Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

SB Sarah posted about the new antitrust lawsuit filed by publisher Booklocker against Amazon. Booklocker is asking for class action status. The suit alleges an unlawful tying arrangement between Amazon’s bookstore and Amazon’s printing arm (Booksurge).

We discussed a tying suit briefly in the comments when the news of Amazon’s requirement to use its POD service or suffer a financial penalty first surfaced.
The Advantage Program requires POD publishers to give Amazon 55% of the list price, pay them $29.95/year, and pay the shipping costs for books going to Amazon.
There are great resources on the internet that explain tying and one of them is a paper before the Federal Trade Commission that addresses the illegal tying of intellectual property rights. While the IP arguments don’t necessarily pertain, the prefatory material on this link is helpful in understanding the basics of a tying suit.

Probably the most famous recent tying cases have been against Microsoft. States across the country challenged Microsoft’s tying of its browser, Internet Explorer, to its operating system. Microsoft had built up a monopoly on personal computers. While this is not illegal in the United States, there are constraints on monopoly power. …

Millenia Black announced that the settlement of her suit with Penguin over the allegations that Penguin tried to make her write black characters. As a part of the settlement, Black had to purge every reference to the suit from her site as well as refrain from any future discussion. Oddly, some people deem this as a victory. It’s a victory for someone, but I don’t think it’s a victory for African American authors particularly in light of the gag and purge order.

The very fact that the discussion is completely stifled doesn’t illuminate bad practices or even prevent the actions that were alleged from happening in the future.

Settlements are victories only for the parties involved, not for the classes the parties might represent. This case can’t be used as a sword by any other author in the future and with the gag and purge order, the discussion around it is quieted. I would actually argue that the winner is Penguin and wonder about the strength of the allegations due to the fact the outcome would seem to indicate that Black herself had little leverage. The gag order, you see, is common. …

In an act that will endear authors to Indiana in spite of its recent “sex registry for booksellers” law, the Indiana Attorney General is suing publisher, Airleaf aka Bookman Marketing, for accepting payment of authors and not delivering the promised services from publication to promotional services. The owner is Carl Lau and it looks like the company was some kind of print on demand service.If you are an affected customer/author, you can contact the Attorney General at Office of the Indiana Attorney General
Indiana Government Center South
302 W. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Phone: 317-232-6201
Fax: 317-232-7979
E-mail: Constituent@atg.in.gov

Consumer Protection Division
302 West Washington Street, 5th Floor
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Phone:
317-232-6330

800-382-5516Via Publishers Weekly.

According to Publishers’ Marketplace, Judge Robert Patterson, Jr., is urging RDR and Rowling to settle.

Patterson said, “The fair-use people are on one side, and a large company is on the other side…The parties ought to see if there’s not a way to work this out, because there are strong issues in this case and it could come out one way or the other. The fair-use doctrine is not clear.” He added, “Maybe it’s too late. Maybe we’ve gone too far down the road. But a settlement is better than a lawsuit.”

In other words, Patterson isn’t looking forward to writing an opinion on this topic.

Hat tip to SB Sarah who has the scoop. According to the petition, Christina Brashears is a 5% shareholder of Ellora’s Cave beginning in July of 2003. September In 2005, Brashears was terminated from her position as Director, Chief Operating Office and Publisher. Her main claims are as follows:

She is entitled to a buyout of the 5% of shares.
She is entitled to distribution of the profits according to the 5% for 2005, 2006, and 2007.
She has been defamed both in writing and verbally.

1. Buy/Sell Agreement

The Buy/Sell Agreement provides that at the Shareholder’s election (Brashears) upon termination, she can choose to tender (offer) her shares in the following order:

first to Tina Engler. If Engler refuses, then to
Engler’s issue (daughter or perhaps husband). If those heirs refuse, then to
Other shareholders (in this case Patty Marks). If those other shareholders refuse, then to
The corporation (EC). If the corporation does not choose to purchase them during a certain time, then . . .
Shareholder (Brashears) can offer them to the free market.

