Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:01/18/2024

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I had Emerald Books publish my 1st book, The Hummingbird Wars. They are supposed to pay me for the royalties regularly. I have not received a payment for months. I do not believe they paid me correctly on my first payment. I have been ignored and they threatened to take my book down out of KDP. I would like a full report of all of my book sales and all the royalties that Amazon paid Emerald for my book sales. And a legible copy of my contract. The copy I received was accidentally deleted. Thanks ***********************

  Business Response

  Date: 01/18/2024

  As a company, our fees are for work delivered.
  Those fees are based on standards set by the ******************************* and the ***************************
  As members of these organizations we agree to their standards and can't undercut them or inflate them. Our packages do offer substantial value nonetheless. 
  The client paid for editing services for three rounds of editing, print design for the book, cover design for the print edition and the creation of an epub. We also created and fully designed a hardcover version of the book. 
  Setting up our clients' accounts so they have full control over their work is something we offer everyone, but the client stated that he "wasn't good with computers" and therefore we published the books on our account and agreed to manage the royalty accounting. It should be noted though that this isn't a rigid requirement. There was nothing stopping the client then, or now from managing the books himself and it can be seen in the attached email where we offered to set up accounts for him.
  Three rounds of editing and full design for kindle, paperback and hardcover is the full price of the fee the client noted, $*****. In fact, if you use the price charts for the ******************************* and the *************************** they come to much more, but we are able to do a lot with our packages. 
  In addition to all this, we spend significant resources on all of our clients. There are many services that need to be paid for and applied for, etc. when making a book and we like to have full service packages where we operate on behalf of our clients including paying for reviews and registration. Here is a list of expenses for this project.
  1- Our advertising specialist works as an independent consultant with our clients. Her fee for ***'s project was $750 dollars. The client had a successful working relationship with her and even hired her to build a website in addition to our services.
  2-kirkus review - We paid for a kirkus review for the book and we were pleased that we received a good review. The review is here: 
  *****************************************************************************
  our cost was 500 dollars.
  Copyright registration - we registered the book for copyright, 60 dollars.
  purchased and provided two isbns: total cost $200
  10 author copies sent to author: our cost $130
  Extra work outside of editing and layout:
  We created a promotional video for the book that I don't believe was ever used. We helped set up goodreads and author central accounts. We created designed promotional flyers for the book's publicity campaign. This work was all "extra" but it was in our packages at the time and we fulfilled it all completely. In our current practice we don't offer any of these things because we realized by the time we paid for kirkus reviews, etc, our editing and layout pricing was far below standard. But *** got the best of the best and a good kirkus review is a powerful tool for marketing so we were pleased. 
  I can't really speak to things like our contract being unreadable since it was read and signed. I don't understand how this claim states that the client is owed ***** in royalties since the book hasn't sold that much, but that would be a huge success if it had. 
  We've had daily emails from the client demanding royalty reports which we have sent and are attached here, and our service doesn't support constant administrative work without a consultation fee. *** has asserted that he doesn't receive these reports, or they are unreadable, or perhaps that we have doctored them, I'm not sure which, but we have always sent a full report when asked and paid the full amount during royalty periods. 
  Included are two of ***'s royalty payments which can be easily corroborated with the report (the client is paid at 85%). He wasn't included in our recent end of year payment because there were no sales in that period. Royalties are paid 3 months behind so the most recent royalties on the report have not been fulfilled, but we are happy to pay to date in order to terminate the relationship.
  The client asked us 10 months ago to remove his files from production and terminate the contract, but he never followed up on a meeting to finalize this so we left the book published because we thought it would be better for him, but back in march we did deliver all the files to him when he asked to terminate. You can see this conversation attached. It seems now we should have let him terminate when he asked. 
  In an early meeting *** repeatedly mentioned ROI (Return on investment) and we cautioned him that paying for service, reviews, and structuring the book is only the groundwork for any project and doesn't constitute "investment" We make it very clear on our website that we aren't a marketing agency and don't promise anything in terms of sales. The contract gives a very clear definition of how royalties are generated:
  "It is hereby agreed that the Author will receive 85% of net revenue as generated by Amazon.com sales. Net Revenue shall be calculated as the gross revenue generated through sales, less printing and distribution costs. Net Revenue is not the same as the cover price. This agreement also covers any franchise or other distribution of the work."
  We are not sure what else we can do other than provide the books full sales figures. Publishing has slim margins, refer to the attached email where I recommend publishing in black and white to make the book more profitable. This is certainly an option but the client never followed up on this and we are not in a position as a business to continuously work on a project when there has been no job order.
  We never promise that a book will be a best-seller. Our work is about editing and production. We can't do anything more than fulfill the guidelines of the project, and follow the structure of the contract. We are not an investment or securities company and no one in the publishing world should think that way. 
  All of our reports are downloaded directly from the publishing / distribution and it is an impossible task to convince the client that they are the "real" reports. It hasn't sold because there have been no efforts to sell the book. All in all this seems like just cause to terminate the contract, which was what *** asked us to do 10 months ago. We can't go on replying and engaging with daily hostile emails. There is no magical formula for new authors, every author is in the same boat. Marketing a children's book can be a full time job consisting of calling reviewers, sending out review copies, building relationships with bookstores, doing book signings. It would be far more productive for *** to engage in some of these activities.
  We are happy to pay the remaining royalties according to the contract and terminate the contract, as the client asked us to do back in March. We already sent him all of the work files when he asked for them. We would love to come to an agreement.
  

