Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 12:32:02 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: How to sell books.....
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

> kfl at KeithLynch.net 1/14/2006 12:21:32 PM >>>
>Ted White <twhite8 at cox.net> wrote:
>
>> *All* fiction is "fake," or not real.  That's what the word
>> "fiction" means.  In this instance, the book, a fictional memoir,
>> was a little more fictional than some people expected.  Nu?
>
>It was marketed as nonfiction.

I'm willing to give the author of a memoir/autobiography a certain
degree of leeway, memory being what it is.  Not everyone keeps a diary,
much less a meticulous one.

Of course, one *could* claim that diue to his supposed heavy drug use
his memory might be little less than accurate.

>
>The publisher is offering a full refund to anyone who bought it
direct
>from the publisher.

Considering the number of copies bought directly from the publisher, I
suspect those refunds are being funded out of petty cash.  Mind you,
petty cash for Random House is a bit more than the rest of us have....
in our entire lifetimes.... combined....

>I've never heard of any publisher doing this
>before.  Not even with those silly "how to survive Y2K" books.

Sorry, those expired....

>
>If it *were* true, I'd think that the royalties would have gone not
>to the author, but to his victims, under the "Son of Sam" law.

Aren't such laws local?

mjw