The Recent Trouble with the Past Sins Printing · 6:27pm Apr 19th, 2013
For those of you who father a rather shocking e-mail in your inbox this morning, yes the Past Sins Printing project has hit a very large roadblock. A recent change in Paypal's terms of service has made it so Paypal will not release the funding gathered by the group until the books were shipped out. This, of course, creates a paradox since the printing group needed that money to pay the printer to print the books. We can't do the printing without the money, but we can't have the money until we've done the printing.
So, at this moment, Equestria Publications is sending out refunds to everyone that put in money. So for those of you who fear for your money, rest assured it's being returned to you in full.
For those who fear for the printing project, I assure you that Equestria Publications is looking for other means of collecting the money. So please, don't lose hope and just have a little more patience. We are so close to the end. The book is ready to hit hard paper, and Equestria Publications is working hard to get it done. They just need time to send out refunds and then sit down and discuss other options for collecting the money.
I think BUCK con had a similar problem with Paypal, What have they got against the bronies?!
wait, I'm lost here, your planning on making Past Sins into a Published Novel/book?!?
Figures something like this would happen. Paypal can do whatever they want, really. They could have taken away the money equestria publications got so far, keep it for themselves, and tell you "oh well". They have always had shady dealings in the past, and they don't have to do a lot of things because they aren't regulated like a bank in the US. It's a different story in Europe, but over here, they pretty much have free reign to do whatever they want.
May have to look into using a service that let's you process credit card transactions.
Damn.
Well... hopefully they manage to gather the money some other way.
As soon as that refund comes, I'm cancelling my paypal account. Or at least downgrading the account to prepaid amounts only.
1020238
Yeah. The project has been in the works for years.
1020268 Cool! I'd totally buy one.
This is quite frustrating. I always get a rather bad taste whenever I have to use paypal for anything, show have know something like this would happen. At least I appear to have gotten a refund.
I really hope they find a way for us to send payment that doesn't involve a dealing with such an unreliable company. Really now, in this day and age, sending money electronically shouldn't be such a big deal.
1020237
Can't help but be the prereader, eh?
If I may offer an idea: Why not do a kickstarter instead?
Have you tried Kickstarter?
1020313>>1020316
To those suggesting kickstarter, that's not really what it's made for. Kickstarter is meant to get investor financing for a project that wants to get off the ground that allows anyone to give whatever they want. The problem with this is that we have the signup list and we have a quote from the printer for the amount of books we intend to order. Changing that number, or allowing people to jump in willy nilly at this point, disrupts all the processes we've tried to put together so far.
Thus, Kickstarts has been looked at and found to be an invalid options.
Have you guys considered using Lulu.com for your publication service? It might solve your problem since there system is more direct.
I'll send them money in a friggin' envelope if that's what it takes.
Or a check.
I feel ya there too many times has PayPal done that to me where I gave up after the sixth time calling their tech support. every time I need them to unlock my payment after I got it but couldn't access it after the item shipped and waited after it reach the person. I hope u guys find a way to make it work and to stick to PayPal for doing that to ya
It sounds like what you need is a Brony Banker willing to make a very short-term loan, using the PayPal receipts as collateral. Heck, they loaned immense amounts to some of the dumbest uncollectable accounts over the last decade, they ought to be more than happy to deal with this very solid transaction for a very small slice.
After BUCK this is the second time Paypal does something like this...
I have to wonder how is it possible that Paypal can block its payments like this?
Those participating in the project have given their OK for the money to be transferred, it blows my mind that they can hold off payment.
Edit, I've mailed Paypal to see what I can do to make sure Equestria Publications gets my money in order to send it out.. I will share it regardless of the answer
I confirmed that I was going to pay via PayPal when I received your email, but I didn't get any more information on who to make the payment to. I probably overlooked it, but I guess I'm lucky in a way.
Anyway, glad that you're not giving up. Pretty excited about the book!
Well I have a couple of other suggestion to peypal, what about Lulu or perhaps amazon both have services that offer both e-books and as far as I know hardcore copies, can't you use one of these. I mean I kind of want this book
Would it be possible to order a copy now since the project is delayed or has everything already been finalized?
1020402>>1020330
The issue with Lulu and Amazon is they are self-publishing services, meaning the content of the book has to belong 100% to the author or be properly licensed otherwise they won't touch it, meaning they won't touch fan fiction. That's always been a key different I try to elaborate to folks. This is really just a "printing" of Past Sins, not a proper publishing. We're trying to do it with all the quality of a real publishing company, but in the end of the day nobody is making profit and the books aren't really being sold. The mentality is, and has always been, a bunch of people getting together to do a printing of the book to save cost. Making it so each person only has to pay ~$20 for their book instead of the hundreds it would cost to get just a single hard cover printing done (with allt he setup fees and what not at the printer).
