**Update** Taylor Street Books has agreed in email to revert rights of The River of No Return back to me and they will cease publication. I will be working on putting the book back together using the original manuscript so my readers can see what the book was supposed to be. Stay tuned.
**Note** I want to clarify that my publicist had no part of this. Cat Griffin has worked hard and has been nothing but amazing during this entire ordeal. The entire issue rests solely on the shoulders of Taylor Street Books/Publishing due to their errors and gross negligence of important detail.
I must apologize to my readers who purchased copies of "The River of No Return: On the trail of Hannah Anderson and Jim DiMaggio" and I must announce that I will no longer be using "Taylor Street Books" -- who is run by Tim Roux and Kathleen Hewtson (aliases Tim Hewtson and Kathleen McKenna).
It has been brought to my attention by over a dozen different people that the book "The River of no Return: On the trail of Hannah Anderson and Jim DiMaggio" is riddled with errors. I was told of multiple spelling errors, grammatical errors and punctuation errors. I must be perfectly clear in stating that I do not even own an official copy of this book yet. I simply have the document that was given to me by Tim, the "editor" of the piece, titled "Finished book without photos." This is the only copy of their finished version that I have. I have been comparing it to my original manuscript and have found that there are errors introduced into the book, but these are no big deal. However, I DO know how to spell Jodi Arias and her name is spelled correctly in my manuscript. How it ended up misspelled in the final piece is beyond me. I don't understand this.
There is also a whole section in there about whether or not Hannah is left or right handed. I did NOT approve this. This is NOT my theory, and I would have never speculated such a thing. I specifically told Taylor Street Books that this couldn't be speculated because some people differ with their dominant hand usage (using me as an example). They ignored me and sneaked it into the book. It flew right past me and I was not even aware of it until someone questioned me about it. This is something that I believed I was clear on not wanting in my book, and around the time that I rejected this idea they had some other theory they wanted to inject into the book. I specifically told them to NEVER put anything in my book that is not my original idea without running it by me. They repaid me by sneaking in that section.
I apologize that Taylor Street Books actually omitted an entire chapter that they were given not once but two times. The entire chapter about Jenn -- Hannah Anderson's aunt -- was completely neglected by the publisher even after it was given to them twice. I feel that this was the most important chapter. This was a chapter that I felt very emotionally about. It was extremely important to me and I am just devastated that the editor/publisher just completely flaked on it.
I expect these unforgivable errors to be fixed, but the damage has already been done in my honest opinion. This publisher introduced errors and theories that I did not authorize into the book and then completely neglected a part of the book that was even publicized in international and national media. There is simply no telling how many copies have sold like this...but I am sure that far too many people deserve either refunds or apology notes with brand new copies, but I am not in charge of that.
Furthermore, I have severed my relationship with Taylor Street Books after the final straw when they sent an email to my online stalker apologizing to her for me without even running the idea by me, and without even looking into the situation to know that the person was in no way in the right in any situation. The person in question is a known troll and stalker with a presence on Facebook and Twitter that many people are aware of in more than just the Hannah Anderson case. This person was once on my friend list and then removed and has since been on a campaign to retaliate against me for no longer talking to her. She has harassed me with fraudulent Amazon reviews and weird emails, even going as far as blackmailing me -- holding my amazon reviews hostage unless I make a "truce" with her. The person is venomous and nuts and sent an email to my publisher -- an email I have not yet seen. Instead of checking with me Kathleen sent an email to this person and told her that I was "young and impoverished" -- two things that are not necessarily true and absolutely not things that I would have ever agreed to being said about me. She undermined me and falsely misrepresented me to an online stalker -- which means it will only be talked about to the other trolls. So in other words: No, I never apologized and I still do not.
Now my emails are being ignored even though we have a legally binding contract between us and they have a duty to fix the errors in the book. This entire experience has left me completely suspicious of this publisher and they have nobody but themselves to blame for this. The integrity of this entire project has been ruined by errors and forgotten chapters, and it has reminded me of why I self published in the first place. From now on any works published by me will be through Case to Case's parent producer Crime Scene Media.
