If you have a personal cell phone, you have probably dealt with your share of telemarketers and or scammers. But as a writer engaging on the web you become potential prey to a unique predator: the publishing services scam artist.
I don’t know where these people (or companies) obtain our private cell phone numbers, yet somehow they do. Over the past month I have fielded half-a-dozen calls from a number in California. A lot of them will not leave a message, but the more clever ones leave a friendly and enticing invitation.
The last one that I received started off something like this, “Hi my name is Farqua from Readers Magnet, I am calling in reference to your book The Phantom’s Blade. Our review department has highlighted your book for its imaginative and fascinating story and I’d very much like to discuss it with you. Please call me back at (xxx)xxx-xxxx I’m available Monday through Friday 8 to 5pm. I am very much looking forward to speaking with you.”
For many years now I have watched aspiring writers get their hopes and dreams dashed because they succumb to the “shortcut” instead of following the path of sweat. In the book publishing industry we call such services vanity presses. They promise, that in exchange for a certain sum of money, they will put your book on Amazon, publish it on Kindle, and market it to hundreds of thousands of readers around the world .
The problem? They don’t have your best interest at heart and they certainly don’t care about the book that you wrote. They are out to make a quick buck at your expense. They utilize already free services to scam you out of your hard-earned money.
Book publishing can be an expensive proposition for the publisher. So any legitimate publisher looks at a writer’s work as a financial investment that could potentially lose them money. And profitability is key! For that reason they are very selective in which books they publish. The process to get them to place their investment in you can last for a couple of years or more. Then, when they have finally published your book they have to help you sell it, otherwise their money goes out the window.
Publishing service companies don’t care about that risk for the simple fact that they are making their money off of you, the author. They are not taking any risk!
Imagine for a moment that you own a publishing service company. If you charge $500 to 100 writers to publish their books on Amazon, formatting them with freeware progrms, you’ve met your legal obligations to them and made $50,000 for your time.
At this point it doesn’t matter to you if those authors’ books sell or bomb. Your venture was a success.
It sounds crazy, but it happens every day.
When I called back Readers Magnet it quickly became apparent they had not researched my content. He made assumptions that The Phantom’s Blade was my first published novel, then corrected himself as he looked at Amazon’s website. (Yes, he was actually live-time figuring out my content using the website!)
“Sir, oh yes, ” for he was most polite to not scare me off. “Oh yes, I do see that this is your third book.” Well, actually, no he had made another mistake as I have seven books, but I moved past that…
“Are you guys a marketing company, a publishing services company, or a magazine?” I asked him.
He mumbled something about my sales rank for a title, then tried to divert me with, “Yes, yes I see that this book is not yet in Kindle. That is something we can do for you.”
I laughed lightly at that offer. After all, publishing to the Kindle store is free. Then I reintroduced the question and he finally admitted that they were a publishing services company.
Not long afterward he became flustered when he found out that my first titles were traditionally published. He was reaching a dead end and he could sense it.
“Sir, I see that The Phantom’s Blade is not available on Kindle .”
“All of my books are available on Kindle,” I replied.
“Sir, I’m on amazon.com and it is only showing paperback.”
At this point I couldn’t help myself. “Are you arguing with me that my book isn’t on Kindle? I am also looking at Amazon and it shows paperback, kindle unlimited and kindle–”
“Okay, Sir, have a good day.”
And that ended his sales pitch.
My point in sharing this is to point you away from the vanity press and other scams. They are more clever than other scams out there. Instead, put in the blood, sweat, and tears… and hundreds of pages of edits to your manuscript. This is your baby. Don’t give it away.
You remember in Ephesians we are instructed to put on the whole armor of God. Think the same of your writing and publishing journey. Arm yourself with knowledge, humility, and perseverance, and protect yourself with patience. If you do these things, the mistakes you make will not break your career.
Q: Which publishing scams have you come across?
Same! I’ve had similar companies reach out to me over the past two months. One offered me a “deal” to get one of my books ready to pitch to movie companies. It would only cost me $13,000.
No thanks.
Wow, that’s a new one. $13,000 LOL! That’s crazy!