Lee Goldberg

My Uncle Does a Very Good Thing

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Barer
The Puget Sound Business Journal reports that my Uncle and Aunt, Stan & Alta Barer, have just made a generous donation to the University of Washington to establish The Barer Institute for Law & Global Human Services:

University of Washington Regent Stanley Barer and his wife, Alta,
have pledged $4 million to the UW's School of Law to establish an
institute to improve human services around the world.

The Barer Institute for Law and Global Human Services aims to use
binding legal agreements, such as compacts, treaties and foreign aid
agreements, to coordinate efforts to address social problems.

Lives saved will be the institute's measure of success, said Stanley Barer, an owner of Seattle's Saltchuk Resources Inc.,
a marine transportation company. The institute will focus primarily on
poor areas that lack education, health services and economic
opportunities, he said.

"I think it is now in our best interests to think about safety nets
globally," said Barer, who is also the chair of the UW's Board of
Regents.

I think my Mom and my Uncle Burl may try to convince my Uncle Stan that a contribution to them would also enhance global safety. As for me, Saltchuk just snapped up the cargo operation of the now-defunct Aloha Airlines, so I think I'm going to ask Uncle Stan if we can send ourselves to Hawaii as freight this summer.

Joking aside, I think my late grandfather David Barer, who immigrated to this country as a child from a village in Russia and sold scrap metal in Walla Walla, would be so proud that his son was able to do this…I know I am.

Harvesting New Suckers

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As I warned back in December, it appears that the Jones Harvest vanity press is following the loathsome example set by Airleaf, the notorious publishing scam, and is targeting the elderly with false promises of bestseller success and instant celebrity. The Airleaf Victims blog reports:

In the past six months, I personally have received nine different
horror stories about Jones Harvest Publishing primarily from senior
citizens who invested thousands of dollars into an Airleaf-type dream
and in all but one case, after they invested and lost thousands of
dollars at Airleaf.

[…]When the
first set of victims came to me in November, I told them to request
their money back as I did all of the future ones who wrote to me. Some
of these new victims had their money returned after they wrote Jones
Harvest a letter threatening to report the company to the FBI and
Attorney General. However, there are other victims whom I have recently
learned about who have not had their money returned.

[…]Another note of interest: Part of the hook is promising reviews to customers. In a standard letter, it stated:
"Also
enclosed is a review we've received after sending it to a professional
reviewer… "

People pay Jones Harvest to get their books
reviewed. I read the review. It was signed by Tim, Brien's former phone
receptionist and college nephew. His title under his name was "Media
Researcher and Educator, T&R Reviews." The T&R stands for Tim
and Rosa, Tim's wife. That's really a credible "professional" source to
pay money for, isn't it?

It's no surprise that Jones Harvest is running the same, old scams.  Jones Harvest was founded by former Airleaf exec Brien Jones. I love this part of his pitch, which he has the gall to make to the Airleaf victims:

We will not be satisfied until we place [Your book] in bookstores
everywhere and [You] is a celebrity. This program has a one-time fee
of $7500. There are no further charges of any kind.

Sincerely,

Brien Jones, President

P.S.
In your case, the price is $5,000. That is my way of apologizing for
the past misfortunes AND showing you what we can accomplish at cost.
Please keep this offer confidential. All but a very few authors must
pay full price.

The solicitation is straight out of the Bookman Publishing/Airleaf book of scams and, if the Airleaf Victims report is accurate, is just as dishonest (That said, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for any Airleaf sucker who falls for this scam, too. Those people are beyond stupid…they must be brain dead).

It seems that Jones is intent on meeting the same fate as his mentor Carl Lau, the Bookman/Airleaf conman who lost his vanity press business and is finally being prosecuted by the Indiana Attorney General for his scams. I just hope the Attorney General's office doesn't take as long to investigate Jones Harvest as they did to look into Airleaf.

Buying Praise

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The following comment from Bill Williams was posted in the back-blog discussion a blog entry of mine regarding an iUniverse author who feels that I’ve "pissed on her parade" by slamming vanity presses. Her book was positively reviewed by bookreview.com, which is notorious as a place to go to buy positive customer reviews and have them posted on Amazon (I wrote about them back in 2004).

Lee,

I checked with a friend of mine who had a positive review of a book
of his posted on the bookreview.com website. He said that he had not
paid for the review and it was one that had been cross-posted at
Amazon.com by the reviewer. Was my friend lying or can you get a review
at that site without making payment?

Bill

I replied:

Your friend is probably telling you the truth. I just looked myself up on Bookreview.com and, lo and behold, found many of my books reviewed there…all by Harriet Klausner.

