In October I negotiated with JoJo Marengo of Umbrella Publishing for four articles I had written.
He told me he wanted to use them in the November/December issue of his magazine Orange County's Best.
He said he would pay me $1000 for the four upon publication in Umbrella Publishing's Orange County's Best.
The November publication date came and went; I heard nothing from him.
At long last and after I sent multiple e-mails he communicated with me, promising to send contributor's copies of the magazine and my check.
Instead of sending me $1000, he sent me $250.
In the Orange County's Best magazine, he had only printed just one of my articles, without my by-line.
Mr. Marengo and Umbrella Publishing publish numerous magazines in various other cities in the United States. I believe for example that they have a Cleveland edition. Another of their publications is Scottsdale's Best.
Mr. Marengo additionally is an owner of health and beauty spas.
Between December and today, January 28, I made repeated cordial attempts via e-mail messages to learn from Mr. Marengo what had become of his plans to publish my other three articles. He never answered that question.
He also never explained how he planned to make amends for having published my intellectual property without giving me credit for it.
Because Mr. Marengo ignored my requests to learn what had become of our contract, I became suspicious that he could have published my other articles in his other magazines without paying me for them and without printing my by-line with them.
Umbrella Publishing's and JoJo Marengo's other magazines are not available anyplace local to me and the content is not made available on line. I have no way of verifying whether he has published my materials in some of his other magazines.
I was willing to be flexible with Mr. Marengo and Umbrella Publishing about our contract so long as he communicated to me his plans for my remaining articles.
He did not see fit to respond to my e-mails until today when I complained about him to Ms. Angela Hoy of WritersWeekly, with an intent of having him denounced in that publication's Whispers & Warnings column.
What do you know but that cc'ing Mr. Marengo on the complaint brought him out of the woodwork and he e-mailed me at long last. Not that he offered any reasonable explanation of what had happened to my contract terms with him.
He responded with all kinds of weasel words, doing everything expect apologizing for breaking our contract, not communicating with me about it, and not telling me how he planned to make amends for publishing my intellectual property without crediting me for it.
He actually told me today that he was pulling one of my other articles from the printers where he had allegedly sent it to be in his next issue of Orange County's Best. How weasle-like can a weasle get? Why did Mr. Marengo not have time to e-mail me a note explaining what he was doing with the other pieces he contracted from me, but now that I make an official complaint against him, he has time to e-mail me saying that he's pulling one of those pieces from the printer?
An honest publisher in this same situation would say something like "I am so sorry that I previously neglected to contact you about your remaining articles. I can understand why you would be concerned. It turned out that instead of using all four of your articles in the November/December issue as per our original agreement, I have decided to spread them over a number of separate issues.in fact, your next article will be appearing on such-and-such a date and you will have a check for it within a month of publication. Rest assured that in the next issue of Orange County's Best we will be advising our readers that you are the author of the caviar article. May I include an author's bio for you along with that announcement? Again, I am extremely sorry that I did not answer your reasonable requests to know what had become of the contract I made with you via e-mail."
Freelancers should not hold their breath, thinking they'll ever see anything like that out of Mr. Marengo and Umbrella Publishing, no matter how sorely such a thing should be owed them by him and his company.
Freelance writers should not trust Mr. Marengo. He is still placing help-wanted announcements for freelance writers all over the internet. He had the motivation to post announcements for additional victims, but not to send me a few lines about what had become of the contract he made with me. He paid me $250 for one piece he used, but this was $750 short of the contract he made with me via e-mail communications. I sent him six cordial e-mails asking what had become of our contract; all six went unanswered. Only today when I sent a complaint about him to Angela Hoy and cc'd him in the complaint did he make any response. What he doesn't know is that I had informed Ms. Hoy regarding my suspicions about him in December. She has seen my documentation of the contract I had with Mr. Marengo; she knows that he did not answer my e-mails requesting an explanation of why contract terms were not met.
Scott
New York, New York
U.S.A.
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