AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE JUNE 14, 2008
Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
This will be a short but important update. Last Saturday, Indiana was hit by some of the most horrific storms in its history. One of the towns ravaged by the flooding was Martinsville. More specifically, the Airleaf building was totally flooded out. Every remaining book stored there was destroyed as well as all other files including disks and other items you may have sent there. The building itself was under at least four to five feet of water throughout the facility.
The Airleaf flood will bring many new questions to light. Did Carl Lau have flood insurance? If he did, will he be reimbursed for all of the tens of thousands of books that were there? If he didn't, will this force him into greater financial stress pushing him into bankruptcy? We don't have the answers to those questions, but I hope to find them out as the weeks progress.
A number of our victims were fortunate to recover their property over the past six months thanks to Bob Denton, now owner of Mountain Valley Publishing Company. I asked Bob if he would be willing to help our authors get back their books and materials stored in the building, and he was extremely responsive. I have received dozens of letters from you, our victims, about Bob's helpfulness and courteousness in helping you with this task without charging any money for his own time—only for the cost of postage.
Although I was not very nice about Bob in my early updates because of Airleaf and his connection there until nearly the end, I do believe that he truly feels very bad for all of the authors who were fraudulently taken by Airleaf and has tried to make up for that. I have heard very positive feedback from some of our victims who republished with Bob concerning his timeliness, excellent customer service, and professionalism in getting a job done and their books into print.
But most importantly, we owe Bob thanks because he worked tirelessly in filling those requests from numerous victims who asked for his help in retrieving materials back from Airleaf. He tried to get to everyone who came to him, and he did get many of you back your valuable belongings. For the others who were not as fortunate, whatever was at Airleaf is now gone.
As you all know by now, I'm the first to pull a punch where it needs to be pulled. If someone is taking advantage of our authors like I reported about Brien Jones of Jones Harvest was last week, I will do everything to expose it to you.
And talking about Jones Harvest, in this week's Writer's Beware, my predatory publishing guru, Victoria Strauss, followed up on my Jones Harvest expose from last week in her own column and added some additional information that you may like to read. Here is the link to Victoria's column.
Link:
Writer Beware Blogs!
Thank you, Victoria, for working endlessly to expose the predatory leeches in our midst. You and Anne Crispin make this a safer world for unsuspecting authors.
I'd like to also mention that Fideli Publishing Company, owned by Robin Surface and staffed by ex-Airleaf employees (who left there due to the fraudulence), was also destroyed in the flood. Robin and her staff have worked diligently with some Airleaf victims to put their books into print and to return books that were left at Airleaf. They are now trying to put life back together for the company. We wish Fideli good luck in getting restarted.
On a positive note, our authors' co-op is moving along nicely. If you have signed up to be part of this new, exciting venture, you will be hearing from me this week as we finalize our plans to get started. If you did not notify me yet and would like to be part of our group, Authors New Start, there is still time. Just email me at Bonkaye@aol.com. We have nearly 50 people which was my start-up goal. The group will be limited to 100 members.
That's the news for this week.
With love and hope,
Bonnie
Showing posts with label Bob Denton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bob Denton. Show all posts
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE APRIL 26, 2008
AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE APRIL 26, 2008
Dear 431 Members of the Airleaf Victims Group and Friends,
This was an interesting week for me on a personal level. I took off this week from work to thoroughly go through files that over 150 of you have sent to me. It was truly a depressing experience to see how many people were connived into so many non-existent services through Airleaf. Even though I've heard the stories each time you send them to me, going through all of this for four days truly gave a comprehensive view of the ongoing fraudulence against our authors.
Thanks to many of your meticulous tracking and record keeping, I was able to send the authorities solid information to prove our case of fraudulence. Many of you sent me email correspondences between you and other Airleaf employees which also proved that promotions were sold to you that were never delivered. One of you even sent me an email of a private conversation between two Airleaf employees who were romantically involved which also talked about Airleaf fraud in the conversation. Incidentally, this email was meant to turn people against one of the employees who left last year. Normally, I would be amazed at a company that has employees who would stoop so low to cut and paste private conversations and email them to authors deliberately, but nothing amazes me at Airleaf.
If you didn't send me your information and you think you have proof or evidence of fraudulence, it is not too late. Please email me at Bonkaye@aol.com and I will let you know how to proceed to get it to me.
Last week, I reprinted the story for you from the Martinsville Reporter about the Airleaf update. I also sent you the response I posted to the paper. Can you believe that later that night I was CENSORED?? The Martinsville Reporter took down my posting because one former employee was so incensed by this comment:
The employees of Airleaf profited off of our innocence. Two of them for sure were in Hollywood having great sex in a hotel while they were supposed to be selling our books to Hollywood producers. Those escapades were paid for by our hard earned money.Did you see me mention anyone's name here? Of course not. But this former employee was so distraught seeing this comment that she insisted it be removed. Now, I don't quite understand this unless she is guilty of the accusation and paranoid to think that people will assume it is her I'm talking about. So, I had to redo the response to the paper and remove the sexual comment in order for it to stand. Ironically, that former employee in her hysteria posted the following message on my Airleaf Victims blog:
Anonymous said...
Unless you were there, I am not sure where the ad hominem comment about someone having 'great sex' originated. We may have to start a new web site == victims of Bonnie Kaye.
I'm not sure what an "ad hominem" that the anonymous party stated is, but let me rephrase my comment about the former employees "having great sex." I would like to apologize for making assumptions, so I'll correct the statement by just saying "having sex." The "great" description was obviously the assumption on my part.
One of our victims wrote to me about checking with Bob Denton before you pay any money to Carl Lau for ANYTHING. If you are notified that you have books for sale at Airleaf that you can buy back, ask Bob Denton first if this is true. I believe you can actually negotiate to buy your books back more cheaply than Carl is asking for. I base this on one author who was offered her books back for approximately 60 cents each. Once again, I have no clue why some people are being charged 60 cents vs. a dollar vs. two dollars and more. Authors continue to tell me how responsive Bob Denton is towards helping them get back their books and materials. We greatly appreciate this Bob.
NEW BOOK OF THE WEEK:
One of our new author victims, Doris Christian, had her new book "A Daughter's Cry" released this week.
Doris sent us this information about her new book:
A Daughter's Cry was born out of my own experiences. First, my mother's sexual abuse at the hands of her dad, left many victims--not only my mother and several of her sisters, but also for me and my 4 siblings. Due to the bitterness and I'm sure the shame my mother harbored inside, she was a very unhappy person. This resulted in her many years of negativity, harsh criticism and overall strained relationships with everyone. And, it left us, her children, feeling unloved and unwanted.
Then, years later, my own two daughters were sexual molested by their stepfather, my second husband. From this heartache came a powerful story line in A Daughter's Cry. In it, my heroine, Ellie, learns there IS life after such traumatic attacks and our life's purpose can still be attained.
This is my fifth novel and the most compelling. Already, I've heard positive reports from women who were abuse victims. There is no greater reward than to hear
our hard work has delivered the intended results. I feel very blessed, indeed!
I am a single, senior citizen whose passion is writing. I retired from the medical field and now enjoy travel, my two wonderful daughters and numerous friends.
Writing has opened many doors for me and I'm currently teaching a creative writing course for single men and women.
To my fellow authors: I believe the injustice we've been dealt through Airleaf can be somewhat nullified when we support each other. What Airleaf failed to do, we can perhaps do and do it far better. There is strength in numbers and marketing our work successful requires those numbers. Certainly, not everyone will buy each book shared here, yet, it's an opportunity we didn't have before. Like making lemonade out of all those lemons? Here we can share the positive amid the negative which, I believe, is always a good thing. Because of our dedicated leader, Bonnie Kaye, we have this wonderful opportunity to share, care and repair. Share our work, care about each other, and repair the damage Airleaf and Carl Lau has caused each one of us. Thank you in advance for helping get A Daughter's Cry into the hands of those who've been used, abused, or neglected by someone they know and trusted. The release date is April 22nd and available on Amazon.com as well as Tate publishing.com
I'd like to wish Doris the best of luck with her new book. Soon we'll be discussing our Airleaf Author's co-op to help each other sell our books.
That's all the news for today! Please send me any questions or concerns you may have about any issue.
Love, Bonnie
Dear 431 Members of the Airleaf Victims Group and Friends,
This was an interesting week for me on a personal level. I took off this week from work to thoroughly go through files that over 150 of you have sent to me. It was truly a depressing experience to see how many people were connived into so many non-existent services through Airleaf. Even though I've heard the stories each time you send them to me, going through all of this for four days truly gave a comprehensive view of the ongoing fraudulence against our authors.
Thanks to many of your meticulous tracking and record keeping, I was able to send the authorities solid information to prove our case of fraudulence. Many of you sent me email correspondences between you and other Airleaf employees which also proved that promotions were sold to you that were never delivered. One of you even sent me an email of a private conversation between two Airleaf employees who were romantically involved which also talked about Airleaf fraud in the conversation. Incidentally, this email was meant to turn people against one of the employees who left last year. Normally, I would be amazed at a company that has employees who would stoop so low to cut and paste private conversations and email them to authors deliberately, but nothing amazes me at Airleaf.
If you didn't send me your information and you think you have proof or evidence of fraudulence, it is not too late. Please email me at Bonkaye@aol.com and I will let you know how to proceed to get it to me.
Last week, I reprinted the story for you from the Martinsville Reporter about the Airleaf update. I also sent you the response I posted to the paper. Can you believe that later that night I was CENSORED?? The Martinsville Reporter took down my posting because one former employee was so incensed by this comment:
The employees of Airleaf profited off of our innocence. Two of them for sure were in Hollywood having great sex in a hotel while they were supposed to be selling our books to Hollywood producers. Those escapades were paid for by our hard earned money.Did you see me mention anyone's name here? Of course not. But this former employee was so distraught seeing this comment that she insisted it be removed. Now, I don't quite understand this unless she is guilty of the accusation and paranoid to think that people will assume it is her I'm talking about. So, I had to redo the response to the paper and remove the sexual comment in order for it to stand. Ironically, that former employee in her hysteria posted the following message on my Airleaf Victims blog:
Anonymous said...
Unless you were there, I am not sure where the ad hominem comment about someone having 'great sex' originated. We may have to start a new web site == victims of Bonnie Kaye.
I'm not sure what an "ad hominem" that the anonymous party stated is, but let me rephrase my comment about the former employees "having great sex." I would like to apologize for making assumptions, so I'll correct the statement by just saying "having sex." The "great" description was obviously the assumption on my part.
One of our victims wrote to me about checking with Bob Denton before you pay any money to Carl Lau for ANYTHING. If you are notified that you have books for sale at Airleaf that you can buy back, ask Bob Denton first if this is true. I believe you can actually negotiate to buy your books back more cheaply than Carl is asking for. I base this on one author who was offered her books back for approximately 60 cents each. Once again, I have no clue why some people are being charged 60 cents vs. a dollar vs. two dollars and more. Authors continue to tell me how responsive Bob Denton is towards helping them get back their books and materials. We greatly appreciate this Bob.
NEW BOOK OF THE WEEK:
One of our new author victims, Doris Christian, had her new book "A Daughter's Cry" released this week.
Doris sent us this information about her new book:
A Daughter's Cry was born out of my own experiences. First, my mother's sexual abuse at the hands of her dad, left many victims--not only my mother and several of her sisters, but also for me and my 4 siblings. Due to the bitterness and I'm sure the shame my mother harbored inside, she was a very unhappy person. This resulted in her many years of negativity, harsh criticism and overall strained relationships with everyone. And, it left us, her children, feeling unloved and unwanted.
Then, years later, my own two daughters were sexual molested by their stepfather, my second husband. From this heartache came a powerful story line in A Daughter's Cry. In it, my heroine, Ellie, learns there IS life after such traumatic attacks and our life's purpose can still be attained.
This is my fifth novel and the most compelling. Already, I've heard positive reports from women who were abuse victims. There is no greater reward than to hear
our hard work has delivered the intended results. I feel very blessed, indeed!
I am a single, senior citizen whose passion is writing. I retired from the medical field and now enjoy travel, my two wonderful daughters and numerous friends.
Writing has opened many doors for me and I'm currently teaching a creative writing course for single men and women.
To my fellow authors: I believe the injustice we've been dealt through Airleaf can be somewhat nullified when we support each other. What Airleaf failed to do, we can perhaps do and do it far better. There is strength in numbers and marketing our work successful requires those numbers. Certainly, not everyone will buy each book shared here, yet, it's an opportunity we didn't have before. Like making lemonade out of all those lemons? Here we can share the positive amid the negative which, I believe, is always a good thing. Because of our dedicated leader, Bonnie Kaye, we have this wonderful opportunity to share, care and repair. Share our work, care about each other, and repair the damage Airleaf and Carl Lau has caused each one of us. Thank you in advance for helping get A Daughter's Cry into the hands of those who've been used, abused, or neglected by someone they know and trusted. The release date is April 22nd and available on Amazon.com as well as Tate publishing.com
I'd like to wish Doris the best of luck with her new book. Soon we'll be discussing our Airleaf Author's co-op to help each other sell our books.
That's all the news for today! Please send me any questions or concerns you may have about any issue.
