Dear California Attorney General,

All I am trying to do is make a few books to earn some extra money.
Not only did blurb try not to pay me for the $30.42 profit check by claiming they mailed it when they never did. Now I find out that they have sold several more books with no intention of ever telling me about those sales or paying me any profit for those sales.
In blurb's reply they must have forgotten to mention to you is that the check for $122.42 was from my book sales that they skimmed. These are book sales that they made without any intention of telling me or had no intention of paying me for any of those sales, until they were contacted by an attorney. As soon as the lawyer contacted them and they knew they was caught they promptly admitted to the skimmed sales and paid for the book sales that they sold without my knowledge or permission. This act alone by Blurb.com is an indication that they do this by default. This caused me to then wonder why Blurb.com does not require any tax documentation like all of the other publishing services do. Writers are supposed to pay Uncle Sam taxes, but not with blurb. After contacting several other authors that no longer use blurb.com they all relate a similar story on how they could never sell more than $600 worth of books in a year even though they have a popular book that will easily sell $600 worth each year. After conversing with these other authors it was apparent that blurb.com skims so many sales that the author will never seem to quite sell $600 worth of books in a year. These other authors who now use other publication services all indicated that their books are selling far more than $600 each year since using other publishers and they all have to fill out tax documentation with those publishers to get paid. From my conversations with other authors blurb.com does this by default to those who use them.
After being lied to multiple times blurb finally paid for $72.30 for book sales but at the same time did not tell me about the other book sales which equaled $122.42. They sold these books while I had an active account and sold my books after I closed the account. I can have other authors contact you if you would like further proof of blurb.com skimming the sales of their books. My case is not an isolated incident.

Facts
Blurb tried not to pay the initial profit payment by claiming it was mailed when it wasn't.
Blurb then sent a replacement check which never arrived because that wasn't mailed either.
Before I closed my account blurb deleted the sales and profit pages. Why? They were trying to cover their tracks and not pay me any profit payment.
After closing my account blurb continued selling my books without any permission.
Blurb.com Does not have a valid phone number and only one email address. Why? Every reputable business that I know has a valid phone number you can call.
Blurb has been so dishonest in every email communication with me I refuse to communicate with them any further. It's pointless.
Blurb does not require any tax documentation unlike all other publishers. Why? It is clear to myself and several other authors that they have no intention of you making $600 in book sales in a given year.
Blurb is to this day continuing to sell one of my books on Amazon UK as print on demand.

Blurb.com needs to be investigated. They are ripping off authors who publish with them as well as not paying taxes on the money that they are skimming from those authors. From my experience and the experience of several other authors I have talked to Blurb.com is engaging in fraud against the consumer and the United States Government.
Paperwork is attached proving all of this.

DO NOT trust Blurb to be on-time. VERY, VERY UNRELIABLE.
I am very, very ANGRY. I ordered several books for two very powerful important clients on September 10th. When I originally purchased the book online, Blurb had advertised that I would receive my books by September 20th. Today is September 23rd and my book is still in production! What the heck!

It's also important to note that once you order, there is no direct phone line for customer service. You have to go through their lousy system and contact them through email on their website. I have contacted 4 different people and still have not gotten a confirmation for my request to update my Shipping Address.

I needed these books for a very important business meeting in LA. I will be flying out to LA in a few days and the books will not arrive to my home in Denver, in-time (I should also mention that I order these books 18 days before my flight... the fact that Blurb has not even preemptively notified me about the delay is a testament to their terrible service... ALSO, I CAN'T BELIEVE I WON'T GET MY BOOKS IN-TIME BEFORE MY FLIGHT WHEN YOUR WEBSITE SAID I WOULD GET THEM A WHILE BACK!)

The third customer service rep, named Corey C, said that he could update my shipping address. When I responded back to let him know that I would like for him to send it to a new address, he hasn't responded back. That was three days ago!

I need someone to immediately get back to me. LIKE RIGHT NOW!

My order number is: ******* and *******.

I cannot believe that I'm even having to go through a 3rd party website to ask for help.

With this said, DO NOT TRUST BLURB for on-time documents. They are very unreliable. I also typed in "Blurb Customer Service Reviews" on Google and found sooooo many unsatisfied customers. I wish I had known this before I spent $400+ on three books for a very important business meeting. I am refraining from using expletives, but let me just reiterate... I AM BEYOND ANGRY AND UNSATISFIED!

DO NOT TRUST BLURB! USE ANOTHER BOOK PRINTER! THEY ARE TERRIBLE!

My experience with Blurb has been awful.

For background, my wife and I are serious amateur photographers. We've gone on National Geographic photo expeditions and learned in the field from some of Nat Geo's best photographers. We carry top of the line Nikon full frame DSLRs with professional grade lenses. We shoot raw images and when we do a book we process them into jpegs using LIghtroom and Photoshop. I say all this to establish that we know what we are doing.

After a recent trip to Africa, we tried Blurb as a tool to assemble a forty-four page book. The book they printed was awful. Pictures were not sharp, colors were off, especially green. We reported this to Blurb. They asked me to photograph the book and send them images. I pointed out that this was silly: matching for white balance would be difficult and photographing full pages (as they requested) would make it hard to see details. In the end, I sent them four images and Blurb agreed they had not delivered an acceptable book. They offered to print a new copy for free.

The second printed book was every bit as bad. Sharper, yes, but pages were incorrectly aligned: tops of photographs cut off and a white strip on the bottom because things were out of alignment. And the colors were still awful. I asked Blurb for a refund and they asked for photos again. I sent them four. I sent in the photos and got a message that, yes, once again the book was unacceptable and it would be forwarded to appropriate people for consideration of a refund. I waited ten days and was told that Blurb never gives refunds and that the problems were with my images. I was offered a coupon to pay for my next Blurb book project.

In the interim I redid the entire book using the Adoramapix cloud program, submitted it. And they returned a beautifully printed book using the same image files that Blurb has been unable to print well.

My advice to anyone who cares about image quality is to avoid Blurb and use Adoramapix. Blurb's print quality is abysmal and their customer support just wastes one's time. I see enough awful photos posted on Facebook and Instagram to know there must a market of people whom Blurb can satisfy, but for those of us who take pride in creating high quality images Adorama is the way to go.