No sooner did Amazon and its subsidiary, BookSurge, announce a new print-on-demand program for publishers (see yesterday's blog) than they get sued.
New York State Senate candidate Leon R. Koziol is suing both companies in U.S. District Court in Albany for $11 million dollars. He filed the suit in New York State Supreme Court in Warren County, New York in January, 2006. It was moved to Federal Court this month.
Koziol, an attorney, said that he signed a contract on March 17, 2005 and paid $10,000 for 1,000 copies of his self-published political thriller, Paradise Under Siege. The books were to be ready "by May, 2005 to coincide with the summer tourism season" according to the Utica Observe Dispatch. He complains that the 250 books he received arrived late and were filled with editing/production errors. He also complains that the remaining 750 books were never delivered.
Koziol alleges that the trade paperback copies he received were "riddled with misspellings, jumbled text, mismatched pages and other errors," according to TimesUnion.com.
The suit also alleges the book was "replete with grammar, spelling and content errors, including words not found in any dictionary." The Times Union says "copies of the book also had text that was sideways, slanted or upside down." An illustration and the cover design Koziol had requested were not included.
Koziol further states that BookSurge did not return his phone calls or letters. Amazon did not return calls, and BookSurge declined to respond beyond saying that Koziol was no longer a client.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Oh I am so very glad I found your blog. I have been in contct with BookSurge. I have a book already published with Lulu but I would sure like Amazon exposure. For just $600.00 BookSurge was willing to do for me what I had already done for myself, plus the marketing. Now I admit the marketing on Amazon may be worth $600.00, but I already did the work...my book is done, the cover is done, the formatting is done...it's done. Free. Through Lulu. Thank you so much for this post. I really appreciate it. I found it through Mike's Writing Workshop.
Post a Comment