Love, Bonnie
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Airleaf Victims Update April 19, 2008
AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE APRIL 19, 2008
Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
We are now at 431 Airleaf Victims. I'd like to wish a Happy Passover to all of our Jewish members of the group.
This week, I will be off from my regular job reviewing all of your surveys that you sent to me a couple of months ago in order to identify information to help the government agencies investigating our case. I am hoping to find key documentation that will help us prove the fraudulence that we are claiming. I will let you know some of my results next week.
Thank all of you who told me you wrote to 60 Minutes. If you didn't have a chance to do so, please do so this week. Their email address is: 60m@cbsnews.com. I want them to understand the enormity of our case when it comes to fraudulence. Please put in the subject box, "A Victim of Airleaf Publishing Fraud," or something similar. The more stories they receive, the more convincing our campaign will be.
Today, the Martinsville Reporter released another update. Our reporter friend, Ron Hawkins, has interviewed a number of people including some former employees who were there during Airleaf's last moments.
Feds investigating Airleaf, former employee says
By Ronald Hawkins | rhawkins@reportert.com
Saturday April 19, 2008
Martinsville
At least one former employee of the defunct Airleaf Publishing and Book Selling company has been questioned as a part of a federal investigation into the company's practices, according to that former employee.
The potential criminal filings against the Martinsville-based, vanity publishing and marketing business would be in addition to the multiple civil actions filed against owner Carl Lau and the company he operated until late last year.
In an interview, former Airleaf vice president and sales person Dawn Rodgers said she was questioned on Good Friday by U.S. Postmaster General investigators regarding Airleaf. The investigation is being done in conjunction with the FBI, she said.
Martinsville Police Department Capt. Jeff Buskirk, who investigated Airleaf for local law enforcement authorities, said he's turned over his materials to the FBI.
Bonnie Kaye, a Philadelphia-based author who started airleafvictims.com, said she'd contacted the FBI about Airleaf.
FBI special agent Wendy Osborne, however, said, "The FBI doesn't confirm or deny investigations."
An insider's story
Former Airleaf vp Rodgers worked for two periods at Airleaf. In the first, she had been promoted to vice president of marketing before she left and in the second was a marketing sales person. She was one of the last employees to leave before Lau shut down the business.
Author Kaye said she believes Rodgers shares some of the blame with Lau.
"She was taking money under fraudulent pretenses," Kay said. "She continued taking money after production shut down."
Rodgers said she is as much of a victim as the Airleaf customers who didn't receive the books or marketing services they were promised.
"If anyone's a victim," Rodgers said, "it's me."
Rodgers, who is currently unemployed, said Lau still owes her money.
"He owes everybody," she said.
Lau didn't respond to requests for comments on this story. In a previous interview, however, Lau said after co-founder and Airleaf Executive Vice President Brien Jones left, the business started heading downhill. Lau said Jones, who started his own vanity publishing business in Bloomington, tried to persuade former Airleaf customers not to do business with him.
Jones has said that's not the case
Rodgers, who worked with Jones, said the business headed downhill after Jones left in January 2007, but the cause was the loss of Jones' skills. The sole bad guy in the story, she said, is Lau.
"He didn't have the integrity to run a good business ," Rodgers said. "I wish Carl would accept responsibility for what he did. ...
"I don't think Brien was one of the bad guys. He cared about the business. It went crazy after he left. ...I'd like Carl to be held responsible."
Rodgers said she believed in Lau until the end, when things began to rapidly unravel.
About Airleaf
Airleaf Publishing and Book Selling was a vanity publishing firm based in Martinsville that published and marketed books. Established nearly six years ago, it shut its 35 Industrial Drive offices in mid-December. Many of Airleaf's authors were previously unpublished. Airleaf offered packages for authors that included printing and for an additional price promised it would pitch books to movie studios. Other packages included promises of ad placements in major newspapers and magazines along with interviews on national radio shows and more.
"I believed in what I did, otherwise I wouldn't have done it," Rodgers said. "We all did what we had to do. We cared more about the company than Carl."
In an interview Thursday, Jones said since he started his own business he's had 400 clients and there have been no complaints.
Investigation questioned
Jones questioned whether there is an investigation.
"No one has ever contacted me," Jones said. "I would think at some point someone would have. ...I would think I would be one of the first people they contacted."
Rodgers said the investigators "didn't go into much" about what charges there might be against Law.
The founders of Airleaf, which started as Bookman Publishing and Marketing, had good intentions when they started the business, Rodgers said. Most of the marketing promotions such as cruises and appearances at book shows and even pitches to Hollywood studios happened.
"I don't believe either (Lau or Jones) started with the intent to defraud," Rodgers said.
Martinsville resident Bob Denton is helping some authors receive their books. Denton left Airleaf a month before it closed, he said, but still manages the building and managed it before Lau acquired it. The building is for sale.
Denton worked for Lau for 4-1/2 years in sales, product shipping and receiving, he said. Since leaving, Denton started Mountain Valley Publishing, a publishing firm that he operates out of his home and has some of Airleaf's former clients.
Denton said he left Airleaf because he knew if he sold a publishing package, the money wasn't there to produce it. Denton agreed with Rodgers and Lau that the business started to decline after Jones left.
"At first, it was a good business," Denton said. "It got a lot of people's work published. I don't think they intended to defraud anybody.
"They just ran out of money. Why? I don't know. Carl made a lot of bad business decisions." That was the end of the story.
Here is my response. Please feel free to post your own response to this story.
My name is Bonnie Kaye. I am the organizer of the group Airleaf Victims found at www.AirleafVictims.com. I would like to clarify some of the issues in this story.
It's not just a matter of Carl Lau being a bad businessman; it's a matter of his operation knowingly committing fraudulence against our 431 authors. We do hold Lau responsible because he held the purse strings; however, other employees were totally aware that services were not being delivered nor were they ever intended to be delivered. These employees include the ones told by Lau to pretend he was in Europe while he sat behind his desk, never saw an ad in the NY Times or LA Times for Airleaf books, or never waved Bon Voyage to the people who paid for the Carnival Cruise that never was booked. By knowing fraud was going on and not reporting it to authorities, they were participating in it or covering it up.
Dawn Rogers claims to also be a victim by comparing the loss of a paycheck to the loss of people's years of hard work, throwing money away down the drain that they saved for their futures, and the pain of calling dozens of times and being ignored because services were not being delivered. Let's be for real. Ms. Rogers was there until the very last day begging people for their credit cards selling them packages that were never going to happen--and she knew it.
Let's not turn the bad guys into the heroes and the victors into the victims. The employees of Airleaf profited off of our innocence. Two of them for sure were in Hollywood having great sex in a hotel while they were supposed to be selling our books to Hollywood producers. Those escapades were paid for by our hard earned money.
Everyone who took part in misleading us should be ashamed of themselves. So far, I haven't heard anyone say a simple, "I'm sorry." That might be a good starting point. If ex-employees are looking for pity, this is not the place to find it. Start taking responsibility for your action, and maybe then maybe we'll feel something besides contempt.
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.That's the end of my story! Here's the link for the paper in case you would like to post your own comments:
Link to Martinsville Reporter story:
By the way, Bob Denton has changed his email address and wanted me to share that with you. You can reach him at: bdenton308@comcast.net. If you sent Bob an email recently and didn't get a response, please resend it to that address because it may have gotten lost in transition.
One of our readers wrote to me stating that Carl Lau sent her back a disk but it was blank. She was wondering if any of our other authors had the experience. If so, please let me know. Another author sent me a note that Carl Lau was requesting $2.50 per book. Once again, if you are being asked for money for your books by Carl Lau, please let me know.
This week, I'd like to introduce two new books by our Victim's group. The first book is by John Krismer. John used my new publisher, CCB Publishing, for his book (CCBPublishing.com). Here is the cover and synopsis:
Few realize a New World Order plans to replace our constitution with a Single World Government, nor that our Federal Reserve Bank is privately owned and is not subject to oversight by Congress or the President. Its stockholders include the Rockefellers, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers of New York; the Rothschild’s of London and Berlin; the Lazard Brothers of Paris; Israel Seiff of Italy; the Kuhn & Loeb Company of Germany; and the Warburgs of Hamburg and Amsterdam, earning almost two billion dollars a day in interest as they buy off our dysfunctional Congress and intentionally level this great nation.
George H. W. Bush, the undisputed “Overlord” of the Shrub Dynasty, in his State of the Union Message in 1991 said: “What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea – a new world order.” Did We the People ever agree to this treasonous act of turning over our nation’s sovereignty to a Single World Government?
About the Author
John R. Krismer, MHA-LFACHE is founder and CEO of Health Systems Institute, consulting with governments, hospitals, clinics, and professional organizations. He has conducted hundreds of educational institutes, and served as a principal investigator, researching the health record database system, which involved four major universities. He has served as CEO of several hospitals and corporations, and as a board member of two health insurance companies. He has been referred to as a visionary ahead of his time.
Another one of our victims, Terry Levine, has a new book that will be available on the first day of May. Terry is a well-known personal coach, and you can view her website at http://www.CoachInstitute.com. Terry sent this note:
I am asking you for one favor please. My new book Coaching is For Everyone is available on Amazon.com on May 1 and is by far my most exciting and best book yet.
My request is that you help me make this book an Amazon.com best seller on May 1. I am not asking you to buy a bunch of stuff - just one copy of a book that you will love and if you just send me (Terri@TerriLevine.com) your receipt from Amazon.com I will send you a FREE ticket to my next event worth $500!
Please ask everyone in your network, in your data base and email lists to do this for me. Together, on the May 1st release date, we can really ring the bell in the coaching world and make my pride and joy a number 1 bestseller on amazon.com.
I appreciate you and your assistance in making my dream come true and sharing my finest work with the world. Here is the link to my book on amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Everyone-Learn-Your-Coach/dp/1600373968/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208296251&sr=8-2
My Goal Is YOUR Success!
Terri Levine, The Guru of Coaching SM
President
Comprehensive Coaching U, Inc.
727 Mallard Place, North Wales, PA 19454 Phone:877-401-6165
Create a great home based business coaching clients over the phone!
Visit http://www.CoachInstitute.com today!
Good luck to both of our new authors. I'm happy to publicize any new books that you are creating. Just let me know!
Next week I'll report on more news with our case. Have a good week, and keep up the faith. Justice will be ours!
Love, Bonnie
Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
We are now at 431 Airleaf Victims. I'd like to wish a Happy Passover to all of our Jewish members of the group.
This week, I will be off from my regular job reviewing all of your surveys that you sent to me a couple of months ago in order to identify information to help the government agencies investigating our case. I am hoping to find key documentation that will help us prove the fraudulence that we are claiming. I will let you know some of my results next week.
Thank all of you who told me you wrote to 60 Minutes. If you didn't have a chance to do so, please do so this week. Their email address is: 60m@cbsnews.com. I want them to understand the enormity of our case when it comes to fraudulence. Please put in the subject box, "A Victim of Airleaf Publishing Fraud," or something similar. The more stories they receive, the more convincing our campaign will be.
Today, the Martinsville Reporter released another update. Our reporter friend, Ron Hawkins, has interviewed a number of people including some former employees who were there during Airleaf's last moments.
Feds investigating Airleaf, former employee says
By Ronald Hawkins | rhawkins@reportert.com
Saturday April 19, 2008
Martinsville
At least one former employee of the defunct Airleaf Publishing and Book Selling company has been questioned as a part of a federal investigation into the company's practices, according to that former employee.
The potential criminal filings against the Martinsville-based, vanity publishing and marketing business would be in addition to the multiple civil actions filed against owner Carl Lau and the company he operated until late last year.
In an interview, former Airleaf vice president and sales person Dawn Rodgers said she was questioned on Good Friday by U.S. Postmaster General investigators regarding Airleaf. The investigation is being done in conjunction with the FBI, she said.
Martinsville Police Department Capt. Jeff Buskirk, who investigated Airleaf for local law enforcement authorities, said he's turned over his materials to the FBI.
Bonnie Kaye, a Philadelphia-based author who started airleafvictims.com, said she'd contacted the FBI about Airleaf.
FBI special agent Wendy Osborne, however, said, "The FBI doesn't confirm or deny investigations."
An insider's story
Former Airleaf vp Rodgers worked for two periods at Airleaf. In the first, she had been promoted to vice president of marketing before she left and in the second was a marketing sales person. She was one of the last employees to leave before Lau shut down the business.
Author Kaye said she believes Rodgers shares some of the blame with Lau.
"She was taking money under fraudulent pretenses," Kay said. "She continued taking money after production shut down."
Rodgers said she is as much of a victim as the Airleaf customers who didn't receive the books or marketing services they were promised.
"If anyone's a victim," Rodgers said, "it's me."
Rodgers, who is currently unemployed, said Lau still owes her money.
"He owes everybody," she said.
Lau didn't respond to requests for comments on this story. In a previous interview, however, Lau said after co-founder and Airleaf Executive Vice President Brien Jones left, the business started heading downhill. Lau said Jones, who started his own vanity publishing business in Bloomington, tried to persuade former Airleaf customers not to do business with him.
Jones has said that's not the case
Rodgers, who worked with Jones, said the business headed downhill after Jones left in January 2007, but the cause was the loss of Jones' skills. The sole bad guy in the story, she said, is Lau.