The purchase price for those shares is defined in Paragraph 1.04(a) of the Contract and is either by unanimous agreement or the fair market value of …

If I was an author, I would probably want to get my hands on this arbitration decision1. Regnery was in litigation with author Richard Miniter. He had a two book contract with Regnery and delivered a book called Disinformation. Regnery believed that the book “did not live up to [Miniter's] two book contract”. Instead, Miniter took a book to Simon & Schuster that Regnery believed should have been its. (This sounded like shades of Dara Joy).

Miniter claims that he wanted to write a book about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for his second book but that Regnery refused to pay an advance. The book fell apart when al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006.

The claims of Minter sound like Dara Joy. She took Ritual of Proof to HarperCollins instead of giving it to Dorchester claiming the Ritual of Proof was a science fiction not a romance. I am pretty sure that Dorchester won that round. Regnery says that they had a two book deal and that he kept the money for the advance and failed to deliver. Regnery sued Miniter, took it to arbitration per the contract, and Regnery won, …

On the SBTB site, Laura Kinsale asked the question “I’m curious. What’s the difference between Cassie Edwards writing about ferrets and fan fiction published for profit?”

Robin’s response was “the fact that fan fiction, by its very nature, has overt attribution.”

My response was

The difference, ethically (and in general), between fan fiction and plagiarism, i.e., the Cassie Edwards repeated use of other people’s words, is the attribution or lack thereof. Fan fiction gives attribution to the original authors work. Plagiarism is the passing off of someone else’s original work as your own.

I definitely think that there is probably fan fiction out there that a) plagiarizes and b) infringes. But I am not going to condemn an entire body of work based upon the individual pieces that may be unethical or may be violative of the copyright act just like I am not going to condemn the entire romance genre on the basis of work by Cassie Edwards or Janet Dailey.

I also think that there is fan fiction out there that is not infringing and would be considered transformative enough. I.e., I have thought that a work that …

Individuals who are, or once were, associated with PublishAmerica are suing  the Preditor & Editors site for libel. Barbara Bauer is an agent who claims that P&E libeled her by calling her a scammer.  Victor E. Cretella, an attorney with PublishAmerica and a member of the Maryland Bar, is suing P&E for harming his reputation.

Barbara Bauer is on SFWA’s twenty worst agents list.   NielsonHayden also noted that Barbara Bauer is a “well known scam agent” and so did Miss Snark.  As everyone and their cousin on these sites note, calling someone a scam agent is defensible if it is the truth.  (I don’t think it’s entirely accurate to say that it is not libel if it is the truth. Truth is just an absolute defense to libel).

On the P&E website, it claims that Victor E Cretella infringed on a contract.  I am not sure how you can infringe on a contract.  You can breach a contract.  You can tortiously interfere with a contract but infringe?  In any event, this is a bit more interesting.  Apparently some had made complaints to the Maryland Bar Association regarding Cretella’s activities as PublishAmerica’s attorney.  Any complaint made to an …

The Federal court dismissed the suit brought by five Regnery authors ruling “Each plaintiff voluntarily entered into a publishing contract with Regnery, and all parties contracted to resolve their disputes in arbitration, not in court”. Judge Huvelle notes that the authors are free to “institute arbitration proceedings against Regnery.” (and they suggest they intend to do so)

Via Publishers Marketplace.

The UK wouldn’t publish it but St. Martin’s Press is showing no fear with its publication of Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography on January 15. Andrew Morton is the author of a new unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise which alleges, amongst other things, that Suri Cruise was “conceived like Rosemary’s Baby”. In the movie, a young woman is impregnated with the Devil’s child. Morton goes on to state that some fanatical members of the religious organization believe that Suri Cruise is born of the frozen sperm of L. Ron Hubbard. Who knew L. Ron had such cute genes?*

Other allegations include Nicole Kidman’s fear of blackmail over sex tapes made with other Scientologists and Cruise’s mission to recruit David Beckham.

Morton quotes the Playboy interview with Hubbard’s son, Rondal De Wolf, about the use of sex by Scientologists to control their members:

: “You have complete control of someone if you have every detail of his sex life and fantasy life on record. In Scientology the focus is on sex. Sex, sex, sex.

“The first thing we wanted to know about someone we were auditing was his sexual deviations. All you’ve …