Getting out from under PA:does re-writing my book consitute a new book if it is changed 10%?

Just change your book. Make it better.

themaninblack said:

I have heard different opinions on this one. My book, "Observations of a Southern Youth", was released by PublishAmerica in 2006. I do not wish to wait for the remainder of that time to do something with my work.
Unfortunately I no longer have my contract and cannot get a copy from PA.
I have been told that changing my book just 10% is considered by law making a new book, one which the publisher has no control over.
Can anyone point me to any copyright laws that cover this? I would like to read it for myself if it can be found.

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Exactly how much you have to change a book to make it a new work under the law is a question that you should explore with a lawyer versed in intellectual property laws. I am not a lawyer, but I seriously doubt that a 10% change is enough to make a new work.

A far better plan would be to write an entirely new, original work, using what you learned while writing this one to make you a better writer.

Changed 10% or 90% you'll be unlikely to find a legitimate publisher for this book. Its sales history will brand it "proven failure."

themaninblack:
I have been told that changing my book just 10% is considered by law making a new book, one which the publisher has no control over.

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I'd be interested in knowing who told you that as I've never heard it before.

Speaking generally, you would effectively have to re-write your book into an entirely new story in order for it to be considered a new work and even then, it would be entirely open for PA to launch a copyright infringement claim if (a) substantial similarities remain and (b) it is clear that the rewrite was only done to avoid your contract.

Jim's right - if you're determined to go down the rewrite route then you need to consult an IP lawyer. Personally, I'd recommend writing this off as a bad experience and start a new, different book.

MM

If you want a career of any kind as a writer, write a new book. That can be hard advice to take if you've ever only really finished one work (speaking from personal experience - for all I know you could have fifty finished novels sitting around), but it's the best one.

This particular book is now under a terrible contract with a bad vanity publisher, and trying to salvage it will be way more trouble than just writing another one. When the contract expires you could be several new works down the line, and you'll be much more skilled and able to rewrite this first one, if you still want to.

Like everyone else has said - write a new book.

You've got more than one story in you - let another one come out and let the first one rest in peace.

I know you more than likely feel like you put a lot of time and creative energy into writing this book, but don't take the lazy route by changing a few names, adding or deleting a few chapters, changing the ending or even the name of the book. It will still be the same book and you know it...

Like the others have said, write a new book, a better book, a non-PA book, which this one will always be.

themaninblack said:

Hey everybody thanks for the advice!
I am not sure when I will start to write another book, though I know I would definitely like to include some of my work from my first book (which by the way is an anthology of poetry).
I will of course try to find an IP attorney to consult with and see what my options are...

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If it's poetry, then you're most likely talking self-publishing anyway. There aren't many commercial publishers that deal with poetry.

Cyia said:

If it's poetry, then you're most likely talking self-publishing anyway. There aren't many commercial publishers that deal with poetry.

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This...^^^^

Still, self-publishing or not, you can't publish the same book again, while it is under contract with PA. So even if a commercial publisher wouldn't be interested and you decide to self-publish, the question of whether to try to change it or whether to write something new remains.

And since it's poetry I somehow find it hard to imagine that you CAN change it enough, as poems are usually separate entities, and each of those entities would be recognizable on its own. If you have 100 poems and change 10 of them, it still would not be hard to see that the rest are the same ones under contract somewhere else. So the "changing X percent" thing doesn't seem to apply here...

I'm not a lawyer, but I would imagine you would have to change each poem enough that you might as well write entirely new ones...

A copyright attorney will be of no help. You hold the copyright, you did not sign it over. What you did sign over is the publishing rights. To try and sell the book again is a breach of that contract.

Now, you contracted with me to sell your exclusive brand of winter booties. I am the only person in the universe who can sell your booties. You don't like the way I am selling them because I am an idiot. How much would you have to change those booties in order to sell them elsewhere? Would dyeing them blue and hanging a dingle-ball on the zipper be enough? Probably not. You would have to design an entirely new bootie for a legitimate bootie maker to be interested.

The "10% rule" is a bit of an urban myth.

The problem with the "10% rule" is that no one clarifies which 10% you're supposed to change.

I could do a search/replace on Bestseller: the novel and change all of the character names. That's probably 10% of the words on the page. But, no one would believe for a second that it was a new novel just because I slapped a new title on it.

I could change the setting, with my new character names -- still not a new novel.

I could leave the character names alone, transport them into a steampunk time period, but leave the plot in tact save the tweaks needed to replace cars with airships and put them in Victorian clothes -- still not a new novel.

You have to alter the plot - significantly - and by the time you've done that you might as well have written a new novel.

With poetry... just start over.

circlexranch said:

Now, you contracted with me to sell your exclusive brand of winter booties. I am the only person in the universe who can sell your booties. You don't like the way I am selling them because I am an idiot. How much would you have to change those booties in order to sell them elsewhere? Would dyeing them blue and hanging a dingle-ball on the zipper be enough? Probably not. You would have to design an entirely new bootie for a legitimate bootie maker to be interested.

The "10% rule" is a bit of an urban myth.

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Yes, precisely this - circlexranch said it better than I did.

Glad to read the advice here. I originally thought of changing bits of the book but as it's a travel book of my vacations in America, with another as a manuscript, at the moment, there's nothing I can change.
I paid for my book rights to be returned on january 6, 2011 and they took the money from my credit card on the 7th - but nothing has arrived. No replies to my emails so I'm looking for advice from my credit card people, and I have also notified the Governor of Maryland plus the Attorney General of Florida (who is interested in people like PA.)

