I've received several emails offline asking me for more information about why I will no longer do business with Airleaf (formerly Bookman Marketing / Bookman Publishing). The volume of email I've received indicates to me that I should elaborate here.
1) When I received my shipment of books it arrived later than promised, arriving barely hours before a scheduled booksigning.
2) I spent hundreds of dollars buying ads in the local newspaper to promote the booksigning in order to widely publicize the event. When I arrived to set up, there already was a small crowd waiting and more people were coming in, eager to buy my fourth book. When I opened the box and started selling copies, I noticed that in most cases, the covers of the books were delaminating. Some a little, some substantially. I had no choice but to stop selling the books and apologize to all those who showed up in anticipation of receiving the books. During the following week, I tracked down those who had already bought the books and bought them back, offering them a free hardcover of any one of my previous books in exchange for the hardship.
3) After no satisfactory response to inquiries I made to Bookman, I retained a lawyer and pursued the issue further, asking that the books be replaced and that the money I spent on advertising the event be refunded by Bookman. I provided them with a statement direct from the accounting system of the newspaper to show which ads, when they were purchased, what size they were and how much they cost. The bad quality of their product was directly responsible for that loss.
4) Bookman did replace the books but refused to cover the lost advertising expenses. The books they sent were satisfactory when received but in the next week or so those covers, too, began to delaminate around the edges.
5) Promised 4x6 inch paperbacks, the books did not meet the standard size specifications of paperbacks. They are short and wide and do not fit into wire paperback book displays. That became an issue when trying to place the books at local bookstores.
6) Again, I contacted Bookman, this time asking that they discontinue selling and producing the book. After all, I own the rights on the book. This request was never acknowledged and Bookman to this day carries the book in their inventory. I republished the book with Authorhouse and got a superior-quality product. I removed all links to Bookman from my website and actively discouraged people from buying it, pointing them to the Authorhouse version instead.
7) I have made three requests that Airleaf take me off their email and mail solicitation lists. I continue to receive solicitations from Airleaf.
8) In those mail solicitations, they list the title of my book as "Level Head" rather than "Level Heads." It does not bode well when a publisher can't even get the name of your book right while they are angling to market it to outside parties.
9) AND THE FINAL INSULT: When the squat, poorly-produced paperbacks arrived, they carried a retail price (printed right on the cover) of $14.95 each. Who in their right mind is going to pay that kind of money for a paperback book? Unlike Authorhouse, who works with you in advance to set the retail price of your book and gives you a large amount of control over it, the high retail cost of this book ensures no one will buy it right out of the gate.
10) In many states, they have a "three strikes you're out" policy. I've got nine on Airleaf / Bookman - nine valid issues that I have never had with Authorhouse. There is a saying: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
