Some advice to other authors:  Don't be a victim of publishing scams. The reason the crime is growing is because authors are extremely easy victims. In my case, I was also under a gag order until the lawsuit was done. I learned this lesson the hard way. The excitement and enthusiasm at finally having a publisher say yes often overshadows normal caution. Even those thinking themselves very savvy against fraud games (I thought I was) can be fooled by a smooth-talking con artist posing as a publisher. Knowing I wasn't the only person taken in by this man, is small consolation to losing my lifetime of hard work to him.

Do your research on the publisher before signing and, this is imperative, ALWAYS HAVE A CONTRACTS LAWYER look over your contract. Preferably get yourself an intellectual property lawyer. It's the best investment you can make in assuring you won't be having to take a second mortgage on your house or dip into your retirement funds to fight a bad situation. Because of the horrific costs involved in legal disputes (which drag on for months, sometimes years), you could end up losing your work and your royalties to a disreputable person as I did, not to mention find yourself in debt up to your eyeballs. Even if you win, you probably won't get back any missed royalties, any monetary judgment because they can just turn around and claim bankruptcy.  All you could get back are your rights.

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The fact that it's cost prohibitive to go through a litigation, that's exactly what these scammers count on.  Even if you get your rights back, the odds of it ever making back what you put out in legal fees is astronomical (unless it goes to the bestseller lists or gets optioned in Hollywood). And trust me, the scammer doesn't want that. They purposely do no marketing or promotions so they can keep your book under the radar and out of the spotlight.  Even if they're caught, they just say, "nah, nah, nah, come and catch me if you can." Which means you're paying legal fees and court costs upwards to $50,000 just to stop them. Few authors have that sort of money just lying around and the scammer knows this. Even if a legal judgment finds in favor with the author, it's still a Pyrhhic win situation for the author in the end.

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However, keep in mind a few things if you do fall prey to one of these unsavory businesses. Ask yourself these questions: Are they committing internet fraud by putting out false information about themselves and their company? Are they asking for an investment (even in the sense that they demand a certain number of book sales before you get your royalties as a vanity press might do)? That's an investment. Are they asking you to do (and pay for) all the initial marketing and promotions for the book launch? That's an investment. And if there's no reporting or false reports given to the author, you have no real way of knowing total sales in that case unless you go through legal channels. This is investment fraud. Are they claiming the company is one thing but doing another? Are they not living up to their end of the contract? Are they claiming employees who don't exist? This is business fraud. The scam publisher doesn't care about anything but making money off of other's work, fast and easy cash with minimal effort. The author does all the work, the publisher just sits back and rakes it in. (If you see that the publisher can't edit either, that's a strong clue s/he's not what they say they are.) It's the Little Red Hen Syndrome, only the fox gets the bread in the end.

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There are agencies out that there who oversee this sort of thing; The FTC, the FBI, the IRS, the BBB, and the state Attorney General's Office. This is not to mention local investigative television news and publishing watchdog organizations or groups like Authors Beware and Predators & Editors. Just make sure that if you use any of these agencies or sites, that you're completely truthful about what you submit to them and that you have solid evidence to back up your claims, or you could be looking at a libel suit on top of everything else.