Saturday, October 27, 2007

AIRLEAF UPDATES, "Emergency." October 27, 2007

October 27, 2007
Dear Airleaf Victims Friends,

Welcome to our three new members who found us through our Google advertising.

This has been quite a busy Airleaf week for sure. First, allow me thank so many of you who have been sending letters of support and encouragement during this most interesting of times. I did several things this week that prompted the letter from Airleaf’s lawyer.

First, the book “The Touch” was removed from the site because Mr. Art Ayris refused to be part of this scandal. This was a big victory for us because Airleaf continued to seek out new victims and used “The Touch” like a spider’s web to catch a fly. Next, I contacted the three links on the Airleaf site explaining our position and how Airleaf has defrauded so many innocent authors. Two of those links disappeared within hours after they called Airleaf and demanded to be removed. We greatly appreciate the support of those two companies. There is still one link left for Author’s Corner; however I did send an extensive letter to Mr. Ian Moore last evening explaining our position and asking him to support our cause. I’ll keep you posted.

The letter from the Airleaf attorney was quite amusing to me. After an attorney friend read through it, he stated that Airleaf was willing to negotiate a settlement. It was hard for me to see that in their letter in the midst of all of the other verbiage threatening me. Somewhere towards the end, if you look again, you’ll see this phrase that was brought to my attention:
“And notify us of your desire to negotiate a settlement”

Well, here’s my decision. I won’t negotiate any settlement with Airleaf unless we all negotiate a settlement. In return for a settlement, they went on to say that I would have to end my battle against them and crawl away without looking back. Now some of you may wonder why I wouldn’t accept a settlement—and I suppose I would wonder too if one of you were in that position. All of you have only known me a short time, and primarily through email correspondence. What Airleaf and most of you don’t know about me is that I have been a social activist for most of my adult life—over 35 years. I have fought bigger and better enemies than Airleaf and never sold out my values. I am not fighting for just for myself or I would seek a settlement, but I am fighting for a group of innocent people who have become victims of one of the most treacherous scams that I have ever seen. I have made some wonderful friends through this group who are caring trusting people, and your weekly letters of support and offers of friendship only inspire me to fight harder.

Actually, this week, I heard from over 40 of you with notes of thanks and support for the battle ahead. Some of your comments included:

Bring them on! This is a typical bluff from somebody standing on a gangplank wearing a blindfold! Dr. Mac
Again.. thank you for standing up to them.. and thank you for standing up for us..

Selah.. Betty

You are so right about the goings-on between Lau and Jones being irrelevant. Lau was the president of the company and bears ultimate responsibility for everything. Just as in nautical law, the captain of the ship bears ultimate responsibility for any mishap such as a collision or grounding even he wasn't on the bridge when it happened. Hugs, Bob R.

Thank you for your leadership. Great job! What I did to cover myself was used my credit card. It has a fraud insurance clause. I hope the others do have insurance. Remind them that if they paid with their credit cards, they may have the coverage. They might even check their insurance agents, too. Their car insurance or home insurance might have this protection. Rudy

Dear Bonnie,

Not one person can waver, not one person can pull back, not one person can withdraw - not one person can give up...or give in.

This is playing out exactly as con artists play things out.

One is blamed - one no longer in the picture, and people are given information - really misinformation - that since that really bad guy that did this is nowhere to be found it's no use.

Baloney. Pure malarkey. Just as employers feast upon employees being ignorant of labor laws and abuse employees Carl Lau is acting as a victim himself. Innocent. Pure as the driven snow. A lamb led to slaughter.

Don't fall prey! Do not waver or feel bad for Carl Lau. He was NOT a victim.
Ken P.

I am glad that so many of you have offered to help however you can. There are several things that we can do to start pushing ahead.

1. In the legal letter I sent you from Dennis Schell, Carl Lau’s attorney, he claimed that “You have maliciously published on the internet false and misleading factual statements about Airleaf and Mr. Lau and have negligently failed to learn these statements are false. Such disparaging communications are not only false and unfair,” and then some legal jargon about against the law of Indiana.

The words that he claims fall under this “false and misleading factual statements” include:“burned by Airleaf,” being “robbed,” “treated with treachery and disdain,” “defrauded,” “victimized,” and “have horror stories.” Now, I’ve used some of those words on our website and in my correspondence, but not all of them. The other words come from you, members of our group who have told your stories. So in other words, not only am I guilty, but many of you are guilty too! What can you, our authors, do about this outrage? Please send an email to Dennis Schell at dschell@overhauser.com. Please be as long as you can be explaining how everything that is being stated about Airleaf is totally correct. Tell him your own “horror story” so he will understand that we are a group that is dedicated to seeing justice. Let him know that Airleaf can’t bully us, intimidate us, or scare us anymore than they have by stealing our money. I know that lawyers work on billing basis – usually quarter hours—and they charge for reviewing correspondence. If enough of you send letters, this will cost Carl Lau a lot of money. If he pays his lawyer the same way as he pays his authors, I don’t imagine his lawyer will be representing him for very long. Please send me a copy of your correspondence to Mr. Schell at Bonkaye@aol.com so I can track it. I am also hoping that once Mr. Schell learns the truth about Airleaf, he will not want to continue to represent them because he will realize that everything we all say is true.

2. Please think about having Airleaf stop printing your books like I did. Remember, every book that they sell goes into the Airleaf bank account. You won’t see it. I had my attorney send Carl Lau a letter in July telling his to “cease and desist” publishing my book. You can do it yourself—you don’t need an attorney. But be sure to send it out certified mail so you’ll have a signature on it. The address for Airleaf is:

Airleaf Publishing and Bookselling
35 Industrial Drive · Martinsville, Indiana 46151

3. Some of you volunteered to speak to the press. Now is a good time for us to start our media campaign. I have written a generic press release that can be adapted to each of you who is willing to send this out in your local area to start getting Airleaf into the media. If you would like to be part of this and haven’t volunteered to be part of our Airleaf media group, just email me and I will send you the information.

As you all know from my correspondence this week, Airleaf continues to rob money from new people by taking money for books they cannot possibly deliver. Many of you have been waiting for a year or longer. If they can’t publish your books, you know that the new victims have no chance of seeing theirs.

I will be calling the Attorney General’s office on Monday for an update from Terry Tolliver and to pass along some suggestions made by our group members. He’s been on vacation this week. I’ll keep you posted as soon as I get a response.

Please don’t give up—we are winning. We are a wonderful team.

Love, Bonnie

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Grand Total: $10,127.43 Lost

Author Donald Megnin The Security of Silence "I, too, was promised my book would be published. I paid $7999.00 for my contract to have my book published which still has not been fulfilled and that was two years ago!

I still don't have my first novel published by Airleaf even though I was assured this past April that it would be only another two weeks and it would appear, but to date, no book.

Here is the amount of expenses I've incurred trying to have my novel
THE SECURITY OF SILENCE published by Airleaf Publishers.

1) June 02, 2006 - Publishing Package $7,799.00
2) July 13, 2006 - Copy-write - $142.00

3) October 18, 2006 - Bookstore Owners Publicity - $199.00

4) October 20, 2006 - Presentation to Independent Film Makers - $199.00

5) October 22, 2006 - Publication Costs - $1,020.43

6) October 23, 2006 - Book Reviews - $199.00
7) December 07, 2006 - Introduction of Book to the Media $270.00

8) December 14, 2006 - New Library Listing - $299.00
Grand Total: $10,127.43
To this date, I've not received one copy of the promised publication!

In retrospect, I was not only naive, but tantamount to an example of pure exploitation for profit by an unscrupulous owner of a so-called publishing firm!"