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YouWriteOn.com / New Generation Publishing / Legend Press

para

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Monday 19th January 2009 - 7:53am.
Messageboard is still down I see.
 

M.R.J. Le Blanc

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Monday 19th January 2009 - 7:53am.
Messageboard is still down I see.

I think it's unlikely it's ever coming back. I'd wager a guess that Tom's just got too many other things to deal with right now, with the mess he seems to have created for himself. This is a good example of why one-man shows are rarely a viable operation, irregardless of whether they're legit or not.
 

Old Hack

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The message has now changed to read,

View Some Of Our Writers Publishing Successes including Book Store Signing Pictures Below. The YouWriteOn forum is currently having new functions added during January and will return.

There follows a sales talk for their publishing scheme, which starts off with a mention for Bufflehead Sisters (this really should be appearing now on our bingo cards), discusses some of the issues with POD publishing (not the same ones that I've seen highlighted on the Behler blog, though), a bit about pricing, and a bit about royalties; and then the same pictures of signings and so on that have appeared for the past few weeks.

If the messageboard does come back it shoudl be fabulous, now that Ted's spent all this time improving it. This is the third week, isn't it?
 

Parchment

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I'm now feeling angry about it all. I can't afford to lose 39.99. I paid it in good faith, but it would seem unlikely that it will ever find it's way back to my account, even if I cancel with YWO. A friend has sent an email cancelling, but has had no acknowledgement and is more or less writing off his payment.:rant:
 

Old Hack

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Parchment, is your book not yet available? After all this time?

I'd assumed that the books were quietly rolling out, despite the message board not being up over at YWO: I know that a few more appeared on B&N after it closed down. But I didn't realise that there were still people whose books had not yet appeared.

That's awful.

I don't suppose that ANY of the books which were promised the free deal have appeared yet, have they? At least those authors aren't out of pocket and probably won't lose their first rights either. This is just so messy.
 

Parchment

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I emailed mine off on the 12 October having followed the formatting instructions very carefully. I received an email from Tom at Legend Press in November asking me to send the cover in Word format. Then on 5 December I received another request from him to send the text in Word format, by the Monday so that it could be published for Christmas. I sent it by return. I've heard absolutely nothing since then despite all their promised messages etc.
My friend sent hers on 12 October and had her book in her hands before Christmas.
There seem to be several, if not a large number, of people like me - waiting, in the dark, unable to make contact.
I should have taken my friends' advice and not got involved!
 

Sheryl Nantus

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I'm now feeling angry about it all. I can't afford to lose 39.99. I paid it in good faith, but it would seem unlikely that it will ever find it's way back to my account, even if I cancel with YWO. A friend has sent an email cancelling, but has had no acknowledgement and is more or less writing off his payment.:rant:

I would encourage your friend (and yourself) to pursue legal venues to have your money returned.

If you had ordered a magazine subscription or bought something from Amazon and hadn't gotten it you'd do the same - why write it off?

The worst that can happen is that you don't get it back. The best is that you get it back AND alert the authorities to a possible problem.

Go fer it.
 

qwerty

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At one time anyone could go the the small claims court for no fee to claim less than £200, but I believe that is no longer so.

Momento Mori posted on another thread about this.

Maybe cheaper to ask the Arts Council about misrepresentation using their name. You could start with:

Charles Beckett
Assistant Officer, Literature
Arts Council England, London
Direct Line 020 7608 6187
Fax 020 7340 1092
Email [email protected]
 
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Parchment

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I've already written to the Arts Council.

This is a snippet from a publishing update which has appeared on www.youwriteon.com this afternoon:

YouWriteOn Writers Quick Off The Mark YouWriteOn published authors have achieved a great deal in a short space of time since their books began to be published in December 2008, including bookstore signings, media articles and stores like Waterstones stocking copies – please see below for details. In the coming weeks, we will be adding further news and pictures of other writers achievements. We will also be updating writers this week that we are in the process of publishing.

*****

There was initially a general promise to publish 5000 books before Christmas 2008. I hope they didn't mean 2009.

I have at least three emails in which I'm told my book will be published by Christmas.

YWO and Legend Press seem to forget that they made these promises.

