Report: #635376

Complaint Review: PublishAmerica, LLP - Frederick Maryland

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Submitted: Sun, August 29, 2010
Updated: Thu, April 26, 2012
Reported By: Kem — Allston Massachusetts United States of America

Author Not Confirmed

Why?

PublishAmerica, LLP Post Office Box 151, Frederick, Maryland United States of America

Phone: (301) 695-1707
Web: www.publishamerica.com
Category: Miscellaneous Companies

PublishAmerica, LLP Breached contract by deliberately printing myriads upon myrieds in my book, deceitful advertisement that lured me (they said they're traditional publishers who'd pay me, but it turned out to be only $ Frederick, Maryland

*General Comment: glad I'm not the only one

*Consumer Comment: Class Action Lawsuit

*Consumer Comment: Woud you like to see about getting attorney help for your ripoff of PublishAmerica?

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Dear Editor:

As I indicated in my e-mail correspondence to you dated Wednesday, August 18, 2010, I, like numerous other authors, have also become a victim of PublishAmerica's scam and fraud when in early March this year their advertisement popped up on my computer screen and lured me to have my book published by them. Their advertisement made several claims and promises that looked very attractive. Among them were that: (1) they are traditional publishers who would pay me rather than the other way round; and (2) they would market my book after its publication.

As a consequence of their exciting promises, I signed a contract with them to have my book published. The contract was also emphatic that they would print the contents to conform to what I submitted in my manuscript. These would include foreign words/letters that appeared throughout my manuscript. Indeed, in signing the contract, they asked me specifically if I had foreign letters/words in the manuscript and if so to provide examples of them, and I did so.

After I had signed the contract, however, a man named Tom who designated himself as Cover Designer made it clear that they could not produce the foreign letters/words exactly as they were in my manuscript. As he put it: "We will need to review the errors regarding the foreign words before we know how to proceed. It may not be possible to generate them exactly as they appear in your manuscript."

Why this sudden change of their position regarding the foreign letters/words still beats my imagination. This is because besides expressing their apparent intent to breach the contract, the letters are easily available and obtainable from the MS Reference Sans Serif and MS Reference Sans fonts, from where I picked them up myself.

When I received the PDF file for a review, I realized that they terribly messed up the foreign words/letters altogether. In many cases also, the foreign letters were deleted completely; in either case, PA rendered the foreign words meaningless. This in turn would destroy the book if published with the mistakes as they were. Or, the almost 600 pp. long history book, which I spent a lot of money and precious time to research in England, Germany, Switzerland, Ghana and the United States, would become a shoddy one and would therefore receive bad reviews in the academic community, thus jeopardizing my scholarly reputation.

As I was in the process of trying to resolve this foreign words/letters problems and others with them, they surprisingly proceeded and purposefully printed the book with the myriads upon myriads of the mistakes they introduced in the manuscript. Equally surprising is that they did not even show me the final proof before printing the book, something they had promised to do. And that they published the book with so many mistakes in it is tantamount to a breach of contract.

During the contract signing stage, PA asked me to provide them with a list of the names and e-mail addresses of my family members, friends and colleagues for them to inform them when they published the book so that they would celebrate with me. PA's real intention, I later discovered, was however to sell my book to them at an exorbitant price--i.e., $35.00 per a copy, whereas they are selling it as low as $5.00 at times to others. And when they said they would market the book themselves, it is actually I myself and these my family members/friends they actually had in mind to sell my own book to in order to make their money. This to me is another breach of the contract.

While they were reluctant to correct the mistakes prior to printing, a list of which mistakes is hereto attached for your perusal, as soon as they printed the book (i.e., on 14 June 2010) they wrote on 17 June 2010 and told me that I could now correct the mistakes---mistakes they deliberately made themselves. Although they said they would make the corrections free of charge, they actually attached a string, which is that I must buy a number of copies of the book for them to correct the mistakes---so, it's a lie when they said that they would correct the mistakes for free. This to me is one of PA's ways of scamming and defrauding their authors.

One important question I have is, what about the books that they have already printed and claimed to have sold? How could the mistakes in them be corrected? In one of their numerous e-mail correspondence to me they claimed to have sold 5,000 copies of my book within a few days and an additional 1,500 another time. So, are they so morally weak as to sell the book with so many flaws, simply because they want to make profit?

Another lie of PA's is their claim of being a traditional publisher who would pay me. What they actually sent me as payment was a $1.00 (one dollar) check that they termed a symbolic payment. No one in his/her right mind would suppose that when a publishing company promises to pay an author for his/her book, the amount would be $1.00. Being aware that a friend of mine was paid $4,000.00 (four thousand dollars) after he had signed a contract for the publication of his book, I was excited when I read PA's advertisement that promises to be traditional publishers that pay their authors.

