Tate Publishing loses second major case

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From NewsOK:

A vendor that supplied printing services to vanity publisher Tate Publishing & Enterprises was awarded a summary judgment on March 31 that could cost Tate more than $2 million.

Xerox Corp. was granted the award after Tate failed to respond to the motion.

The judgment authorizes Xerox to collect $1,446,070.67 from Tate Publishing & Enterprises, and $450,308.18 from Ryan Tate, the company’s CEO.

. . . .

The vanity press, whose attorneys bowed out of the case early this year after telling a judge they hadn’t been paid, did not send a representative to attend the hearing.

A text sent to the CEO’s phone Friday asking for comment was not answered.

The March 31 decision is the second major setback Tate Publishing has encountered since it lost its attorneys.

On Feb. 9, an Oklahoma City federal judge considering a lawsuit filed against Tate by a Tennessee-based printing services firm also awarded a default judgment worth more than $2 million.

. . . .

Writers and musicians who were under contract with Tate as late as in 2016 continue to share stories about money they paid to Tate Publishing to produce their works.

One writer, Heather D. Nelson, is publishing a series of stories she has written that are based on interviews she has done with other Tate clients. She is publishing those stories on her site, heatherdnelson.com/blog.

Nelson said March 31 she understands some authors who have agreed to sign a hold-harmless release against Tate Publishing and have sent the firm $50, have been getting their manuscripts returned.

But Nelson said numerous others are seeking a return of their works without signing the release, and that she has visited with dozens of authors about their experiences with the firm.

Link to the rest at NewsOK and thanks to Meryl and others for the tip.

One of PG’s standard aphorisms when speaking to his clients about business deals is, “Don’t do business with crooks.”

No matter how carefully-crafted the contract may be, it won’t work when the counterparty is a crook.

Perhaps there is a vanity press somewhere that isn’t a crook, but PG doesn’t know who that would be.

9 thoughts on “Tate Publishing loses second major case”

  1. They owe me money for a TV trailer that did not appear and for getting my ad on blogs that they failed to do, yet they want $50 for set up on pages and suggest a publisher who wants $500 to take over my book. I think they are a rotten group that should pay me first, then consider giving me the set up pages for free, plus damages.

  2. Why would anyone pay Tate $50 and sign a release from claims to get their manuscript back? Isn’t your manuscript residing on your computer’s hard drive? You can do anything you want with it.

    • Hmm. I was interpreting “return” as a return of the right to publish anyplace else; on the grounds the writers likely signed a contract.

      If they mean it any other way then that’s just weird.

  3. I had a quick look through Heather D Nelson’s blog. Of the four interviews I read, two have now republished through another pay-to-publish company. Only one has published through Kindle/CreateSpace.

    Do people never learn?

    • No, they don’t, Iola. They don’t read, they don’t research, they don’t take advice. (I’m speaking for a majority of what I’m seeing on various message boards.) It’s why there are so many companies out there to fleece the unwary. It’s a booming business.

  4. “Link to the rest at NewsOK and thanks to Meryl and others for the tip.

    One of PG’s standard aphorisms when speaking to his clients about business deals is, “Don’t do business with crooks.”

    No matter how carefully-crafted the contract may be, it won’t work when the counterparty is a crook.”

    One big red flag in negotiations is when the other party will agree to anything and everything, even when it’s disadvantageous to them. They agree because they KNOW they’re gonna bail and/or rip you off, so the agreed-to terms are meaningless.

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