"He didn't have the integrity to run a good business ," Rodgers said. "I wish Carl would accept responsibility for what he did. ...
"I don't think Brien was one of the bad guys. He cared about the business. It went crazy after he left. ...I'd like Carl to be held responsible."
Rodgers said she believed in Lau until the end, when things began to rapidly unravel.
About Airleaf
Airleaf Publishing and Book Selling was a vanity publishing firm based in Martinsville that published and marketed books. Established nearly six years ago, it shut its 35 Industrial Drive offices in mid-December. Many of Airleaf's authors were previously unpublished. Airleaf offered packages for authors that included printing and for an additional price promised it would pitch books to movie studios. Other packages included promises of ad placements in major newspapers and magazines along with interviews on national radio shows and more.
"I believed in what I did, otherwise I wouldn't have done it," Rodgers said. "We all did what we had to do. We cared more about the company than Carl."
In an interview Thursday, Jones said since he started his own business he's had 400 clients and there have been no complaints.
Investigation questioned
Jones questioned whether there is an investigation.
"No one has ever contacted me," Jones said. "I would think at some point someone would have. ...I would think I would be one of the first people they contacted."
Rodgers said the investigators "didn't go into much" about what charges there might be against Law.
The founders of Airleaf, which started as Bookman Publishing and Marketing, had good intentions when they started the business, Rodgers said. Most of the marketing promotions such as cruises and appearances at book shows and even pitches to Hollywood studios happened.
"I don't believe either (Lau or Jones) started with the intent to defraud," Rodgers said.
Martinsville resident Bob Denton is helping some authors receive their books. Denton left Airleaf a month before it closed, he said, but still manages the building and managed it before Lau acquired it. The building is for sale.
Denton worked for Lau for 4-1/2 years in sales, product shipping and receiving, he said. Since leaving, Denton started Mountain Valley Publishing, a publishing firm that he operates out of his home and has some of Airleaf's former clients.
Denton said he left Airleaf because he knew if he sold a publishing package, the money wasn't there to produce it. Denton agreed with Rodgers and Lau that the business started to decline after Jones left.
"At first, it was a good business," Denton said. "It got a lot of people's work published. I don't think they intended to defraud anybody.
"They just ran out of money. Why? I don't know. Carl made a lot of bad business decisions." That was the end of the story.
Here is my response. Please feel free to post your own response to this story.
My name is Bonnie Kaye. I am the organizer of the group Airleaf Victims found at www.AirleafVictims.com. I would like to clarify some of the issues in this story.
It's not just a matter of Carl Lau being a bad businessman; it's a matter of his operation knowingly committing fraudulence against our 431 authors. We do hold Lau responsible because he held the purse strings; however, other employees were totally aware that services were not being delivered nor were they ever intended to be delivered. These employees include the ones told by Lau to pretend he was in Europe while he sat behind his desk, never saw an ad in the NY Times or LA Times for Airleaf books, or never waved Bon Voyage to the people who paid for the Carnival Cruise that never was booked. By knowing fraud was going on and not reporting it to authorities, they were participating in it or covering it up.
Dawn Rogers claims to also be a victim by comparing the loss of a paycheck to the loss of people's years of hard work, throwing money away down the drain that they saved for their futures, and the pain of calling dozens of times and being ignored because services were not being delivered. Let's be for real. Ms. Rogers was there until the very last day begging people for their credit cards selling them packages that were never going to happen--and she knew it.
Let's not turn the bad guys into the heroes and the victors into the victims. The employees of Airleaf profited off of our innocence. Two of them for sure were in Hollywood having great sex in a hotel while they were supposed to be selling our books to Hollywood producers. Those escapades were paid for by our hard earned money.
Everyone who took part in misleading us should be ashamed of themselves. So far, I haven't heard anyone say a simple, "I'm sorry." That might be a good starting point. If ex-employees are looking for pity, this is not the place to find it. Start taking responsibility for your action, and maybe then maybe we'll feel something besides contempt.
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.That's the end of my story! Here's the link for the paper in case you would like to post your own comments:
Link to Martinsville Reporter story:
By the way, Bob Denton has changed his email address and wanted me to share that with you. You can reach him at: bdenton308@comcast.net. If you sent Bob an email recently and didn't get a response, please resend it to that address because it may have gotten lost in transition.
One of our readers wrote to me stating that Carl Lau sent her back a disk but it was blank. She was wondering if any of our other authors had the experience. If so, please let me know. Another author sent me a note that Carl Lau was requesting $2.50 per book. Once again, if you are being asked for money for your books by Carl Lau, please let me know.
This week, I'd like to introduce two new books by our Victim's group. The first book is by John Krismer. John used my new publisher, CCB Publishing, for his book (CCBPublishing.com). Here is the cover and synopsis:
Few realize a New World Order plans to replace our constitution with a Single World Government, nor that our Federal Reserve Bank is privately owned and is not subject to oversight by Congress or the President. Its stockholders include the Rockefellers, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers of New York; the Rothschild’s of London and Berlin; the Lazard Brothers of Paris; Israel Seiff of Italy; the Kuhn & Loeb Company of Germany; and the Warburgs of Hamburg and Amsterdam, earning almost two billion dollars a day in interest as they buy off our dysfunctional Congress and intentionally level this great nation.
George H. W. Bush, the undisputed “Overlord” of the Shrub Dynasty, in his State of the Union Message in 1991 said: “What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea – a new world order.” Did We the People ever agree to this treasonous act of turning over our nation’s sovereignty to a Single World Government?
About the Author
John R. Krismer, MHA-LFACHE is founder and CEO of Health Systems Institute, consulting with governments, hospitals, clinics, and professional organizations. He has conducted hundreds of educational institutes, and served as a principal investigator, researching the health record database system, which involved four major universities. He has served as CEO of several hospitals and corporations, and as a board member of two health insurance companies. He has been referred to as a visionary ahead of his time.
Another one of our victims, Terry Levine, has a new book that will be available on the first day of May. Terry is a well-known personal coach, and you can view her website at http://www.CoachInstitute.com. Terry sent this note:
I am asking you for one favor please. My new book Coaching is For Everyone is available on Amazon.com on May 1 and is by far my most exciting and best book yet.
My request is that you help me make this book an Amazon.com best seller on May 1. I am not asking you to buy a bunch of stuff - just one copy of a book that you will love and if you just send me (Terri@TerriLevine.com) your receipt from Amazon.com I will send you a FREE ticket to my next event worth $500!
Please ask everyone in your network, in your data base and email lists to do this for me. Together, on the May 1st release date, we can really ring the bell in the coaching world and make my pride and joy a number 1 bestseller on amazon.com.
I appreciate you and your assistance in making my dream come true and sharing my finest work with the world. Here is the link to my book on amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Everyone-Learn-Your-Coach/dp/1600373968/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208296251&sr=8-2
My Goal Is YOUR Success!
Terri Levine, The Guru of Coaching SM
President
Comprehensive Coaching U, Inc.
727 Mallard Place, North Wales, PA 19454 Phone:877-401-6165
Create a great home based business coaching clients over the phone!
Visit http://www.CoachInstitute.com today!
Good luck to both of our new authors. I'm happy to publicize any new books that you are creating. Just let me know!
Next week I'll report on more news with our case. Have a good week, and keep up the faith. Justice will be ours!
Love, Bonnie
Saturday, April 5, 2008
AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE APRIL 5, 2008
AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE APRIL 5, 2008
Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
Welcome to our two new members. We now have reached 429 members of our group.
On the legal front, I feel confident that some legal proceedings are progressing. Please be patient as action is happening. You can be sure that I am checking on a regular basis with the various authorities. So far, I feel assured there is movement in our direction.
I'd like to start off this week with something to amuse you. I am Jewish. We have a word in our language which is "Chutzpah." Even if you're not Jewish, you may be familiar with it. But in case you're not, it translates into "gall," or excuse my language, "balls." This concerns Carl Lau, Airleaf fraud perpetrator, as we are trying to get our books being held hostage by the thousands in the Airleaf building. Bob Denton has kindly offered to retrieve our books back for the cost of the postage. However, some authors were getting notes from him stating that Carl wants to be paid $1.00 per book in order to release the books. So I called Bob to see what's up with that.
Bob explained that Carl said he, Bob, can return books to authors if the books were paid for and just being stored at Airleaf; however, if the authors paid for the Airleaf publishing services and received their 25 or 50 books as was agreed to in the contract, they have to pay to get any additional books that might have been printed because Carl claims they belong to him.
Now, quite frankly, I have some deep, severe philosophical disagreements with this kind of thinking. Carl Lau claims these are "his" books because we didn't pay for the additional books that are sitting there. He hasn't considered the additional monies that we paid for marketing services that were never performed or the royalties that were never received. But then I started thinking some more about this, and I called Bob back. I told him to please let Carl know that if anyone is in that situation, we want to know the name of the printer. I have had several printers come to me telling me why they stopped printing for Airleaf—namely because Carl Lau owed them thousands of dollars. So I suspect that many of our books that Carl wants to charge authors for were never paid for anyway. But you can be sure I'll be checking this out with the printers.
If you are an Airleaf victim in this situation where your books are being held for ransom by Carl Lau, please let me know immediately so I can work with you to see if we can locate the printer and whether or not your book was one that was never paid for. If so, we will have new charges to report to the federal government—which would be excellent.
Please remember—this has nothing to do with Bob Denton who is really trying to help authors by retrieving our books, discs, and materials. Bob is doing all the labor for free including finding materials, packing them, and shipping them. This was not his idea, and he has given Carl Lau his opinion backing us.
One of our Airleaf authors, Gertrude, wrote to me about a book company she used, Dorrance, located in Pittsburgh, PA. She told me that she was charged "by the word." This is something new to me. Several others have written to me about this company. Here's what she asked me to ask you:
Dear Bonnie:
I found one statement of my account dated for 9/25/2005. They did charge me by the word. They also charged me $480.00 for alteration fee when they deliberately changed some of the words and I had to get them to change the words back. I think they really took advantage of me because I was not familiar with the publishing business. From the statement of 9/25/2005, I paid them a grand total of $13,780.00. I don't know if there is anything that I can do about it now.
Yesterday, I found a blog site under their name. I didn't know that this blog site was there when I was dealing with them. I don't know whether I should add a comment to the blog site or not. I don't know if there is anything I can do about this situation, if they are the only publishing company that does this. I don't know if they have charged their other authors the same as they did me. Do you think I should add a comment on the blog site about the way that they charged me?
Sincerely,
Gertrude
Please let me know if you have had any similar experiences with this company.
One of our author's, Anita, asked the question about ownership of the ISBN number. I referred the question to my new publisher, Paul, from CCB Publishing, and here was his response:
Thanks for passing along Anita’s question. The answer is that the Publisher owns the ISBN number, not the author. If the author wishes to have their book re-published by another author, a new ISBN number is required.
When re-publishing books as a second edition, CCB Publishing provides a new ISBN number free of charge.
Hope this helps! Paul
Since last week's update, I received a number of comments about copyrighting. I had several dozen people panicked when they wrote to me after seeing that their books with Airleaf and others were not copyrighted at all, even though the books had that imprint.
Here were some of the responses. The first is from my POD guru, Victoria Strauss:
Hi, Bonnie,
Just wanted to address this, from the last Airleaf update:
Take a moment to check your book in the link below to find out. If it's not there, your book is unprotected and anyone can copy it and say it is theirs.
This isn't true. By law, authors have copyright from the minute they
write down the words. Their work is fully protected from that moment,
and they don't need to take any action to ensure that.
Copyright registration is an additional step that US-based authors can
take (most countries have no formal registration process). It doesn't
confer any additional protection--all it does is to give you the right
to sue in court if your work is infringed. In the USA, you MUST have
previously registered your copyright in order to bring an infringement
suit.
However, infringement of unpublished work is so rare as to be
functionally nonexistent, so registration is not necessary for
unpublished works. Many authors are terrified of theft or plagiarism,
but it really should be last on their worry list. There's no need to
register copyright before a work is published.
There's a lot more detail about copyright on the Copyright page of
Writer Beware: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/copyright.html
Should Airleaf authors register? If their books are on the market,
especially if they're selling their own stock of books, it's probably a
good idea (though if they were to republish with any changes, they'd
need to re-register). For anyone whose book was never published by
Airleaf, however, registration is not necessary.
Hope this is helpful!
Victoria Strauss
Personal Website: http://www.victoriastrauss.com/
Writer Beware: http://www.writerbeware.org/
Blog: http://www.accrispin.blogspot.com/
The next note was from Mark Levine at Click Industries (www.Clickindustries.com), a company that helps authors with solutions to many issues as far as publishing. I have been in touch with Mark for over a year and he has always been very responsive and accommodating. He wrote:
Bonnie,
Just wanted to let you know that even if a company doesn't register an author's copyright, it doesn't mean that the book is unprotected and can be taken/used by anyone. Yes, if a company tells you it's registering the copyright and doesn't, it's fraud, but the author isn't totally left in the cold.
A writer has what is known as a common law copyright once the work is produced in any tangible form. Registering the work with the US Copyright Office provides other benefits (http://bookpublisherscompared.com/why_copyright.asp). But, if a third-party used an author's book without the author's permission, the author could still sue and recover damages, even if the book wasn't registered with the US Copyright Office. With all of the suffering of the Airleaf authors, I want to make sure they don't have an extra thing to worry about.
