eBookAd logoeBookAd, the troubled distributor and infrastructure provider, has been down at least since this morning. Given eBookAd’s poor communications with publishers and writers on payment matters, I can also think of other reasons to be wary if you do business with the company. May the outlook be better than it seems now! I hope eBookAd somehow surprises us and will pay its publishers. Its failure would be bad news for e-books in general.

Right now Tina Haverman’s news isn’t very encouraging. Will eBookAd’s site return under the same ownership, is it for sale, or will the domain name end up in the hands of a dealer?

(Revised–to keep up with the gloomy news.)

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

13 COMMENTS

  2. Wow. Someone else reported it down, and I checked, and then it came up. This was within the past week or so. Not sure if it was down all the time. I didn’t revisit. Says something about eBookAd if a whole bunch of people aren’t writing in about the failures, eh? Keep us informed. Thanks! David

  3. Hello Folks
    eBook Media is a German eBook Publisher since 2000.
    We also published with eBookAd.com and I hope noone will ever again publish with them and that they will stay down for the rest of their life and never get their feet back on the ground. In fact they should go to jail. I have written them over and over and tried calling them uncountable times but they do not call back, don’t get on the phone, don’t write back and the worst is that they do not pay their publishers and authors. So be aware. If you want to earn money, go with someone else, like Mobipocket. Yes, they pay out.
    So, visit our website and stay straight.

    Best Regards
    eBook Media – Jörg Morgan Wrobel

  4. Hello, Jörg. Sorry about your problem. Feel free to spell out the exact details. In US$, how much does Dustin owe you? For what? How long do the debts go back?

    Best of luck
    David

    (Correction: An earlier version of this note accidentally mentioned Blackmask. May David M be eBookAd NOT! So far, no indication.This is a different issue from a copyright fight.)

  6. Hello David
    Nice to see that you have commented on my problem. But I guess I’m not the only one. So here are some details. A written letter that I sent to eBookAd on the 10th of November 2005 came back with the an “Unclaimed” note according to the stamp from the post office. Dustin owes eBook Media (me: Jörg Morgan Wrobel) $462,10 (US Dollars) for 80 sold titles (German titles) in the period from the 1st of January 2004 till the 2nd of November 2005. To proof my “Account Stats” I have printed them out with my HP Laserjet 2200. Now that the site is down I would not be able to do this anymore. Because eBookAd.com did not respond to any contact (e-mail, phone, regular post, answering machine) I deleted all of my titles on the site, so noone could buy them anymore, even though the titles were still on there server. What I wantes to do is to upload a dummy file for each title I had on the server, but unfortunately the site is down and it would also take a lot of time.
    So if anybody has a hint for me how to get my money anyhow from Dustin, I would pay 50 bucks for that in case of success.

    Best Regards to all honest authors,publishers and online bookstores from eBook Media (http://www.ebookmedia.de)

  7. OK, so Hidden Knowledge isn’t the only e-book publisher not getting any response from eBookAd. We’re owed a small, but important, amount.

    Has Dustin Revin communicated with -anyone- in the last year? Has his webhost shut him down for non-payment? Where’s the money been going?

    Has there been any legal activity against him recently? Has he left town? For that matter, where is eBookAd / Dustin located physically?

  9. eBookad.com has owed Double Dragon Publishing a relatively small amount ($361 USD) since our cash out on 2005-07-05. After numerous phone calls and letters we have received nothing. We pulled our 300+ titles a month or so later. Luckily I had been cashing out every $100-200 and things have been fine up until a year before this time.

    The site is currently down and I believe it will not be coming back. While the amount may not seem significant, the principle of it all is what bothers me. We have eBookad’s address and may take further action since they are approximately 15 minutes from our location.

  10. Please, Deron, no physical violence. 😉 Seriously, I’m sorry that you and other publishers have had to suffer so much. Please keep us up to date.

    My own theory is that Dustin and his partner did not set up eBookAd to rip off people, but that Dustin may have had personal problems that spilled over into his business. You’ll notice that the partner withdrew from an active role in the business.

    Thanks,
    David

  11. I too had a book on ebookad and am owed money. Here’s what I view as a major scam….his ‘problems’ had been going on for more than a year, close to two. And…

    -he continued to accept new materials even though he was not paying out anyone

    -he failed to pay ANYONE for a period of at least 6 months, even though he was still receiving payments from customers/readers

    -he now has ALL that content on his system, but people have no way of knowing if he removed it if they requested and he could easily repackage/resell it as ‘ebooks’ elsewhere and it would be hard to track down unless a publisher/author was doing a lot of digging/buying

    He should be put in jail because it’s plain and simple fraud. It’s the same as ebay scammers – taking money and not delivering the goods. I don’t feel sorry for him in the least and wish the authorities would arrest him. Plain and simple, he’s a thief, not a businessman caught with personal problems.

The TeleRead community values your civil and thoughtful comments. We use a cache, so expect a delay. Problems? E-mail newteleread@gmail.com.