For an attorney to take such a case, it would have to be a class action. So he'd need thousands of clients, and even then, it's unlikely he'd be interested unless each client was damaged by rather more than five or ten dollars. In this case, for a couple of books sold a couple of weeks after the contract was terminated, the proper approach is to send PA a certified letter, asking them to stop selling the book. As it is, the effort of deleting it from the system will probably cost them more than they ever made on it.
The real damage would be if they took this book on pretending they were a legitimate publisher, and managed to sell fewer than ten in a year and a half.
-unless the author buys his own books and has no family a PA book probably won't sell more than ten..
After over a year and a half I can still buy mine new and I got my rights back in 06. Again, if a repetivitve pattern can be shown for flagrant disregard of the law (which in one case would mean multiple counts of selling books back after rights revisions) PA could be sued and hit with a large punitive fine.
I saidin a post a ways back that screw many for a few pennies and it falls of the radar screen, screw one person royally and it becomes a large blip on the legal radar screen. Julie, I agree that one person and one book for two weeks does not make a case. A fair and reasonable amount of time has not transpired. But there are many otheres that go through the same thing with Publish America after a years time.
Legally, the case CAN be made against PA and there is enough material to do something, but what individual has the time to coordinate such an effort. Not all lawyers are bad. Mine is a pretty cool guy and pretty strait forward. He was a blessing whan it came to helping me with PA and getting my rights back.
I guess I'm not saying it will be done I'm saying there's enough material out there already and enough aggrieved authors that it COULD be done and enough damages hit against PA to make it worth some firms time. I got my rights back and I beleive that most people who want them back will get them back eventually. As both Dave and Uncle Jim have stated; the last place PA wants to be is in a court room.
I'm having lunch with my attorney tomorrow (after golf) and I'll bring this up. I'll post back later on with his answer. I hope everybody has a great weekend. I'm going back to my writing now
I wish nothing but good luck and good fortune to all those trying to get thier rights back.