I signed a contract with Kathleen Hewtson and Tim Roux of Taylor Street Publishing to write the book "The River of No Return: On the trail of Hannah Anderson and Jim DiMaggio." During the course of writing the book, the publishers were feeding my sources to another writer by the name of Sue Julesen who was also working on a book about the same case -- even though there were stipulations in my contract against conflicts of interest. When my book was published, an entire chapter was missing from it that me and Hannah Anderson's aunt Jennifer Willis had collaborated on together. Coincidentally, Taylor Street Books at this time was trying to push a collaboration between Jennifer Willis and Sue Julesen -- so I wholeheartedly believe that the chapter was purposely stolen with the intent of plagiarizing it or repurposing it for Julesen's book. I do not know if Sue Julesen was involved with this presumed rouse knowledgeably, but I do believe that Kathleen McKenna, aka Kathleen Hewtson, of Taylor Street Books had exactly that motive. When the proverbial shit hit the fan, I demanded that my book be pulled immediately -- and it was -- and I demanded that they not republish it, and that I retain the publishing rights.
The problem with the missing chapter wasn't the only problem, but it was a huge problem. The other problems that came with Taylor Street Publishing producing my book were the terrible editing errors that were actually introduced to the book and not simply forgotten or missed. For example, when I had mentioned Jodi Arias in one section, Tim Roux (Tim Hewtson) changed it to Jodi Arras. He also changed the names of other important and historical figures to be completely erroneous. You can read more about the errors here in this post. I want to note to anyone who is reading this, that I tried to get Tim Roux to thoroughly edit all of his mistakes. He argued that he made none, and that people were just nitpicking and incorrect. At one point he blamed it on regional syntax and spelling -- such as him being from the UK, but these were misspellings by any country's standards. He did agree to remove parts of the book that I did not agree to them inserting into it. Yes, you read that right. He and Kathleen inserted actual ideas and theories into the story that I never signed off on -- and even specifically told them 'no' on at least one occasion before the book was published. This was before I demanded that they pull the book altogether. I did some research and found that Tim has a problem admitting when his editing is subpar and has a history of doing this to other writers.
By this point, I do not know how many copies my book sold. However, I know that it was selling like hotcakes and landing in the bestsellers rankings on Amazon under different categories. It made it all the way to the top 20 in the True Crime genre, competing with Elizabeth Smart's memoir and a handful of books written by Anne Rule and M. William Phelps. At a whopping $14.00+ for the paperback copies and at least $5.00 for the Kindle copies, I am sure that Taylor Street Books pulled in at least $1,000 -- all of it off my laborious writing and hard work, without even an advance (I should've known better)!
They have not paid me.It is now January 16, 2014. I imagine that the money will not be here by January 30th either. They have not returned my emails, and they have downright refused my requests to know how many (exactly) copies my book sold. In other words: These assholes took the money and ran. Now, I'm not entirely too butthurt about it. I have republished the book and gave it away for free to everyone who was wronged by Taylor Street Publishing -- including those who were promised free promotional copies that never got any from them. I was also promised at least five physical copies -- but they never sent them, just like I've never received word of my money or even how much I will get. Honestly, even if they did tell me a figure I don't think I'd believe them at this point. I should also point out that Tim Roux has disabled one of his sockpuppet Gmail accounts -- the one he uses when he goes by Tim Hewtson. I found this out when I tried to email him for like the dozenth time asking where my money is and asking how many books actually sold.
I have numerous emails, including one where Kathleen McKenna/Hewtson claimed that if they were sued over this, she would go to court in a wheelchair and get sympathy against me. These people are criminals and no other writer should be forced to endure what I've had to go through for the past handful of months. These people do not appear to care in the slightest that they've breached our contract, a legally binding document. And I believe it's because they think that I am "too poor" to sue them.
Right now I am toying with the idea of starting a kickstarter campaign to sue these people, but until then I just want other writers to be warned about them. Please be careful who you enter contracts with. If Taylor Street Books/Taylor Street Publishing approaches you under any of their aliases, be careful and don't do anything that puts you in the situation that I am in. I will update this post if Taylor Street Books pays me every penny that is owed (which means I want official documented proof of the number of books sold). Otherwise, I will be publicizing this fraudulent behavior on all of the appropriate platforms.
