AN OPEN LETTER TO NEW SOCIETY PUBLISHERS
Jan 25, 2008
Chris and Judith Plant
New Society Publishers
P.O. Box 189
Gabriola Island
BC, Canada V0R 1X0
Dear Chris and Judith:
For more than two years, based upon the expert advice of my agent, Ken Levine; a well-known Beverly Hills law firm specializing in literary and entertainment law; and ultimately a New York agent representing major authors. I held the belief that New Society had seriously underpaid me royalties for my book "Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil".
In the summer of 2006 I openly charged New Society with underpaying me on my website, http://www.fromthewilderness.com, based upon what were then two separate, professional evaluations of your own accounting statements. Both of those evaluations concluded that I had been underpaid by close to $40,000. This was due to the fact that New Society commingled books sold to me with actual book sales, something that is such a deviation from normal accounting practices in the publishing industry that people with decades of experience didn't even consider it.
I was quite outspoken about my dissatisfaction with New Society in the Peak Oil community based upon this and previous experiences. After paying several thousand dollars for accountings, including a recent one with the Claudia Menza, literary agency in NY, which initially concluded that I had been underpaid more than $59,000, I learned that we were all wrong when Claudia finally discovered your unusual accounting practices.
Inasmuch as I have been the victim of very serious and unfounded allegations about my own personal conduct and ethics, I know how painful such incorrect allegations can be, no matter how they originated. Now that I am certain that I was not underpaid I am correcting the record.
Sincerely,
Michael C. Ruppert
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MCR
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