It seems that Klausner’s reviews are cross-posted there as well as on a dozen other sites and blogs. I suspect your friend was reviewed by her as well.

However, her reviews on Amazon are credited to her, NOT bookreview.com. When the bookreview.com reviews are posted on Amazon, "bookreview.com" is usually noted as the reviewer. Bookreview.com reviews are not taken seriously by anyone because of their reputation of being bought-and-paid-for…and thus worthless.

I quote from the bookreview.com site:

"Get your book listed on BookReview.com!

Our Express Review Service guarantees that your book is placed at the top of the reviewers’ pile. At a cost of $125 per book, this service guarantees that one of our professional reviewers will read and review your book within 15 business days of receiving it. The review will be posted on BookReview.com as well as Amazon.com and will be eligible to become a BookReview.com Book of the Month. Please send bound books only. No .pdf files or unbound manuscripts.

Once the review is completed, you are free to use any part of it in your promotional materials as long as BookReview.com is credited.

Publishers, Publicists and Literary Agents can click here to check out our Bulk Discount Program.

Do I have to purchase an Express Review in order to appear in your database?

    No. You can submit your book through our regular review channels. We receive hundreds of books each day and can give attention to only a small fraction of them. Simply submitting your book does not guarantee that it will be read and having your book read by one of our reviewers does not guarantee a review. Only purchasing an Express Review guarantees a review.

They also suggest:

Some hints for new authors:

   1. Our reviewers love collecting autographed books. Sign your book before sending it and you’ll have a much better chance of getting read.
   2. Please don’t send us a loose manuscript. Convert it to Palm Reader format and send it via email if you haven’t got a bound version. Or take it to a Kinko’s and have them bind it for you.
   3. If you’ve submitted your book correctly and you haven’t seen a review posted after a month, feel free to email us. If you still don’t see a review, it is likely that your book didn’t inspire the reviewer who chose it. If you’d like us to pass it on to another reviewer, you can email us the request. Remember, we prefer not to post negative reviews, so if we don’t like it, we probably won’t review it.
   4. If you passionately believe in your book, and you are having trouble getting it reviewed, please check out our New Author Listing and Express Review Service. "

What’s interesting is that even though you can buy a review…and in BULK… and get preferential treatment if your book is signed…they still pretend to be objective and unbiased. This is how, in part, they describe themselves collectively in their Amazon reviewer profile:

"[..]We pledge to offer unbiased reviews of books from a variety of publishers on a multitude of subjects and genres. Established in 1996, we also offer Express Review Service and New Author Listings"

Funny, they don’t mention when touting their lack of bias that you can buy a review for $125…but that’s because they don’t see an ethical problem with paying for a review, as they explain in their FAQ:

"Does purchase of an Express Review guarantee a good review?

    No. Our reputation was built on honest, straightforward reviews and we will not compromise our integrity by posting false reviews. Please use our Express Review service only if you believe deeply in your work.

Will anyone know I’ve purchased a review?

    No. You are paying for the right to go to the top of the review pile. Your review will be as unbiased as any other review on our site, so there is no reason to flag it as a "paid" review."

The writer who emailed me, and criticized my stance on iUniverse, was not reviewed by Klausner…but by Bookreview.com, which would indicate that the review was probably purchased. That said, I suppose there is a slim possibility that the review was not purchased…in which case, I owe her a sincere apology.

The Mail I Get

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I got this email today:

Hi,
Who the hell you are indeed!
Happened to come across
your website and couldn’t believe all the crap you have written about
iuniverse. I did publish with them not because I had a choice, but
because none of the so called legitimate publishers would take a look
at anything that is written by a person like me.   
Why am
I bothering writing to you? Because, indirectly, you are raining on my
parade. And I do not like it!

It’s not my problem that you have a hard time facing the truth. iUniverse is a vanity press, pure and simple.  iUniverse isn’t a publisher. They are a printer. They will print anything from anyone as long as the customer has a credit card. You still haven’t been published, you have merely gone to the online equivalent of Kinkos to have your manuscript printed in something resembling a paperback book.

Of course you "had a choice."  When genuine publishers declined to publish your manuscript, you chose to pay to have it printed by an online printing company rather than rewrite it, or stick it in a drawer, or move on to something else. 

The fact is, you still haven’t been published. You are deluding yourself if you think otherwise. In all likelihood, you will never get anything close to your investment back. That is the reality.

UPDATE: For the heck of it, I looked up the author’s POD book. Not only did she pay iUniverse to print it, she also paid bookreview.com to give her a positive review. How sad.

