Trestle Press - writer beware

[Julie Morrigan]

Anyone published with or considering publishing with Trestle Press needs to be aware of this.

It seems that Trestle Press has been using artwork for cover images without the artists' permission. There are other issues with the company too - lack of contracts and, in some cases, payment, writers being lied to (their words, not mine) and so on. Now their authors have started to demand that their books be taken down from sale and want nothing more to do with the company. I can think of at least half a dozen who have jumped ship since last evening (UK time) when I first became aware of what was going on.

Information about stolen cover art may be found here: http://doodle777.deviantart.com/journal/Art-theft-It-s-good-news-it-really-is-282415361

General info here: http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=232879

Writers' blog posts here:

Paul Brazill: http://pdbrazill.blogspot.com/2012/01/trestle-press-brit-grit-drunk-on-moon.html 

Malcolm Holt: http://malcolmholtabitontheside.blogspot.com/2012/01/crime-tyne-shots-have-been-shot.html

My sympathies to any and all writers who have been caught up in this.

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

"Legacy" and "traditional" publishers never use the words "legacy" and "traditional."  To those of us that are publishers, we just call ourselves publishers.

Authors should always be concerned about so-called publishers that promote "a new way of publishing" or who talk down about publishers in general.  They are feeding into the ego of the typical author who has been rejected in the past and playing into the "us versus them" mentality that permeates a lot of the writing community.

Any publisher that uses the phrase "full service" is essentially broadcasting the fact that he has no idea what he is doing.  Again, a publisher is a publisher.  This is publishing, not a gas station. 

[Julie Morrigan]

Updates.

Trestle have made a statement via their blog. Read it here: http://www.trestlepresspublishing.com/

Meanwhile, their writers continue to ask for their work to be removed from sale, and to leave them.

Heath Lowrance is the latest to comment: http://psychonoir.blogspot.com/2012/02/announcement-regarding-tp.html

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

Ye gods, these people are hacks.

In cases where no contact was made or no copyright holder found, we apologize for the usage and have removed the identified images.

So they were just pulling images off the internet and using them?  And thought this was OK? 

[Julie Morrigan]

Unbelievable, isn't it? And since one of the images they used was from Marvel's Ghost Rider, I'd be a little concerned if I was in their shoes! They also used images from the Hit Man game and Bill and Ted. No way they had permission to use those. (And when I say 'we', I mean Giovanni Gelati, who appears to be a one man band.)

Other comments from writers include dismay at poor formatting, a lack of editing, and a suspicion that their work wasn't even read prior to publication. It's an utter disgrace. I think he exploits both writers and readers.

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

Other comments from writers include dismay at poor formatting, a lack of editing, and a suspicion that their work wasn't even read prior to publication. It's an utter disgrace. I think he exploits both writers and readers.

On a larger level, this is a common problem.  One one side, you have a lot of people with good intentions who honestly don't understand what a publisher really is supposed to do who just hang a virtual shingle and call themselves publishers to "help" their fellow writers.  On the other, you have actual scumbags who deliberately seek to take advantage of the anxiety of writers who have internalized the "publishers are bad" mantra.  So they play off of that with buzzy phrases like "new business model" or "author focused!" or "a new paradigm!" (yeah, so that one a couple of times.  Not even sure what that is suppose to mean). 

[nigel p bird]

bugger

[Kevis 'The Berserker' Hendrickson]

On a larger level, this is a common problem.  One one side, you have a lot of people with good intentions who honestly don't understand what a publisher really is supposed to do

I have a friend who published her first book with Trestle. They didn't bother to edit her book or give her a real cover before uploading it for sale. In fact, she had to pay for her own cover afterwards to replace the text-only version they created. If you ask me, Trestle Press is the face of the newest form of vanity publishing. They're in this game only to make a quick buck, authors' careers and reputations be damned. I am not surprised to hear that they are stealing artwork too.

[Rex Jameson]

Mind-boggling. Ridiculous.

[nigel p bird]

I'm not going to get into the ins-and-outs of the whole thing.

What I can say from a personal perspective is that I'm gutted.  'Smoke' was nominated for the Best Novella Award by Spinetingler Magazine and that was such an achievement; it was based upon the content and not the cover.

I'd also just managed to catch the wind in 'Smoke's' sails and just at the point where it seemed to be moving forward, I've had to ask for it to be withdrawn.  I hope that the authors involved aren't tarnished in the way I fear - the Trestle books I've read by McDroll, Paul Brazill, Heath Lowrance, Darren Sant et al have been great.  They deserve better.