The above link provides all the details about why someone should register their work with the US Copyright Office.
Mark
And this information came from Helen at Artship Publishing:
Hello Bonnie. Since you are doing such a formidable job distributing advice and information to the authors in the VICTIMS group, I would like to offer some, if you would be so kind as to distribute these clarifications in none of your newsletters.
Books Printed and “In Stock”-- please note that POD means “print on demand”. This means that an author who has self-published can take an order, put in the print order with the printer, receive the book and ship it one-at-a-time, avoiding the necessity for big print order fees and inventory. It’s a good way of avoiding the dreaded “returns” too. In some instances the POD printer will ship the book out to the customer directly, but this is rare.
Re bookstores and other resellers, naturally the author would hope that there are at LEAST 1 or 2 of his/her books on the shelf for customers to browse through— and an author can persuade local stores to carry them in various ways: go preparing to set up a display, talk the store into a book-signing, take a free book and a poster-- and there are dozens (yes, dozens!) of other creative ways to get stores to carry the book. The author should in ALL instances sell the books to the bookstore at a discount (the store needs to make money, too) and guarantee returns after4 a decent period of time. All these rules and ideas are outlined in good books for self-publishing authors, such as the one by Tom & Marilyn Ross-- and NO author should even consider self-publishing without going through this learning curve FIRST.
COPYRIGHT. When Copyright is applied for, the author needs to fill out form TX (available from the Copyright office web site), pay the fee, and provide two copies of the book. If the book has not yet been published (the Copyright office defines “publication” as the date when, and the form in which, the book is made available to the public for purchase), the author CAN provide 2 copies of the manuscript. However the most common practice is to apply for the ISBN and the SAN prior to publication, and to apply formally for copyright when copies of the published book are available.
Incidentally, even if your book is not yet registered with the copyright office, your intellectual rights as author are protected as soon as you write it. There have been many, many cases in which an author was able to win a plagiarism court case proving his ms was written by him first even before it was registered in the copyright office. He who writes it first, owns it. Authors should research this topic thoroughly, and applying for a SAN at the earliest opportunity helps.
Also, don’t expect the Copyright Office to send you that letter immediately. It can take 6 months or longer.
If an author is using a “vanity press” (fee-based) or an independent publisher, that publisher will, if it is legitimate and organized, supply the author with all the registration numbers long before the book appears in print— and will send 2 copies to the Copyright office as soon as it IS in print for registration there. So the offer by Fidel Publishing confuses me a bit. If an author has already had his book published somewhere, the Copyright should have been part of the publishing service. Authors should demand contracts which spell all this out.
Another tidbit: Don’t use AuthorHouse. They are being sued in class-action for dishonest practices. I personally know one author whose book is being printed in mass numbers by AuthorHouse and sold in the orient at prices so low that he earns pennies on each book. This was not in their contract, either.
Contracts: an author needs a contract which spells out everything. But, of course if an author doesn’t know the pitfalls, it’s easy to overlook or not anticipate something important. It’s a good idea to have a lawyer who is familiar with the publishing field. After all, in addition to your rights to your own intellectual property, it’s money-- perhaps BIG money-- and you do NOT purchase services without a valid contract, any more than you’d buy a house without legal paperwork, that has been ready by your attorney.
A word about ArtshipPublishing: We write contracts and we urge authors to have their attorneys review them.
We also help authors get their books finalized, polished, completely registered (published), designed, printed, publicized, and distributed — often, without an initial cash investment on their part.
For me to take on the publicity job though, I have to be sure that there is a “fit”, that we both might not be better off if that author searched out an agent or other publisher instead— for instance where it comes to children’s books, religious books, teen novels and other very specialized genres where I have less experience than I do in non-fiction, medical, and historical areas. The subsidizing I do puts our company at risk, so I have to be selective as to which books go into print through ARTSHIP at our own cost— we are NOT Random House! But I’m glad to consider them all, give my honest advice, and offer what services which would be appropriate.
For those who — like all of the authors who approached AIRLEAF— are seeking a publicity agent, I have surveyed over twenty of the most prominent book-publicity houses and publicity departments of publishing houses, and the information is contained in a detailed report— it covers who does what, specifically; whether they take your book online and to reviewers, etc, or sell you the tools so you can do it yourself; which ones offer services for flat fees or customize campaigns; and so on.
I also communicate with over 25 printers; I have a report on which ones offer digital vs. offset, at what quantities, their fees, which are P.O.D., and so on.
Either of these reports can save an author literally, weeks of lost time and speed up that part of the learning-curve.
The role I fill most frequently is the book-designer and publishing role. I get the book formatted with fonts, visuals, size, page layouts, etc. as appropriate and in a way that will enhance the content of the book.
Good luck Bonnie, keep up your amazing work.
My best— Helen Compton
http://www.ArtshipPublishing.com
So, the bottom line—I wouldn't panic if your book is not copyrighted. If it gives you peace of mind, get it done for the $45.00 fee either by yourself or through Fideli Publishing who is offering to do it free as a courtesy to our victims (just for the cost of the fee).
Also, Helen brought up an IMPORTANT POINT that I will now reinforce. If you do go to a new publisher, MAKE SURE YOU RECEIVE A SIGNED CONTRACT. I hate to tell you how many of us did business with Airleaf without having one. And I'm not trying to make you feel stupid—I'm at the top of the list. I sent them back my signed version of the contract, but never received a signed copy back. Even though I've been told that this still stands as proof of a contract, I would feel much better having the signed copy. So make sure that you ask for this first before anything else when you republish. Interesting—I never had to ask my new company CCB Publishing for a copy. It was sent to me immediately, and after I signed it, a copy was returned to me quickly with the owner's signature.
New book share
This week, our group member Sharon Licht's new book was released. I asked Sharon to tell us about it.
MAGIC MARMALADE A Tale of the Moonlight Fairies by Sharon E. Licht
Magic Marmalade is a new and exciting story about a little girl who wanders into an enchanted woods and discovers a magical world of fairies and elves and a place where dreams come true. This book is perfect for children of all ages. Anyone intrigued by fairies, elves, adventure, magic, and happy endings will adore this story. Description: Soft cover, 84 page book, 7 - 1/2" x 8 - 1/2", written in rhymed verse, with full color illustrations by Artist James Browne.
The book was written by Sharon E. Licht, a local Bucks County, PA writer who has penned this delightful story for the enjoyment of young and old alike.
Books can be ordered on the web at:
http://catawbapublishing.com/ Bookstore, Children's Books or through the author by sending email to: caganne@verizon.net Please type book order in subject line. PayPal is the preferred payment method. Money orders also accepted. Price is $20.00 each plus the cost of shipping when ordering through the author.
We all wish you the best of luck, Sharon. All of our authors can appreciate the hard work that goes into producing a book, and when you see it come to fruition, it's a most exciting moment to be celebrated.
If you have a new book out that you would like to share with the group, please feel free to share it with me.
Have a good week, and please feel free to send me any issues or questions you have.
With love and hope,
Bonnie
Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
Welcome to our two new members. We now have reached 429 members of our group.
On the legal front, I feel confident that some legal proceedings are progressing. Please be patient as action is happening. You can be sure that I am checking on a regular basis with the various authorities. So far, I feel assured there is movement in our direction.
I'd like to start off this week with something to amuse you. I am Jewish. We have a word in our language which is "Chutzpah." Even if you're not Jewish, you may be familiar with it. But in case you're not, it translates into "gall," or excuse my language, "balls." This concerns Carl Lau, Airleaf fraud perpetrator, as we are trying to get our books being held hostage by the thousands in the Airleaf building. Bob Denton has kindly offered to retrieve our books back for the cost of the postage. However, some authors were getting notes from him stating that Carl wants to be paid $1.00 per book in order to release the books. So I called Bob to see what's up with that.
Bob explained that Carl said he, Bob, can return books to authors if the books were paid for and just being stored at Airleaf; however, if the authors paid for the Airleaf publishing services and received their 25 or 50 books as was agreed to in the contract, they have to pay to get any additional books that might have been printed because Carl claims they belong to him.
Now, quite frankly, I have some deep, severe philosophical disagreements with this kind of thinking. Carl Lau claims these are "his" books because we didn't pay for the additional books that are sitting there. He hasn't considered the additional monies that we paid for marketing services that were never performed or the royalties that were never received. But then I started thinking some more about this, and I called Bob back. I told him to please let Carl know that if anyone is in that situation, we want to know the name of the printer. I have had several printers come to me telling me why they stopped printing for Airleaf—namely because Carl Lau owed them thousands of dollars. So I suspect that many of our books that Carl wants to charge authors for were never paid for anyway. But you can be sure I'll be checking this out with the printers.
If you are an Airleaf victim in this situation where your books are being held for ransom by Carl Lau, please let me know immediately so I can work with you to see if we can locate the printer and whether or not your book was one that was never paid for. If so, we will have new charges to report to the federal government—which would be excellent.
Please remember—this has nothing to do with Bob Denton who is really trying to help authors by retrieving our books, discs, and materials. Bob is doing all the labor for free including finding materials, packing them, and shipping them. This was not his idea, and he has given Carl Lau his opinion backing us.
One of our Airleaf authors, Gertrude, wrote to me about a book company she used, Dorrance, located in Pittsburgh, PA. She told me that she was charged "by the word." This is something new to me. Several others have written to me about this company. Here's what she asked me to ask you:
Dear Bonnie:
I found one statement of my account dated for 9/25/2005. They did charge me by the word. They also charged me $480.00 for alteration fee when they deliberately changed some of the words and I had to get them to change the words back. I think they really took advantage of me because I was not familiar with the publishing business. From the statement of 9/25/2005, I paid them a grand total of $13,780.00. I don't know if there is anything that I can do about it now.
Yesterday, I found a blog site under their name. I didn't know that this blog site was there when I was dealing with them. I don't know whether I should add a comment to the blog site or not. I don't know if there is anything I can do about this situation, if they are the only publishing company that does this. I don't know if they have charged their other authors the same as they did me. Do you think I should add a comment on the blog site about the way that they charged me?
Sincerely,
Gertrude
Please let me know if you have had any similar experiences with this company.
One of our author's, Anita, asked the question about ownership of the ISBN number. I referred the question to my new publisher, Paul, from CCB Publishing, and here was his response:
Thanks for passing along Anita’s question. The answer is that the Publisher owns the ISBN number, not the author. If the author wishes to have their book re-published by another author, a new ISBN number is required.
When re-publishing books as a second edition, CCB Publishing provides a new ISBN number free of charge.
Hope this helps! Paul
Since last week's update, I received a number of comments about copyrighting. I had several dozen people panicked when they wrote to me after seeing that their books with Airleaf and others were not copyrighted at all, even though the books had that imprint.
Here were some of the responses. The first is from my POD guru, Victoria Strauss:
Hi, Bonnie,
Just wanted to address this, from the last Airleaf update:
Take a moment to check your book in the link below to find out. If it's not there, your book is unprotected and anyone can copy it and say it is theirs.
This isn't true. By law, authors have copyright from the minute they
write down the words. Their work is fully protected from that moment,
and they don't need to take any action to ensure that.
Copyright registration is an additional step that US-based authors can
take (most countries have no formal registration process). It doesn't
confer any additional protection--all it does is to give you the right
to sue in court if your work is infringed. In the USA, you MUST have
previously registered your copyright in order to bring an infringement
suit.
However, infringement of unpublished work is so rare as to be
functionally nonexistent, so registration is not necessary for
unpublished works. Many authors are terrified of theft or plagiarism,
but it really should be last on their worry list. There's no need to
register copyright before a work is published.
There's a lot more detail about copyright on the Copyright page of
Writer Beware: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/copyright.html
Should Airleaf authors register? If their books are on the market,
especially if they're selling their own stock of books, it's probably a
good idea (though if they were to republish with any changes, they'd
need to re-register). For anyone whose book was never published by
Airleaf, however, registration is not necessary.
Hope this is helpful!
Victoria Strauss
Personal Website: http://www.victoriastrauss.com/
Writer Beware: http://www.writerbeware.org/
Blog: http://www.accrispin.blogspot.com/
The next note was from Mark Levine at Click Industries (www.Clickindustries.com), a company that helps authors with solutions to many issues as far as publishing. I have been in touch with Mark for over a year and he has always been very responsive and accommodating. He wrote:
Bonnie,
Just wanted to let you know that even if a company doesn't register an author's copyright, it doesn't mean that the book is unprotected and can be taken/used by anyone. Yes, if a company tells you it's registering the copyright and doesn't, it's fraud, but the author isn't totally left in the cold.
A writer has what is known as a common law copyright once the work is produced in any tangible form. Registering the work with the US Copyright Office provides other benefits (http://bookpublisherscompared.com/why_copyright.asp). But, if a third-party used an author's book without the author's permission, the author could still sue and recover damages, even if the book wasn't registered with the US Copyright Office. With all of the suffering of the Airleaf authors, I want to make sure they don't have an extra thing to worry about.
The above link provides all the details about why someone should register their work with the US Copyright Office.
Mark
And this information came from Helen at Artship Publishing:
Hello Bonnie. Since you are doing such a formidable job distributing advice and information to the authors in the VICTIMS group, I would like to offer some, if you would be so kind as to distribute these clarifications in none of your newsletters.
