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Defendant Pleads Guilty in $48 Million Nationwide Book Publishing Scam Targeting Hundreds of Seniors
Michael Cris Traya Sordilla, a 34-year-old citizen of the Philippines, pleaded guilty in federal court today, admitting that he conspired to perpetrate a book publishing scam that caused losses of over $48 million to more than 800 victims throughout the United States.
Sordilla is the first of four defendants to admit his role in a scheme that targeted authors — most of them seniors — by promising to elevate their work to major publishing deals and Hollywood film adaptations, all in exchange for millions of dollars in fraudulent fees.
According to his plea agreement, Sordilla was the founder and CEO of Innocentrix Philippines, which purported to be a “business process outsourcing” company in the Philippines. Sordilla admitted that he and his co-conspirators created and registered phony business entities in the United States, including:
- PageTurner Press and Media LLC (“PageTurner”), which was incorporated in California in September 2017 and claimed to be a book publishing business located in Chula Vista, California
- The Metro Films LLC (“Metro Films”), which was incorporated in California in April 2022 and claimed to be a motion picture and sound recording business located in Los Angeles, California
- WP Lighthouse LLC (“WP Lighthouse”) was registered in Indiana in July 2024 and claimed to be a book publishing business in Indianapolis, Indiana.
The company’s first release is “One More Win”, a Ridge Racer Type 4 fanzine by veteran video game writer Andy Kelly.
Bromstairs, UK (May 1st, 2026) – Rocket Books Ltd. was unveiled today as a new independent UK publishing house, specialising in video game-related publications.
The company has been established by Andy Roberts, a veteran game developer and journalist with over 35 years’ industry experience. Cutting his teeth on the legendary Commodore 64 magazine Zzap!64 in the late ‘80s, Roberts went on to write for dozens of UK magazines including Commodore Format, TOTAL!, Future Gamer, PC Format, Planet PC, Planet Game Boy, PlayStation Max, Xnet, Freeloader, and Internet Magazine, as well as the renowned Visual Compendium series of books.
The company has ambitious plans and aims to bring together new and established writers alike with one core tenet: to celebrate video games as an art form. “Rocket Books will focus on unique and captivating perspectives from writers with an intense passion for the medium,” stated CEO Andy Roberts. “We’ve set our sights on fusing passionate and exuberant writing with exceptional design sensibilities, to create products as beautiful as they are compelling.”
Budding children’s writers are invited to develop their craft as an author or illustrator.
The Writing Children’s Literature Day event has been organised by the University of Suffolk’s English team in partnership with The Hold, in Ipswich, home of Suffolk Archives.
Specialist workshops, talks and Q&As with authors, illustrators and literary agents from Darley Anderson Children’s Book Agency, the largest specialist agency for children’s books in the UK, will help those attending hone skills, gain insider tips and learn more about the children’s book industry.
Lindsey Scott, the course leader for MA Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Suffolk, said: “Children’s literature has a unique power; the right book at the right moment can ignite a curiosity in a young reader that can help shape who they become. That’s what makes writing for children so important, and so thrilling.
“Many talented writers have a story inside them but don’t know how to take it to the next level. Having the guidance of an experienced literary agent can be transformative; helping them refine their pitch, find their audience and turn that idea into a published book.
After a five-year period from 2021 to 2025 in which U.K.-based Bloomsbury has seen sales double and profits soar 154%, the now £361 million ($484 million) publisher is streamlining its organization.
The publisher’s rapid growth has largely been driven by an aggressive acquisition policy that has seen Bloomsbury make 35 deals in the last five years that has raised the number of employees from 736 to 1,238.
Under the new structure, rather than operate with three major editorial divisions served by a global sales, marketing, and publicity division, Bloomsbury will operate in three vertical business units, with each unit operating with its own editorial, sales, marketing and publicity, rights, and audio functions reporting directly into the managing director of each.
The three new business units will be:
Bloomsbury Global Academic & Professional (A&P), which will be led by Jenny Ridout, whose responsibilities expand to include A&P sales, marketing and publicity, rights, and audio in the U.K., and the rest of world.
Articles
As a new doctoral student at Cornell, Adam Szetela Ph.D. ’25 noticed an interesting trend in the book publishing world. Rather than criticism from people on the cultural right about the morals —or lack thereof — in current titles, authors and publishers were being slammed by folks on the cultural left, who were attacking books as racist or sexist, or questioning an author’s sensitivity.
“A lot of this is coming from a place of good faith,” Szetela said about the trend, which he writes about in “That Book Is Dangerous! How Moral Panic, Social Media, and the Culture Wars Are Remaking Publishing,” published Aug. 12 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press and distributed by Penguin Random House. “But while the right is remaking the world in its image, the left is standing in a circular firing squad.”
Szetela said this new version of self-censorship is fueled by the vast reach of social media today.
In 2021 author, poet and teacher Kate Clanchy gained an unwelcome new accolade: the award for the most liberal target of a cancellation yet. Clanchy’s much-celebrated Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me, about her experiences of teaching poetry to disadvantaged children around the UK, won the Orwell Prize in 2020. But a year later, thanks to a handful of the book’s sentences being shared out of context on social media, she found herself publicly shamed by today’s self-appointed moral guardians. She went from being applauded for bringing poetry to working-class children to being humiliated into accepting sensitivity-reader approved rewrites of her work.
It might be a new year but Clanchy’s punishment beating continues. It was announced last week that plans for a woke rewrite of Some Kids I Taught had been dropped – not because it was a God-awful idea to begin with, but because Clanchy and her publisher, Pan Macmillan, have decided to part company ‘by mutual agreement’.
The publisher’s statement notes: ‘Pan Macmillan will not publish new titles nor any updated editions from Kate Clanchy, and will revert the rights and cease distribution of Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me and her other works.’ This is an astonishing attempt by a publishing company to distance themselves from an author and her work.
Traditional book publishers. They were once known as the titans of the book publishing industry. In the Baby Boomer era, self-publishing was an unknown concept. You needed a traditional publisher if you wanted the best chance to succeed with your book.
During that time, there was significantly less competition for publishers and authors, meaning more book sales for both parties.
Over time, traditional publishers (especially The Big 5) gradually started to exploit authors by offering lower royalties and seizing the author’s publishing rights.
If you’ve recently heard a collective intake of breath, it’s probably coming from a posse of publishers near you, bracing themselves for the deluge that’s coming. They know that those new year resolutions to get that novel published have been set in motion. Manuscripts have been retrieved from the dusty bowels of laptops and are being dispatched.
And in tandem with the arrival of the swallows, the rejection emails will start to wing their way into the inboxes of many of those hopeful writers. But if your life’s work is rejected, fear not. You are in the best of company, judging by a book I recently read. Rotten Rejections, by editor André Bernard, documents the in-house memos, letters and anecdotes involving the rejection of work by some very familiar names, including many Irish authors.
Back in 1895, poor WB Yeats was castigated for his offering, Poems. “I am relieved to find the critics shrink from saying that Mr Yeats will ever be a popular author,” huffed the person who received the submission – the book doesn’t cite the names of those who were so bold as to reject these titans of literature. “The work does not please the ear, nor kindle the imagination,” the publisher continued. “That he has any real paying audience I find hard to believe.”
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