Class-action suit launched against Penquin and Author Solutions

Penguin and Author Solutions sued for deceptive practices in a class-action case, according to an article in Forbes.

“The suit, which seeks class action status, alleges that Author Solutions misrepresents itself, luring authors in with claims that its books can compete with “traditional publishers,” offering “greater speed, higher royalties, and more control for its authors.” The company then profits from “fraudulent” practices, the complaint alleges, including “delaying publication, publishing manuscripts with errors to generate fees, and selling worthless services, or services that fail to accomplish what they promise.” The suit also alleges that Author Solutions fails to pay its authors the royalties they are due.

Publishers Weekly reports that the suit has been filed in the Southern District of New York and will be heard by Judge Denise Cote, who is current hearing the ebook price-fixing case.

These are serious allegations and it seems very likely that this class suit will grow as more authors hear about it. In a ‘prepared statement’ quoted by Publishers Weekly, Author Solutions says that it has worked with 170,000 authors, a large pool from which to draw more aggrieved writers. But with the Science Fiction Writers of America one of the most vocal critics of Author Solutions, this can’t just be written off as the whinings of a few disgruntled amateurs.

Authors who have had or have works published by Author Solutions or one of its many publishing arms such as iUniverse, AuthorHouse, Xlibris, Trafford and Palibrio as well as media companies FuseFrame, PitchFest, Author Learning Center and BookTango and wish to join the class-action lawsuit may contact the lawyers representing authors.

Link to Forbes article.

Lawsuit complaint, in PDF.

More pics of dogs

These pictures were emailed to me, and I have no idea who took them or if there are copyrights to any one of them. I’m sharing them with you, and perhaps you may know who took them or added words to them.

 

Another ebook author scam tied to Download Provider

This morning I received notice that my ebook “If I Only Had A Tattoo” was being promoted on a typepad site containing a Download link to fee-for service site Download Provider which, if you read my previous post on Download Provider, has a history of complaints against it.

The description for my ebook contained a bunch of gibberish only good for search engines attracting traffic to this site.

On the site were: a work on Baseball by Peter Morris, William J. Ryczek, Jan Finkel and Leonard Levin; work by Susan Spalding, Armando C. Alonzo, and other authors.

The site containing my ebook, and those listed above, is npioupy.typepad.com/blog/

I don’t know if those authors have given permission to promote/sell their works on Download Provider or through any site run by typepad, but I know I didn’t.

I wrote to typepad and am awaiting their reply to my request for removal of my unauthorized copyrights. You may want to check the site yourself.

UPDATED: On May 19th, 2013, Typepad informed me the offending site had been removed.

Apple fixes price error on humor ebook. Previous price not funny.

It took about one month from the first time Apple was notified of their price mistake for my latest ebook “Buy This Book. Make Me A Millionaire” and reduced it from $1.99 to its correct and original price of $0.99.

I’m proud Apple thought my latest creation was worth much more than I priced it at, but a deal is a deal. As I’m offering the ebook everywhere else for 0.99 I shouldn’t take advantage of Apple’s thoughtful price adjustment, no matter how highly they regard my latest artistic production.

Description of my latest masterpiece:

A perfect gift for someone who has everything, and for those who want absolutely nothing.

What’s inside the book? 23 pages of “Nothing Here But My Thanks”, and now and then an image of a kiss or something similar, images of an animal or animals, some pithy words under the pictures, and some other stuff.

I think the words under the pictures are pithy, but you may think otherwise.

To be completely honest, for it is your money and not mine, (well, not mine until you buy this ebook and then a smidgeon of your money becomes mine, but that is beside the point) inside are pictures of dogs and other animals, which every advertiser will tell you is necessary for bonding the viewer to your product or service.

Bound to become one of the greatest literary works of humor, “Buy This Book. Make Me A Millionaire” is available in ebook format at all fine retailers, even Amazon, which sold a copy within the first couple of hours of it being published.

Also available in PDF format from Smashwords.

Another article on this ebook is here.