YWO now seems more interested in giving time to the books that have already been published.






 

Old Hack

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I've just had a quick search on the British Library's website and can't find any of the few YWO ISBNs listed there, which implies that YouWriteOn has not fulfilled its obligations regarding legal deposit.

However, only four titles showed up there when I searched for Legend Press and I'm sure that LP has published more than four books. So either it's not submitted all of its books either, or the British Library is a little slow in adding the books to its database.
 

petec

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I thought they were supposed to deposit within 1 month of publication
 

Parchment

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And, on 12 January, in reply to my query, Nielsen's book data told me that my title has not been assigned an ISBN.

So, to summarise, YWO/Legend Press have had my cover and text in PDF format since mid-December; and the cover in Word format since mid-November, and the text beginning of December.
They haven't honoured their promise of publishing before Christmas.
The only communication I've had from them since the beginning of Christmas has been automated out-of-date emails.
As at 12 January my title had not been assigned an ISBN.

It's a pity there's no way of finding out just how many of us have titles held hostage by these people.

Watchdog's on tele - now there's a thought!
 

Old Hack

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I thought they were supposed to deposit within 1 month of publication

They have a legal obligation to do so within that period.
 

Momento Mori

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qwerty:
At one time anyone could go the the small claims court for no fee to claim less than £200, but I believe that is no longer so.

Momento Mori posted on another thread about this.

No, a court fee is payable on all amounts claimed through the Small Claims Court now, the fee itself depending on the amount being claimed. para has put some good links up on this for anyone interested, but the leaflet re the fees can be found here and seems to be £30 for amounts up to £300 although there are exceptions to payment depending on whether or not you are on benefits (more information on which is here. Given the amounts claimed, it's probably not worth the time and aggravation, but it's entirely up to you.

Although Trading Standards don't usually involve themselves in what they term business-to-business or commercial disputes, it might still be worthwhile notifying them of what's going on to see what they suggest.

MM
 

victoriastrauss

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You can't get them on the fact that they didn't publish by Christmas, I'm afraid, since the contract specifically qualified that bit of publicity puffery by stating that the Christmas pub date was an aspiration, not a guarantee. Which means that although they've certainly failed to fulfill their advertising hype, they haven't breached the contract.

I find it interesting that Tom Chalmers himself contacted you, Parchment. As the busy head of an independent publisher, you'd think that he would assign subordinate staffers to deal with Legend's POD activities.

- Victoria
 

Parchment

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I find it interesting that Tom Chalmers himself contacted you, Parchment.

The email received asking that I send my text in Word format (I had already sent a PDF document) was addressed to no one and signed by no one. There was no mention of my name or my book title. Just said:

'Hi, .... and signed off as YouWriteOn / Legend Press'

I wasn't happy about sending my text off in reply to an anonymous request so I copied the email to Ted and asked him if it was genuine. It looked as though it had been sent out to everyone. Ted replied that it was from Tom at Legend and that I should send what he was asking for.

As far as the promise for Christmas is concerned that is certainly what they managed to convey. They also seem to have delivered that promise to some, but how they were chosen, and why there are so many of us still waiting with NO news is beyond me.

Whatever happens, it has been an experience and I'm not likely to be worried by the 'I told you so' people, but I'm sad because I trusted these people. Wearing my 'nice' hat, I'm quite sure that's not what Ted or Tom set out to do, and I would like to think that my book will appear. :)
 
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gothicangel

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I would like to know the titles of these books being stocked in Waterstones. I did a search on waterstones.com and it spat out 0 results.

So to me this means that Ted knows a thing or two about the artifice of language and how to construct it. Stores 'like' Waterstones' are stocking these titles - but not Waterstones (like amazon.)
 

Anna Magdalena

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Ah, but that's on Waterstone's website. Which is a totally different thing from being able to order it in a Waterstone's store. Which, again, is quite a different matter from it being on display in a Waterstone's store. Unless Legend/YWO offer sale or return at favourable rates (favourable, that is, to Waterstone's) then I can't see it happening. I used to work in a Waterstone's store, by the way. Things may have changed in the last few years but when I was an employee, I doubt I would even have been allowed to order a YWO/Legend Press type POD book even for a single custoimer order.