I used to work for a bookstore from 2000-2003 and I know how this works. These whiners might have a case legally (I'm not a lawyer, than goodness!) but their money would be better spent of some cheese to go with their whine. Most of the books written by these Republitards (most of whom have written more books than they've ever read) do not sell in bookstores, no matter how many times their fans (egged on by talk radio) spam your local bookstore with calls and e-mails demanding to know why there aren't 50 copies of so-and-so's book on the shelves, or why it's not displayed prominently enough.November 7, 2007
Conservative Authors Sue Publisher
By MOTOKO RICH
Five authors have sued the parent company of Regnery Publishing, a Washington imprint of conservative books, charging that the company deprives its writers of royalties by selling their books at a steep discount to book clubs and other organizations owned by the same parent company.
In a suit filed in United States District Court in Washington yesterday, the authors Jerome R. Corsi, Bill Gertz, Lt. Col. Robert (Buzz) Patterson, Joel Mowbray and Richard Miniter state that Eagle Publishing, which owns Regnery, “orchestrates and participates in a fraudulent, deceptively concealed and self-dealing scheme to divert book sales away from retail outlets and to wholly owned subsidiary organizations within the Eagle conglomerate.”
Some of the authors’ books have appeared on the New York Times best-seller list, including “Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry,” by Mr. Corsi and John E. O’Neill (who is not a plaintiff in the suit), Mr. Patterson’s “Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America’s National Security” and Mr. Miniter’s “Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror.” In the lawsuit the authors say that Eagle sells or gives away copies of their books to book clubs, newsletters and other organizations owned by Eagle “to avoid or substantially reduce royalty payments to authors.”
The authors argue that in reducing royalty payments, the publisher is maximizing its profits and the profits of its parent company at their expense.
So how do they make the bestseller lists? By the very same scam these wankers are crying about! The books are sold in bulk at a discount to right-wing foundations, who give them away as freebies when raising money for themselves. For example, if you sign up for some nut group's newsletter for X amount of dollars a month, they offer a "free" copy of Hillary: Satanic Islamic Lesbian Communist Who Killed Vince Foster. The books purchased in bulk and handed out like party favors still count towards sales, and these authors get to put #1 Bestselling Author by their names. Apparently these deluded fucktards think people who go to bookstores would actually buy their books in those numbers and are now suing the publisher for it!