Books Printed and “In Stock”-- please note that POD means “print on demand”. This means that an author who has self-published can take an order, put in the print order with the printer, receive the book and ship it one-at-a-time, avoiding the necessity for big print order fees and inventory. It’s a good way of avoiding the dreaded “returns” too. In some instances the POD printer will ship the book out to the customer directly, but this is rare.
Re bookstores and other resellers, naturally the author would hope that there are at LEAST 1 or 2 of his/her books on the shelf for customers to browse through— and an author can persuade local stores to carry them in various ways: go preparing to set up a display, talk the store into a book-signing, take a free book and a poster-- and there are dozens (yes, dozens!) of other creative ways to get stores to carry the book. The author should in ALL instances sell the books to the bookstore at a discount (the store needs to make money, too) and guarantee returns after4 a decent period of time. All these rules and ideas are outlined in good books for self-publishing authors, such as the one by Tom & Marilyn Ross-- and NO author should even consider self-publishing without going through this learning curve FIRST.
COPYRIGHT. When Copyright is applied for, the author needs to fill out form TX (available from the Copyright office web site), pay the fee, and provide two copies of the book. If the book has not yet been published (the Copyright office defines “publication” as the date when, and the form in which, the book is made available to the public for purchase), the author CAN provide 2 copies of the manuscript. However the most common practice is to apply for the ISBN and the SAN prior to publication, and to apply formally for copyright when copies of the published book are available.
Incidentally, even if your book is not yet registered with the copyright office, your intellectual rights as author are protected as soon as you write it. There have been many, many cases in which an author was able to win a plagiarism court case proving his ms was written by him first even before it was registered in the copyright office. He who writes it first, owns it. Authors should research this topic thoroughly, and applying for a SAN at the earliest opportunity helps.
Also, don’t expect the Copyright Office to send you that letter immediately. It can take 6 months or longer.
If an author is using a “vanity press” (fee-based) or an independent publisher, that publisher will, if it is legitimate and organized, supply the author with all the registration numbers long before the book appears in print— and will send 2 copies to the Copyright office as soon as it IS in print for registration there. So the offer by Fidel Publishing confuses me a bit. If an author has already had his book published somewhere, the Copyright should have been part of the publishing service. Authors should demand contracts which spell all this out.
Another tidbit: Don’t use AuthorHouse. They are being sued in class-action for dishonest practices. I personally know one author whose book is being printed in mass numbers by AuthorHouse and sold in the orient at prices so low that he earns pennies on each book. This was not in their contract, either.
Contracts: an author needs a contract which spells out everything. But, of course if an author doesn’t know the pitfalls, it’s easy to overlook or not anticipate something important. It’s a good idea to have a lawyer who is familiar with the publishing field. After all, in addition to your rights to your own intellectual property, it’s money-- perhaps BIG money-- and you do NOT purchase services without a valid contract, any more than you’d buy a house without legal paperwork, that has been ready by your attorney.
A word about ArtshipPublishing: We write contracts and we urge authors to have their attorneys review them.
We also help authors get their books finalized, polished, completely registered (published), designed, printed, publicized, and distributed — often, without an initial cash investment on their part.
For me to take on the publicity job though, I have to be sure that there is a “fit”, that we both might not be better off if that author searched out an agent or other publisher instead— for instance where it comes to children’s books, religious books, teen novels and other very specialized genres where I have less experience than I do in non-fiction, medical, and historical areas. The subsidizing I do puts our company at risk, so I have to be selective as to which books go into print through ARTSHIP at our own cost— we are NOT Random House! But I’m glad to consider them all, give my honest advice, and offer what services which would be appropriate.
For those who — like all of the authors who approached AIRLEAF— are seeking a publicity agent, I have surveyed over twenty of the most prominent book-publicity houses and publicity departments of publishing houses, and the information is contained in a detailed report— it covers who does what, specifically; whether they take your book online and to reviewers, etc, or sell you the tools so you can do it yourself; which ones offer services for flat fees or customize campaigns; and so on.
I also communicate with over 25 printers; I have a report on which ones offer digital vs. offset, at what quantities, their fees, which are P.O.D., and so on.
Either of these reports can save an author literally, weeks of lost time and speed up that part of the learning-curve.
The role I fill most frequently is the book-designer and publishing role. I get the book formatted with fonts, visuals, size, page layouts, etc. as appropriate and in a way that will enhance the content of the book.
Good luck Bonnie, keep up your amazing work.
My best— Helen Compton
http://www.ArtshipPublishing.com
So, the bottom line—I wouldn't panic if your book is not copyrighted. If it gives you peace of mind, get it done for the $45.00 fee either by yourself or through Fideli Publishing who is offering to do it free as a courtesy to our victims (just for the cost of the fee).
Also, Helen brought up an IMPORTANT POINT that I will now reinforce. If you do go to a new publisher, MAKE SURE YOU RECEIVE A SIGNED CONTRACT. I hate to tell you how many of us did business with Airleaf without having one. And I'm not trying to make you feel stupid—I'm at the top of the list. I sent them back my signed version of the contract, but never received a signed copy back. Even though I've been told that this still stands as proof of a contract, I would feel much better having the signed copy. So make sure that you ask for this first before anything else when you republish. Interesting—I never had to ask my new company CCB Publishing for a copy. It was sent to me immediately, and after I signed it, a copy was returned to me quickly with the owner's signature.
New book share
This week, our group member Sharon Licht's new book was released. I asked Sharon to tell us about it.
MAGIC MARMALADE A Tale of the Moonlight Fairies by Sharon E. Licht
Magic Marmalade is a new and exciting story about a little girl who wanders into an enchanted woods and discovers a magical world of fairies and elves and a place where dreams come true. This book is perfect for children of all ages. Anyone intrigued by fairies, elves, adventure, magic, and happy endings will adore this story. Description: Soft cover, 84 page book, 7 - 1/2" x 8 - 1/2", written in rhymed verse, with full color illustrations by Artist James Browne.
The book was written by Sharon E. Licht, a local Bucks County, PA writer who has penned this delightful story for the enjoyment of young and old alike.
Books can be ordered on the web at:
http://catawbapublishing.com/ Bookstore, Children's Books or through the author by sending email to: caganne@verizon.net Please type book order in subject line. PayPal is the preferred payment method. Money orders also accepted. Price is $20.00 each plus the cost of shipping when ordering through the author.
We all wish you the best of luck, Sharon. All of our authors can appreciate the hard work that goes into producing a book, and when you see it come to fruition, it's a most exciting moment to be celebrated.
If you have a new book out that you would like to share with the group, please feel free to share it with me.
Have a good week, and please feel free to send me any issues or questions you have.
With love and hope,
Bonnie
Saturday, March 29, 2008
AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE MARCH 29, 2008
AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE MARCH 29, 2008
Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
Welcome to our four new members. We now have 427 members of our group. I am not actively soliciting new people, but they are finding us on the Internet when they try to call Airleaf and the phones/websites are down. We are happy to help any victims who find our group.
I am not actively soliciting new members because this group is now large enough to bring about enough action with the membership we have. Some of you have been with me since my earliest organizing days back in August 2007. You have taken all the steps to get this case moving, moving, moving—and it is moving! I am in touch with both the civil authorities and federal authorities, and I have confidence that we will see some justice in the near future. When we do, I'll be traveling to Indiana hoping to meet some other authors who will join me for any legal court proceedings. I am a big believer in the accused having to meet their accusers, so I am hoping that as many of you as possible will be joining me. I will keep you posted as soon as any of this is taking place.
Our efforts in pursuing justice are very important because there are other companies out there are who practicing predatory publishing. This means that there are new victims all the time. It is my intention for our group to serve as a warning to anyone who thinks that he/she is above the law when it comes to publishing fraudulence. Too many of our authors are kind and trusting souls who were victimized once and now find themselves being victimized again. If you are in that situation, please write to me because I am compiling this new information and helping authors retrieve back their money. Please feel free to write to me before you make any decisions about republishing your book if you want my honest input and research. I'm happy to help you. As I have stated before, I don't want to do anything publicly to divert the attention away from our goal of seeing justice with the Airleaf case. However, privately and behind the scenes I am more than happy to help. Once our Airleaf case is resolved, then I will feel more willing to stop any other criminals who are participating in this unconscionable crime.
The requests for forming a co-op for our group continue to come in. I will work on this in May when I have some vacation time coming from my job. If you have any ideas you would like to share, please send them to me, and when the time comes, I'll notify our "co-op group" as to the suggestions.
Gayla Swint from Fideli Publishing called me to let authors know that Fideli is offering to copyright authors' books for the cost of the copyright even if they are published by another company. The cost for copyrighting is $45.00. Here is an interesting tidbit. Airleaf claimed they were "copyrighting" our books. I looked in my book and saw that it says "Copyright 2006." So after Gayla tipped me off, I went to the website from the Library of Congress and checked. I put the name of the book in, "Straight Wives: Shattered Lives." Well, it didn't really shock me to find that the book isn't listed at all as being copyrighted. To double check, I put in the name of a book published through a traditional publisher and the copyright came up immediately.
This means that there are publishers out there who are lying about getting your book copyrighted. Some of you have gone to companies that tell you that copyrighting is included in the publishing package. According to Gayla, you should receive a letter from the Library of Congress stating this. If you don't have a letter, this is a red flag. Take a moment to check your book in the link below to find out. If it's not there, your book is unprotected and anyone can copy it and say it is theirs. This is another publishing nightmare in the making. If you paid a company for this service and it has not been done when you check, call your company on Monday and demand that it be done or that the money is refunded to you for false advertising. Remember, an ISBN number is not the same as the copyright number.
Here's the link to check if your book is copyrighted:
Simple Search
If you would like to have your book copyrighted, write to Gayla at the following email address: sales@fidelipublishing.com. Fideli will charge you the $45.00 that it would cost you to do it, but they will do it for you and submit all the paperwork without charging you except for the cost. They are doing this as a service to try to help our authors so we are not victimized again.
Or you can do it yourself online if you prefer.
Here's the link to fill out the copyright work on your own:
U.S. Copyright Office
Authors are telling me that they are receiving their books and materials back from Bob Denton as well as Gayla Swint, both former Airleaf employees. Bob asked me to ask you to be patient because he is doing some of this work daily, but he still has a company to run, Mountain Valley Publishing Company, with deadlines to his own authors that he intends to meet. He plans to get to each request in the weeks ahead. If you have an emergency, write to him again and explain. He is being very accommodating in helping our victims. Gayla also has access to some of the books and may be calling you if she has yours to set up a way to return them to you.
In last week's update, I mentioned the website on Bob's website, Books4U, where you can see how your books are being distributed. This caused a lot of anguish to people who saw their books and felt even more helpless because they didn't know how to get the proceeds for them when they sell.
One of our victims wrote to his publisher, one of the major PODer's, about this and received this explanation that he said I could share with the group:
You have to remember that this is POD and, as such, a listing on a website is not an indication of sales or even of the book being stocked. What we have worked out with these distributors is that Ingram would carry a "virtual inventory" of 101 copies of your book so that it would not show an "out of stock" book, which would be an automatic deterrent to prospective buyers. I can understand the confusion, but I can assure you that since your book can be purchased very quickly, I doubt that any of these online retailers have any that are in actual stock.
What this says is that your book may be showing that it's available, but not be available at all. However, this is definitely a way for you to check if your book has been distributed as promised by companies who are selling you publishing packages promising it. If you see that your book is NOT there, then that means you have paid for a service that has not taken place. Let this site serve as a red flag for you.
As we are moving forward in the weeks ahead, I would like to promote our authors who have new books published. I think this is a great way for us to meet our fellow authors and see how diversified our genres are. If you would like to be included in this, please drop me a line with your book and information.
This week, I would like to send our heartfelt congratulations to Airleaf Victim Sarah Harrison, author of You Love Your Daddy, Don't You? A True Tragedy About Sexual Abuse. Sarah joined our group in January after waiting for a book that never came and continually emailing Carl Lau with no response. Due to the sensitive nature of the book, sexual incest, many people in the group where Sarah helps with counseling incest victims were waiting to get this book.
When Sarah and I first became acquainted in January, she shared with me a part of her book which I found horrifying based on her personal experience with incest from the time she was a young girl. As if she had not been victimized enough in her life, now her dream of helping others through her most difficult work of recreating this tragedy in book form had become another nightmare. Once again, Sarah was a victim and felt very defeated.
Sarah decided to publish her book with my new publisher, CCB Publishing. Her book was just released last week. This is the write up from her page on Amazon.com where you can order the book:
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
"Mama, something terrible is wrong with me. There is blood in my panties!"
Those were the words of seven-year-old Sarah. Mama told her she must have fallen or something and not to worry. Sarah went away feeling sad; her chance for help was gone!
It was Sarah's alter, Susie, who had been sticking pencils and other items in her private place. Susie had come when Sarah was only four years old. Susie had become Daddy's 'special' little girl by sitting on his lap. In return he gave her a dollar for any change she had.
Daddy played with Susie's pee pee and it was Susie that slept in the upstairs bedroom with her fourteen-year-old brother. Later in life, two other alters would appear.