Let it be on public record that I have fulfilled my end of the contract and all that is left is for them to pay the royalties I am owed as per their contractual agreement. November 07, 2013 -- signed, Chelsea K. Hoffman.
**Note** I want to clarify that my publicist had no part of this. Cat Griffin has worked hard and has been nothing but amazing during this entire ordeal. The entire issue rests solely on the shoulders of Taylor Street Books/Publishing due to their errors and gross negligence of important detail.
I must apologize to my readers who purchased copies of "The River of No Return: On the trail of Hannah Anderson and Jim DiMaggio" and I must announce that I will no longer be using "Taylor Street Books" -- who is run by Tim Roux and Kathleen Hewtson (aliases Tim Hewtson and Kathleen McKenna).
It has been brought to my attention by over a dozen different people that the book "The River of no Return: On the trail of Hannah Anderson and Jim DiMaggio" is riddled with errors. I was told of multiple spelling errors, grammatical errors and punctuation errors. I must be perfectly clear in stating that I do not even own an official copy of this book yet. I simply have the document that was given to me by Tim, the "editor" of the piece, titled "Finished book without photos." This is the only copy of their finished version that I have. I have been comparing it to my original manuscript and have found that there are errors introduced into the book, but these are no big deal. However, I DO know how to spell Jodi Arias and her name is spelled correctly in my manuscript. How it ended up misspelled in the final piece is beyond me. I don't understand this.
There is also a whole section in there about whether or not Hannah is left or right handed. I did NOT approve this. This is NOT my theory, and I would have never speculated such a thing. I specifically told Taylor Street Books that this couldn't be speculated because some people differ with their dominant hand usage (using me as an example). They ignored me and sneaked it into the book. It flew right past me and I was not even aware of it until someone questioned me about it. This is something that I believed I was clear on not wanting in my book, and around the time that I rejected this idea they had some other theory they wanted to inject into the book. I specifically told them to NEVER put anything in my book that is not my original idea without running it by me. They repaid me by sneaking in that section.
I apologize that Taylor Street Books actually omitted an entire chapter that they were given not once but two times. The entire chapter about Jenn -- Hannah Anderson's aunt -- was completely neglected by the publisher even after it was given to them twice. I feel that this was the most important chapter. This was a chapter that I felt very emotionally about. It was extremely important to me and I am just devastated that the editor/publisher just completely flaked on it.
I expect these unforgivable errors to be fixed, but the damage has already been done in my honest opinion. This publisher introduced errors and theories that I did not authorize into the book and then completely neglected a part of the book that was even publicized in international and national media. There is simply no telling how many copies have sold like this...but I am sure that far too many people deserve either refunds or apology notes with brand new copies, but I am not in charge of that.
Furthermore, I have severed my relationship with Taylor Street Books after the final straw when they sent an email to my online stalker apologizing to her for me without even running the idea by me, and without even looking into the situation to know that the person was in no way in the right in any situation. The person in question is a known troll and stalker with a presence on Facebook and Twitter that many people are aware of in more than just the Hannah Anderson case. This person was once on my friend list and then removed and has since been on a campaign to retaliate against me for no longer talking to her. She has harassed me with fraudulent Amazon reviews and weird emails, even going as far as blackmailing me -- holding my amazon reviews hostage unless I make a "truce" with her. The person is venomous and nuts and sent an email to my publisher -- an email I have not yet seen. Instead of checking with me Kathleen sent an email to this person and told her that I was "young and impoverished" -- two things that are not necessarily true and absolutely not things that I would have ever agreed to being said about me. She undermined me and falsely misrepresented me to an online stalker -- which means it will only be talked about to the other trolls. So in other words: No, I never apologized and I still do not.
Now my emails are being ignored even though we have a legally binding contract between us and they have a duty to fix the errors in the book. This entire experience has left me completely suspicious of this publisher and they have nobody but themselves to blame for this. The integrity of this entire project has been ruined by errors and forgotten chapters, and it has reminded me of why I self published in the first place. From now on any works published by me will be through Case to Case's parent producer Crime Scene Media.
Let it be on public record that I have fulfilled my end of the contract and all that is left is for them to pay the royalties I am owed as per their contractual agreement. November 07, 2013 -- signed, Chelsea K. Hoffman.