Author exploitation

The publishing world is overflowing with scammers exploiting new authors struggling to publish a work, format a work, edit a work, design a cover, or choose between publishing a print book or an ebook or both.

Authorhouse is renown and reviled by authors for scamming thousands of writers out of money. Penquin decided to buy Authorhouse and semi-legitimize the Authorhouse scamming system; same scam, different bull making the manure.

A quick google search on a phrase like “ebook scam” or “publishing scam” (without the quotes) returns enough convincing evidence to warn authors about the various scammers prowling the ebook/book publishing jungle.

One blogger has put together another string of pearls on these scammers, focusing on Penquin books and Authorhouse. His article contains links to sites supporting complaints about companies exploiting authors, as many such bloggers including myself have done over the years, but it is well written and has a goodly amount of comments for new authors to enjoy.

The link to this blog on Penquin, Authorhouse, and author exploitation is here.

Is this another ebook scam hitting authors?

A Google Alert on the weekend led to a site listing my popular “A Christmas Tree For Santa” ebook with an image of ebook cover from Amazon – but no link to Amazon – and a download button opening another site which had a horrendous amount of complaints from people paying money to join the site and download ‘stuff,’ including ebooks, but instead ending up filing complaint after complaint. Is this another ebook scam Amazon fails to address?

Links to complaints about Download Provider: Here, here, here, here, here and others you can find by googling.

Amazon should protect its reputation and its customers by, at the minimum, having a robot check the Internet for reports of scams or unlawful use of covers displayed on Amazon and take some action against perpetrators.

As the Amazon Kindle ebook cover image doesn’t link to Amazon I suspect that no author will earn any money from such a listing. That Amazon allows such behaviour to impact itself and its authors is atrocious.

Authors should google title(s) of their work together with Download Provider and see if their work is also being offered through Download Provider.

If you find your ebooks on Download Provider you might want to contact Amazon and ask them what they are going to do about this issue. (See Amazon contact link and my letter to them below.)

Contacting Download Provider likely won’t remove any offending image or ebook, if the complaints about Download Provider are any indication. Why?

Download Provider uses a company called ‘Moniker Privacy Services’, which I’ll refer to as MPS, as registrant of their domain. MPS has a such a reputation it made it to Complaints Board, as you may read here. MPS is considered “very shady” by Answers.com

You can do your own google of Moniker Privacy Services and/or Download Provider for additional information.

Authors may wish to google their ebook title or their author name together with cewopier.bravesites.com and see what appears. Do the same with your ebook title or your name and the term Download Provider.

Here is a copy of the Support information I sent to Amazon KDP:

This web page, http://cewopier.bravesites.com/entries/general/a-christmas-tree-for-santa-downloads displays an image of the Kindle cover of my ebook but no link to Amazon. NOTE: site is currently closed following a report of copyright violation. See Update at end of this post.

Instead of a link to Amazon or some other reputable site there is only a ‘Download’ button. Clicking on the ‘Download’ button leads to another site called ‘Download Provider’ which charges a small fee to join their site and use their services.

HOWEVER, Download Provider has a history of complaints as you may read here http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/download-provider-c581143.html and here http://www.pissedconsumer.com/reviews-by-company/other-company/download-provider-is-a-scam-and-they-are-thieves-20120316305272.html and here http://www.scambook.com/company/view/30765/DL-Providercom and here http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/directory/download-provider and here http://www.reviewstalk.com/complaints-reviews/www-download-provider-l16906.html

My contacting Download Provider would appear to be useless, judging by the complaints against it, but perhaps Amazon can do something to prevent sites grabbing ebook cover images and using them in the manner described above.

Yours truly,
Ted Summerfield

Here is the link to Amazon KDP support. I clicked on Amazon Programs when the page appeared and typed in “Kindle ebook scam?” in the subject line.

Authors with ebooks listed as available through Download Provider may wish to contact Amazon as well.

