discussed on the Desert Breeze thread: some e-publishers, such as Desert Breeze, Swimming Kangaroo, and Eternal, are willing to *consider* reprints if the author has holds the publishing rights. An author can submit such a book for consideration. But there's no guarantee the publisher will want to accept the book and re-publish it. Most of these presses will reject about 95% of the submissions they receive, and about 99% of the reprint-submissions they receive. So please don't assume that if PA does return your rights to you, some other publisher will automatically want to publish your book.
My advice would be to ignore PA altogether, forget that book you published with them, and put your time and energy into improving your craft and writing a new book that you can submit to agents and publishers.
Wanda, if you lose your password/get locked out of your account/whatever, contact an Admin rather than create a new account. This one will now be merged with your old one.
I really just want the rights back, more than anything. I couldn't contact anyone this am. It was like locking me out then I couldn't find a adminstrator to contact. You have to have 10.00 in checks? oh my god at that rate the contract will be null and void. hahaha. now I am having a printer problem. i printed off some things while ago then it just stopped and microsoft closed it down due to sub spooler and i have new ink in it. I have tried everything and dont wont restart it, or i will be locked out of here again. any ideas. i know this has nothng to do with it. just asking a question
Maryland Attorney General's address
Here's the address for the Maryland Attorney General: State of Maryland, Office of the Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division, 44 North Potomac Street, Suite 104, Hagerstown, MD 21740.
I wrote them on March 30th, and they responded on April 15th. Both letters are posted on my web site, at The Truth About PublishAmerica page. Unfortunately, they regard an author's contract with PA as a transaction between two businesses--rather than a transaction involving a consumer--which means they will do nothing to stop PA or to help an author escape the contract.
Here's the address for the Maryland Attorney General: State of Maryland, Office of the Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division, 44 North Potomac Street, Suite 104, Hagerstown, MD 21740.
I wrote them on March 30th, and they responded on April 15th. Both letters are posted on my web site, at The Truth About PublishAmerica page. Unfortunately, they regard an author's contract with PA as a transaction between two businesses--rather than a transaction involving a consumer--which means they will do nothing to stop PA or to help an author escape the contract.
I have a different address.
Office of the Attorney General
200 St. Paul Place
Baltimore, MD 21202
This is the one listed on the website here: http://www.oag.state.md.us/contact.htm
Office of the Attorney General
200 St. Paul Place
Baltimore, MD 21202
This is the one listed on the website here: http://www.oag.state.md.us/contact.htm
Don't be silly.
PA doesn't have that much money, that much power or even that much inclination to even attempt to bribe public officials.
It's a legal matter.
Maryland Attorney General address
Yes, the Baltimore address is the one I wrote to, but the address on the letter I got back was the one in my posting. I suspect either one will work. I assumed that my letter got forwarded to another office, which handled the reply.
Yes, the Baltimore address is the one I wrote to, but the address on the letter I got back was the one in my posting. I suspect either one will work. I assumed that my letter got forwarded to another office, which handled the reply.
Maryland Attorney General jurisdiction
Yes, I think it probably is a legal issue. They are empowered by the legislature to handle only "consumer" issues, so anything else they consider outside their jurisdiction. We have debated before in these postings whether or not the contract between PA and an author should be considered a "consumer" issue, but the Maryland AG has decided that it is not, and they get the final word--at least, in Maryland.
As others have pointed out, the only way the AG might be interested is if your dispute with PA involved the purchasing of books, rather than the contract to have your book "published" by PA. When you buy books from PA, you are a consumer. Of course, even on that score, an AG office is not going to bring a lawsuit unless a lot of consumers are affected. If it's just one or two complaints, they are as useless as the BBB, which will merely forward your complaint to PA for comment. I've been down that road and got nowhere (except that the BBB downgraded PA's rating based on the number of complaints received). (The BBB correspondence is all on my web site.)
Yes, I think it probably is a legal issue. They are empowered by the legislature to handle only "consumer" issues, so anything else they consider outside their jurisdiction. We have debated before in these postings whether or not the contract between PA and an author should be considered a "consumer" issue, but the Maryland AG has decided that it is not, and they get the final word--at least, in Maryland.