You Love Your Daddy, Don't You? is told through the memories of Sarah. It reveals a child's determination to survive despite profound emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. This was compounded by constant neglect from both parents.
About the Author:
Sarah Harrison has written several articles for the Women's Institute for Incorporation Therapy's monthly newsletter as well as articles for spiritual magazines. She also volunteers as a mentor in a local school system, helps with special group activities in an assisted living home, and provides guidance to troubled parents and teens on www.experts.com.
After the death of her husband, Sarah Harrison moved from Atlanta, Georgia in 2007 to a suburb near Charlotte, North Carolina to be near her grandchildren. She has joined Harrison United Methodist Church and is active in Youth Group, Emmaus, Epiphany, and Faith Partners.
Sarah was so impressed by the services provided by CCB Publishing that she added her own testimonial to the others on the website. She wrote:
My name is Sarah Harrison, EDS. Having written my first book, "You Love Your Daddy, Don’t You?" In 2006, my goal was and still is to assist others who have suffered from child and sexual abuse in their lives.
The first attempt to publish my book with Airleaf was less than encouraging. They lied to me, took over $2,000.00 of my money and kept my manuscript for almost two years. I felt like giving up and never thought I’d ever see my book in print. However I had many friends and associates encouraging me, wanting to know when they could purchase my book.
This is when my friend, Bonnie Kaye, who has helped other Airleaf victims suggested contacting CCB Publishing. I am so grateful she did because it is like a dream to work with (the owner) Paul Rabinovitch. He renewed my enthusiasm and made me feel good about my book again. He understood my feelings and even helped me reword some phrases when I asked for his help.
When we converse by email, it never takes him longer than a couple of hours to reply even if it is just to say that he’s received my message and will get back to me in a timely manner.
I signed my contract in mid-February, and now before the end of March it is being printed. I have seen the first copy and am so delighted. It has been a true pleasure to work with Paul. CCB Publishing also allows its authors to have their books listed as “returnable” which encourages bookstores to purchase books. This is definitely an added advantage to us authors. I will recommend CCB Publishing to everyone I know.
In our efforts to promote our internal authors, please buy Sarah's compelling story. You can get it at Amazon.com or order it through her CCB website by clicking here:
Books by Sarah Harrison Sexual Child Abuse
Although I try to remain neutral throughout this mission, I feel compelled to tell our authors about the wonderful experience I had publishing my latest book with CCB Publishing. I think it's the best deal with the highest level of integrity and customer service. Please check the website at www.CCBPublishing.com to see for yourself.
If you have any books that have been printed in recent months and would like to share them with our group, please send me the information and I will share it with the group.
Please write to me if you have any questions or concerns.
Love, Bonnie
Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
Welcome to our four new members. We now have 427 members of our group. I am not actively soliciting new people, but they are finding us on the Internet when they try to call Airleaf and the phones/websites are down. We are happy to help any victims who find our group.
I am not actively soliciting new members because this group is now large enough to bring about enough action with the membership we have. Some of you have been with me since my earliest organizing days back in August 2007. You have taken all the steps to get this case moving, moving, moving—and it is moving! I am in touch with both the civil authorities and federal authorities, and I have confidence that we will see some justice in the near future. When we do, I'll be traveling to Indiana hoping to meet some other authors who will join me for any legal court proceedings. I am a big believer in the accused having to meet their accusers, so I am hoping that as many of you as possible will be joining me. I will keep you posted as soon as any of this is taking place.
Our efforts in pursuing justice are very important because there are other companies out there are who practicing predatory publishing. This means that there are new victims all the time. It is my intention for our group to serve as a warning to anyone who thinks that he/she is above the law when it comes to publishing fraudulence. Too many of our authors are kind and trusting souls who were victimized once and now find themselves being victimized again. If you are in that situation, please write to me because I am compiling this new information and helping authors retrieve back their money. Please feel free to write to me before you make any decisions about republishing your book if you want my honest input and research. I'm happy to help you. As I have stated before, I don't want to do anything publicly to divert the attention away from our goal of seeing justice with the Airleaf case. However, privately and behind the scenes I am more than happy to help. Once our Airleaf case is resolved, then I will feel more willing to stop any other criminals who are participating in this unconscionable crime.
The requests for forming a co-op for our group continue to come in. I will work on this in May when I have some vacation time coming from my job. If you have any ideas you would like to share, please send them to me, and when the time comes, I'll notify our "co-op group" as to the suggestions.
Gayla Swint from Fideli Publishing called me to let authors know that Fideli is offering to copyright authors' books for the cost of the copyright even if they are published by another company. The cost for copyrighting is $45.00. Here is an interesting tidbit. Airleaf claimed they were "copyrighting" our books. I looked in my book and saw that it says "Copyright 2006." So after Gayla tipped me off, I went to the website from the Library of Congress and checked. I put the name of the book in, "Straight Wives: Shattered Lives." Well, it didn't really shock me to find that the book isn't listed at all as being copyrighted. To double check, I put in the name of a book published through a traditional publisher and the copyright came up immediately.
This means that there are publishers out there who are lying about getting your book copyrighted. Some of you have gone to companies that tell you that copyrighting is included in the publishing package. According to Gayla, you should receive a letter from the Library of Congress stating this. If you don't have a letter, this is a red flag. Take a moment to check your book in the link below to find out. If it's not there, your book is unprotected and anyone can copy it and say it is theirs. This is another publishing nightmare in the making. If you paid a company for this service and it has not been done when you check, call your company on Monday and demand that it be done or that the money is refunded to you for false advertising. Remember, an ISBN number is not the same as the copyright number.
Here's the link to check if your book is copyrighted:
Simple Search
If you would like to have your book copyrighted, write to Gayla at the following email address: sales@fidelipublishing.com. Fideli will charge you the $45.00 that it would cost you to do it, but they will do it for you and submit all the paperwork without charging you except for the cost. They are doing this as a service to try to help our authors so we are not victimized again.
Or you can do it yourself online if you prefer.
Here's the link to fill out the copyright work on your own:
U.S. Copyright Office
Authors are telling me that they are receiving their books and materials back from Bob Denton as well as Gayla Swint, both former Airleaf employees. Bob asked me to ask you to be patient because he is doing some of this work daily, but he still has a company to run, Mountain Valley Publishing Company, with deadlines to his own authors that he intends to meet. He plans to get to each request in the weeks ahead. If you have an emergency, write to him again and explain. He is being very accommodating in helping our victims. Gayla also has access to some of the books and may be calling you if she has yours to set up a way to return them to you.
In last week's update, I mentioned the website on Bob's website, Books4U, where you can see how your books are being distributed. This caused a lot of anguish to people who saw their books and felt even more helpless because they didn't know how to get the proceeds for them when they sell.
One of our victims wrote to his publisher, one of the major PODer's, about this and received this explanation that he said I could share with the group:
You have to remember that this is POD and, as such, a listing on a website is not an indication of sales or even of the book being stocked. What we have worked out with these distributors is that Ingram would carry a "virtual inventory" of 101 copies of your book so that it would not show an "out of stock" book, which would be an automatic deterrent to prospective buyers. I can understand the confusion, but I can assure you that since your book can be purchased very quickly, I doubt that any of these online retailers have any that are in actual stock.
What this says is that your book may be showing that it's available, but not be available at all. However, this is definitely a way for you to check if your book has been distributed as promised by companies who are selling you publishing packages promising it. If you see that your book is NOT there, then that means you have paid for a service that has not taken place. Let this site serve as a red flag for you.
As we are moving forward in the weeks ahead, I would like to promote our authors who have new books published. I think this is a great way for us to meet our fellow authors and see how diversified our genres are. If you would like to be included in this, please drop me a line with your book and information.
This week, I would like to send our heartfelt congratulations to Airleaf Victim Sarah Harrison, author of You Love Your Daddy, Don't You? A True Tragedy About Sexual Abuse. Sarah joined our group in January after waiting for a book that never came and continually emailing Carl Lau with no response. Due to the sensitive nature of the book, sexual incest, many people in the group where Sarah helps with counseling incest victims were waiting to get this book.
When Sarah and I first became acquainted in January, she shared with me a part of her book which I found horrifying based on her personal experience with incest from the time she was a young girl. As if she had not been victimized enough in her life, now her dream of helping others through her most difficult work of recreating this tragedy in book form had become another nightmare. Once again, Sarah was a victim and felt very defeated.
Sarah decided to publish her book with my new publisher, CCB Publishing. Her book was just released last week. This is the write up from her page on Amazon.com where you can order the book:
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
"Mama, something terrible is wrong with me. There is blood in my panties!"
Those were the words of seven-year-old Sarah. Mama told her she must have fallen or something and not to worry. Sarah went away feeling sad; her chance for help was gone!
It was Sarah's alter, Susie, who had been sticking pencils and other items in her private place. Susie had come when Sarah was only four years old. Susie had become Daddy's 'special' little girl by sitting on his lap. In return he gave her a dollar for any change she had.
Daddy played with Susie's pee pee and it was Susie that slept in the upstairs bedroom with her fourteen-year-old brother. Later in life, two other alters would appear.
You Love Your Daddy, Don't You? is told through the memories of Sarah. It reveals a child's determination to survive despite profound emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. This was compounded by constant neglect from both parents.
About the Author:
Sarah Harrison has written several articles for the Women's Institute for Incorporation Therapy's monthly newsletter as well as articles for spiritual magazines. She also volunteers as a mentor in a local school system, helps with special group activities in an assisted living home, and provides guidance to troubled parents and teens on www.experts.com.
After the death of her husband, Sarah Harrison moved from Atlanta, Georgia in 2007 to a suburb near Charlotte, North Carolina to be near her grandchildren. She has joined Harrison United Methodist Church and is active in Youth Group, Emmaus, Epiphany, and Faith Partners.
Sarah was so impressed by the services provided by CCB Publishing that she added her own testimonial to the others on the website. She wrote:
My name is Sarah Harrison, EDS. Having written my first book, "You Love Your Daddy, Don’t You?" In 2006, my goal was and still is to assist others who have suffered from child and sexual abuse in their lives.
The first attempt to publish my book with Airleaf was less than encouraging. They lied to me, took over $2,000.00 of my money and kept my manuscript for almost two years. I felt like giving up and never thought I’d ever see my book in print. However I had many friends and associates encouraging me, wanting to know when they could purchase my book.
This is when my friend, Bonnie Kaye, who has helped other Airleaf victims suggested contacting CCB Publishing. I am so grateful she did because it is like a dream to work with (the owner) Paul Rabinovitch. He renewed my enthusiasm and made me feel good about my book again. He understood my feelings and even helped me reword some phrases when I asked for his help.
When we converse by email, it never takes him longer than a couple of hours to reply even if it is just to say that he’s received my message and will get back to me in a timely manner.
I signed my contract in mid-February, and now before the end of March it is being printed. I have seen the first copy and am so delighted. It has been a true pleasure to work with Paul. CCB Publishing also allows its authors to have their books listed as “returnable” which encourages bookstores to purchase books. This is definitely an added advantage to us authors. I will recommend CCB Publishing to everyone I know.
In our efforts to promote our internal authors, please buy Sarah's compelling story. You can get it at Amazon.com or order it through her CCB website by clicking here:
Books by Sarah Harrison Sexual Child Abuse
Although I try to remain neutral throughout this mission, I feel compelled to tell our authors about the wonderful experience I had publishing my latest book with CCB Publishing. I think it's the best deal with the highest level of integrity and customer service. Please check the website at www.CCBPublishing.com to see for yourself.
If you have any books that have been printed in recent months and would like to share them with our group, please send me the information and I will share it with the group.
Please write to me if you have any questions or concerns.
Love, Bonnie
Sunday, March 23, 2008
AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE MARCH 22, 2008
AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE MARCH 22, 2008
Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
Welcome to our new members of the group. As of today, we have 423 victims in our group who are victims of the largest predatory publishing scam in American history.
I am happy to share that a meaningful investigation is proceeding for our case. I have spoken to several law officials, and I feel reassured that there will be good news in the near future. This case is moving along thanks to all of you who took the time to diligently fill out the reports and send them to the proper authorities. There is power in numbers, and that is how we will be able to win this case. This case will send out a loud message to any other company or individual that believes that defrauding innocent victims goes unpunished.
A number of you have written to me to let me know that you are receiving back your disks and books from Bob Denton. Bob has opened up his own publishing company, Mountain Valley Publishing Company in Martinsville. In the past, I incorrectly accused him of being part of Airleaf's continuing business scam after it closed. I did send out a retraction of that statement immediately after I was corrected. Bob has been very helpful to us in our attempts to free our books that are being held hostage by Carl Lau in the Airleaf building. Since he has been flooded with over 100 requests, it may take him a couple of weeks to get to your request, but he is working daily to do this. Bob wanted to let you know that he is publishing books for people who want their books in print; however, he is not doing any marketing beyond putting the books on the traditional Internet sellers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
I would also like to mention that the ladies at Fideli Publishing, Robin Surface's group where Gayla Swint is now working, are also working to get back authors' books and work. You may be getting a call from them if they have retrieved your books and/or materials.
I would like to thank all of these former Airleaf employees who have decided to "do the right thing" in helping our authors retrieve their properties. It doesn't change the facts, but it helps with some of the hardships.