My way of thinking is Amazon operates a business and businesses have theft prevention programs. A bookstore owner has security methods to assist in theft prevention and so should Amazon. A bookstore doesn’t ask publishers to keep an eye on their store for anyone stealing something, so why doesn’t Amazon – and other online retailers – provide the same level of service? Why should authors have to police their work entrusted to a multi-billion dollar retail store? Online retailers don’t police their supplies because the product is digital? Give me a break. Theft is theft.

UPDATE: Robin Wolstenholme contacted Bravenet support and reported problem. Bravenet has cancelled the account. Amazon hasn’t responded to my support request.

Parents, Children, Libraries, and Reading

Parents of minor children have a special relationship with libraries. Most believe libraries are very important for their children and provide extra resources that are not

available at home. Parents are also more likely than other adults to use libraries for

services ranging from book borrowing to accessing the internet to attending classes and events – and mothers are considerably more engaged with libraries than fathers.

 This is according to a recent Pew Internet Report by Carolyn Miller, Research Consultant, Pew Internet Project; Kathryn Zickuhr, Research Analyst, Pew Internet Project; Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet Project; and Kristen Purcell, Associate Director for Research, Pew Internet Project.

You may read/download the full report from Pew at this link.

North Korea cartoon

Author attempts to profit from Boston bombing deaths

One author is attempting to profit from Boston bombing deaths by implying his book has the answers to why the kids did it. Profiting from the deaths in Boston is disgusting to me.

For readers who have been in a coma the past week, the Boston marathon was hit with two explosions resulting in the death of innocent people. It has been implied in the news that the boys were involved in some radical form of Islam.

On Linkedin today, author Avi Perry posted this Discussion: “What is it about Islam that drives people to terror? Read “72 Virgins’ by Avi Perry http://www.72virgins.weebly.com. You will find answers.”

The link didn’t work.

But a quick google on his name returned his book “72 Virgins” for sale on Amazon for Kindle devices at $9.83 and in print form for $19.95. Certainly not an inexpensive ebook or print book.

Avi didn’t specifically mention the Boston bombings in his post on Linkedin, but to anyone breathing the implied connection is there through his use of the word ‘Islam’ during this terrible time for my American friends.

Avi probably isn’t the only author attempting to cash in on the Boston bombings. But couldn’t he wait until all the facts are in, or at least until the funerals, before attempting to profit from these deaths?

Glow in the dark toilet seats???

NightGlow toilet seats will glow for more than eight hours and can use sunlight, incandescent light bulbs, florescent lights and black lights to charge. (Courtesy NightGlow)

Perhaps a useful invention, perhaps a useless invention, the NightGlow toilet seat is an updated version of an earlier glow-in-the-dark toilet seat.

Yes, it’s new and improved. But will it expose those troublesome urinary mishaps from males which sometimes are let loose upon the venerated toilet seat; the wet pee spot(s).

What if the pee drys before anyone notices and wipes them off the NightGlow? Will the dry pee shine in the dark as well?

It is questions like that which keep me awake at night.

You may read the CBCNews article here.

Fishing pictures

A friend sent me these pictures. I don’t know who took them.

For female fish, size matters

A newly published study by a University of Ottawa researcher has concluded penis length exerts a measurable sway on females evaluating potential sexual partners.

“We found that flaccid penis size had a significant influence on male attractiveness,” concludes the study that was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Biologist Brian Mautz said he came to the study through curiosity over the evolution of male genitalia. Compared to other male primates, human endowment is generous.

“Another project I was on, looking at female preferences in genital size in fish, showed that females actually do discriminate in males before copulation even begins,” Mautz said. “That potentially influences genital evolution.”

You may read the complete article on CBCNews here.

Cheesey Americans – Illegal food

Last week, the United States put a blockade on mimolette, the brightly colored orange cheese that traditionally hails from Lille. To refine the flavour of the cheese, mites are deliberately introduced, a practice that up until now has not caused a problem. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has claimed, however, that the tiny organisms could cause allergic reactions and halted the sale of Mimolette , outraging French producers and importers of the cheese in the US.

