Indiana Attorney General Prosecutes Airleaf

The Airleaf Victims blog reports the terrific news that Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter has filed a lawsuit against Carl Lau, founder of Airleaf and Bookman Marketing, for violating the state's Deceptive Consumer Sales Act by "taking money without providing the promised services in return."

"More than 120 people are named in the lawsuit, including many from Indiana who lost thousands of dollars,” said Carter. “In fact, hundreds more may have lost money. They paid for services. Airleaf did not deliver, and now, those consumers deserve refunds.”

[...]In addition to consumer restitution, the attorney general’s office is seeking civil penalties of up to $5,500 per violation, as well as investigative costs.

The action doesn't go nearly as far as the Airleaf victims would like -- or Lau deserves -- but hopefully it will send a strong message to the vanity press industry, especially those ex-Airleaf execs who have started their own POD-presses.  Writers Beware notes:

Airleaf has spawned several publishing enterprises run by ex-staff--including Fideli Publishing, a fee-based publisher whose marketing packages bear an eerie similarity to Airleaf's, and Brien Jones's Jones Harvest Publishing, which also charges fees for publishing and offers many Airleaf-style services (Writer Beware has gotten some advisories about Jones Harvest's email solicitations, and Mr. Jones has recently chosen to reimburse several Jones Harvest authors who alleged performance problems). If you trace the family tree backward instead of forward, you arrive at the Big Daddy of POD vanity publishing, AuthorHouse, where Brien Jones was employed before he co-founded Airleaf's predecessor, Bookman Marketing. It's a tangled web indeed--which, sadly, is not unusual in the murky world of vanity POD.

Unfortunately, many Airleaf victims haven't learned from their mistake...and have simply moved on to other POD vanity presses, including those run by former Airleaf execs.