The Newer Never-Ending PublishAmerica / America Star Books Thread

TheTinCat

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James D. Macdonald

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Well, that goes a long way to explaining why it is that PA had to go to Baker&Taylor rather than back to LSI after their experiment with their toy printer predictably crashed and burned.


Who wants jury duty?

I can imagine the lawyers asking all the potential jury members, "Have you, or any member of your family, ever been vanity-published?" and challenging everyone who said "Yes."
 
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ResearchGuy

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Who wants jury duty?
Several months ago I was on a jury for a civil case (one business suing another over a rather complicated matter involving construction work). After the case was over, I looked up the parties via Google and learned that the plaintiff (the company and its owner, each, in fact) had a long history of criminality and had come off of probation in a big criminal tax-evasion case (state level) not long before it filed the suit. None of the jurors had a clue about that, of course, and it would not have been pertinent to the case. But the extent of the wrongoing was surprising.

Any potential juror who knows anything about PA will have to be disqualified, and probably any with any knowledge of publishing (vanity, subsidy, self-, or commercial). And any jurors (if it comes to trial) who research PA afterwards might be surprised at what they find.

I'd have to agree with the expectation that it will be settled out of court (after LS humiliates PA and its lawyers).

--Ken
 

ChristineR

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Can someone help me figure this one out? Here's what I get, so far.

1) PA had an agreement whereby LSI would print and ship PA books, but some books were printed by PA on their big laser printer.
2) PA made the books returnable.
3) LSI accepted the returns, and destroyed them, for a $2 fee. The bookstores would make a charge back to LSI, and LSI would keep $2 and charge the balance back to PA.
4) LSI accepted returns that were not printed by PA. This struck me as odd, until I considered a bookstore buying 100 copies of something and eventually returning 25. The store doesn't keep track of which books came from which supplier. Eventually, all the books be destroyed at LSI and the publisher will get the money back, save LSI's two dollar fees.

So far so good. But apparently the contract had an option where, for an additional fee, LSI would send the books back to PA. But it appears that LSI was accepting virtual returns, that is just getting the covers and destroying them? And that LSI was actually printing new books to satisfy PA's requests for fulfillment?

Is that right, or is that just PA imagining LSI was trying to cheat them?
 

James D. Macdonald

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From the point of view of publishing, all books with the same ISBN are the same book, whether some individual copy was physically printed by Adam A. Aardvark or Zebulon Z. Zebra.

Bookstores would have returned their books (in the case of PA, virtually all of them, were any actually ordered) to their distributors, who would have returned them to their suppliers, and thence eventually to Ingram.

I don't feel sorry for Larry and Miranda. They thought they were the cleverest bunnies in the burrow.

They aren't.

I do wonder if the reason Wild Willie bailed out was because he could see a train wreck coming and didn't want to be there for it.
 

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Probably not, but it does seem an uncharacteristic misstep to sue someone who most likely has deeper pockets than themselves and is probably in a better position to weather long and expensive court proceedings. And a jury trial? IANAL, but if it came down to evidence of comparative accuracy of bookkeeping, PA could be in deep doo-doo.
That's what I was thinking when I first saw PA's initial filing: they're going to have to open their books to provide proof of the alleged misdealings. It's going to take a helluva lot more than PDF copies of LSI's user guides to get out of this one.
 

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I was reading, a few pages back, the discusion about royalties. I don't know if this would have any bearing on that discusion or the ones to follow but, I recevied an e-mail today stating I had no royalties coming because my book has had no sales. That was for my first book. For my second, I received a letter in the mail stating I had sold two copies and I had made $2.55 in royalties from those sales. Below the statement, it also reads: "Per your contract, no payment is due to you until you have accumulated $49.00 in royalties."

I grabbed my contract and read through it three times. I can't find that clause in there anywhere. I have had other PA authors tell me that was in their contracts and I was wondering if any of you could tell me where to find it. Maybe I overlooked it. I already posted something about it on PA's message board to see if I would get a reply. So far, nothing. I would love, just as much as everyone else, to catch them lying. But, I want to make sure I have MY info right before I go any farther. Thank you!
 

Marie Pacha

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The new contracts have that clause. Older ones, like mine, did not.
 

spike

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Can someone help me figure this one out? Here's what I get, so far.

1) PA had an agreement whereby LSI would print and ship PA books, but some books were printed by PA on their big laser printer.
2) PA made the books returnable.
3) LSI accepted the returns, and destroyed them, for a $2 fee. The bookstores would make a charge back to LSI, and LSI would keep $2 and charge the balance back to PA.
4) LSI accepted returns that were not printed by PA. This struck me as odd, until I considered a bookstore buying 100 copies of something and eventually returning 25. The store doesn't keep track of which books came from which supplier. Eventually, all the books be destroyed at LSI and the publisher will get the money back, save LSI's two dollar fees.