In fact, in the US the FDA has a strict ban on the import of unpasteurised, raw-milk cheese, less than 60 days old. Australia and New Zealand have similar restrictions, and in Scotland, raw milk itself is banned outright, offending cheese lovers and producers alike. Traditional foods and delicacies aren’t just part of local food cultures, often – and especially in the modern era when words such as “artisan” carry a lot of culinary weight – they are a way into the global market for small-scale producers.

Roquefort

Banned in Australia and New Zealand until 2005, the blue cheese from the south of France hasn’t always had an easy time outside of its home country. In its final days, the Bush Administration placed a 300% duty on the cheese, essentially keeping it out of the American market.

Foie gras

Banned in California since 2012, partly due to campaigns from activists and lobbyists, chefs and producers alike have protested against the state’s move to keep the goose liver delicacy from being served, but to no avail. While the import and sale of foie gras is legal in Europe, force-feeding animals for non-medical purposes is banned in a handful of European countries, including the United Kingdom and Norway, limiting production to Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Spain and France.

Casu marzu

Because of food and hygiene regulations, this traditional Sardinian sheep’s milk cheese containing live insect larvae was banned until recently by the European Union. But here’s where food culture reigns: the ban was lifted on the grounds that Casu marzu is a traditional food made using traditional methods.

Haggis

The traditional Scottish staple makes its way to plenty of plates in the UK, but in America it has been banned since 1971 because of the use of sheep’s lung. Since the US has firm Scottish roots, there is, however, a small market for American businesses making lung-free haggis for the domestic market.

Read the complete Guardian article on illegal food here.

Before Jackie Robinson, There Was Jimmy Claxton

“Before Jackie Robinson, There Was Jimmy Claxton” is the title of an article on The Tyee about James Edgar Claxton, born on Dec. 14, 1892, in Wellington, Robert Dunsmuir’s coal-mining town on the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway line. (The old town site is now part of Nanaimo.) His father, William Claxton was a coal miner of black and aboriginal ancestry who had been born in Virginia. His mother, Emma Richards, was of Irish and English ancestry.

The family moved to Tacoma, south of Seattle, three months after Jimmy was born, though they later returned to Vancouver Island where a sister was born four years later.

Claxton’s brief foray across baseball’s odious colour line would be the last for a black player until the great Jackie Robinson joined the Montreal Royals for the 1946 season. Robinson’s subsequent ascension to the Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League the next season is the subject of the Hollywood biopic 42, which opened this weekend.

Claxton’s story is little known outside of a coterie of baseball historians and fellow obsessives. James A. Riley, the author of the landmark reference work “Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Major Leagues,” figures Claxton would have been a major leaguer were it not for the colour barrier.

After Claxton returned to playing black baseball, newspapers praised the pitcher as someone who “would be in organized baseball but for his color” (Oakland Tribune) and as “the foremost negro ballplayer in America” (San Jose Evening News).

As it turned out, Jimmy Claxton slipped across the colour line in an auspicious week. While the Oaks were flailing and the day in which he pitched included an incident where the umpire was chased across the diamond by enraged fans, Claxton’s time on the roster coincided with a visit to the ballpark by a lens-man hired by the Collins-McCarthy Candy Co. of San Francisco. He snapped an image of Claxton in his pitching follow-through, stepping forward on his right leg while his empty left hand is thrown across the body.

This likeness later appeared on a Zeenut baseball card. It is now one of the most coveted pieces of cardboard in the hobby, as it depicts the first black player to appear on an American baseball card.

Ignored in his lifetime, the British Columbia-born player is now remembered for defying convention.

After baseball closed the door on Claxton, another 30 years would pass before Jackie Robinson opened it for himself

You may read the full article by Tom Hawthorn at The Tyee site here.

Conservatives kill a profitable 77 year-old food protection program

Governments around the world are scrapping programs and staff to get their fiscal house in order, so I’m dumbfounded when Stephen Harper cancels a program returning 200% profit and protects prairies against drought. Mr. Harper must have his head up the east-end of a westbound moose.

Under cuts to Agriculture Canada, the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration’s (PFRA) longstanding shelter-belt and community pasture programs will be divested and eventually turned over to the provinces or the private sector.

