Legal roundup.

When I was in paralegal school, I learned that the progress of a lawsuit is an elegant dance. If you've ever watched a courtroom drama, you've seen it how it works.  The plaintiff -- the person with the grievance -- first files a complaint against the defendant -- the person the plaintiff is mad at.  The next step in most cases is for the defendant to file an answer to the complaint.  But sometimes the defendant will file a motion to dismiss, in an effort to get the whole thing thrown out of court before it goes any further.

Back in April, a group of authors who contracted for services with Author Solutions' vanity press imprints filed suit against the company.  Fortuitously, Author Solutions had just been bought by Penguin, so the authors are suing Penguin, too.  The authors want $5 million in damages, and they also want the court to grant the case class action status -- which means any settlement would, in theory, benefit any author who has ever had a contract with an Author Solutions company.  (I say "in theory" because class actions have a history of enriching the plaintiffs' lawyers while netting very little for the actual plaintiffs.)

Early last week, to nobody's surprise, Author Solutions filed a motion to dismiss.  In the motion, the company pooh-poohed the lawsuit as "a misguided attempt to make a federal class action out of a series of gripes" and suggested the authors file individual lawsuits against the company if they think Author Solutions violated the terms of their contracts.

At the same time, Author Solutions asked the court to sever Penguin from the lawsuit, saying the authors don't accuse Penguin of any misconduct.  That's true enough; as far as I can tell, the only "misconduct" on Penguin's part was buying this mess of a company without due consideration of exactly what they were getting into bed with.

No ruling on the motion yet.  Stay tuned.

Interestingly enough, the judge in the Author Solutions case is Denise Cote, who heard closing arguments on June 20th in the Apple e-book price-fixing case.  Apple continued to maintain that it had no idea the publishers were talking to one another, and that it had no intention of fixing prices.  For its part, the Justice Department told the court that not only had it established Apple's involvement in the price-fixing deal, but that it was a "per se" violation of U.S. antitrust law -- a violation so egregiously clear that the judge would have no choice but to find Apple guilty.

A verdict is expected within a few weeks.  That likely won't be the end of it -- whichever side wins, the other is likely to appeal.  But regardless, Judge Cote's decision should make interesting reading.

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Guys, I have been horribly remiss.  Way back in February or so, I said that I would mention when the finalists were announced for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards, even if I didn't get that far in the contest.  Well, I didn't, and I forgot all about it.  And now there's a winner.  So a round of applause, if you please, for Rysa Walker, whose novel Timebound was the winner of this year's contest.  It's apparently her first book -- a YA fantasy, which means it ought to appeal to some of you guys.

As for me...there's always next year, right?

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These moments of bloggy legalities are brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

This has been an odd week.

So usually, as alert readers of this blog know, I have a little news-about-me section, and then a longer post about something that I figure people actually want to read about.  And this week I've got tons of topics that deserve a whole blog post, to wit:

1. John Scalzi's withering take-down of Random House's contract for its new Hydra imprint, which was at least partly responsible for the publisher's revision of the contract terms (the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, of which Scalzi is president, also threatened to de-list Hydra from its qualified professional markets on the basis of the original contract). Scalzi has put together a list of his posts on the subject here; I recommend reading "New Writers, Ebook Publishers, and the Power to Negotiate" in particular.
2. Unfortunately, the PublishAmerica class-action suit I wrote about last year has been dismissed -- but another is in the works.  The same law firm that's looking into Author Solutions' deceptive practices (and if you've been a victim of any of their imprints, please go here and let them know) has filed an amended complaint against PublishAmerica.  Fingers crossed that this suit doesn't meet the same fate as the previous one.  Both Author Solutions and PublishAmerica have been raking in money for decades by preying on naive newbie authors.  It's time they were stopped.
3. Or I could talk about all the other people out there who would like to part indie authors from their money.  One example is eBookPlus, which Rich Meyer wrote about this week on Indies Unlimited.  They want to bring down the cost of e-books (isn't that nice of them?) by inserting ads into each book.  Specifically, they want to put an ad at the beginning of every chapter.  Yeah, no.

But I'm just not going to have time to cover any of those things the way I'd like to, because this week I need to talk about me.  Damn the luck anyhow.

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On Tuesday, Seized was named a quarter-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards.  To recap what that means: Amazon cut off entries at 10,000 books.  Of those 10,000 entries, we're now down to 500 -- and Seized is one of them.  It's heartening and humbling at the same time.  You can read the excerpt here; feel free to add your comments.  Semifinalists (just 25, aieee!) will be announced April 16th.

Speaking of heartening/humbling, I received word this weekend that Seized is up for another award: the Big Al's Books and Pals Reader's Choice award.  This one, I need your help with.  Voting opens tomorrow and runs for two weeks.  I'll post the link to the ballot on my Facebook page and G+ profile as soon as I have it, and I'd be very pleased if y'all would then click through and vote for Seized.

I'm also gearing up for my presentation on indie publishing to the Indianapolis chapter of Sisters in Crime next weekend.  If you happen to be riding the Amtrak Cardinal from DC to Indy on Friday, look for me.  I'll be in coach, trying to sleep....

If all that's not enough, this is launch week for Gravid.  On Wednesday, I'm trying something different -- I'm trading posts with another author.  Cheryl Kaye Tardif has a new book out called Submerged.  It's a thriller, but it has some paranormal elements, and you guys are an eclectic bunch anyway.  So I'm going to post a Q&A with her here while she hands her blog over to me for a guest post.  I know that Wednesday is an odd day for a post at hearth/myth, but I hope y'all will stop by and say hi.  Oh, she's running a contest, too.