They are, however, a fraudulent company that aim at misleading and luring authors to submit their manuscripts to them to print. Yes, PA are no traditional publishers; they are mere printers who virtually do nothing about manuscripts submitted to them for publication except to design covers for the books. All reputable publishers edit manuscripts before publishing. Worst of all PA deliberately introduce numerous mistakes into the books they print in order to make money off their authors. Besides, their formatting is very poor. At least their formatting in my book is much unlike any I have ever seen in an important academic book like mine.

One most dishonest, hypocritical and insulting thing PA do is that they put a false disclaimer in the front inside cover of my book---and I understand they have done that with many other books as well---that reads: "PublishAmerica has allowed this work to remain exactly as the author intended, verbatim, without editorial input." What this falsely suggests is that PA would want to edit the work but they have not done so because the author has not allowed them to. Why this is dishonest, hypocritical and insulting is that it is PA's official policy not to edit manuscripts submitted to them for publication and yet they have decided to place all the burden on their authors---including the purposeful mistakes they introduce into the book.

When I saw this false and hypocritical disclaimer in my PDF file, I immediately vehemently protested against it, arguing that no author worth his/her salt would prevent a publisher from editing his/her work. They were, however, arrogant and stubborn and merely ignored me and included it in the book against my wish.

In view of the fact that PA have destroyed my book and have thus jeopardized my academic reputation, I have decided to institute legal action against them to have my contract abrogated and my copyrights reverted to me so that I may find a reputable publisher to publish my book for me. I have therefore engaged the services of an intellectual property law counsel based in Baltimore, MD, to prosecute the case on my behalf. He has already taken the preliminary steps to that end. He has suggested also that we make the case a class action lawsuit and I have so far got ten people who have expressed their interest in joining. I am still looking for the names of more people out there who may wish to join the lawsuit. If you can therefore please provide me with more such names and their contact information, I shall be grateful indeed.

Thank you very much, Editor, for your cooperation and assistance in this matter.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 08/29/2010 02:39 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/publishamerica-llp/frederick-maryland-21705-0151/publishamerica-llp-breached-contract-by-deliberately-printing-myriads-upon-myrieds-in-my-635376. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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REBUTTALS & REPLIES:

0Author

3Consumer

0Employee/Owner

#3 General Comment

glad I'm not the only one

AUTHOR: abt - (United States of America)

SUBMITTED: Thursday, April 26, 2012

POSTED: Thursday, April 26, 2012

I too am a "victim" of Publish America. I was dazzled by getting my first book of poetry published and in the excitment everyone else felt it all fell flat. They are not what they claim to be. They recently sent me an email saying for $149 I can buy my rights out early. Has anyone else got that email?? My contract with them should be about over seeing i signed with them in 2005 and it's been a dismal 7 years. I hope Publish America gets stopped from scamming other people too. I also fell for the ploy of converting my book to Nook and Kindle for $69 AND paying to be included in the east coast conference where they claim to upsell your book.I am hoping this experience is over soon so I can maybe find a reputible publisher to work with

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#2 Consumer Comment

Class Action Lawsuit

AUTHOR: Raymond812 - (United States of America)

SUBMITTED: Thursday, June 09, 2011

POSTED: Thursday, June 09, 2011

Hi my name is Raymond T I'm also a victim of Publishamerica they are selling my book all over the world too including India but I see no royalties. Also, they had me change the title of my book after I signed the contract. First my title was The UnKnown but only after one week they told me in order for them to continue processsing my book I need a title changed. I provided them with a new title called The Rise of the Humanoid but the problem is they put the new title on my book and the old title The UnKnown is still on my CONTRACT! I feel cheated and beat down if you have a class action started please add me to your list. My telephone is (((ROR REDACTED)))

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#1 Consumer Comment

Woud you like to see about getting attorney help for your ripoff of PublishAmerica?

AUTHOR: Sirslappy - (U.S.A.)

SUBMITTED: Tuesday, September 21, 2010

POSTED: Tuesday, September 21, 2010

I also love writing and was looking at this PublishAmerica company. I've just got done reviewing this website to see if I"d like to do business with them. The ironic thing is I run a business on the side where I can help people with attorneys for a fraction of the cost. Anyone who is going through this kind of problems should seek legal counsel. Without it the company won't take you as serious and you won't get any helpful answers. My business is on the better business bureau and has been in many major publications such as: Barrons, Fortune, Forbes, Business Week, Newsweek, The Wallstreet Journal, USA Today, Individual Investor, Investors Daily, INC Magazine, Financial World, Black Enterprise, Entrepreneur, etc. Even the chamber of commerce recomends us. Please contact me at (((Redacted)) if you wish to receive further information. My name is Craig S by the way.

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