Suess's Pieces

Author Solutions, owner of several vanity press brands, has offices located in Bloomington, IN.

On Monday, April 29, I opened an email from an associate at Giskan Solotaroff Anderson & Stewart LLP. It said simply, “We represent plaintiffs against Author Solutions.  I wanted to let you know that we filed our class suit against them on Friday in the Southern District of New York.”

On May 2, I got an email from Anon with nothing more than a link to a Publisher’s Weekly article titled, “Authors Sue Self-Publishing Service Author Solutions.”

Then a couple of days ago, I got an email from Jodi Foster asking if I’d heard about the lawsuit. (If her name sounds familiar, it coule be because she did an interview here last May. See “iUniverse Complaints: Interview with Jodi Foster.”)

Then this morning, I noticed that I was getting traffic from a Forbes article posted yesterday on the subject of the lawsuit.

Although I’ve been tweeting about the suit since I received the first email, I figured it was time I wrote something about the happy news. Something official to include in  The Complete Index.

About the Lawsuit

Here’s an excerpt from the Publisher’s Weekly article in case you’re not familiar with the details:

Three authors have filed suit against self-publishing service provider Author Solutions, and its parent company Penguin, airing a laundry list of complaints and alleging the company is engaged in deceitful, dubious business practices. “Defendants have marketed themselves as an independent publisher with a reputation for outstanding quality and impressive book sales,” the complaint reads. “Instead, Defendants are not an independent publisher, but a print-on-demand vanity press.”

Beautiful, isn’t it?

There are three authors bringing charges: Kelvin James, Jodi Foster and Terry Hardy, and excerpts from the formal complaint read like poetry to someone like me:

“Despite its impressive profits from book sales, Author Solutions fails at the most basic task of a publisher: paying its authors their earned royalties and providing its authors with accurate sales statements.” (Victoria Strauss has posted a PDF of the full complaint.)

The authors are asking for $5 million in punitive damages. Now, I have no idea what kind of true financial impact a win could have on the company. Maybe none at all. What excites me more is the potential deterrent to future customers this lawsuit will bring, as it’s being widely publicized in self-pub circles and the media in general.

Other articles:

• Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Author Solutions Inc.
• Author Solutions Lawsuit Breaks Down Source of Money (BONUS: Teleread even borrowed my ‘Shopped mug of Shiggles Ogorek!)
• Class Action Complaint Against Penguin/Author Solutions – Part 1
• NY Law Firm Now Investigating Author Solutions, Class Action Lawsuit to Follow?

Bye-Bye Kevvy!

In related news, Digital Book World reported on May 3 that Author Solutions parent company, Pearson, has appointed one of their own to take over Kevin “Backdating” Weiss’s role as CEO. Penguin exec John Makinson said, “This is a bitter-sweet announcement because we shall be sorry to lose Kevin, who has provided the stability and clear leadership that Author Solutions needed in the year after our acquisition. But I always recognised that Kevin would seek fresh pastures in time and that a new chief executive from within Penguin would connect the business more closely to Penguin’s curated publishing activities.”

I haven’t yet heard where Weiss is heading, but the article says to expect an announcement sometime this week.

It never fails; every time I mention ‘Author Solutions’ and ‘self-publishing’ in the same breath, some self-pub stalwart emails me or tweets me with a tirade about how self-publishing—true self-publishing—has nothing at all to do with the business model of vanity presses, and Author Solutions is a vanity press.

In theory, I would agree. I even tried to make this distinction here on the blog early on, but found it futile. However we might like to define terms like ‘self-publishing’ and ‘vanity press’ in an academic sense, we cannot ignore actual language in use. ASI calls what ASI does self-publishing. Consumers call what ASI does self-publishing. Media outlets call what ASI does self-publishing.

If that makes you angry, perhaps I can console you a little. ASI’s attempt to change public perception by framing itself as a self-publisher has had limited success*. Instead of forcing ASI to use the less desirable term, we’re getting something even better out of the deal: The term ‘Author Solutions’ is now bearing the negative connotations we had previously associated with the more general term ‘vanity press.’

As an amateur linguist, I find this fucking delightful.

***

Recently a friend asked me how things were going with ‘that Author Solutions.’ Her nose wrinkled. Her upper lip curled. She expressed disgust. It was like someone had shown her the syphilis photos from my seventh grade health book at the exact moment she said ‘Author Solutions.’

That’s it! I thought. Author Solutions is syphilis.

And the thing about syphilis is that it’s contagious.

***

Yesterday, Random House went and did something foolish, exposing their sores and lesions to the world. You see, Random House recently launched e-book imprints with contracts so foul they were likened to vanity press contracts.

John Scalzi, president of The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, took Random House to task after seeing contracts for Hydra and Alibi**. He pointed out plenty of problems with the contracts: there are no advances, authors are charged for costs previously covered by publishers, and—I find this stuff particularly disgusting—the publisher keeps your rights for the length of copyright AND options the next thing you write.

Scalzi wrote:

“Dear writers: This is a horrendously bad deal and if you are ever offered something like it, you should run away as fast as your legs or other conveyances will carry you.”

Funny. That’s exactly what Mrs. Hewlett told us about sleeping with people who didn’t want to wear condoms.

***

So what, specifically, does Random House have to do with Author Solutions and syphilis?

Remember back in July when Pearson and Penguin acquired Author Solutions for $116M and the publishing world sort of gasped in horror? Many people thought executives at the traditional house were out of their ever loving minds. Others, including a few ASI employees, expressed hope, thinking maybe the sale would be good for ASI.  Maybe the new owners would finally force the scourge of the publishing industry to clean up its act?

No such luck. Think about it. When was the last time you heard of a healthy person and a syphilitic having sexytime, and the syphilitic being healed as a result?