Remember—if Carl Lau contacts you to "sell" you back your books, say NO loud and clear and let me know.
There is one more interesting note about Bob Denton's website. He has placed a link called Bookfinder4U which can be found at: http://www.bookfinder4u.com. I found this site most informative. It tells you where your books are being sold on the Internet. I played around with it for a while, and I learned a lot about my own books. When you click into it, put your book name in there and you can find where your books are being distributed. The bad thing is that I haven't figured out how we will get the money if our Airleaf books do sell, but I will be pursuing that investigation in the near future.
I had a little over two dozen people respond to Chris Varga's idea last week about a print-on-demand author "co-op" venture. This was the idea where we could promote each other's books and buy other each other's books supporting the group and other POD authors. If you are interested in joining this venture, please email and let me know. We have so many diversified authors in our group with so many different types of genres that there is enough material to whet anyone's reading appetite.
I want to address the issue of a "class action" law suit since I get a few requests about that each week. One of our Airleaf victims suggested that I call an attorney he recommended in the Martinsville area. This attorney was kind enough to give me nearly an hour of his time to discuss the case. He confirmed for me what I learned from other lawyers that I have spoken to regarding our plight.
Basically, any legal action that we would take would cost money. When I say money, I mean thousands and thousands of dollars. Even if we could find a lawyer who is willing to take our case on a contingency basis, he would still require thousands of dollars for filing fees and investigation fees. If Airleaf was operating and making money like it was a year or two ago, it would be worth it because we could have won a case more easily. But by the time we started our group in August, the company was in the process of downsizing due to losing money. By October or November, the production at Airleaf was shut down, and almost every printing company dealing with Airleaf was on hold because of the outstanding bills. Employees were having their checks bounced and their health insurance stopped even though they were contributing for those benefits. The money was gone. Even though Carl Lau owns personal assets, we don't know how much is really available. He has other obligations besides ours that may take priority including the loan he took out last year for $216,000.00. According to the Morgan County courthouse, Airleaf has 12 tax issues on their records as well.
If we could be assured that investing money into a legal fund would guarantee us money in return, I'd be the first to participate and chip in; however, my fear is that we will all invest MORE money into Airleaf and still end up on the short end of the stick.
So, I think our best bet is to rely on the government agencies that are working on our case that will discover what there is as far as any assets visible or hidden. When the Attorney General's office files a civil case on our behalf, this will be requesting money for our losses. Bottom line—the lawyer agreed with me that with the complexities of this case and the lack of viable cash, we are taking the right route. If you have any further thoughts on this, please let me know.
Happy Easter to all of our Easter Airleaf Victims!
With love and hope,
Bonnie J
Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
Welcome to our new members of the group. As of today, we have 423 victims in our group who are victims of the largest predatory publishing scam in American history.
I am happy to share that a meaningful investigation is proceeding for our case. I have spoken to several law officials, and I feel reassured that there will be good news in the near future. This case is moving along thanks to all of you who took the time to diligently fill out the reports and send them to the proper authorities. There is power in numbers, and that is how we will be able to win this case. This case will send out a loud message to any other company or individual that believes that defrauding innocent victims goes unpunished.
A number of you have written to me to let me know that you are receiving back your disks and books from Bob Denton. Bob has opened up his own publishing company, Mountain Valley Publishing Company in Martinsville. In the past, I incorrectly accused him of being part of Airleaf's continuing business scam after it closed. I did send out a retraction of that statement immediately after I was corrected. Bob has been very helpful to us in our attempts to free our books that are being held hostage by Carl Lau in the Airleaf building. Since he has been flooded with over 100 requests, it may take him a couple of weeks to get to your request, but he is working daily to do this. Bob wanted to let you know that he is publishing books for people who want their books in print; however, he is not doing any marketing beyond putting the books on the traditional Internet sellers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
I would also like to mention that the ladies at Fideli Publishing, Robin Surface's group where Gayla Swint is now working, are also working to get back authors' books and work. You may be getting a call from them if they have retrieved your books and/or materials.
I would like to thank all of these former Airleaf employees who have decided to "do the right thing" in helping our authors retrieve their properties. It doesn't change the facts, but it helps with some of the hardships.
Remember—if Carl Lau contacts you to "sell" you back your books, say NO loud and clear and let me know.
There is one more interesting note about Bob Denton's website. He has placed a link called Bookfinder4U which can be found at: http://www.bookfinder4u.com. I found this site most informative. It tells you where your books are being sold on the Internet. I played around with it for a while, and I learned a lot about my own books. When you click into it, put your book name in there and you can find where your books are being distributed. The bad thing is that I haven't figured out how we will get the money if our Airleaf books do sell, but I will be pursuing that investigation in the near future.
I had a little over two dozen people respond to Chris Varga's idea last week about a print-on-demand author "co-op" venture. This was the idea where we could promote each other's books and buy other each other's books supporting the group and other POD authors. If you are interested in joining this venture, please email and let me know. We have so many diversified authors in our group with so many different types of genres that there is enough material to whet anyone's reading appetite.
I want to address the issue of a "class action" law suit since I get a few requests about that each week. One of our Airleaf victims suggested that I call an attorney he recommended in the Martinsville area. This attorney was kind enough to give me nearly an hour of his time to discuss the case. He confirmed for me what I learned from other lawyers that I have spoken to regarding our plight.
Basically, any legal action that we would take would cost money. When I say money, I mean thousands and thousands of dollars. Even if we could find a lawyer who is willing to take our case on a contingency basis, he would still require thousands of dollars for filing fees and investigation fees. If Airleaf was operating and making money like it was a year or two ago, it would be worth it because we could have won a case more easily. But by the time we started our group in August, the company was in the process of downsizing due to losing money. By October or November, the production at Airleaf was shut down, and almost every printing company dealing with Airleaf was on hold because of the outstanding bills. Employees were having their checks bounced and their health insurance stopped even though they were contributing for those benefits. The money was gone. Even though Carl Lau owns personal assets, we don't know how much is really available. He has other obligations besides ours that may take priority including the loan he took out last year for $216,000.00. According to the Morgan County courthouse, Airleaf has 12 tax issues on their records as well.
If we could be assured that investing money into a legal fund would guarantee us money in return, I'd be the first to participate and chip in; however, my fear is that we will all invest MORE money into Airleaf and still end up on the short end of the stick.
So, I think our best bet is to rely on the government agencies that are working on our case that will discover what there is as far as any assets visible or hidden. When the Attorney General's office files a civil case on our behalf, this will be requesting money for our losses. Bottom line—the lawyer agreed with me that with the complexities of this case and the lack of viable cash, we are taking the right route. If you have any further thoughts on this, please let me know.
Happy Easter to all of our Easter Airleaf Victims!
With love and hope,
Bonnie J
Saturday, March 15, 2008
AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE 3/15/08
Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
As of today, March 15, 2008, we have 421 members in our group. Welcome to our new members.
I have had a number of conversations this week concerning our case. All I can say at this time is that the wheels of justice are turning. In order not to compromise the case, I won't say more. However, for the first time, I am feeling optimistic that there is meaningful action going on.
I am asking for your help. Many of you have sent me back your surveys that have been very helpful. Sadly, due to my very busy season at work, I won't have the time to thoroughly go through all of the files for a few more weeks. In my attempt to help the authorities who are handling our case, I am asking you to send me a note if you were the victims in any of the following fraudulent Airleaf scams:
1. The Carnival Cruise that was never booked
2. The Frankford, Germany book fair
3. The London book fair
4. Kirkus Reviews from the winter of 2007
5. Ads in the NY Times and LA Times
If you paid for any of those promotions, would you be kind enough to email me even if you have sent me the hardcopies? Thank you.
A number of you emailed me that you sent letters to Bob Denton since he offered to return your books. Please keep me posted on how that is going. If you haven't heard back from Bob, feel free to call him at (765) 349-8908. He was very willing to help any Airleaf author retrieve his or her books, disks, and other materials—no strings attached.
Several of you wrote to me that Carl Lau has sent you back your disks and letters stating that your book rights are your own. One author wrote to me saying that Carl was willing to SELL him his books for $1.00 each. If you are getting those letters from Carl, please save them, let me know, and call Bob Denton instead. He is willing to give you your books for just the price of shipping. You can write to Bob at bdenton308@insightbb.com.
This is a friendly reminder to those of you who are getting books returned by Bob or who have surplus books to sell. You can take your books and sell them on Amazon and make back almost the entire cover cost. In order to do this, you must first register at www.Amazon.com. Then type in the title of your book. You will see the link for your book come up. When you click into your book title, next to your book, you will see the link that says: "See All Buying Options." In that box it will say, "Have one to sell?" Then you'll see a box under that saying, "Sell yours here." Click into the link and it will take you to the page where you can type in your information. When it states the "Condition of the book," you can put in "Authors Copy – Personally Autographed." I have sold over three dozen of my books that way in the past two months. If you need help with this, just email me and I'll walk you through the process if you are having a problem.
MARKETING TIP OF THE WEEK
Through our nightmare with Airleaf, one thing that we have learned is that it takes a lot of hard work to market your book. Many of us paid for marketing scams that produced nothing but a hole in our bank accounts. I get your notes saying, "I'm an author, not a marketer," which led you to Airleaf to start with. But as I keep trying to hit home, you need to take control of your book marketing, and there are some easy and inexpensive steps to doing so.
Last year, I was conducting free 2-hour workshops in Philadelphia on "How To Get Your Book Into Print" to help aspiring authors learn about the traditional and non-traditional routes of getting published. At one of my workshops, I had the pleasure of meeting a wonderful young author named Jennifer Gladden. Jennifer has her first children's book, "A Star in the Night" coming out this summer.
Jennifer is an INCREDIBLE marketer. I became part of her mailing list as she announced her progress. I was very impressed on how she is marketing herself and this is before the book is out! I asked her if she would write something for our group on how she does this step by step, and this is what she shared with us:
Network Brule: A Recipe for a Fine Networking Experience
You hear it all the time. Someone tells you that networking is as important to writing as the actual manuscript. You're told it is the key to publicity, which in turn is key to your sales. The message is always the same: "Get your name out there".
Okay. That's great advice. "But how do I do it?" you might ask. Successful networking is like creating that perfect Crème Brule. With one look, it seems impossible to do. Have no fear. A recipe follows that is sure to get you started on your networking experiences.
First, you need all the ingredients: websites, e-mail, blogs, social groups and professional organizations. Handle with care and attention. Then, follow these steps carefully:
Step One: The Base
Start a website and/or blog. Add a page about you, your works and your links. This will help you build a platform and make you more visible. When your book comes out, you've already started a reader base. It also makes it possible for future readers to learn about who you are.
Step Two: The Seasoning
Season with e-mail signatures. Carefully place your links in the bottom of your e-mails. Now, every time an e-mail goes out, so do your links. Many times when you least expect it, someone will see your link and visit your site. If they like it, they may even pass on the link to a friend.
Step Three: The Flavor
Visit other blogs and websites. This helps you get ideas to flavor your own sites. In addition, leave a comment. Often the blog owner will visit your link in return. There you go. One more person knows about you. They may even want to exchange links with you.
Step Four: The Sugar
Sweeten your experience by joining online listservs such as Yahoo Groups or Google Groups. Choose groups with the same writing interests as you. You'll make many friends. Visit their sites. Ask if anyone's interested in a link exchange where you'll put their link on your site and vice versa. In fact, most of my contacts came from social groups.
Step Five: An Added Touch
Enhance the pot with professional writing organizations such as The Author's Guild or if you're a children's author the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. You can meet fellow authors or other important contacts through sites like these. Many organizations have writing conferences where you don't just learn about your craft, you're meeting other writers and editors.
Mix everything together. Garnish by serving business cards, complete with your name and website, at conferences. Keep them handy when you go out. You never know who you may run into.
Like creating that perfect Crème Brule, these steps might not seem like much by themselves. However, together you have a recipe for a fine networking experience.
Here is Jennifer's bio:
Jennifer Gladen lives and writes for children in Philadelphia. Her short stories and articles have appeared in Stories for Children Magazine. Her future publications include three articles to appear in Once Upon a Time Magazine. In addition, her first children's book, A Star in the Night, will be released this summer. To learn more about Jennifer and her work, visit any of her links:
www.jennifergladen.com
http://jgladen.blogspot.com
http://www.authorsden.com/jennifergladen
http://jengladensmusingswordpress.com/
Thank you, Jennifer for sharing with our readers. If you have a chance, please visit her sites to see how networking really works!
Another good idea came from our fellow Airleaf victim, Chris Varga. He wrote:
Bonnie,
Thanks for trying to assist me and the others. Unless my books actually sold and I just wasn't told, I don't need to put up a big fight about getting my fee back. I've been learning from publishing mistakes for 5 years.
I guess the image of the reclusive writer sitting alone in his mansion on the mountain is a thing of the past, if it ever really existed. I did not pay as much for "publicity" as some of the other victims, since I already knew that free publicity or in-person connections are the best way to go.
When I got the letters offering a $5000 "bestseller" package, I scoffed. Most traditional published books with publicity paid by the publisher are lucky to earn $5000 in royalties so fast (could be about 5000 books with author receiving $1 per book). Right now, the odds are staggered and I'd advise people to rent a beach house for two weeks with their $2000. They'll get much more enjoyment out of it.
