Sales After Contract Expiration

I feel so upset. My contract expired last year (finally), but today I received a statement and check reflecting that a copy of my book sold. At the time of expiration, I asked PA to send me an official release of my contract, and they said they don't do that, and that when a contract expires, the book is taken out of their system, and that's the end of it. I also noticed that my book was still listed on Amazon's marketplace, new, and I know that they don't keep stock on hand since it's POD. When I called PA on this, they told me they can't control what individual sellers do

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the emails, because my computer crashed and I lost everything. They are now illegally selling my book, and I don't know what I can do about it. The ironic thing is that my book hadn't sold at all for at least a couple years, and so I finally made a sale and it's post-contract release

I am just at my wit's end with PA. Does anyone have any advice for what I should do about this?

DeadlyAccurate said:

If you want to take legal action against them, your ISP might (should?) have copies of all your emails. I'm guessing you'd need a subpoena to get to their backups, though. (Obviously I'm not a lawyer).

Have you checked your email account on your ISP's website to see if you're keeping copies of all the emails you download to your computer?

You'll probably need to talk to a lawyer about all this. Whether it's worth it to you only you can decide.

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That's a good idea about checking my ISP's website for the emails. I'll look into that. I'm hoping court action doesn't become necessary, mostly because it wouldn't be cost efficient at all. :/

merrihiatt said:

When I paid for my rights to be returned last year, the document I received from PA said they could not control copies that were already in the marketplace or sales from other sources that occurred once my rights were returned. They did say they would take the book out of their online store and they wouldn't print any more copies. That doesn't stop online sellers from saying the book is for sale (fulfillment of a sale is a bit more tricky, I would think so PA is no longer printing the book). There is a possibility that a few books really are hanging around somewhere.

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This is pretty much what they said in the email they sent me last year. They did remove my book from their online store. The thing is that if Amazon sellers (or anyone else) actually bought copies from PA, those royalties would've already been paid to me, unless they returned the books (if PA even allows that now; I have no idea what their return policy is these days). I don't think any bookstores/sellers have kept my book, literally, "in stock". Like I said, I hadn't seen a sale in years (since I stopped promoting it). I guess there is a small chance that an order was put in RIGHT before my contract ended (I think it ended in early August. Statements go from August 1st to January 31st), but that just seems super coincidental, since I haven't had a sale in so long.

The more interesting thing to me is that PA paid you a royalty on the book sale and sent you documentation of the sale after your contract had expired!

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I know. Either they're really cocky or really lax. Maybe a combination of both. What else is funny is that I moved a couple years ago, and sent them my new address and never heard back. This statement was sent to my new address, but my old address is on the statement and check itself I can't even begin to fathom how unorganized they must be.

I guess I'll just send them an email, and see what they say. I don't want to come off as threatening, but they seem to see threats even when there aren't any, so...

I forgot about the delay in royalties when bookstores purchase books. I guess that could be what happened. Still, I hope if nothing else this spurs PA to send me an official release from my contract. Right now, I don't have anything to show for it.

Out of curiosity, with regular publishers, when a book goes out of print, what exactly is the protocol for notifying bookstores? Like, for example, say a bookstore doesn't have any inventory left but someone wants to place a special order. Have the bookstores been notified somehow that the book is OOP, or what? I guess what worries me is that there's still a lot of places where my book is listed, new. I would like to think if these sellers tried to put an order in with PA, that PA would refuse and say the book is OOP. But since I have lost all trust in PA, it worries me that they will still print out and sell copies without informing me. I mean, what's to stop them?

merrihiatt said:

Nothing. That's a hard answer to hear, but with PA's reputation, I wouldn't put anything past them. Unfortunately, book sales with PA are dismal (at best), so the chances that many book sales will occur without heavy promotion by an author is incredibly low.

Side note: I'm not saying your book is bad by any means, just saying without promotion and distribution, who knows the book is even available?

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Oh, no, I understand completely what you're saying. I stopped promoting my book ages ago, which is why I was surprised it sold at all recently.

I guess I'm just concerned that if I ever wanted to shop my book around again, knowing PA still has their hands on my work and COULD distribute it without my knowledge, really bothers me. I don't know if that would create an even bigger road block with agents/publishers. Though before I shopped it around I would do a major rewrite and change the title, so maybe it's moot anyway. Would it still be considered a reprint, if major changes were made but the plot stayed relatively the same? I've always wondered this.

I find getting away from PA is sort of like trying to leave a bad relationship. As much as I want to move on, I find myself even more trepidacious now than I ever was.

Thank you for the information, James. I have a better understanding now.

I noticed Borders.com lists my book as being backordered and wondered what that meant exactly. Hopefully, if someone tried to order it, PA wouldn't honor the sale.

I'm still waiting to hear back from PA on my contract. This could take awhile...