Take what you will from this since IANAL, but you're better off with what advice your credit card company can give you. PA operates on just this side of legal, so the governor of Maryland won't care (they really have no power to do anything about it, anyway). And since PA is in Maryland, the AG of Florida has no jurisdiction on how PA operates, anyway.

I think that a new book is one that´s been completely rewritten, not a 10%, but that´s just me.

I just signed on to this site. I have some comments to make about PA but will get to those later. For now, I'd advise that author to do a completely new book. Even a rewrite would contain parts of the original work. Look at that author trying to sue Stephen King, claiming plagarism, just because some phrases and such seems to be too coincidental. You can find similarities in many, many books, even from different time periods.

I think all DECEIVED PA authors need to join this site and relate their experiences. I had sent out numerous queries to publishers, even agents. I probably got the PA ad from one of the sites I had searched. I was excited when PA asked to see my novel and even ECSTATIC when they said they wanted to publish it. Like many others, I thought they were a LEGITIMATE publisher, not a POD company. Suffice it to say, I learned too late what a SCAM they were running. Their contract is the shrewdest and most DECEITFUL as any lawyer could draft. What they say and IMPLY in the contract is so closely entwined that you can hardly tell the difference. The 7 years should have warned me but I found out about this company after the fact. They asked for no upfront fees, implying they were a legitimate publisher. I did get the books I ordered but it took much too long. I bought hardcover books and got softcover. I answered an e-mail to have my book available in bargain hardback. Later they informed us (I'm sure they e-mail en masse) they were doing away with all hardcovers. They told me my softcover would be available for 9.95, I think, and hardcover for 14.95, prices still too high to compete with current books. They increased the book to 29.95 and it's still listed in their online bookstore. Amazon and B&N list it but the price is still too high for anyone perusing those sites to even consider buying. I'd be reluctant to pay that much for one by a best selling author.
The only positive thing I can say is that I FINALLY got the books I paid for. On 1 order of 10, PA offered me buy 1, get 1. On another, buy 5, get 25. After hassling with them, I did get my hardcovers for a total of 82 books. By adding in those extra 30, I ended up paying slightly more than $800. I'm selling them to friends and relatives for a reasonable price and will not lose that much, in the end. I never got my FREE copy even though I paid $49 for the Rush Production Service to get it prior to publication.
I have been deleting all their subsequent e-mails. I never responded to their offers to have my book go to Oprah, etc. and all the others. Once I got my books, after I found out about them by checking various sites, I have had no dealings with them since last July. My contract was signed May 2010 and will tie up the book for 7 years. That's OK. The copies of my novel are being sold mostly in my home town/county to friends and relatives who hopefully will pass them on to posterity. The story is based on a real-life, historical event and the historical societies are selling copies for me. I'm hoping it will become part of our heritage for future generations. That's the main reason I wrote it - not necessarily to market it to a wide audience.
The only positive thing I can say about my dealings with PA is that I did get all my books. FINALLY! Other than that, I got SHAFTED at every turn, as most of my fellow authors did. SHAME on PA for all their deceitful ways!

Welcome to the board, Tobby!

Tobby C. Cantrell said:

They asked for no upfront fees... I paid $49 for the Rush Production Service to get it prior to publication.

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That's what's clever about PA's approach. They won't ask for a penny prior to your signing the contract, but once that's done, you'll find yourself paying in ways you never anticipated.

In my earlier post, I failed to mention something that will give you food for thought. Ever wonder why PublishAmerica deals with correspondence thru e-mails and not by the U. S. mail? And they ship the books by UPS or FedEx? If they used the U. S. Postal Service to correspond with their authors, promising things they have no intention of delivering, or by shipping the wrong goods by mail and not willing to rectify the error, the postal inspectors would already have shut the company done. The internet is not regulated; neither are UPS and FedEx, private corporations. Very cunning of PA to use a means of communication not government regulated. They haven’t, in essence, broken any federal laws. It is my understanding that the BBB and the Maryland Attorney General have adopted a “hands off” policy since it seems no state law has been violated either.DON’T USE PUBLISHAMERICA IF YOU TRULY WANT TO BE AN AUTHOR WHO MAKES IT SOLELY ON MERIT. The choice is yours, however. Notice they take only credit cards; they don’t want to use the U. S. Postal Service for anything for fear they could be found guilty of mail fraud. By the way, I retired from the Postal Service and know about mail fraud. I just didn’t know about PA. Being fairly new to this internet technology, I was just like a baby learning to walk. Agents and publishers deal only with e-mail and such nowadays. If I can get anyone else to try to market his or her work the RIGHT way (an agent is the best way to go), I will be content that I’ve in some way helped an aspiring writer.NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE ELSE SAYS, PUBLISHAMERICA IS A POD COMPANY. NOTHING MORE, NOTHING LESS. The only problem is that most aspiring writers do not know this when they are taken in by PA’s glowing promise to give the author his or her chance to be published. They’ll give you a contract, they’ll pay you royalties, they’ll send out press releases, they imply they’ll make your book available in bookstores and mislead you into thinking they’ll promote and distribute your work to the general public.

Actually, I think they ship through UPS or FedEx because it's less expensive for them. Really, I'm no fan of PA, but let's not ascribe malice to everything.

And I'm no lawyer, but fraud perpetrated through the Internet and UPS and FedEx is still fraud, and it still gets prosecuted by the feds.

Some other folks here can speak better than I about PA and Maryland law.

Actually, the post office is cheaper on shipping. UPS and FedEx have no book rate (media mail with USPS). One book is $2.77 for shipping. 10, for example, would not be 10 x $2.77, but rather about $10.00, I would think. The rates PA charges is ludicrous!