And so am I!  Three, count 'em, three contests:

1. At Goodreads, I'm handing out an autographed set of the first three Pipe Woman Chronicles books.  There's a link over to the left.  Contest ends Wednesday.
2. Same-same at LibraryThing. Their giveaway list is harder to navigate (I couldn't figure out how to link to my specific contest), but I tell you what, if you're looking for the best odds, as of this writing I've got 24 entries at LibraryThing and more than 100 at Goodreads.  Just sayin'.
3. Right here.  I've got two very cool holographic bookmarks up for grabs -- one with a black panther and one with a leopard (which is the closest I could get to a jaguar -- apologies to you purists). What the picture doesn't show is the way the leopard stands out from the background, and the way the panther jumps closer to you when you move the bookmark back and forth.  Oh, and I'm throwing in a $10 gift card to the e-bookseller of your choice -- Amazon, B&N, Kobo or Smashwords.

Good luck!

The Rules (sorry, gotta have 'em):

1. Friends and family may definitely enter.
2. Winners from my previous contests may win again. 
3. Someone will win.  I am getting this stuff out of my house, one way or the other.
4. As always, the judge's decisions are arbitrary, capricious, and final.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


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These moments of shameless bloggy self-promotion are brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

Everybody, meet Simon "Random Penguin" Schuster. You can call him "Scummy."

It's rare that I do a midweek post, but this couldn't wait 'til Sunday.

Simon & Schuster has announced a deal with Author Solutions to set up a "self-publishing" company they're calling Archway Publishing.  You may remember that Author Solutions is a vanity press with a lousy reputation.  I've written about it before, here and here.

I could go into all the myriad ways why it would be a supremely bad idea to do business with Archway Publishing.  But I don't have to, because David Gaughran has done it for us.  Here's his blog post on the announcement.  It's a wonder and a marvel.  I recommend it highly.

Please, please, please, for the love of the gods -- if you've ever thought about publishing your own work, stay away from these guys.  I'd hate to see any of my readers lose thousands of dollars to these shysters masquerading as legitimate publishers.

Thanks.

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This quick moment of serious advice (really, I mean it -- don't deal with these guys!) is brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

Penguin bought WHAT?!?

It was just a couple of weeks ago when I did a post about Author Solutions (also known as ASI) and what a sleazy operation it is.  To recap (in case you're too time-pressed to click the link), Author Solutions is the umbrella company for a host of vanity presses, including AuthorHouse, Xlibris and iUniverse.  Essentially, all of these companies are in business to separate would-be authors from their money.  They charge huge fees upfront to "edit" your work, then pester you mercilessly to pay for additional services.  Then they do the bare minimum to "market" your work.  And then they pay you pennies on the dollar in royalties.

I also mentioned that Author Solutions was owned by Bertram Capital, which looked to me like a venture capital firm -- the sort of outfit that takes an under-performing company (i.e., one that isn't making enough money to satisfy its shareholders), tweaks it, and then sells it for more than its investment.

Well, sooprise, sooprise, sooprise, as Gomer Pyle used to say.  The news this week is that Bertram has sold Author Solutions to -- brace yourself -- Pearson plc, which owns the Penguin Group.  Yup, that's right.  The company whose well-respected and award-winning author stable includes Toni Morrison, Patricia Cornwell, Garrison Keillor and the Dalai Lama now owns a pile of, uh, bad-smelling stuff.

David Gaughran has written a great piece about this at IndieReader.com. But I think one of his best observations is in the comments below the article.  Author Solutions boasts that it publishes 150,000 authors and 190,000 books.  Compare that, David says, to Smashwords, which has been in business for a much shorter period of time, and yet has published 140,000 books by just 40,000 authors.  If you had to guess, who do you suppose has the better customer satisfaction rating?

Speaking of Smashwords, Mark Coker was the first commenter on the PublishersWeekly.com article about the sale:

While Pearson is smart to develop a long tail strategy that includes self-published authors, the challenge with ASI is that its business model is entirely dependent upon blinding the eyes and stealing the dreams of unsuspecting authors. It earns 2/3+ of its revenue selling services and packages to authors, not selling books to consumers. That's a recipe for parasitism and exploitation, and in the long run as indies wise up, it's not a sustainable model.

Hear hear, Mark.  And thanks for the Indies Unlimited plug in your reply, too.

Going back to David's post for a moment, he mused about why Penguin would want to own something as unsavory as Author Solutions.  The answer, I think, is that traditional publishers simply can't tell the difference between vanity publishing and indie publishing.  I read a blog post not long ago (and wish I could find it again so I could post the link -- sorry) by a literary agent who was complaining about the terminology used by the indie author movement.  She chided us for calling ourselves "indie" and suggested instead that we use the term "self-published", because it's better understood in New York publishing circles.

The comments generated by that post made entertaining reading, and I believe the agent got an education.  But if her attitude is any indication, the Big Six consider "self-publishing" to be synonymous with vanity publishing.  Apparently many in the trad publishing business lump Smashwords, Kindle Direct Publishing, PubIt, CreateSpace and Lulu (and others) in with Author Solutions and others of their ilk.  If it didn't come out of trad publishing, in other words, it's just one big slush pile of steaming crap.  Viewed in that light, Penguin's purchase of Author Solutions makes perfect sense: if this "indie publishing" thing is going to undermine their core business, they need some skin in the game to stay viable, and purchasing an existing company in, you know, that end of the industry is just good business sense.

Are you gonna tell 'em?  I'm not gonna tell 'em.
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I'm Lynne Cantwell, and I approve this blog post.