As others have pointed out, the only way the AG might be interested is if your dispute with PA involved the purchasing of books, rather than the contract to have your book "published" by PA. When you buy books from PA, you are a consumer. Of course, even on that score, an AG office is not going to bring a lawsuit unless a lot of consumers are affected. If it's just one or two complaints, they are as useless as the BBB, which will merely forward your complaint to PA for comment. I've been down that road and got nowhere (except that the BBB downgraded PA's rating based on the number of complaints received). (The BBB correspondence is all on my web site.)
Although I can't help but notice that the business-to-business relation issue hasn't stopped the Florida Attorney General from going after Bobby Fletcher. Is it a case of different laws in different states, or because the Maryland Attorney General is a wuss?
The Maryland AG Office must have received at least as many complaints about PA as the Florida AG Office has re. Bobby Fletcher's operations (I'm speculating and could easily be wrong).
oh yeah, I have did the complaint thing with bbb also. I also wrote a email to Miranda. and ask for my rights back, or if nothing else sell my contract to another agent or publisher and i even suggested one. Was that a great idea. They have in my contract where at any time they can do that. thought I would try this tactic to see what response that I get from her.
I would say that they received more than the 86 complaints that is on BBB. I guess they are a wuss. it looks like the same thing to me even if it is in Fla or maryland. They are still ripping people off.
Wanda,
They're not going to sell your book. They don't care about it. They don't think about it. It exists only as a file in a computer that they hit "print" on whenever someone buys a copy. Selling it to another publisher would mean contracts and negotiations and money on their part. They don't do that. It's too much effort and not enough profit.
I know this sounds harsh, but --
Let it go.
The book is dead. Your rights are worthless, even if you get them back. You'd have to do massive edits on it before a real publisher would even look at it, and that's a lot of effort for a book you'll NEVER have 1st rights for again. Even if PA gives you your rights back, they CAN'T give you those.
All you're doing by this constant stream of ideas of what to do with your book and how to market it and how to get it back or to another publisher is demonstrating the kind of rabid desperation PA feeds on.
They're not going to sell your book. They don't care about it. They don't think about it. It exists only as a file in a computer that they hit "print" on whenever someone buys a copy. Selling it to another publisher would mean contracts and negotiations and money on their part. They don't do that. It's too much effort and not enough profit.
I know this sounds harsh, but --
Let it go.
The book is dead. Your rights are worthless, even if you get them back. You'd have to do massive edits on it before a real publisher would even look at it, and that's a lot of effort for a book you'll NEVER have 1st rights for again. Even if PA gives you your rights back, they CAN'T give you those.
All you're doing by this constant stream of ideas of what to do with your book and how to market it and how to get it back or to another publisher is demonstrating the kind of rabid desperation PA feeds on.
The relationship of author to agent is legally different than author to publisher, and thus falls under the AG's jurisdiction.
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Utter nonsense. It's contractual law. A PA writer has sold PA a product, therefore they are a business selling to another business and are not protected as a consumer.
~brian~
And that would mean contracts with another business that has lawyers on retainer who would insist on PA living up to the spirit of the contract.
Heh. That'll teach me to assume.
I though similar rules would apply because Fletcher's publishing ventures (Eloquent Books and Strategic Books) are named in the suit, with paragraph 27 being particularly instructive.
Of course, the fact that Fletcher uses his agency business to funnel writers into his publishing ventures in an extended scam probably makes a difference.
I think they are alot of scammers out there, so meanwhile,I will wait and see what Miranda says, not holding my breath though. Can I post her email here when she writes back.
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My understanding is that no, you cannot. When someone writes an email, they own the copyright on the text they have created as well as all publication rights. They may choose to send that email to you as a private communication, but that does not give you the right to publish their text somewhere else without their permission.
IANAL -- can anyone confirm or correct me on this one?
I'm not a lawyer either, but I consider emails to be little gifts that I may use however I wish because they were given to me and now they are mine.
It isn't very nice, but sometimes this rude policy can come in handy, such as if a mad scientist emails me about committing a UFO hoax with a balloon, only to pull the stunt before a horrified nation months later; I would feel justified in reposting the emails in that case.
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Without getting into the legalities of it, others have posted the full texts of letters from PA.
I don't expect any letter from Miranda to be more than a cobbled-together collection of standard paragraphs that we've seen dozens of times before in other letters.
I don't expect any letter from Miranda to be more than a cobbled-together collection of standard paragraphs that we've seen dozens of times before in other letters.