Giving Self-Publishing a Bad Name

If you live in or near Maryland, you'll have heard about the scandal and criminal charges surrounding Baltimore ex-mayor Catherine Pugh's self-published series, "Healthy Holly." The books are intended to teach children about health issues such as nutrition, exercise, etc. Pugh sold $500,000 worth of them to the University of Maryland Medical System while serving on its board. She has also been accused of pre-selling books that were ultimately never printed and of sometimes selling the same hypothetical copies more than once to different customers, then not fulfilling the orders. UMMS donated its share of the books to the Baltimore City school system, which has stated that it didn't use any of them in the curriculum. Most of those copies have been warehoused rather than given to children. (In addition to the publishing-related charges, Pugh has also been convicted of fraud and tax evasion.)

Here's a timeline of the major events in the developing case, with a photo of a few of the book covers:

Healthy Holly Book Scandal

The books have been described as "clumsily" and "sloppily" written and produced. They're said to "contain grammatical and spelling errors, such as a main character’s name being spelled two different ways and the word 'vegetable' appearing as 'vegetale'." It strikes me as sad that many people may get their sole impression of self-publishing from this case.

This article goes into more detail about the series and what was done with the copies:

Just How Many "Healthy Holly" Books?

Only two of the books are listed on Amazon, as far as I could see, and neither has a "look inside" feature, so I couldn't evaluate the quality of the writing. Secondhand copies are priced at absurd levels, up to five figures. The reviews of the single book that has any (HEALTHY HOLLY: EXERCISING IS FUN) discuss the author's illegal actions, not the texts of the stories themselves. They all rate it one star except for a two-sentence five-star review, which I think is pretty funny: "I bought 50 of these and finally my rooftop deck permit got approved. 10/10 would buy again."

I'm willing to believe Pugh originally wrote and published the series with good intentions. Yet apparently the temptation of leveraging her political career to promote and sell her work overwhelmed her. Note to self: "Never use official connections to pressure readers into buying books"—not that most of us are ever likely to face such a temptation on that scale.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Search engines dedicated to copyright infringement

Copyright infringement is hugely profitable for everyone except the authors of the content which is being infringed and monetized. For more information, please visit www.copyrightalliance.org and www.thetrichordist.com

Unscrupulous opportunists take advantage of the ignorance of the masses to cite Google as their inspiration, presumably in the belief that, if Google does it, it must be legal.

Here are two enterprises that, in my opinion are dedicated to copyright infringement because they specialize in directing their Members and Users to where illegal downloads can be found. 

DISCLAIMER : EbookScam (not its real name).com is a search engine of ebooks on the Internet and does not upload or store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites much like how Google works.

Note: FREEBIESCAMMER (not its real name) does not host any files to items listed. We simply index file links we have found on other websites on the web (similar way to how Google works!).

They are wrong, in my opinion, and should not be imitated or followed.
See
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&dbname=cp105&sid=cp105v6n3H&refer=&r_n=hr796.105&item=&&&sel=TOC_60600&

Google is a Search engine that locates all sorts of information. It does not discriminate. It is automated. It does not select which images, blurbs, and links to show, and it does remove infringing links in response to lawful notices from copyright infringers (although, those infringing links are still made available to all the world on a separate Google-sponsored site), and Google does list a DMCA link and a means to reach its copyright agent.

EbookScam (not its real name).com  and FREEBIESCAMMER (not its real name) do not, in my opinion, pass the smell test listed on the thomas.loc.gov site because:

1. They are dedicated to helping freetards find places to download ebooks without paying for them. (In the case of the Freebiescammer, they also point freebie-seekers to movies, music, magazines and more in addition to ebooks.)

2. They post images of the ebooks' cover art, also reviews and blurbs even though they claim not to host or control the actual files. To that extent, they choose and control the content and actively "know" or could be reasonably assumed to know, what they are doing.

3. They do not post the name of a copyright agent. 

Both these so-called seach engines for ebooks make money from advertising, and from pay-per-click type monetization of traffic, and from donations..... Unfortunately, I cannot help but conclude that at least one of them is also an Amazon affiliate and may be paid by honest readers who use his links to visit a legal buy-the-book page.

Just to illustrate and comment on the irony of these "giveaways" for the purposes of education and --yes-- commentary, one of them is giving away an issue of the Economist. I will share the image (on the popular assumption that a thumbnail is public domain)

 
 

And the other, is giving away a book by a former colleague of mine, along with a review that seems to me to be the absolute epitome of irony.

 "The book is superb, Jana DeLeon is a huge talent and more people should know about her. Unfortunately, I can't recommend buying her book from here because the ex-publisher, Dorchester, no longer owns the rights to sell it and is now effectively stealing from the author."

 

It all goes to show, in the minds of these internet exploiters, two wrongs make it all right for them to rip off authors and content providers.

 By the way, EbookScam (not its real name).com  is asking Users to "Help others and Let the good reciprocate! Earn the respect of thousand of eReaders by submitting a verified download link to this ebook" which seems to me very much like a blatant solicitation of copyright infringement.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry