Scammers and Self-Proclaimed Indie Professionals
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M.A. Demers, a publishing consultant, and author wrote in an article:
“As with anything successful, scammers and self-proclaimed indie professionals have multiplied like cockroaches, lining up to abuse the dreams and pocketbooks of indie authors.”
Vanity publishers whose tactics are at best misleading and at worst fraudulent. They are often small printers who claim they offer print on demand (POD) services when they only offer short-run digital printing.
Beware of:
marketing companies that promise instant fame and financial success – for a hefty price – and never deliver
companies that offer paid positive reviews
ebook formatters who troll the indie writer forums
exaggerating technical difficulties and exploiting author inexperience in order to drum up business
self-declared editors who offer cheap proofing services but do nothing more than placing a manuscript through word spell-checking.
These practices have made it crucial for authors to research the “business offers” and to think critically, to check references before contracting services, and to learn the right questions to ask so as not to be defrauded. DO NOT enter into an agreement with any publishing service without checking their professional background, history, their reputation, and ethics first.
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How to Find the Rotten Appels:
JustPublishingAdvice offers some tips on how to identify scammers:
Unsolicited Invitations to Submit Your Manuscript
“Literary agents and publishers all have huge slush piles, so none would be asking to make them even higher. If you are asked to submit your manuscript by someone you don’t know, especially by unsolicited email, DO NOT reply. It’s 99.9999% sure to be a scam.”
Marketers and Racketeers
“DO NOT pay for book marketing services packages. Arrange and pay advertisers for your book advertising directly with reputable and well-known advertising service providers.”
Vanity Publishing
“The key warning signal that you are dealing with a vanity press is when you discover that you are being asked to pay a huge amount of money upfront to publish your book. It means that the author pays for everything in the publishing process, which can often amount to thousands of dollars. This cost does not normally include marketing a book other than that it will available on the vanity publisher’s website. Vanity Publishers don’t make their money from selling books, they make it from letting the author pay top $$$ for (often lousy) publishing service.” A detailed article on how dangerous for authors these vanity publishing contracts are can be found in one of my blog posts.
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More Helpful Sites With Warnings How to Avoid Scams:
https://accrispin.blogspot.com/
https://blog.reedsy.com/scams-and-publishing-companies-to-avoid/
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/literary-agent-advice-_n_1855541
Stop: Vanity Publishing aka Subsidy Publishers
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