Why a Book Publishing Trade Regulation Organization Now?
The Internet has brought an age of easy access to consumers. Many industries have flourished in this new age, and the book publishing industry is no different. However, the ease of access that the book publishing companies have to the consumers has brought with it a host of questionable practices.
For most of the 20th century, the modern book publishing industry has flourished with laudable intentions and standards based upon integrity. In the last decade, though, the poor ethics and practices of many new book publishing companies have compromised the integrity so vital to the industry.
Since the advent of the Internet, authors seeking to get their books published are deluged with misleading advertisements, outright scams, and profiteering. Those same authors turn to their online peers only to find egregious abuses and false information spread through various writer and author oriented blogs, web pages, and discussion boards. Much of the prevalent book publisher information posted now at these sites is by bloggers and writers who have been paid by unethical publishers to perpetuate rumors, gossip, and false accusations against their reputable book publishing competition in an effort to gain market share. Other times, authors who feel slighted will post misinformation intentionally in order to ruin good publishing brands.
Another pitfall awaiting writers and authors are the book publishing scam sites. Frequently, these are marketing tactics of authors who self-appoint themselves as experts, and pose as objective reporters, when their warning pages and publisher listing areas are meant only to gain them wide exposure in the writer community in order to sell their own books. For some of these writers, this lucrative writing opportunity is not enough, and has escalated to extortionist levels as they threaten book publishers with poor ratings or false information in their web pages, unless they receive some form of payment. Unfortunately, legislation has not kept up to date with these innovative Internet defamation techniques, and there is inadequate legal recourse for those who have had their good reputations ruined in these "brand smear for profit" schemes.
Thus, the writers and authors have been forced to scour the myriad of sites in an attempt to locate someone they can trust for unbiased information, but are left with conflicting or false information, and come away from their search more confused than they were before. Often, they will turn to book publishing trade organizations, only to find that many are run by officers of member companies. Many writer clubs and organizations may not be any better, having undisclosed conflicts of interest, hidden biases, and agendas.
Without any book publisher service standards, and without trade organizations to regulate this industry, the problems of author and writer abuse have escalated into millions of dollars per year. Organizations such as the Better Business Bureau have been a wonderful resource in the past to provide resolution for local and small business complaints. However, they are not acquainted with the industry nuances needed to help the many thousands of writers and authors seeking to become published each year, so are unable to address their individual and specific concerns. Writers need an advocate to work as an ally with other consumer protection organizations, such as the Better Business Bureau, and law enforcement organizations, such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), National White Collar Crime Center, Interpol, and the FBI, in the fight against the fraud and deception rampant in the book publishing industry today.
In the absence of a government agency to manage this problem, the Publishing Standards Board, a Self Regulatory Trade Organization, has been established. As an independent organization, without affiliation to any book publishing companies, the Publisher Standards Board is in the perfect position to create and enforce rules for its members based on a set of industry standards for ethics, service, and quality.
The Publisher Standards Board actively publishes and distributes information to writers and writer organizations in order to educate them about book publisher standards, current book publisher practices, and current book publishing frauds. This protects the consumers from getting involved in scams, and benefits reputable companies by protecting them from the mistrust engendered by unethical companies that operate without scrutiny.
The Publisher Standards Board acts as an early responder that parallels the consumer protection mission of the Federal Trade Commission. They are in a position to quickly gather information from numerous sources, and report troubling complaint patterns, with full documentation, to the FTC's law enforcement staff, and other appropriate law enforcement agencies, helping to rapidly identify potential fraud cases.
When disputes arise, authors and writers currently have no knowledgeable industry resource to turn to, and are forced to either let the issue drop or spend large amounts of money on lawyers, and spend years in the court system. The Publisher Standards Board has instituted programs for dispute resolution that provide authors and publishers with fair, unbiased, affordable arbitration to resolve these conflicts.
Other programs include a publisher advertising & solicitation review program to warn authors and writers of any misleading or fraudulent claims, keeping the manuscript they have worked so hard on safe from the hands of unscrupulous companies. They also provide independent evaluation ratings, based on ten key elements of ethics and operations, for comparing book publishing companies.
For many years, law enforcement agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, and consumer protection organizations, such as the Better Business Bureau, have recognized the many consumer benefits of industry self-regulation in specific industries. The Publisher Standards Board is your source for reliable information and regulation within the book publishing industry.
