Nov 6, 2007 
Motoko Rich writes in the New York Times that some conservative authors are suing their publisher, Regnery.
Five authors have sued the parent company of Regnery Publishing, a Washington imprint of conservative books, charging that the company deprives its writers of royalties by selling their books at a steep discount to book clubs and other organizations owned by the same parent company.
In a suit filed in United States District Court in Washington yesterday, the authors Jerome R. Corsi, Bill Gertz, Lt. Col. Robert (Buzz) Patterson, Joel Mowbray and Richard Miniter state that Eagle Publishing, which owns Regnery, “orchestrates and participates in a fraudulent, deceptively concealed and self-dealing scheme to divert book sales away from retail outlets and to wholly owned subsidiary organizations within the Eagle conglomerate.” … In the lawsuit the authors say that Eagle sells or gives away copies of their books to book clubs, newsletters and other organizations owned by Eagle “to avoid or substantially reduce royalty payments to authors.”
The authors argue that in reducing royalty payments, the publisher is maximizing its profits and the profits of its parent company at their expense.
Jeez, guys, welcome to capitalism. I don’t know what socialist paradise you’ve been living in, but it’s all about the company’s profit in these parts, buckaroos.
(FYI, it’s not at all unusual for a niche publisher to run its own book clubs and other distribution outlets that sell books at deeply discounted rates. Regnery didn’t invent this practice.)
Well, we’re all looking for justice, aren’t we? But if a conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged, what do you call a conservative who’s come face to face with the naked face of vertically integrated capitalism?
Maybe they can form a union.
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