UPDATE 5-17-08: She wrote to me again. She wrote, in part:

What you are stating is from the point of view of
someone seeking recognition and making a living from writing. However, there are
people like me who do not share your ambitions. As long as my book gets in the
library, on the shelve of a bookstore, or is available through thousands of
retailers all over the world so people who share my concerns on particular
issues can buy my books, I have achieved my goal.

I replied, in part:

That’s the fallacy.
iUniverse books DON’T get into libraries, on the shelves of bookstores, or into
thousands of retailers all over the world. They have no distribution. They are not available in brick-and-mortar stores. Your book
can be found at web sites like iUniverse (and who shops there??) and Amazon, though even that will be ending soon, since they will stop carrying POD
titles that they don’t print themselves. The fact is, 99% of booksellers and libraries won’t touch a
print-on-demand, vanity press title.

I am glad you are a happy
customer of iUniverse…that’s great. But that doesn’t negate any of the things
I have said about them or the vanity press industry…or how they prey on the
desperation and gullibility of aspiring authors, whether you want to make a
living as one or not.

She also wrote:

All that speculations about my personal circumstances are nothing more
than a demonstration of pointless arrogance. I did not sent you an email to
seek some sort of validation from you, to ask your advice or to open my eyes to
the "truth". It was the  fact that in your obsessive–smart ass attitude
towards  iuniverse–you forgot, or failed to make the distinction between the
institution and the people who benefit from its existence. It shows certain lack
of imagination when one can’t separate one from the other. Pissing on people’s
parade (I have been too generous in using the conventional metaphor) is not
the right way to get even with iuniverse or any other ‘vanity press’.
 
Thank Goodness, we do not share the same perception of reality, for I do
not live in your bubble.

The Mail I Get

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Here’s an example of how NOT to promote your book. I got this email today (I’ve removed the name of the book to spare the author justified embarrassment):

Dear Lee,

 

First I want to thank
you for the opportunity of my book, The XYZ, being reviewed by you.
I would be happy to send a copy of my book via UPS. Please forward a
physical address where I may send it.

 

My website for the “The XYZ” is www.XYZ.com.

 

I look forward to both your thoughts and review.

 

If you have any questions or further information that you require, please contact me.

Does he really think that anyone would ask for a copy of his book after reading this email? The way he has awkwardly worded this email, it appears as if I have agreed to read his book when, in fact, I have never heard of him.  With writing and promoting skills like his ("thank you for the opportunity of my book"), it’s no wonder that he’s "published" by Authorhouse, the notorious vanity press… 

For pointers, he should read this    and this.

Indiana Attorney General Prosecutes Airleaf

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The Airleaf Victims blog reports the terrific news that Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter has filed a lawsuit against Carl Lau, founder of Airleaf and Bookman Marketing, for violating the state’s Deceptive
Consumer Sales Act by "taking money without providing
the promised services in return."

"More than 120 people
are named in the lawsuit, including many from Indiana who lost
thousands of dollars,” said Carter. “In fact, hundreds more may have
lost money. They paid for services. Airleaf did not deliver, and now,
those consumers deserve refunds.”

[…]In addition to consumer restitution, the attorney general’s office is
seeking civil penalties of up to $5,500 per violation, as well as
investigative costs.

The action doesn’t go nearly as far as the Airleaf victims would like — or Lau deserves — but hopefully it will send a strong message to the vanity press industry, especially those ex-Airleaf execs who have started their own POD-presses.  Writers Beware notes:

Airleaf has spawned several publishing enterprises run by ex-staff–including Fideli Publishing, a fee-based publisher whose marketing packages bear an eerie similarity to Airleaf’s, and Brien Jones’s Jones Harvest Publishing,
which also charges fees for publishing and offers many Airleaf-style
services (Writer Beware has gotten some advisories about Jones
Harvest’s email solicitations,
and Mr. Jones has recently chosen to reimburse several Jones Harvest
authors who alleged performance problems). If you trace the family tree
backward instead of forward, you arrive at the Big Daddy of POD vanity
publishing, AuthorHouse, where Brien Jones was employed before he
co-founded Airleaf’s predecessor, Bookman Marketing. It’s a tangled web
indeed–which, sadly, is not unusual in the murky world of vanity POD.

Unfortunately, many Airleaf victims haven’t learned from their mistake…and have simply moved on to other POD vanity presses, including those run by former Airleaf execs.

