{"id":10752,"date":"2012-09-26T16:00:08","date_gmt":"2012-09-26T20:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sidebarforplaintiffs.naomifein.net\/?p=10752"},"modified":"2012-09-26T16:00:08","modified_gmt":"2012-09-26T20:00:08","slug":"three-lawsuits-penguinepatha-merkerson-and-pepper-spray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sidebarforplaintiffs.naomifein.net\/?p=10752","title":{"rendered":"Three lawsuits: Penguin,Epatha Merkerson and pepper spray"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writers must be shivering over this: Penguin, a very large publisher, is suing a number of well-known writers<\/a> who signed book deals, took advances but failed to deliver the books. Penguin wants its money back, with interest.<\/p>\n

From today’s Publisher’s Lunch<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Smoking Gun highlights<\/a> multiple lawsuits filed recently by Penguin<\/strong> to recover advances from authors who the publisher says never delivered their manuscripts. The suits look to recover advances and interest from:<\/em><\/p>\n

New Yorker staff writer Rebecca Mead<\/em>
\n$20,000, for a 2003 deal to collect her journalism<\/em>
\n[Mead did have another announced 2003 deal, for the book about “the selling of the American Wedding” that Penguin Press did publish in 2007]<\/em><\/p>\n

Elizabeth Wurtzel<\/em>
\n$33,000 (and at least $7,500 in interest), for a book to help teenagers cope with depression<\/em><\/p>\n

Former “Wonkette” blogger Ana Marie Cox<\/em>
\n$81,250 (and at least $50,000 in interest), for a 2006 contract promising a “humorous examination of the next generation of political activists”<\/em>
\n[This was a follow-up after Riverhead published her debut novel]<\/em><\/p>\n

Conrad Tillard<\/em>
\n$38,000 for a 2005 memoir deal about his “journey from the Ivy League to the Nation of Islam” and break with Louis Farrakhan<\/em>
\n[Penguin’s Tarcher imprint was the second would-be buyer of this book; HarperCollins announced a deal for it in 2003, with Karen Hunter as co-author. The version Tarcher bought in 2005 had Playthell Benjamin as co-writer]<\/em><\/p>\n

In a league by itself, they are also seeking $30,000 (and at least $10,000) from disgraced Holocaust fabricator Herman Rosenblat.<\/em><\/p>\n

Trident Media Group ceo Robert Gottlieb says in a posted comment, “If Penguin did this to one of Trident’s authors we could cut them out of all our submissions.”<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m sure the writers have another side of the story\u00a0\u2014 that’s the Robert Gottlieb quote: he’s a major literary agent\u2014 but maybe I’m thinking this because I’m a writer and when I get an advance, I will certainly be delivering the promised book. (As a writer who follows deals, though, I am not entirely surprised at the rather meager advances to some rather big writers. Even before the economic crash, publishers were not giving major advances, even to prominent writers. I think they figured out that in too many cases the books weren’t making the advances back. I know of one writer who’d collect a $150,000 advance pretty much every year, churn out a book that wouldn’t sell that well, and then go on to the next one and the next advance.)<\/p>\n

And, in a lawsuit dear to my heart, S. Epatha Merkerson is suing a co-op board for failing to render habitable an apartment she purchased<\/a>.\u00a0 (BTW, I once met a guy who worked on Law and Order<\/em>. He told me Ms. Merkerson was wonderful, how she pronounces her name and why she uses her middle name and not the S. I think he also told me what the “S” stands for, but I forgot everything, except that he told me all that.)<\/p>\n

Co-ops are such peculiar birds, you know. But in New York City they are Big Birds. And they squawk loudly.<\/p>\n

And, lastly, the Occupy protesters who were pepper-sprayed got a settlement<\/a> from the University of California-Davis.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writers must be shivering over this: Penguin, a very large publisher, is suing a number of well-known writers who signed book deals, took advances but failed to deliver the books. Penguin wants its money back, with interest. From today’s Publisher’s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[337],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t