False and misleading advertising is illegal.
But the dollar amounts are low, the victims are spread out over a lot of jurisdictions, and explaining to a jury how what they're doing is different from mere incompetence would be tough.
Vanishingly few literary fraudsters go to jail, even among the worst of the worst.
Yes, and every time we've pointed something out to them, they've changed their wording so that it's NOT false. We've watched them do it. Now on their pages it says 'a book is not automatically placed on the shelves. Author, there is work to be done!'
And if someone doesn't look closely enough to find it, well, that's not PA's fault.
Just as recently as a year ago they added the 'lower acceptance threshold' line - meaning we pretty much accept most of what comes into the inbox. But it's not a lie.
They edit for grammar and punctuation. They do a really bad job, but they do it.
The only thing I can see they've really done that's absolutely illegal is sell books after the rights have been returned.
It's like buying a timeshare- it looks really good in the brochure, but once you lay down your money, they show you the fine print.
I'd be happy to contribute to an article. But perhaps a more meaningful one would be one about how REAL publishing works, and then compare it to PA. Don't go in guns blazing - most newspapers hate controversy - but be respectful, articulate, and informative.
There's some question over the royalty statments, but unless someone like the IRS did a foresnic accounting (and got to look at the real books), no one's going to know for certain.