I also, from reading reviews and traveling around the internet, have found that for most American consumers, knowing a book is self-published is an automatic, unconditional disqualification. They won't even read one chapter if you paid them. It's kind of ironic when you think of how the self-publishers praise themselves. If the attitudes of the American public changes, then maybe struggling writers will have a shot. But right now, I don't see things going that way.
If we really want to help each other, one idea is to build a network of struggling writers or former self-published authors. I've already bought over 20 self-published books by authors I never heard of, just to support the cause.
Just an added note, the Authorhouse website claims that over 30,000 authors have published with them. I'm sure the big companies like Infinity, Xlibris, and others have at least 10,000 each. That's a lot of people who probably made little to no money off their hopes. I think the business of self-publishing started out with noble intentions, but then got turned into a bad rap and now it just seems to be getting out of control.
Personally, I would be open to having gatherings of self-published authors by geographical region. Constructive criticism and feedback from people who understand is important, especially since success at writing takes persistence and dealing with rejection from "the mainstream".
Also, the thousands of victims have to each have at least one close family member, friend, or significant other. It seems like a big hurdle to overcome, but I would be willing to assist spread the word and remind the public of the respect creativity and freedom of speech once had.
Chris Varga
"A Frightful Move"
I think Chris has a great idea. It's so important for us to support each other. It would be great if we could start a support group for each other where we can buy each other's books and spread the word to our own network. We have such a richly diverse group of writers with so many different genres. If you would be interested in joining me in this venture, let me know. If we have enough of a positive response, I will propose several ways that we can do this to help each other.
Have faith, my fellow victims. All of your hard work to put this case together will pay off in the near future.
With love and great hope,
Bonnie
Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
As of today, March 15, 2008, we have 421 members in our group. Welcome to our new members.
I have had a number of conversations this week concerning our case. All I can say at this time is that the wheels of justice are turning. In order not to compromise the case, I won't say more. However, for the first time, I am feeling optimistic that there is meaningful action going on.
I am asking for your help. Many of you have sent me back your surveys that have been very helpful. Sadly, due to my very busy season at work, I won't have the time to thoroughly go through all of the files for a few more weeks. In my attempt to help the authorities who are handling our case, I am asking you to send me a note if you were the victims in any of the following fraudulent Airleaf scams:
1. The Carnival Cruise that was never booked
2. The Frankford, Germany book fair
3. The London book fair
4. Kirkus Reviews from the winter of 2007
5. Ads in the NY Times and LA Times
If you paid for any of those promotions, would you be kind enough to email me even if you have sent me the hardcopies? Thank you.
A number of you emailed me that you sent letters to Bob Denton since he offered to return your books. Please keep me posted on how that is going. If you haven't heard back from Bob, feel free to call him at (765) 349-8908. He was very willing to help any Airleaf author retrieve his or her books, disks, and other materials—no strings attached.
Several of you wrote to me that Carl Lau has sent you back your disks and letters stating that your book rights are your own. One author wrote to me saying that Carl was willing to SELL him his books for $1.00 each. If you are getting those letters from Carl, please save them, let me know, and call Bob Denton instead. He is willing to give you your books for just the price of shipping. You can write to Bob at bdenton308@insightbb.com.
This is a friendly reminder to those of you who are getting books returned by Bob or who have surplus books to sell. You can take your books and sell them on Amazon and make back almost the entire cover cost. In order to do this, you must first register at www.Amazon.com. Then type in the title of your book. You will see the link for your book come up. When you click into your book title, next to your book, you will see the link that says: "See All Buying Options." In that box it will say, "Have one to sell?" Then you'll see a box under that saying, "Sell yours here." Click into the link and it will take you to the page where you can type in your information. When it states the "Condition of the book," you can put in "Authors Copy – Personally Autographed." I have sold over three dozen of my books that way in the past two months. If you need help with this, just email me and I'll walk you through the process if you are having a problem.
MARKETING TIP OF THE WEEK
Through our nightmare with Airleaf, one thing that we have learned is that it takes a lot of hard work to market your book. Many of us paid for marketing scams that produced nothing but a hole in our bank accounts. I get your notes saying, "I'm an author, not a marketer," which led you to Airleaf to start with. But as I keep trying to hit home, you need to take control of your book marketing, and there are some easy and inexpensive steps to doing so.
Last year, I was conducting free 2-hour workshops in Philadelphia on "How To Get Your Book Into Print" to help aspiring authors learn about the traditional and non-traditional routes of getting published. At one of my workshops, I had the pleasure of meeting a wonderful young author named Jennifer Gladden. Jennifer has her first children's book, "A Star in the Night" coming out this summer.
Jennifer is an INCREDIBLE marketer. I became part of her mailing list as she announced her progress. I was very impressed on how she is marketing herself and this is before the book is out! I asked her if she would write something for our group on how she does this step by step, and this is what she shared with us:
Network Brule: A Recipe for a Fine Networking Experience
You hear it all the time. Someone tells you that networking is as important to writing as the actual manuscript. You're told it is the key to publicity, which in turn is key to your sales. The message is always the same: "Get your name out there".
Okay. That's great advice. "But how do I do it?" you might ask. Successful networking is like creating that perfect Crème Brule. With one look, it seems impossible to do. Have no fear. A recipe follows that is sure to get you started on your networking experiences.
First, you need all the ingredients: websites, e-mail, blogs, social groups and professional organizations. Handle with care and attention. Then, follow these steps carefully:
Step One: The Base
Start a website and/or blog. Add a page about you, your works and your links. This will help you build a platform and make you more visible. When your book comes out, you've already started a reader base. It also makes it possible for future readers to learn about who you are.
Step Two: The Seasoning
Season with e-mail signatures. Carefully place your links in the bottom of your e-mails. Now, every time an e-mail goes out, so do your links. Many times when you least expect it, someone will see your link and visit your site. If they like it, they may even pass on the link to a friend.
Step Three: The Flavor
Visit other blogs and websites. This helps you get ideas to flavor your own sites. In addition, leave a comment. Often the blog owner will visit your link in return. There you go. One more person knows about you. They may even want to exchange links with you.
Step Four: The Sugar
Sweeten your experience by joining online listservs such as Yahoo Groups or Google Groups. Choose groups with the same writing interests as you. You'll make many friends. Visit their sites. Ask if anyone's interested in a link exchange where you'll put their link on your site and vice versa. In fact, most of my contacts came from social groups.
Step Five: An Added Touch
Enhance the pot with professional writing organizations such as The Author's Guild or if you're a children's author the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. You can meet fellow authors or other important contacts through sites like these. Many organizations have writing conferences where you don't just learn about your craft, you're meeting other writers and editors.
Mix everything together. Garnish by serving business cards, complete with your name and website, at conferences. Keep them handy when you go out. You never know who you may run into.
Like creating that perfect Crème Brule, these steps might not seem like much by themselves. However, together you have a recipe for a fine networking experience.
Here is Jennifer's bio:
Jennifer Gladen lives and writes for children in Philadelphia. Her short stories and articles have appeared in Stories for Children Magazine. Her future publications include three articles to appear in Once Upon a Time Magazine. In addition, her first children's book, A Star in the Night, will be released this summer. To learn more about Jennifer and her work, visit any of her links:
www.jennifergladen.com
http://jgladen.blogspot.com
http://www.authorsden.com/jennifergladen
http://jengladensmusingswordpress.com/
Thank you, Jennifer for sharing with our readers. If you have a chance, please visit her sites to see how networking really works!
Another good idea came from our fellow Airleaf victim, Chris Varga. He wrote:
Bonnie,
Thanks for trying to assist me and the others. Unless my books actually sold and I just wasn't told, I don't need to put up a big fight about getting my fee back. I've been learning from publishing mistakes for 5 years.
I guess the image of the reclusive writer sitting alone in his mansion on the mountain is a thing of the past, if it ever really existed. I did not pay as much for "publicity" as some of the other victims, since I already knew that free publicity or in-person connections are the best way to go.
When I got the letters offering a $5000 "bestseller" package, I scoffed. Most traditional published books with publicity paid by the publisher are lucky to earn $5000 in royalties so fast (could be about 5000 books with author receiving $1 per book). Right now, the odds are staggered and I'd advise people to rent a beach house for two weeks with their $2000. They'll get much more enjoyment out of it.
I also, from reading reviews and traveling around the internet, have found that for most American consumers, knowing a book is self-published is an automatic, unconditional disqualification. They won't even read one chapter if you paid them. It's kind of ironic when you think of how the self-publishers praise themselves. If the attitudes of the American public changes, then maybe struggling writers will have a shot. But right now, I don't see things going that way.
If we really want to help each other, one idea is to build a network of struggling writers or former self-published authors. I've already bought over 20 self-published books by authors I never heard of, just to support the cause.
Just an added note, the Authorhouse website claims that over 30,000 authors have published with them. I'm sure the big companies like Infinity, Xlibris, and others have at least 10,000 each. That's a lot of people who probably made little to no money off their hopes. I think the business of self-publishing started out with noble intentions, but then got turned into a bad rap and now it just seems to be getting out of control.
Personally, I would be open to having gatherings of self-published authors by geographical region. Constructive criticism and feedback from people who understand is important, especially since success at writing takes persistence and dealing with rejection from "the mainstream".
Also, the thousands of victims have to each have at least one close family member, friend, or significant other. It seems like a big hurdle to overcome, but I would be willing to assist spread the word and remind the public of the respect creativity and freedom of speech once had.
Chris Varga
"A Frightful Move"
I think Chris has a great idea. It's so important for us to support each other. It would be great if we could start a support group for each other where we can buy each other's books and spread the word to our own network. We have such a richly diverse group of writers with so many different genres. If you would be interested in joining me in this venture, let me know. If we have enough of a positive response, I will propose several ways that we can do this to help each other.
Have faith, my fellow victims. All of your hard work to put this case together will pay off in the near future.
With love and great hope,
Bonnie
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Bob Denton, Mountain Valley Publishing, LLC
Dear Airleaf Friends,
In the pursuit of printing the truth, I would like to share this information that Bob Denton has sent to me:
Hi Bonnie,
i don't know where you get your information, but , it is truely wrong . Yes i am in Martinsville,In , but my address is not the same as Airleaf, nor is it in the same building. I have started my business in my home. That Address is 1420 Maple Ct. , Martinsville, In 46151. I think you should get your facts straight before you go putting FALSE information on this blog. This company was in fact started with a author who was caught up in the very problem you have addressed since August of this year. So who ever is giving you information, i would be checking them out. And no, i did not draw unemployment, because i QUIT my job. In so doing, you do not get to enjoy the benifets of unemployment. I think you have been feed some bad information by some people who were out to see the company destroyed, and that they have done just that. You were told that you had sold THOUSANDS of books, when in fact you had only sold a few hundred books. So you set out on this crusade to destroy Airleaf, and you have done that. Now if you or any of the authors in your group would like to call me, my number is 765-349-8908. I will gladly send you the LLC . I know you probably won't post this on your web blog, because it doesn't go with your cause. Thank you for your time.
Bob Denton
Mountain Valley Publishing,LLC
765-349-8908
I responded to Bob Denton with this note:
Dear Bob,
Of course I'll reprint your letter with the correct information next week. I was never told that I sold "thousands" of books, nor do I ever claim to have sold thousands of books. I am not working with anyone to destroy Airleaf except for the hundreds of authors who have been defrauded. And if you want to tell me that they are all making up stories, well, what can I say? If you would like to have an honest dialogue, I am always open to that.
Bonnie The only thing I'll retract is the location of the new business. I'll keep you posted as I investigate that further.
Bonnie Kaye
In the pursuit of printing the truth, I would like to share this information that Bob Denton has sent to me:
Hi Bonnie,
i don't know where you get your information, but , it is truely wrong . Yes i am in Martinsville,In , but my address is not the same as Airleaf, nor is it in the same building. I have started my business in my home. That Address is 1420 Maple Ct. , Martinsville, In 46151. I think you should get your facts straight before you go putting FALSE information on this blog. This company was in fact started with a author who was caught up in the very problem you have addressed since August of this year. So who ever is giving you information, i would be checking them out. And no, i did not draw unemployment, because i QUIT my job. In so doing, you do not get to enjoy the benifets of unemployment. I think you have been feed some bad information by some people who were out to see the company destroyed, and that they have done just that. You were told that you had sold THOUSANDS of books, when in fact you had only sold a few hundred books. So you set out on this crusade to destroy Airleaf, and you have done that. Now if you or any of the authors in your group would like to call me, my number is 765-349-8908. I will gladly send you the LLC . I know you probably won't post this on your web blog, because it doesn't go with your cause. Thank you for your time.
Bob Denton
Mountain Valley Publishing,LLC
765-349-8908
I responded to Bob Denton with this note:
Dear Bob,
Of course I'll reprint your letter with the correct information next week. I was never told that I sold "thousands" of books, nor do I ever claim to have sold thousands of books. I am not working with anyone to destroy Airleaf except for the hundreds of authors who have been defrauded. And if you want to tell me that they are all making up stories, well, what can I say? If you would like to have an honest dialogue, I am always open to that.
Bonnie The only thing I'll retract is the location of the new business. I'll keep you posted as I investigate that further.
Bonnie Kaye
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