The Mail I Get, The Sequel

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I got an email the other day from a writer who had come up with a MONK scene he wanted me to read to see if either I, or the producers, would use it in a book or episode. The scene was attached to the email. I deleted the message without reading the scene (for obvious legal reasons). I sent him a note telling him that was what I had done. I also told him that there really isn’t a market for individual scenes. He replied:

If it helps at all, I didn’t
write it with the thought of fiscal renumeration. Would it make any difference
to consider it as a friendly collaboration among writers? You can have it. Tweak
it, rip it up and start over, whatever. Frankly, with my career just getting off
the ground (Some short fiction published, and I have a novel being reviewed by
an imprint of Simon & Schuster), even giving this away is beneficial to
building my ‘name.’

It makes me cringe when aspiring writers think someone is going to be impressed that they sent their manuscript in to a publisher and are waiting to hear from them(ie "under review at Simon & Schuster"). But I let that go and didn’t mention it when I replied:


No offense intended, but I have no interest in seeing the scene or any
other MONK material you may come up with. And if I may give you some
advice, sending unsolicited scenes to authors and producers you don’t
know is unprofessional and is actually harmful to your reputation.  The
best way to build your name is by writing good stories and getting them
published or produced…not sending "scenes" to other writers and hoping they will incorporate them into their own work.

 

The Mail I Get

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I got this email the other day:

Have you ever heard of "Writers Book Publishing Agency"? That’s the name. Seemed a bit generic to me, so I am suspicious. Their web page indicates that they are a reletively new lit agency, and are seeking authors. Having tried to obtain an agent for a year now, they sound too good to bet true. Their client list went like this: Joe, who is an electronic engineer wrote his first book…..etc….etc.  Mary, a housewife, is working on her second novel in which she…..etc…..etc. I know the authors need their privacy – but…….does this not sound suspicious to you?

Of course it does. And it should sound suspicious to anyone with an iota of common sense.

They are a well-known scam that has also gone by the the names "Children’s Literary Agency," "The Literary Agency Group, Inc" and "ST Literary Agency,"
among others. Your first tip-off that they aren’t legit should be their name:  "Writers Book Publishing Agency." What reputable agency would call
themselves that? Agents aren’t book publishers.

If the name of the company wasn’t tip-off enough, you’ll notice they don’t list a single author among their clients, only plumbers, housewives and, well, other suckers.

Writer’s Beware lists the "agency" among their top twenty worst agents. You can find out more about them here:

               
   

The Sandwich

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The towncar driver who picked me up at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan yesterday asked me if I’d like a Chinese sandwich before heading out to the airport.
"No thanks," I said. "I just had lunch."
"It’s not food," he said. "It’s the greatest experience of your life."
"What is it?"
"It’s two naked Chinese women covered with soap bubbles who hug each other…with you in between. You can go as far as you want with them."
"No thanks," I said.
"Are you sure?" he said. "It’s something you’ll remember when you’re old, sitting in your rocking chair, and it will bring a smile to your face."
"It’s not my kind of thing," I said.
"Are you gay?"
"Married."
"So what?" he said. "She’ll never know."
"I will," I said.
He grinned. "That’s the point."
"I’m really not interested."
Actually, I was very interested. Not in experiencing the Sandwich for myself, but I wanted to know if he’d done it, how many of the men he drove around took him up on the offer, and how many of them got a sexually transmitted disease. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
"You mean to tell me you’ve never played around?" The driver asked.
"Nope," I said.
"How long have you been married?"
"About twenty years," I said.
He stared at me in shock. "How do you do it?"
I shrugged.  "It doesn’t take any effort at all."
"Because you don’t like sex?"
"Because I love my wife," I said.
He shook his head. "That’s really sad. You only live once, you know."

Pre-Pre-Published

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P4290011
Today I went out to Summit, NJ to visit MONK creator/showrunner Andy Breckman and his staff. They aren’t exactly keeping a low-profile in town, as proven by the picture on the left of their building (click on the picture for a larger image). On the train ride out there, I came up with the plot for MONK #8 which, much to my relief, Andy liked. We talked for an hour or two about the murders for the book and then I sat in to hear the beats for the 100th episode — it’s g0ing to be a great one.

I returned to Manhattan in time to attend the MWA’s Agents & Editors party, where I ran into Mel Berger, who was my first agent ever, and chatted for a bit with a woman who loves me, which is always a thrill.

At the party, author Twist Phelan told me that she’d met a woman today who introduced herself as a "pre-pre-published author" and said she was attending the Crime Writing conference to meet an agent.

"What does ‘pre-pre-published’ mean?" Twist asked.

"I have an idea for a book but I haven’t started writing it yet," she said.

"And that’s how you plan to introduce yourself to agents?"

"Yes," the woman said.

Twist said don’t, and went on to tell her just how stupid calling herself  "pre-pre-published" was. That was definitely a new one on me.