I always, personally, like to use the metaphor that we're pooling our money to get t-shirt's printed. Same basic concept, it's just the end result is a book instead of a shirt.
Dammit, PayPal
1020418 If you set the price to the minimum, then it's still non-profit, and I have seen Lulu used to publish Fan-fiction before. Under the Fair Use Act it's not even an issue of copyright unless Hasbro issues a cease and desist on sales, and you don't after x number of days. Something that's about as likely to happen as winning the lottery, considering thousands of artist could be issued the same warning that do commissions and what not. I'm not sure what the page number would be like, nor if you'd want to do hardcover or paperback, but It would be unlikely that it would be over 25, in fact, I'd almost inspect it to be under 20.
I'm so mad at PayPal right now. I've been eagerly expecting my Past Sins copy for almost a year now, and it all came down to… this. Grr
On the plus side, I already received my refund.
I really hope you'll find a way around this issue.
The price of grace would be so much more worthy of being printed, or even days of wasp and spider.
No offense.
1020418
how about Verotel Billing Solutions I have good experiences with them
I was seriously bummed when I got that e-mail. I've been looking forward to a hardback of Past Sins for ages and I am truly disappointed in PayPal for doing this. I have faith that a way will be found and when it is, I am there.
1020238 There is a current project going on to make a hardcover version of Past Sins, yes.
That's very unfortunate to hear. Hope things get worked out.
I was one of those who got one of those e-mails. Here's to hoping they sort things out. Can't say I blame EQP for this though, this is definitely on PayPal's side. It just goes against logical reason, but then, I'm no genius on this sort of stuff.
Cheers for the quick status update from your end, Pen Stroke.
some one link me to this equestrian printing, since i never knew past sins was being printed. please
You can have the money sent through PayPal as a donation with a note added for saying what it's for. Or if you want. Try kick starter. I know a lot of folks who use it.
1021198
Equestria Publications
1021380 thanks!
Pay pal can sure be weird and dumb at times
Can we sell "vouchers" and physically or digitally distribute them to each recipient of a book? One voucher would have a number that can be redeemed for a single book?
Sorry I'm just a lttle lost...although that might be the sleep talking. I went to the site and read the FAQ but I just have one question...as of today can I still place a order for a book?
This isn't the first time Paypal has pulled this stunt, you know.
If you are based in the US, I suggest doing what this article suggests, and sending a complaint to your local state regulators. It is quite possible that this might be borderline illegal. You should double check.
1021553
I believe they stopped taking orders a while ago. However, given the new I'm guessing they might decide to open it up again anyway.
1021674 There is a wait-list in case anyone cancels or doesn't have the money. With this problem with PayPal that might happen. But nothing is guaranteed.
1022241
Ah, thank you.
1020418 so as someone mentioned before, would i be able to order a copy since the project has been halted? I believe there would be an increased amount of people willing to order a copy now since more time has passed. Also where would we be able to sign up to order a book?
second time adding to this, would it also be possible to order multiple copies?
have you thaught about kickstarter a good way to get moneys and easy to manage orders
sorry just read the prev comments
but i too would love to buy a copy but admittidly i only just found this story so if its not possible to buy/sign up for a copy okay
Has there been any attempt to make contact with the Fallout Equestria printing team? They're on the second printing of Fallout Equestria and are taking payments through paypal. So far I haven't seen any evidence that they're having similar problems so that most likely means that they've found a way to deal with the issue. Contacting them and finding out how exactly they're managing money and printing through paypal could be a good idea.
In any case here's hoping that everything can be dealt with without any real trouble, both because I was excited for the printing and also because of how much time and effort the team put into this project and how disappointing them being unable to complete it would be.
I thought of another, what about "wepay" can you use them?
I mean what you are looking for is basically just for a way for us to transfer money to the printers so it can't be that difficult to find a way to do it.
1029391
WePay is an option we're considering
1029202
As far as we can tell, we're doing this in the exact same way as the Fallout Equestria group. For some reason, we got nipped and they didn't. And yes, perhaps if we tried again through Paypal we wouldn't get hit a second time. Still, we aren't going to run the risk.
1029418
Hmm, not wanting to deal with Paypal is understandable, it would be horrible for this to happen twice. It really sucks that it was apparently just a random "mess with this particular payment" type of thing.
Again, really hoping everything can turn out all right, good luck with everything.