I also hope that Giovanni learns from this and manages to weather the storm; public floggings aren't really my cup of tea.

Anyway, the sun may shine tomorrow.  Mightn't it?

[Julie Morrigan]

@Bards and Sages - It does seem full of 'doublespeak', for sure. Incidentally, in many cases it was TP who contacted the writers and, despite having apparently never read their work, didn't ask 'Can I read some of your work?' but 'Do you want to publish with us?' A lot of the writers were flattered by this and subsequently mentioned it as a selling point when publicising their books.

@Nigel - Just put it behind you and get your stuff back out there. You have the skills!

@Kevis - Sadly, it's an all-too-common tale. If your friend hasn't already done so, I think it would be prudent of her to get in touch and make sure any rights revert to her.

@ Rex - Can't disagree!

Updates:

LVera has emailed TP/GG directly. Read it here: http://lverawrites.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/me-email-to-giovanni-garbageman-gelati/

Lit Reactor have commented here: http://litreactor.com/news/digital-publisher-trestle-press-dinged-for-stealing-cover-art

This is a good analysis of the situation, I think: http://namelesshorror.com/post/16875173685/trestle-press-art-theft

[Monique]

Any "publisher" who thinks it's okay to use images from Bill & Ted has shouldn't be in business and should, frankly, be sued. Hope G-Man has a good lawyer.

[Kevis 'The Berserker' Hendrickson]

@Kevis - Sadly, it's an all-too-common tale. If your friend hasn't already done so, I think it would be prudent of her to get in touch and make sure any rights revert to her.

She got her rights back, wisely flew the coop months ago, and got herself a real publisher. Moral of the story is every author should do their homework before signing with any publisher, especially upstart epublishers like Trestle.

[smiscandlon]

I also hope that Giovanni learns from this and manages to weather the storm

I can't agree with this at all — sounds like you're buying his line that it was all just an "honest mistake" for which he should be conveniently forgiven.

Anyone who has such an obviously poor grasp of the concepts of copyright ownership quite simply shouldn't be in the publishing business.

I'm not calling for a public flogging ... but someone who has participated in plagiarism and copyright theft doesn't deserve to be allowed to just brush it under the carpet and get on with business as usual.

[Rex Jameson]

This reminds me of some of the bizarre postings I've seen from "authors" busted for copying other works and selling them with their names on them. I have a feeling this Giovanni character went into some blackhat site and read someone's fluff about how easy publishing was in this age and all you had to do was work hard to gather contracts and focus on throughput as a publisher in the new ebook revolution. I've seen mention of advertisements like that on blog posts, and it doesn't surprise me that someone with no publishing experience would look at them and go "Look, an unregulated market. Opportunity!"

That being said, Giovanni will deserve the lawsuits that Marvel and the various copyright holders will level against him. Does anyone know where Tressle Press is even located at? If he's outside of the US and EU (and from the name, I'd guess he's European), it may be difficult to reach him or his company. The bad publicity alone might force Giovanni to at least take a name change on the press. Will be interesting to see where this goes.

Did I mention I'm appalled by this? Not surprised but appalled.

[Julie Morrigan]

@Monique - Quite so!

@Kevis - That's good to know, I'm glad to hear it. And yes, it's always worth doing some research.

@smiscandlon - I completely agree.

@Rex - good points, all. And TP are based in the US, Levittown, Pa.

And finally, one of the affected authors, Luca Veste, has just posted an excellent assessment of the situation. Read it here: http://www.lucaveste.com/2012/02/why-it-matters.html

[nigel p bird]

I'm not sure I'm buying a line.

When I was a kid, I taped music from the radio.  Punk exploded.  Ownership became a question for debate.  I taped records.  Photographed bands.  Bought cobbled together fanzines.  My brother's band had a Mudhoney cover on their own album and replaced the heads with others.  My favourite tee-shirt was of the Dog-Faced-Hermans, the HMV logo with the dog's head on fire.  The Sex Pistols defaced the Queen.

In a world where the word super-hero is owned and someone holds the rights to Happy Birthday, I think that the extreme protection of ideas and images can be prohibitive to creativity.  Yes, there needs to be some level of protection and yes, G was wrong in the use of the covers, but everytime a blogger sticks up a cover of a book they review (I do it) we're actually doing something wrong even if it's in the book's favour.

It's all a little crazy.  Irony for me is that the covers weren't really very good in many cases.

The comment I'll take more to heart is the one about being more careful and doing a little more research.  Mea culpa.

