What to do?

Wow. That's a hard one. What does your Editor-In-Chief think? What is the paper's journalistic responsibility? If you believe PA is a swindle (and it is), do you want the paper be complicit?

Personally, I'd call the woman and tell her I'd heard some disturbing things about PA, and thought she should know about it. Reference this site. We've seen how PA-ers will turn a deaf ear to this sometimes. You can't make her believe, but you can at least point the truth out to her.

Okay, as a lawyer, it's my job to be extremely cautious and advise my clients against any action that might subject them to liability, so I see risk everywhere. So, it may not be surprising that the idea of calling up someone to whom you owe no legal duty (different from a moral duty, but I can only address the legal one) and have no real relationship with, and telling her that the company she's planning to contract with (for the second book) is a scam, well, that worries me.

There's a cause of action in many states, known as something along the lines of "tortious interference with a business relationship," which basically establishes liablity for convincing someone to breach a contract. Now, I'm not giving individual legal advice here, and I don't know if the law in your jurisdiction would recognize this tort, and the truth of the scam might well be a defense, and it would seem unlikely that anyone would pursue any sort of lawsuit here, but there is some risk that you should be aware of.

There's a big difference between what's done here at AW -- answering questions and making information available to anyone who wants it -- and seeking out a specific person who is happy (wrongly, but still ...) with their publisher and telling them that they should switch publishers. We make information available and we welcome anyone who wants this information; we don't track down the PA authors and email/phone them to tell them anything.

Anyway, just a bit of legal information for you to consider. Which, of course, isn't the only factor in reaching an ethical decision. But your actions might well extend to your employer, rending the paper liable too, so you might want to consider discussing the options with your boss and getting a legal AND ethical opinion from the boss and in-house counsel, if there is one.

JD, not giving individual legal advice, just general information

The poor lady isn't going to build a house with her PA royalties. She'll learn that for herself soon enough.

Leaving her aside, could you do a feature article on the PA Controversy? Perhaps turn it over to your consumer advocate?

If her book is worthy of publication, suggest that it might be better suited to bigger publishers.

If she was stopping after just one book then talking to her might do more harm than good, but you can't let her send them her second one. Tell her about Atlanta Nights. Send her here if she has net access. (Don't they keep in touch with all their authors by email, anyway?)

Many ideas for what to do need to be filtered through the personality of the person and the relationship they have with the person telling them...

Depending on those things, sending them here or giving them a copy of AN may backfire...