So far so good. But apparently the contract had an option where, for an additional fee, LSI would send the books back to PA. But it appears that LSI was accepting virtual returns, that is just getting the covers and destroying them? And that LSI was actually printing new books to satisfy PA's requests for fulfillment?

Is that right, or is that just PA imagining LSI was trying to cheat them?

From what I understand, PA is asserting that they are being charged by LSI for books that PA doesn't believe are returned.

PA asked for the books, assuming LSI would ship the returned books. But they shipped new ones.

LSI claims that the contract says they will provide a copy of the returned book, not the actual book that was returned.

Is that correct?

.
 

Cyia

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PA's saying that the books they got aren't the "returned" ones because they're not worn as though handled in a bookstore.

1. Those books weren't on bookstore shelves, so the weren't browsed.
2. Even if they were browsed, most people don't even crease the spine when they browse.
3. As others have said, returned books don't look "used". Used books aren't books that were returned for quality issues, they'd be something that someone had a while, read, and returned after the fact.
4. How stupid does it sound to any sane person for a company to print off new copies just so they can send them back to PA as returns?
 

Arkie

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The new contracts have that clause. Older ones, like mine, did not.

My contract does not have that clause. To first earn $49.00 in royalties before being paid means that 51 books sold at $19.95 with a 40% discount have to sell before any royalties are paid. Royalties are based on the discounted price. Many PA authors will not sell fifty-one $19.95 books through a venue that will pay royalties--web-store-sites, bookstores, etc. Many of these authors will have worked long and hard to turn out a product that they, in reality, have given away. Prospective PA authors need to think long and hard before signing a contract with the $49.00 provision.
 

merrihiatt

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I was reading, a few pages back, the discusion about royalties. I don't know if this would have any bearing on that discusion or the ones to follow but, I recevied an e-mail today stating I had no royalties coming because my book has had no sales. That was for my first book. For my second, I received a letter in the mail stating I had sold two copies and I had made $2.55 in royalties from those sales. Below the statement, it also reads: "Per your contract, no payment is due to you until you have accumulated $49.00 in royalties."

My contract does not contain this wording. It would be in the section regarding royalties/royalty payment. IIRC, the new wording began appearing in early to mid 2009.
 

merrihiatt

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Part of the problem with returns, from what I read, is that not all of PA's titles were made returnable. PA was supposed to specify to Lightning Source which books were and were not returnable. PA didn't do this, so LS acted as if all the books were returnable. Then, for some reason I cannot explain unless it is cheaper, LS said they indeed had destroyed the returned copies and printed off new copies of the books and sent those to PA as the returned copies when PA said they didn't believe LS was telling the truth because so many books were being returned, so they told LS to send them the actual physical copies of the books at a fee of $2 a pop to PA. PA then said the books weren't "worn" and looked pristine.

DISCLAIMER: I may not have this correct, but this is what I think is happening.
 

BenPanced

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Looks like they're retaining an attorney in Nashville because Cretella's name and signature are nowhere to be found on PA's initial suit.
 

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. . . As others have said, returned books don't look "used". . . .
Don't bet on it. A publisher friend of mine was dismayed to receive a shipment of books back from a wholesaler (or distributor -- but I think it was wholesaler) in unsaleable condition. I don't know how typical her situation is, but it was very expensive for her (it was a hardback illustrated children's book).

--Ken
 

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Don't bet on it. A publisher friend of mine was dismayed to receive a shipment of books back from a wholesaler (or distributor -- but I think it was wholesaler) in unsaleable condition. I don't know how typical her situation is, but it was very expensive for her (it was a hardback illustrated children's book).
Hmmm...I was assuming in my example that if most returned books leave our store in like-new condition, most make it all the way back to the publisher that way. Obviously, I may be making a bad assumption there. But I don't think so in many cases, because we get remaindered hardbacks all the time that have been through the whole return, sell as remainder, resticker, resend process and most look pristine other than the black marker slash across the page edges.
 
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TheTinCat

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Larry and Miranda seem to have somewhat lost touch with reality on this one ...
 

TheTinCat

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From the counterclaim:

Since on or around October 27, 2009, PA has owed a net amount back to LSI after offsetting monies payable to PA under the Agreement against fees and expenses payable to LSI. LSI has sent monthly invoices and statements to PA demanding payment of the amount due and owing.

That's quite poetic, considering the whole "we can't pay you royalties because the evil booksellers aren't paying us" - hoopla they're feeding their authors right now.