In today’s issue of Publisher’s Weekly online, writer Kevin Howell reports on how Seattle Mystery Bookshop owner J.B. Dickey delivered sweet payback after being duped in a scam. Following a phone order he took for The Shortcut: 20 Stories to Get You from Here to There (Author Identity Press), Dickey discovered that the name of the potential buyer, and the credit card number given, were both false. He was stuck with two non-returnable copies of the vanity-published book. Not one to take it lying down, Dickey put a warning out on the Mystery Booksellers Association listserv saying, “I hate like hell committing my buffoonery to the world-at-large, but if it stops someone else from making my mistake, good.”
It did more than that, however. Turns out that other booksellers in “several different states” had been stuck with the identical book. Amateur sleuthing further discovered that the same phony name was used in each instance: Michael Evers. As it happens, Michael Evers is “the name of the main character in a suspense novel called The Palace of Wisdom: A Rock And Roll Fable” (Publish America), by Kevin A. Fabiano. Furthermore, Fabiano also authored and contributed a story to the aforementioned Shortcut. Do you see where this is going? While many vanity presses serve their authors fairly well, it seems that Author Identity has had complaints lodged against it--so many, that it prompted Victoria Strauss to write about the dubious publisher on her blogsite, At Last! Writer Beware Blogs!
The above scenario has shadows deeper than a hidden alley in a noir novel. Let the buyer--and writer--beware. The moral of this tale? Dickey spells it loud and clear: “Anyone being contacted about ordering this book should *69 the call ... and let them know we're onto them.” Another moral to be gleened: Don’t pick on the folks who read crime fiction. It’'ll get ugly. Fast.
You can read the whole PW article here.
READ MORE: “More on Author Identity,” by Victoria Strauss (At Last! Writer Beware Blogs!)
Thursday, March 29, 2007
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