Vanity Publisher Chasers

Author Solutions is hardly a new venture.

It is one of the early entrants in the vanity publishing world, taking advantage of developments in print-on-demand technology to make it possible for authors to get their words out there in public.

Unlike a traditional publisher, all of its products were done on a paid basis. The author purchased various services, such as editing or publicity, and then had to sell the book on their own. It was possible to buy a marketing package from Author Solutions, and in the end, it was a fairly expensive proposition.

Then Amazon came along and offered free print-on-demand publishing for anyone who wanted to put out their own book. The author would handle edits, design, marketing, etc., and then have their work added to Amazon's list.

Getting into the world's largest bookstore (remember those days, when Amazon was young?) was a huge plus that helped propel Amazon's POD service.

As it turned out, the POD offerings were not a vast wasteland of literary ramblings and recipe collections.

Traditional publishers, like Penguin, took notice.

And so it came to be that Penguin bought up Author Solutions. Any self-publisher who managed to break out via Author Solutions would thus have a pipeline to Penguin and all that a traditional publisher has to offer.

Penguin would get access to writers who failed to intrigue a literary agent because query letter writing wasn't a strong suit, or the reading public defined a new niche that Penguin otherwise would have missed until it was too late.

So after all this time, with Author Solutions doing their thing, dodging the shady reputation and complaints of less-than-honest practices, only now is an attorney seeking victims for a lawsuit.

In a bid to keep up with the times, Giskan, Solotaroff, Anderson & Stewart have chased the vanity publishing ambulance. Have you been injured in a book release? Call the law offices of GSAS. Or simply fill out the simple form online and get added to the class.

But if Author Solutions was always doing this sort of thing, why start now?

Maybe because Penguin, new owner of Author Solutions, has much deeper pockets than the little Indiana firm, and maybe Penguin would be more likely to settle the case out of court to make the problem go away.

That's how personal injury attorneys make all their money.

It's just a question of defining an injury and then finding someone who might have gotten hurt.