Within the shadow of Bill C-38, the 452-page omnibus budget bill introduced a year ago, Ottawa had decided after 77 years that it was time to close the agency and hand responsibility for the 9,300 square kilometres it administers – an area nearly twice the size of Prince Edward Island – to the provinces where the land is located.

But the provinces will likely sell prime pasture land to corporate investors or foreign corporations, the only one’s able to afford to purchase such vast tracts of food production.

According to an article by Trevor Herriot in the Globe and Mail, “

Phrases such as “food security” seldom arise at the coffee shop or rink, but many farmers know the PFRA is a bulwark against the forces now consolidating and globalizing the beef industry. With large feeder cattle operations and foreign-owned meat processors tilting the marketplace their way, community pastures have helped to sustain smaller operators, keeping our national livestock herd connected to local economies.

When that other icon of prairie farm economy, the Canadian Wheat Board, was stripped of its collective bargaining power last year, urban people, even in the grain-growing provinces, found it hard to grasp the significance. The PFRA controversy, by contrast, has cowboys sitting in rooms talking to aboriginal people, and farmers breaking bread with urban environmentalists and hunters.

The difference is in the common ground represented by the services that healthy native grassland has to offer all of us, town and country.

If well managed, grassland can flourish when subjected to grazing, but once it is plowed to grow crops, biologists say it has been “converted” because more than just the crocuses disappear; the appropriation is total. The public values and natural capital found in the prairie – its capacity to store carbon, foster biodiversity, stabilize fragile soils, filter and hold water, and provide recreation for hunters, hikers and naturalists, and stirring beauty for the rest of us – do not survive.”

Read the complete article on the Globe & Mail here.

Most Canadians not informed about GMOs, experts say

Trinity, 4, holds up an anti-genetically modified alfalfa during a demonstration outside the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto. While farmers and other interest groups rally against genetically modified organisms, does the average Canadian consumer really care what’s in their food? (John Rieti/CBC)

Thousands of products in Canada’s food chain contain some form of a genetically modified item or GMO’s — and because there are no mandatory labelling requirements, it’s difficult for consumers to know which ones do.

Ottawa has approved over 80 types of GM crops, including corn, canola, soybeans and wheat. Products that contain any of these items, including most processed and packaged foods, likely contain genetically modified ingredients. Many meats are also affected, since animals are often fed GM crops.

In fact, a survey conducted last year by the B.C. Growers’ Association found that 76 per cent of Canadians feel that the federal government hasn’t given them enough information on GM foods. Another nine per cent said they’d never even heard of GM foods.

Registered dietitian Christy Brissette, is working on a masters in nutrition at the University of Toronto.

“I think a lot of people have seen what happened in Europe, with a lot of lobbying to European governments demanding that these foods be labelled so that consumers can then make educated choices,” Brissette says. “I think Canadians want that same kind of transparency.”

In 2002 Canadians were cautioned about GMO’s. In an attempt to quell the growing public concern over GM food, the federal government commissioned a report from the Royal Society of Canada, the country’s top scientific body. A year later their report is out and the CBC’s Bob McDonald talked to Brian Ellis, the associate director of University of British Columbia’s Biotechnology Laboratory and co-chair of the report. The society blasts Canada’s approach to regulating GM food, concluding that government’s assumption that GM food is the same as conventional food is scientifically unsound.

• The Royal Society of Canada’s report, Regulation of Food Biotechnology of Canada, made over 50 recommendations. Some of the key suggestions include:
- testing of GM foods should be conducted in a transparent and open environment
- the outcome of all tests are to be monitored by an independent expert panel who report to the public
- clearer definitions of the types of toxicological studies required to ensure the safety of GM foods.

• The Royal Society of Canada was founded in 1882 to promote learning and research in the arts and sciences. The society has 1,700 distinguished Canadian scientists and scholars who have been recognized by their peers for their outstanding contributions.

• A 2004 study, authored by Dr. Peter Andrée of Trent University and the Polaris Institute, concluded that the Canadian government has failed to respond seriously to the 58 recommendations made by the Royal Society of Canada. The study accused the Canadian government of dawdling and being unwilling to butt heads with the powerful biotech industry.

