I received this email from Phillip R. Dolan, who got the rights to his manuscript and his money back from PublishAmerica. Rather than paraphrase his email, I am reposting it in its entirety:
Some scam publishers can be stopped. Publish
America’s contract has an arbitration clause to prevent authors from suing them.
To me, it seems to be a mistake because lawsuits are expensive and time
consuming. Arbitration under their contract requires that the American
Arbitration Association rules be followed. Those rules are user friendly and
inexpensive, especially when the prevailing party is reimbursed for all fees and
expenses. Even attorney fees if one uses an attorney. Anyone with a high school
education can handle an arbitration if they are so inclined.Anyway, I filed for arbitration against PA and won. It took
eight months and I did it without an attorney. My contract was rescinded (not
just terminated) to the date it was signed and I received damages and expenses.
I thought this would be but the first of many arbitrations and that PA might be
driven out of business. It cost them quite a bit.To help other authors complete arbitrations I posted how I
had done it, including my mistakes, at Arbitration And How To Do It (PublishAmerica, Publish
America)http://p208.ezboard.com/bedandsootswritersguild
I had a forensic accountant examine PA’s sales records and
posted that info. I had an intellectual property attorney analyze the whole
thing and I posted excerpts of that. Together it is a blueprint of how to know
when PA breaches the contract and how to make them pay for it and get author’s
rights returned.In about six months there have been 4,691 views just of the
accountant’s report so I know a lot of people have looked at the arbitration
material. But not one author, other than me, has filed
for arbitration. Two other anti-scam sites even offered to pay all the costs
attendant to arbitration. Not one PA author took them up on it.I think that any author who feels they were scammed by
PublishAmerica and refuses to take any action other than complaining is right
where they should be.Phillip R. Dolan
I said this early on in the PA wars back in 2002-3. I was ridiculed, blogswarmed and eventually banned from any website where PA authors congregated, including absolutewrite and Mindsight at the request of drum roll…the agrieved PA authors.
I doubt anyone else will file Phil and always have. Nothing has changed except multitudes have had their rights returned voluntarily after about a year and a half.
The working hypothesis for why is those who wouldn’t buy their own books, or they already had bought the usual 75 copies and thus had paid the back door vanity fee of $375.
A not-insignificant fraction of PA authors are senior citizens on fixed incomes. While AAA demands the reimbursement of costs, one still has to come up with that money in the first place.
It’s inappropriate to blame PA victims. Sure, those that can go to arbitrartion should, but for many it is a hardship, and the time an arbitration can be better spent writing a book that will sell to a legitimate publisher.
Excellent information, Phil. 🙂
I recently published my first book (The Long Harmattan Season) and have decided to blog about my experiences as a first time independently published author. You can follow my musings at http://thelongharmattanseason.blogspot.com/
iUniverse is a not publishing, nor is independent the correct terminology. if your experience is anything like mine and the multitudes of others who’ve tried this there will be nothing to follow.
I want to go after PA, I feel like an idiot, and when I recieved my check (finally) I was even more mad than I had been. I really need help, any one willing to help please send me an email.