Q –

Hello,

My late husband had a book published by Publish America, America Star Books, or whoever else they became. I have heard they are out of business? Do you know if it is true? I would like to get it republished but am unsure how to go about it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

---

A –

First, let me say I’m not an attorney and this isn’t legal advice. Please consult with an attorney for any legal questions.

It was reported that PublishAmerica (a.k.a. America Star Books) went belly-up in 2017. After countless complaints were posted online about them not paying authors’ royalties, and by ceasing operations, they violated clauses in their own contracts.

Therefore, I feel perfectly comfortable telling authors to go ahead and have their books published elsewhere. The company never filed for bankruptcy and, at this point, it is doubtful they ever will. I heard a wild rumor that the owners left the country. Of course, I can’t prove that.

For the books that are still for sale on Amazon, who’s getting those payments? It’s unlikely Amazon is just holding onto that money. Of course, Amazon won’t tell anyone what’s going on with a specific publisher’s account.

Interestingly, the PublishAmerica.com website is still in operation. It has very old material on it. However, on the homepage, in 2019 (two years after they went out of business!), someone posted a discount for authors who might want to buy some CBD oil.

As of today, that CBD website link is still operational. Notice you can get 10% off if you use the PA10 discount code. I wonder if that means the previous owners of Publish America are getting referral fees from them? Hmmm…

I did some more digging. According to LinkedIn, it looks like that CBD company is owned by this guy:

He looked a bit too perfect in that picture so I searched for the image in Google and, guess what? You guessed it! It’s a model’s photo that’s found in many places on the Internet. Or, do you think this guy used to be a model for eyeglasses? I highly doubt it!

If you can’t post your own danged photo online in your advertising, guy, don’t post any photo at all. Sheesh.

Anyway, back to the PublishAmerica website…

There are some broken links on the site but it makes it appear, to a newbie anyway, that they’re still in business. They are NOT.

The America Star Books website is empty and the URL is for sale. However, nobody would be dumb enough to pay $400 to be even remotely associated with the past reputation of that firm!

In 2020, a federal lien was placed on (or was attempted to be placed on) America Star Books and Victor Cretella for $17,120.26.

To see many, MANY more lawsuits against the firm, CLICK HERE. NOTE: Once you pull them up, you can click on the links to the left of all of the cases to get more info. (but not much).

Once there, click on the “company” button on that page, right above the first search box.

For your first search, type: Publish America

For your second search: type America Star Books

It’s no wonder they went out of business. How can you possible run a company when you have so many legal action going on???

Next, click on the “Person” button and search for –

Last name: Cretella

First name: Victor

And –

Last name: Clopper

First name: Lawrence

Note that those “person” searches will pull up some unassociated cases.

As you’ve probably already guessed, you will not be able to get your husband’s files from the company since you will not be able to contact the owners of that company.

If you have your husband’s manuscript in electronic format, you can have it republished. If you only have a copy of the printed book, you can either retype it into a word processing program, or you can hire someone to do that for you RIGHT HERE.

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