In Brief: Julian Lee is a horticulturalist who wrote a comprehensive 1250-page guide on plants in the Middle East. His publishing agreement with Max Scott specifically stipulated that Scott could not sell the book on Amazon. Scott sold the book on Amazon anyway. He sold around 500 copies and didn’t pay the author a single penny in royalties. He refuses to take the book off Amazon even though he had declared his company insolvent since.
Julian Lee is a horticulturalist who has lived and worked in the Middle East since 1977. During his long career, he setup a major landscaping company in Dubai, and worked on numerous planting and landscaping projects in the region including on public gardens, community projects, hotels and palaces.
Alongside his work, and for more than 20 years, Julian undertook a dream project to document detailed information on every possible plant that can be found and grown in the Middle East. He gathered multiple professional photographs of each plant and chronicled details on its seed, how to grow it and how to maintain it. The result was a 1250-page book that is a comprehensive practical guide for horticulturalists in the Middle East and beyond.
When it came round to publishing the book in 2013, Julian chose Gilgamesh Publishing, managed and owned by Max Scott. He paid Scott to produce the book and print 3000 copies of it. Of those, 2500 were sent to Julian in Dubai and 500 to Max Scott in the UK. The signed publishing agreement between Julian and Max Scott specifically stated that Scott would sell the 500 sent to him in the general market only and specifically not on Amazon or its affiliates, so that Julian can use Amazon to sell his book internationally. Max Scott chose to blatantly disregard this clause and went ahead and sold the copies in his possession on Amazon both in the UK and the USA, despite the author’s protests.
Eventually Scott, it seems, sold all 500 of the copies he had but did not pay Julian a single penny in royalties. He in fact sent a statement to Julian confirming the royalties owed to him but told Julian that he couldn’t pay him as he had spent the money on printing another book by a different author. Julian attempted to pursue Max Scott both to return the money owed to him and, more importantly, to get Scott to remove his listening of the book on Amazon so that Julian can sell his book on Amazon as planned. Max Scott refused to do either and eventually declared his company insolvent, avoiding any further accountability.
Today, Julian Lee, continues to struggle to find a way to remove Max Scott’s listing of the book on Amazon, even though its shown as unavailable, and is having to sell his book without this major commercial channel.