Link to CBC News articles: 1, 2, 3, 4. Place mouse over number to see article subject.

Rate my hospital – Provincial health departments hiding data from reporters.

CBC’s the fifth estate awarded 10 hospitals across the country top grades as part of a Canadian national hospital performance report card.

However, provincial and territorial health department officials held cross-country meetings and agreed to a “national decision” to deny a CBC request for information about individual hospitals, CBC News has learned.

A range of facilities in small towns and urban centres from across the country achieved an overall grade of A+ necessary to make the top hospital list, which is part of Rate My Hospital, a sweeping investigation into Canada’s hospitals by CBC-TV’s the fifth estate.

Hospitals in Alberta, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Ontario and Saskatchewan are represented in the top 10 in the CBC’s rating of acute-care facilities based on patient outcome data.

CBC based its assessment on data collected from hospitals by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), a publicly funded, non-profit organization that gathers and analyzes data on Canadian hospital performance. A five-member expert panel advised CBC on the selection and use of the data.

Data used by the CBC included rates of patients who died after major surgeries, who were readmitted after treatment and who experienced unexpected complications, known as adverse events, tied to nursing care during a hospital stay.

CBC article “These Canadian hospitals earned top grade in CBC report card.“

CBC article “Provinces co-ordinated responses to deny CBC’s hospital data requests“

CBC new “Rate My Hospital” online page.

Photo from CBC News website and listed as ‘stock’.

 

Apple wants to make me a millionaire in a hurry

I just checked my latest mini-tome “Buy This Book. Make Me A Millionaire” on iTunes and it has my ebook listed at $1.99 instead of my suggested price of $0,99. Apple obviously knows a great value when it sees one.

Anyone or any reader of this post who purchases “Buy This Book. Make Me A Millionaire.” on Apple iTunes for $1.99 before the price is corrected may email me with proof of purchase (copy of iTunes invoice will be sufficient) and I will email them free of charge any two (2) of my ebooks he/she indicates in the email as my way of saying thanks.

I notified Smashwords of the pricing error and hopefully the correct price will appear soon. Computers, eh.

Carl Frugtneit, this post is for you

Carl, I replied to all your comments. I can’t help it if you don’t read them. I have taken this extra step to instruct you on how to unsubscribe from a WordPress mailing list.

How to unsubscribe:

Click on the link “Manage Subscriptions” found at the end of the very last sentence in any email from WordPress. Follow the instructions.

The very last sentence begins with the word “Unsubscribe“.

List of analogies for use by ebook authors

He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River. (Brian Broadus, Charlottesville)

Even in his last years, grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut. (Sandra Hull, Arlington)

The door had been forced, as forced as the dialogue during the interview portion of “Jeopardy!” (Jean Sorensen, Herndon)

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do. (Jerry Pannullo, Kensington)

He regarded death with hesitant dread, as if he were a commedia dell’arte troupe and death was an audience of pipe-fitters. (Brian Broadus, Charlottesville)

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work. (Malcolm Fleschner, Arlington)

Now, back to the gloriously bad analogies.

Sixth Runner-Up: The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while. (Malcolm Fleschner, Arlington)

Fifth Runner-Up: “Oh, Jason, take me!” she panted, her breasts heaving like a college freshman on $1-a-beer night. (Bonnie Speary Devore, Gaithersburg)

Fourth Runner-Up: He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something. (John Kammer, Herndon)

Third-Runner-Up: Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. (Barbara Collier, Garrett Park)

Second Runner-Up: She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up. (Susan Reese, Arlington)

First Runner-Up: It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before. (Marian Carlsson, Lexington, Va.)

And the winner of the Smorked Beef Rectum: The knife was as sharp as the tone used by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) in her first several points of parliamentary procedure made to Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) in the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton. (J.F. Knowles, Springfield)

More of these from a 1999 article on the Washington Post here.

Washington Post archive of “The Style Invitational” collections.