[smiscandlon]

Nigel, I'm not sure any of your comparisons are really relevant.

When you use a book cover to accompany a review on your blog, that's what the law would consider "fair use".  That couldn't be further removed from what Gelati has done here.

I also taped music from the radio, and copied records.  What I didn't do was make copies and then sell them for my own profit.  That's effectively what Trestle Press have done — it's not a fanzine, it's not a punk band, it's not satire.  It's someone who claims to be a publisher, taking someone else's art and using it, without permission or credit, to make money.

[Rex Jameson]

I'm not sure I'm buying a line.

When I was a kid, I taped music from the radio.  Punk exploded.  Ownership became a question for debate.  I taped records.  Photographed bands.  Bought cobbled together fanzines.  My brother's band had a Mudhoney cover on their own album and replaced the heads with others.  My favourite tee-shirt was of the Dog-Faced-Hermans, the HMV logo with the dog's head on fire.  The Sex Pistols defaced the Queen.

In a world where the word super-hero is owned and someone holds the rights to Happy Birthday, I think that the extreme protection of ideas and images can be prohibitive to creativity.  Yes, there needs to be some level of protection and yes, G was wrong in the use of the covers, but everytime a blogger sticks up a cover of a book they review (I do it) we're actually doing something wrong even if it's in the book's favour.

It's all a little crazy.  Irony for me is that the covers weren't really very good in many cases.

The comment I'll take more to heart is the one about being more careful and doing a little more research.  Mea culpa.

Despite advanced degrees in high tech fields, I'm about as liberal as they come on these forums when it comes to copyright and intellectual property. I release most of my software as open source with a very unrestricted license. I frequently give away my books, just recently providing my books entirely for free for 5 days on Amazon, and through my actions since September, I've given away over 6,000 copies of the two books in my signature. I'm one of those people who will actively argue that copyright holders exaggerate their losses to piracy, and I have seen academic studies and results from authors on these forums that show that free books and free piracy networks are not hurting sales and often encourage them from legitimate buyers.

But there's no way that Trestle's usage of these artists' works at DeviantArt is going to result in more sales or licensing of their art. There's no correlation to fair use or copying or sampling or any of the other legitimate arguments against full-tilt copyright law. There is no economic model that we can argue in favor of Giovanni here. He's a perpetual thief. He's not giving away one copy of this person's work. He's trying to sell as many as he can for his own profit without paying anyone else for a major component of that work. Cover art sells books. It's a marketing component.

What Giovanni has done is dishonest. It's predatory. And he shouldn't be publishing books until he learns the basics of copyright law.

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

Yes, there needs to be some level of protection and yes, G was wrong in the use of the covers, but everytime a blogger sticks up a cover of a book they review (I do it) we're actually doing something wrong even if it's in the book's favour.

You have less understanding of copyright than the so-called publisher.

Fair use allows for the use of protected material in cases of commentary and criticism, which is what book reviews fall under.  Using the book cover or quoting a section of a book for purposes of criticism has long been considered Fair Use.

[nigel p bird]

of course, you're all right.  and my knowledge of any kind of law is poor.

anyway, here's a great collection that's free today.  it's my silver lining.  the cover was designed by a great artist, too. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Speedloader-ebook/dp/B0056UBJ22/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328136987&sr=8-1

[Julia Madeleine]

This entire thing sucks. Due to the Trestlegate fiasco, I've pulled my titles from them. My official announcement here: http://juliamadeleineauthor.blogspot.com/2012/02/trestlegate.html

Unfortunate for Nigel Bird with his title Smoke up for a Spinetingler award. I recently did a review of Nigel's amazing short story collection, With Love And Squallor: http://juliamadeleineauthor.blogspot.com/2012/01/tattoo-and-review-featuring-nigel-bird.html

[oliewankanobe]

Ok... a person on AW who is often touted as "to be respected" ACTUALLY THOUGHT STEPHEN KING of the best-selling Stephen King was writing for them???

Sorry, but wth???

[emilyward]

Ok... a person on AW who is often touted as "to be respected" ACTUALLY THOUGHT STEPHEN KING of the best-selling Stephen King was writing for them???

Sorry, but wth???

That seemed like a joke to me. She had the emoticon! She was probably kind of tongue-in-cheek, like maybe she thought they were acting like they had the big Stephen King as an author?

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

Ok... a person on AW who is often touted as "to be respected" ACTUALLY THOUGHT STEPHEN KING of the best-selling Stephen King was writing for them???

Sorry, but wth???

lol.  No, that was veinglory being a brat.