AUTHOR, BEWARE! The Passive Voice blog (daily must-reading for authors) shares a Publishers Weekly feature about a, quote, Indie Success Story. It sounds really glorious. Except, well, it turns out that the indie author is published by WestBow Press -- which is described in the PW puff piece as the self-publishing arm of Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a Christian imprint owned, in turn, by Big Five publisher Harper Collins. (Got that, so far?) But WestBow Press is actually a VANITY PUBLISHING SCAM. It is run for Thomas Nelson (a Christian publisher -- remember?) by the disreputable vanity-publishing racket known as Author Solutions. Author Solutions (are you still following this?) is, in turn, owned by Penguin Random House, the biggest of the Big Five publishers. BOTTOM LINE: This PW story is an example of how the publishing industry is conspiring to fleece authors. The industry, under serious competitive pressure, is trying desperately to cash in on the self-publishing craze...by setting up VANITY PRESSES, which they falsely label as self-publishing services. The goal is to bilk unwary authors who seek to self-publish out of thousands of dollars. The Author Solutions outfit is at the center of most of these rackets, providing outrageously priced services to authors via a host of these industry-owned vanity rackets. These operations make all their money off AUTHORS -- not from sales of books to READERS. Now, Publishers Weekly has joined in on the scam. Because it is the mouthpiece of the publishing industry, PW is now pimping these vanity press scams, too. This PW article is a thinly veiled press release on behalf of Big Publishings vanity-press racket. If you are a writer actually seeking to SELF-PUBLISH -- and not to be scammed by industry con artists -- please drop me an email. Ill be happy to share with you a FREE 20-page guide that Ive prepared for fellow writers. It explains exactly how to self-publish without incurring high costs. You do NOT need to spend thousands of dollars, hire self-publishing services outfits, or go through vanity presses. thepassivevoice/11/2013/indie-success-story/
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 17:09:29 +0000
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