A Publisher's Dream Turned to Nightmare
The court found for the authors and against the publisher. The judgement: $33 MILLION. Just seven years ago it was the largest award of its kind. The complaint was a contract dispute — the author claimed her book had failed in the United States because it was not properly marketed.
At this point many of the authors out there are laughing and saying, “How can I get in on this? My publisher hasn’t done a thing to market my book!” These days authors know that, if their book is going to sell, it is they who are going to do all the work. A few years ago things were, it seems, different.
The case in question was brought by two women, co-authors Misha Defonseca and Vera Lee, against their publisher Mt. Ivy Press and its owner Jane Daniel. It was tried in Suffolk Superior Court and the ruling was handed down in 2000. The book that began the entire controversy was titled Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years and was about Defonseca’s experiences as a Jewish child in Europe during that period. Defonseca was living with her parents in Brussels and they were in hiding. She was seven years old when her parents were captured and she was placed in a foster home from which she escaped. She spent the next several years traveling on foot around Europe trying to find them. She lived with a pack of wolves who took care of her. It was quite an adventure and a book that looked like it had potential.
Jane Daniel had a small independent press that published a book titled Gigolos (which you can still buy on Amazon) and a few other titles. Through her friend, attorney Jan Schlictman, she met Defonseca and they agreed to do the book together. Jane’s best friend and next-door neighbor Vera Lee, a retired French professor, agreed to help because Misha’s native tongue was French and she needed translation support telling her story. While Misha and Vera began the long, arduous task of writing the book, Jane began to market it.
She had worked with the prestigious literary agency Palmer and Dodge (now Edwards, Angell, Palmer and Dodge) and literary marketing gurus, Ike Williams and Elaine Rogers (now with Fish and Richardson), before. They agreed to work with her on the Misha book. Before the book was even written Mt. Ivy had acquired a movie option from Disney who agreed to pay Misha as a consultant on the film. The Oprah show had flown a film crew to Massachusetts to shoot footage of Misha with the wolves at Wolf Hollow in Ipswich. Translation rights abroad were sold. A schedule of speaking engagement through a reputable speakers bureau was set up. This is the kind of promotion that most of us humble authors can only dream of! Disney! Oprah! Foreign translation sales!!! Who gets that kind of marketing? Misha is reported to have received over $200,000 in royalties just from the French edition alone! All the authors I know are salivating over that little fact.
But somewhere along the line the controversy began. Misha and Vera squabbled and Vera claimed she was being damaged by the project. She filed a lawsuit. Misha’s story was being questioned by Holocaust story experts and the Boston Globe’s David Mehegan wrote an article questioning its authenticity. More lawsuits were filed. Disney backed off and so did Oprah. Everything went awry and soon everyone was lawyered up. The chaos that ensued left Jane Daniel’s publishing company and life in tatters. For seven years she has battled to find some equity around this situation. Her family spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to help. She lost everything. She spent time in jail. Now they want her house. The nightmare seems endless. But Jane persists. Now that the legal cases are settled and she has nothing to lose she is writing about the case in a blog: BESTSELLER! which will become a book.
If you are an independent publisher — or a publisher of any sort — you need to read this blog. If you are an author you need to read it too. It is the story of a project that went awry and has created devastation. There are currently seven chapters on the blog. More are being added as the author completes them. It is gripping reading. Take a look at: BESTSELLERtheBook.blogspot.com
Thanks for reading.
At this point many of the authors out there are laughing and saying, “How can I get in on this? My publisher hasn’t done a thing to market my book!” These days authors know that, if their book is going to sell, it is they who are going to do all the work. A few years ago things were, it seems, different.
The case in question was brought by two women, co-authors Misha Defonseca and Vera Lee, against their publisher Mt. Ivy Press and its owner Jane Daniel. It was tried in Suffolk Superior Court and the ruling was handed down in 2000. The book that began the entire controversy was titled Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years and was about Defonseca’s experiences as a Jewish child in Europe during that period. Defonseca was living with her parents in Brussels and they were in hiding. She was seven years old when her parents were captured and she was placed in a foster home from which she escaped. She spent the next several years traveling on foot around Europe trying to find them. She lived with a pack of wolves who took care of her. It was quite an adventure and a book that looked like it had potential.
Jane Daniel had a small independent press that published a book titled Gigolos (which you can still buy on Amazon) and a few other titles. Through her friend, attorney Jan Schlictman, she met Defonseca and they agreed to do the book together. Jane’s best friend and next-door neighbor Vera Lee, a retired French professor, agreed to help because Misha’s native tongue was French and she needed translation support telling her story. While Misha and Vera began the long, arduous task of writing the book, Jane began to market it.
She had worked with the prestigious literary agency Palmer and Dodge (now Edwards, Angell, Palmer and Dodge) and literary marketing gurus, Ike Williams and Elaine Rogers (now with Fish and Richardson), before. They agreed to work with her on the Misha book. Before the book was even written Mt. Ivy had acquired a movie option from Disney who agreed to pay Misha as a consultant on the film. The Oprah show had flown a film crew to Massachusetts to shoot footage of Misha with the wolves at Wolf Hollow in Ipswich. Translation rights abroad were sold. A schedule of speaking engagement through a reputable speakers bureau was set up. This is the kind of promotion that most of us humble authors can only dream of! Disney! Oprah! Foreign translation sales!!! Who gets that kind of marketing? Misha is reported to have received over $200,000 in royalties just from the French edition alone! All the authors I know are salivating over that little fact.
But somewhere along the line the controversy began. Misha and Vera squabbled and Vera claimed she was being damaged by the project. She filed a lawsuit. Misha’s story was being questioned by Holocaust story experts and the Boston Globe’s David Mehegan wrote an article questioning its authenticity. More lawsuits were filed. Disney backed off and so did Oprah. Everything went awry and soon everyone was lawyered up. The chaos that ensued left Jane Daniel’s publishing company and life in tatters. For seven years she has battled to find some equity around this situation. Her family spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to help. She lost everything. She spent time in jail. Now they want her house. The nightmare seems endless. But Jane persists. Now that the legal cases are settled and she has nothing to lose she is writing about the case in a blog: BESTSELLER! which will become a book.
If you are an independent publisher — or a publisher of any sort — you need to read this blog. If you are an author you need to read it too. It is the story of a project that went awry and has created devastation. There are currently seven chapters on the blog. More are being added as the author completes them. It is gripping reading. Take a look at: BESTSELLERtheBook.blogspot.com
Thanks for reading.
posted by Kathleen Valentine at 7:23 AM
2 Comments:
wow
Anyone who has been in court knows justice doesn't always prevail. It is who is the biggest liar and if one has a lawyer who is as unethical as the client it is twice as good.
I read down through Jane's blog and almost cried. Been there, done that in a smaller way. It cost me everything but I didn't have as much to lose so I guess I was lucky???
Jane should have asked for change of venue, claimed the judge was prejudice, and worked out an alternate court.
Alas, hindsight always stinks doesn't it?
Post a Comment
<< Home