As one struggles throughout the year to make ends meet to avoid crisis loans or whatever and get the work published and so on and finding out on a Turkish co writer Facebook messages that the Poetry Company ... ForwardPress went into liquidation in November 2010 was shocking but I had the same circumstances in 2000 when ForwardPress discontinued with all of us and I took my work out and penned it thus to receive the Silver Pen for Poetry but I had to do most of the work on the poem
Trick or Treat myself and again upon return to the UK there was a war of words about my poem which was not to include foreign words and so finally I agreed it would be titled : Positive Image and ForwardPress dutifully and delightfully send me the ForwardPress Pen for English Poetry which I received in the post . so all's well.
But the latest news was distressing as according to The Mail on Sunday Journalist who contacted me the company has not printed some of its books and has got a lot of problems in Spain with royalties as it is not paying its contributors. Forward Press have never paid royalties but they introduced me to an American Publishing Company Publishamerica Baltimore MD USA who have paid royalties but even PA have been a taxing company to work with as the 2 book contract could only be ironed out by the Lawyers in Northern Ireland and after a long, exhaustive run of 2005 to 2009 Publish America published my second book deal but again wont offer royalties as they write blogs every day selling the books here and internationally to the authors and were it not for the lawyers once more we would all be in trouble as we are not book sellers and legally there is no requirement on authors to buy their own books.
Every now and then this US Company repeats that there have been no books sold this year and there is not a day when my readers dont come up and enquire where to buy the books and when I send them off to the Bookstore there is no commitment there to sell US Published books to the public and they find the whole business full of trouble and nobody can buy the books with a deal of confidence. Lawyers advised consulting the Company to buy direct - will keep you posted on outcome!