  
  

  Customer Answer

  Date: 01/19/2024

   
  Complaint: 21146575
  
  I am rejecting this response because: I questioned the royalties that they paid me and asked for a record of those royalties from ***. They sent me one that they created themselves. If it was from ***, then my name would have been spelled the same way it is in my Amazon account. If you check the spelling of my name on the spreadsheet I attached, you will see that it was misspelled. They obviously made this spreadsheet up themselves. Below is the estimated royalties that should have been paid on my book, taken directly from the *** site.

  
  
  Marketplace List Price Royalty Rate Minimum List Price Printing Cost Estimated Royalty
  
  Amazon.com $18.99       60%                             $14.99           $9.00            $2.40
  

  Emerald told me that the royalties were only $1.75.  They offered to let me take my book down from their control and move it to my own account, so that I can get reports directly from ***. But they have ignored my emails approving this and they know that I can't do this without the password. 

  Please help me get direct information from ***.

  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***********************

  Business Response

  Date: 01/25/2024

  The report was generated by Amazon. 

  As a business with many clients we simply don't have time to fabricate complex accounting statements. 

  The misspelling noted is because Amazon titles every report the same way with no identification

  *** Historical Report 

  When these reports are downloaded, they are appended to add the author name. This means that yes, we made a spelling mistake when saving the report. 

  The services the client asked for are outside of the scope of any agreement. It would represent significant labor on our part to "prove" that our reports are accurate through a notary or some other service and it would incur significant cost not covered in our work agreement. Similarly, the  labor and cost to us of training the client to successfully navigate the platform is not something we could do without remuneration. We do have a consultation service item where we provide this training, but it takes time and it isn't free.

  Our contract does not provide for extra labor when a client doesn't believe their reports are truthful. A great option for this level of personal control or mistrust of another company is simply to CREATE YOUR OWN ACCOUNT FOR THE ******************** AND UPLOAD AND MANAGE THEM YOURSELF.

  We have already delivered all production files and written long instructions (see original email document) on how to do that. Once again, this is one of our services that was offered to the client during the production phase which he declined, citing his unfamiliarity with computers and software interfaces. 

  Finally, the estimations on the *** support site are only generalities and don't give a precise calculation of profit after production and distribution. There are many factors that generate the final values, including paper quality and shipping distance. Amazon in fact reserves the right to change these values as they see fit. This is why we don't use a per book profit value for a net revenue calculation, and no one in this industry does. Nowhere in our contracts or communication with the client do we assure an exact value when a book is sold and Amazon doesn't report earnings this way because it would be impossible. 

  I'm not sure where the figures are coming from that the client reports but they are inaccurate and actually a lot less than the books actual revenue. For instance look at the previously attached *** doc for *** and FEB Revenue. In February 3 books were sold yielding a revenue of ****. In January only two books were sold but the revenue was higher, at ****. How could one sell more books but make less money? It's because each format of the book has a different value. February books were 2 paperbacks and one hardcover, January books were one paperback and one ebook. The reporting does not deliver a rate per format but you can sort of figure out the current values if you look through it carefully. ebooks are more profitable than paperbacks which are more profitable than hardcovers. 

  If one wanted to calculate the per-format profit that is possible by looking at the reporting, but each format for the book has its own value. However, as I said we are simply not equipped to write up long accounting reports like this every week for everyone without some type of consultation agreement in place. And there is no solution to convincing the client that the reports are real. Granting full access to our accounts would endanger our other clients. 

  The client has all of the production files and we have a simple service for transferring files to a personal account for authors which would let the author have full control over his book and full access to reporting. The client never followed up on this and said he was working with another company to republish his book. It seems like our service would be a good solution to the clients worries but the client seems uninterested or unwilling to do this. We have sent volumes of email supporting and encouraging this client as well as explaining how to manage a production account (attached earlier) which were mysteriously ignored. There is no way to provide perfect transparency and full access to a client that is unwilling to manage their own books or pay our service fees for rebuilding new editions on their account. 

  I'm not sure where any of the values the client cites come from but a great place to start would be the *** report. For instance I can see in august only a single ebook sold and the revenue was **** so that would establish the current royalty for a single ebook until it changes. I'm unsure of where any of the other values cited are coming from. the only data we have is the report.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 01/26/2024

   
  Complaint: 21146575
  
  I am rejecting this response because: I will have to do some research with KDP. Can I have 30 days to complete this research? I was told that they only had premium color available at the time I published my book. I would like to confirm that and find out if I can convert to the lower quality printing and take control of the new book with lower quality color.

   

  Thank you for your help and consideration of my request for a continuation. 
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***********************