Writer's lawsuit claim: editing on the cheap.
I should have seen this, since it is from South Carolina, but it got by, so thanks to Nicole Stockdale for the pointer to the (Charleston) Post and Courier story:
Seems an aspiring author took some offense at Charleston-based Booksurge LLC, an on-demand publisher.
Leon Koziol, a former city councilman and candidate for state senate in Utica, N.Y., has accused Booksurge of outsourcing the editing of his book to India and delivering thousands of volumes with upside-down text and "words not found in the dictionary." Koziol is seeking $11 million, including $1 million in punitive damages, from the print-on-demand company and its corporate parent, Amazon.com Inc.
No one at Amazon or Booksurge is talking, of course. The Post and Courier's Kyle Stock goes on to write:
Koziol's complaint said that he spent two years researching and writing "Paradise Under Siege," a 260-page novel about terrorists smuggling weapons in the Great Lakes. According to the lawsuit, Koziol paid Booksurge $5,000 in March 2005 on the unwritten agreement that he would receive 250 books in early May. The books allegedly arrived a month late and full of errors. Koziol's lawsuit said he paid another $4,500 in July 2005 for an additional 750 books, which never arrived. The complaint also said the company issued a press release that "disparaged the book's potential" and misspelled his name.Quoting an unidentified former Booksurge executive, Stock writes:
Hmmm. Just an observation, but did anyone notice that Booksurge's favicon is BS?As for Koziol's claims that his book contained grammatical errors and typos, the former executive said that during his time with the company, Booksurge typically offered copy-editing services only for an extra fee. "If there was bad grammar in a book, it was because a writer sent a book with bad grammar," he said.
posted by Doug @ 7:45 PM
4 comments|
4 Comments:
I have had numerous problems with BookSurge as well. I am the author of the book, That Baby Woke Me Up, AGAIN. Right now I am dealing with a big fiasco in trying to have the paperback edition of my book printed correctly. Text has been blacked out, and the quality is just terrible. I have received a poor review on Amazon.com because of it, which has adversely affected my sales (I had previously had all 5 star reviews.). This has been going on for almost four months.
This has not been the only problem that I have had. Other orders came back printed backwards. My press release that I paid the BookSurge editors to write, would've had incorrect information and grammar in it. I had to rewrite it myself. Same thing with my back cover text. It was like pulling teeth to even get it done so that my illustrator could finish the book according to his schedule.
Needless to say, I am very displeased with BookSurge.
Has anybody else had such problems?
I published Church Website Design through them and I haven't had any problems. I am currently working on a novel called "Searching For Mom" and I will probably publish it through Booksurge. I find it hard to believe that Booksurge could have done $11 million in damages, even with thousands of copies. It sounds to me like someone wanted to get some news coverage, but I might need to be careful. I wouldn't want him to sue me for saying that.
As a follow up to my previous comment, Searching for Mom is now in print and available for purchase from Amazon.com and other stores.
I can tell you that I have had several problems with Booksurge, everything from the wrong text under the cover of a different title, to misplaced pages. But my concern is that for over 18 months I have not received a royalty check from them, the icing on the cake went down when I went to put one of my books in print “Snow Sport Lovers Travel Guide”-The Rocky Mountain States. It was kicked back by Booksurges PDF dept. saying that it was not print ready and that I would have to re-submit the book with the repairs needed for it to go print ready. Four months later this book appears on Amazon for sale of 108.00 instead of the retail price of 26.99. If my book was not PDF approved or print ready how was it for sale?
I would love to hear back from you in regards to your story and see if we cannot team up together against Booksurge.
I have an attorney here in Naples.
Please respond to Karen J Morris
Kjmorris101@yahoo.com or feel free to call me at 239-209-6009
Post a Comment
<< Home