So the disease has continued to spread through the industry. Pearson (parent of Penguin) merged with Random House after buying Author Solutions. Author Solutions was then hired to run Archway for Pearson’s competitor, Simon & Schuster. Penguin launched Partridge, another self-pub imprint operated by Author Solutions. And ASI already had self-publishing connections to Harlequin, Hay House and Thomas Nelson.

 ***

Maybe I’m paranoid from watching too much Fringe lately, but I believe Random House has a serious case of the ASI syphilis strain. Remember how your Sunday School teacher told you that having sex with one person was just like having sex with all the people that person had sex with? It’s kind of like that in the publishing industry right now. (Author Solutions is owned by Penguin who merged with Random House. Yadda. Yadda.)

Syphilis! Syphilis! Syphilis!

What makes Random House unique from syphilitic brands like iUniverse, Penguin, Partridge, etc. is that they’re not embracing the term ‘self-publishing’ when talking about their suck-ass, vanity-style imprints Hydra, Alibi and (presumably) Flirt—because that’s a term that could raise flags for even the n00biest n00bs.

I believe Random House wants to pioneer making vanity publishing the new traditional publishing, and they’re starting by, as Scalzi puts it, trying to “skim the slimmest of margins off the most vulnerable of writers” first.

I also believe that if these assholes succeed with their little vanity contract experiment, they’ll be one step closer to erasing any distinction at all between vanity publishing and traditional publishing.

And then those self-pub stalwarts all hung up on their definitions are really going to be pissed.

*By the way, you should know the law firm Giskan Solotaroff Anderson & Stewart LLP is currently investigating the practices of Author Solutions and all of its brands. There are whispers of a class action lawsuit. Tell. Everyone.

**As far as I’m concerned, both of Scalzi’s blog posts are required reading for new authors.

I know many of you are interested in getting continuing news about Author Solutions, so I’m pointing you in the direction of David Gaughran’s blog Let’s Get Digital today. He invited me to write a guest post in light of recent news that Author Solutions will be operating yet another self-publishing company, Partridge. Partridge is Penguin’s new self-pub brand for India.

If you hop over there you’ll also have a chance to read about Leah, an author who was saved by a caring internet from very nearly publishing with Author House. Read the post “Penguin’s Solution for Authors: One Racket To Rule Them All.“

Am I the only one who finds Guy Kawasaki’s success with APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur—How to Publish a Book a little depressing?

Before I get into this too deeply, I should probably do a little disclaiming. He seems like a really nice guy. I talked to him once at the height of the Author Solutions Jared Silverstone scandal. And, for what you can tell about a person in a 5-minute phone conversation, he seemed nice. Smart and nice.

But that’s just it. I know a lot of smart and nice self-publishing authors who will never have even one iota the success Kawasaki’s had. That reality should be a bit deflating for you people out there planning to self-publish. I mean, it’s not his success per se that’s deflating. It’s the comparison. The knowing that you will almost certainly never see anything even remotely like it.

When Kawasaki’s book was released on January 7, 2013—and for a couple of weeks thereafter—the internet went APEshit. (That joke’s been made already, hasn’t it?) My Google Alert for “self-publishing” was all Kawasaki, all the time*. Review links were popping up everywhere on my LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook timelines and in my Google Reader feed. Hell, even as far back as October 2012, the man had people lining up to fill out a form just for a chance to be one of APE‘s beta readers.

By the way, he had such a large pool of beta readers to choose from that he was able to treat his solicitation for volunteers like a job posting:

“A background in writing and publishing is helpful. Looking for any kind of comments such as copyedits, content, facts, style, etc. OCD is highly desirable.”

He had so many volunteers that he was able to turn people away.

In contrast, the self-publishers I know are sometimes reduced to begging for beta readers, and the ones they get typically have little to no real experience in copyediting or fact checking. They’re usually moms and friends and writing group buddies. Those beta readers are appreciated; don’t get me wrong. But there’s no denying the potential discrepancy in skill sets.

APE wasn’t the first project for which Kawasaki had asked for beta readers. That was What the Plus! At the time, he had asked 1,100,000 of his “closest friends on Google+” to volunteer, and 241 people signed on in just 24 hours. He reported after the fact:

“I sent the Word file manuscript to all of them. Approximately 100 returned the file with comments within a week. Not counting duplicates, this is what they found: 147 grammatical and spelling mistakes, 27 factual errors.”

Kawasaki did send the book on to a copyeditor after that, but think for a moment how much valuable feedback he got (for free!) and how quickly he got it back. If that’s not impressive enough for you, chew on this: Kawasaki figured he’d gained somewhere between 100 and 240 evangelists for What the Plus! in the process.

And here we are weeks after the release of APE. People are still writing about Kawasaki and the book. Diane Brady introduced him this way yesterday on Bloomberg Businessweek:

“Every wannabe pundit knows the drill: Do something cool, preferably in Silicon Valley or against all odds; talk and write about what you learned everywhere you can; build a following; then get a book deal. That’s what Guy Kawasaki did, converting his four-year stint as Apple (AAPL)’s chief evangelist into a 1989 book on guerrilla marketing called The Macintosh Way. Kawasaki has since produced 11 more books and established himself as a marketing guru and venture capitalist. With 1.2 million Twitter followers and a popular blog, he’s a brand.”

And I think that sums it up, doesn’t it? Guy is his own brand—and he has been for a couple of decades now.

I’m not saying the man didn’t work hard to get there. I’m not saying success on that scale can’t happen to anyone ever again. And I’m not saying that self-publishing is a worthless endeavor for non-celebrities.

I’m just saying…you’re no Guy.

*Ten arbitrary points to the first person who can tell me the second name on the book without looking.

Photo credit: Kawasaki