Complaint Review: Publish America - New York Maryland

I have made attempts over the years to publish my family’s life-long story but was not successful in this outcome. I’m sure the result could have been that I’m a deaf person and prefer communication by email only. While checking the Internet I came across Publish America and decided to contact them. Publishing and promotional services were free and they requested the manuscript for review. A week later I was over the moon to receive an email informing me that they would accept my story and give it the chance it deserves. This was terrific too, as I couldn’t afford publishing services at the time. I was disappointed though when they requested a fee of $315.

Before committing to this further I decided to ask if there were other fees to pay but they said there wasn’t any. There was no cost either for marketing and promotional services. I asked what line of distribution they’d be taking with the book? They said their primary wholesaler/distributor was Ingram and that they market a book so that it becomes available to bookshops worldwide and this included all major US bookstore chains. In this entire process the author incurs no expenses. They said that Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Books a Million would also have the book for sale. I was satisfied enough with this information and posted a cheque for $315, which they acknowledged.

Some weeks later after signing the contract and sending the money I was notified that the book was published. I did not hear anymore after that and I decided to see if they’d sort some queries that I had on hand but there was still no reply. Email after email was sent but they didn’t respond. Emails sent were to Public Relations, Publish America Support and Author Support. The names who had dealt with me were Michael, Robin, Colin, Chris, Jen and Shawn.

My queries were: I was not happy about the 10 years term in the contract and they agreed after a hassle to change this to 5 years and a revised copy would be sent to me. When I didn’t get this copy I was worried that they were still using the 10 years term. I didn’t even receive a complementary copy and this was disappointing. I needed it to access whether the writing had been in some way a professional finish so as to present it to media people in Ireland.

They’d promised to send a copy of the press release but when I didn’t hear from them an email was sent to the press release section but there was no reply. I needed this because I was in the process of contacting media people and before I did this I would have liked to check the press release.

 A cheque for $45 for copies of the book was posted on advice from Robin but he said he did not receive it. As it had been nearly four weeks since the cheque was sent, the cheque handler advised that it should be recalled. I considered myself lucky to get the money back.

Email sent to them in response to a discussion that they claimed they’d be having with Penguin concerning re-publication of the book for a fee of $22. They did not reply.

I understood that as well as an email copy of manuscript that a hard copy should also be sent but they said they didn’t receive it. On checking with my local post office I discovered that an attempt had been made to deliver it but they were unable to do so even though it was sent by recorded delivery. On further checking with my local postal services they said that in a further investigation into postal delivery they’d been in touch with Publish America and they would be contacting me directly. But I was never contacted. The fact is that PA told me a blatant lie about that delivery and had the cheek to say that my postal services ‘did not tell me that an attempt had been made to deliver the post to them’. Another lie they told was that no copies if the book had been sold when in fact I’m aware of at least one sale.

When a copy of the signed contract was requested they said it would be sent when I agreed to pay a fee for the service. I’m sure they are aware that the contract is invalid which is why they have ignored my request. Why is this book publisher getting off Scot free with such a high degree of dishonesty, fraud and lies.

Although I had considered that communication between them and me had appeared to have ended I deciding to send one more email and I asked if there was anything wrong with communication from their offices? Also that I had emailed Willem Meiners about my queries but he did not reply.

All I had been receiving from them instead of attending to my queries were double email postings, which were clogging up my inbox. In my email to them I pointed out that I had considered this as Spam and if it didn’t cease I would report it. On top of this they were also sending large amounts of double postings on promotional material fees for activation that did not apply to me as a foreign author. The fees ranged from $19 upwards to $100.

I was disillusioned at not receiving a proper reply to my queries and sent an email requesting the return of the $315 and also that I would prefer to end the contract. They did not reply.

 Almost immediately after my email to them I received this swift reply. This one was timed at 2.56pm 16 0ctober 2012 in, which they tried to answer some of my queries but surprisingly another one followed about an hour later at 3.50pm and again they attempted to answer my queries but these were not to my satisfaction. My most important query the (revised contract) was not answered at all. This was the message they sent:

"READ ENTIRE MESSAGE CAREFULLY:

"Do not send us nonsense, childish threats. Do not address us in such a tone. We have done nothing wrong. If you send us such nonsense again, we will delete your message without reading it. And no, it is not "Spam." You are in business with us, and you agreed to work with us in your contract. If you "report" any such thing, your report will at least constitute lying, and at most will constitute fraud and libel. Nevertheless, we have removed your email from our list. We gave you what no other company would give you. We gave you $1500 worth of publishing services. If you want more free stuff, please do some research and let us know what other publishing company will give it to you. No there is nothing wrong, at all. No one else is having this problem. Apparently the problem is on your end. We did not receive your questions until now. Perhaps you did it wrong, or some glitch occurred. This is normal. This is not a problem. It is not WW 111. No, no delivery attempt was made. No, we did not leave anything anywhere. We simply did not receive it. This is not our fault. This is not a major problem. If we have received your manuscript electronically, that will suffice. Your press release question is not a problem. We will answer this in a separate email." I never received the answer.

I felt humiliated and upset at these insults and asked for apology but I did not get one. After this attitude from PA I became frustrated and did not know what to do next. My most worrying aspect was when I was browsing the web and came across a lot of sites stating that PA were scamming writers. I found this after committing myself to signing the contract and sending the money. I sincerely hope that this Report will be able to help in having the $315 returned to me and the contract cancelled so as I could contact other publishers.

 The day after sending in the report in November 2012, I received an email telling me to take it down, because it was false. It appears that everything they say is right and everything I say is wrong even though some questions were never answered fully and others not answered at all. Also in that same email they sent this information:

 "You may be interested to know what happened to someone else who made false statements about PublishAmerica. He was sued by PublishAmerica's attorney. He falsely accused PublishAmerica and its attorney of unethical and illegal activities. He was served a summons to attend trial and testify, and a judgement was entered by a jury. What he said was found to be simply, plainly, false and malicious, and the jury rejected his testimony. He was ordered to pay $53,000 in damages, and his paychecks are being garnished. Also, with this type of judgement, seizing personal property is a common occurrence. So far he has paid thousands of dollars."

 I did agree to work with them but they have not worked with me. The contract is all about working together and should not have been ONE-SIDED which appears to work ok as far as PA is concerned. It’s surprising that they don’t take a leaf out of the Internet complaints against them and start acting honest. I could actually stay on the Internet for hours reading about these complaints.