Airleaf Victims Update April 12, 2008

Airleaf Victims Update April 12, 2008

Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
As of today, we have 431 members in our group. Welcome to our new members.
This is where I ask you all for help once again. I am trying to help make a case for the authorities who are investigating this case. I know I asked you this question before, and some of you responded, but now I'll ask you again in hopes that everyone will respond. Next week, I'll be taking a week's vacation from my job so I can devote myself to going through all of the surveys that everyone has sent me in a thorough way. But that will be time consuming and I need information NOW.

Here's what I need:

If you paid for the following specific marketing services to Airleaf that you never received, I need to hear from you so I can pass this information along.

Here's the specific information:

Book fairs for London or Germany
Ads in the NY Times, LA Times
The trip on the Carnival cruise
Television or radio commercials that never took place
Kirkus reviews or Bowker reviews

Please let me know that date to the best of your recollection that you paid for the services, who your representative was, and what you were told when you followed up waiting for any results. Just drop me an email and let me know. Thanks so much.

Also, if you are an author who has been told by Carl Lau that he wants you to pay for your books for either $1.00 or $2.00 each, please send me a note and let me know that your books are being ransomed to you. And if you've already paid, please let me know. All of this will help our case.

If you are a newer member of our group and didn't get a copy of my survey, please let me know so I can email it to you so you can help me track you as it pertains to our action.

There may be some interest by the news show 60 Minutes about our case. I think this would be a great venue for us to publicize our cause of stopping predatory publishers. I sent them a press release about our situation and they did ask me to send more information. Now I am asking you to drop them a line about what happened to you. If they can receive several hundred emails by Monday or Tuesday, this will be very powerful. Please click this direct link for the email to pop up: 60m@cbsnews.com. In your email, please put in the subject box, "Help for the Airleaf Victims" or "I am an Airleaf Victim." In the email, tell them your name, where you live, the name of your book or proposed book, and how you were violated by Airleaf. Ask them for help to expose the fraudulence so that other publishers won't do this again. You can tell them you are a member of the Airleaf Victims organization at www.AirleafVictims.com. Let them know that we want this fraudulence exposed. After you send the email, please let me know or copy me on the email. Thanks so much. This will be very powerful for us if we can have a mass group send this out.

One of the best ways to start marketing your book is by having a website that people can refer to. Lots of you paid big bucks to Airleaf to have your book posted on their site. This is an expense, but not nearly as expensive as you might think. You can buy a domain name at www.Register.com for $35.00 for the year. Pick a name that illuminates what you have written about. I helped our victim Sarah Harrison pick hers for the book she recently published "You Love Your Daddy, Don't You?" about her true life experience with incest. I helped Sarah with the domain name of www.IncestVictim.com.

When you click into it, you'll see her new beautiful site. I have a website designer, Tina's Web Design, who is charging our Airleaf Victims $200.00 per site. If you need updates or changes, she charges $5.00 each which is extremely reasonable. If you need help with this, let me know. There's no charge for website hosting if you go with Register.com for the year and buy the domain name from them for the $35.00, and the one page website is free. It's a steal of a deal! I can help you pick out a domain name that's good for your site and walk you through the simple process of buying it. This way, when you're doing publicity for your book, you have a website to send people to where they can buy it.

Last week, I published a letter from one of our authors about Dorrance publishing charging her by the word. These were two of the responses I received from our members:

Bonnie,

I, too, was duped by Dorrance "Publishing". I paid $12,500 to print 1,000 books. (I negotiated to alter their contract which normally only printed 500 books for this price.) Granted, it was hardbound, color, but that was insanely high and I chose to go with them because they promised to "continue to print books for 2 years to fill orders without any further charge." They also had an 800 number and the staff and where with all to take credit card orders and supposedly had connections to distributors. Well, I got my 100 books, and sold them in a month, ordered 100 more (at a 45% discount off cover so I paid MORE money to them) sold those and ordered and got another 100, sold those and was ready to order more when I was told they had zero in inventory. They had only printed 400 of the 1,000 upfront.

I had on my own, found a Baker & Taylor rep. who agreed to carry my book, had it on Amazon.com, had 4 local bookstores lined up to buy and do book signings, had a tv spot to advertise an outdoor market I paid $150 to be at to sell books. They proceeded to have a COMPLETE stock out for 5 months during which time I lost all credibility with the local stores, had to attend a market in which I sold artwork based on the book since I had NO BOOKS to sell, and was so upset that we got an attorney. The fine print stated they would print to meet demand, not that they would guarantee any stock. Very sneaky. So after paying attorney's fees of $400 I got as a settlement 50 books for the price of shipping. (These were later deducted from my amount of 1,000 to print). Well, we had a major catastrophic medical event in which my child needed lots of attention and My Prince had to go on hold. The contract eventually expired and they agreed to pay me $2,000 back and the few books they had in inventory since they never met their initial commitment.

This sounds crazy that I spent so much for this book, but I only had to sell 3,245 books to break even. I knew I could do it. Sales and demand were beginning to take off, then they had no books to sell and put the brakes on me. I want people to know that they are NOT interested in the book doing well. They control how/when/how many books you can sell. I would have done better to go to a local printer (they were $10,000 for 1,000) but I thought I could not do the ISBN and Copyright and credit card sales without help.

They are worse than Airleaf...I never paid them for marketing, only for BOOKS which they never did produce per our contract. I would advise anyone to burn their money in lieu of going to Dorrance Publishing.

Marcia S.

Hello dear Bonnie,
It looks like there's a lot going on with Airleaf and ideas for publishing. All of us victims are very lucky to have your leadership and strong perseverance.

I want you to know that I copyrighted my book "GRILL!" in February of 2007. In the past year I have received two letters from Dorrance Publishing. They found my name on file at the Library of Congress U.S. Copyright Office. Since my fiasco with Airleaf, I took it upon myself to research them on the net. I found several sites with people sharing their bad reports about them, so I tore the letters from Dorrance up. At first I had believed their desire to publish me was legitimate, but thanks to you I am very cautious on making spontaneous decisions about publishing.

You may share my experience with our group if it will be helpful in any way. I now realize that a publishing company must need business bad if it has to search for clients by searching the copyright office.
Love, Diane

If you have information about other companies who are scamming authors, feel free to send me a letter and I will print it here to warn others. As I tell so many of you who write to me, we were victims once—don't fall prey again! Check out every offer and feel free to send it to me to check it out for you as well.

Here is an excellent link for you regarding talk shows and hosts throughout the country. There are hundreds of the biggest talk show hosts listed as well as their websites and phone numbers. If you have publicity about your book or would like to pitch your book to them, send them a note at their email addressed listed under "contact information". The link is:

Link for talk shows: TALKERS magazine - Heavy Hundred 2008
That's the news for today. Write to me if you have any questions or concerns.

With love and hope,

Bonnie