Would this cute little guy scam you? Um, yes.
It should be news to no-one who's been living on the same planet as me that the traditional publishing industry is running scared, casting around for anything that might be called "innovative" in the face of six years of serious disruption, and making some questionable choices. This is neither new nor news, but up here in the bastion of "we told you so" indie author/publishers and other new children of the disruption, many of us have been assuming truth would out, and it wasn't, after all, our job to educate writers about the dangers of pursuing a dream that tends to become a nightmare.
But if not us, who?
A couple of days ago, David Gaughran, one of indie publishing's most intelligent and articulate voices, published an article titled The Author Exploitation Business, in which he took to task not only Author Solutions, “...one of the worst vanity presses out there...” for their campaigns to part writers from their money under false pretenses, but also the publishing companies that use them and the industry media (such as The Bookseller, GalleyCat, and Digital Book World) that time and again fails to warn hopeful writers against their tactics. Even the Science Fiction Writers of America's Author Beware blog--who have been hard on Author Solutions in the past--have had remarkably little to say about them since they were acquired by Penguin. It seems now that Author Solutions in owned by a traditional publishing house, all their past and future sins are forgiven. Publishers Weekly, who ran a feature article on the new powerhouse that is Penguin Random House and Author Solutions, fails to mention anything about AH's reputation for scammery.
David says this all much better than I can possibly paraphrase, so go read it at his blog.
On the same subject, this from a class action suit on behalf of authors against Author Solutions and their parent, Penguin:
“Therefore, even while Defendant Author Solutions prominently markets itself on its website as '[t]he leading indie publishing company in the world,' authors often discover, once it is too late, that Author Solutions is not an 'indie publisher' at all. It is a printing service that fails to maintain even the most rudimentary standards of book publishing....”
And as if that weren't enough underhandedness, a number of literary agencies, including one with whom I used to have a business relationship, are using a distributor called Argo Navis to publish electronic versions of their authors' books in what they call “agent curated self-publishing.” The authors who have let their agents lead them down the Argo Navis path are handing over publishing rights to a company that offers a total lack of knowledge about e-publishing and some of the most horrible covers in the industry in return for yet another bite out their royalties. You can read David's coverage of that story here.
Traditional publishing houses are, by and large, running scared. Scared enough to break federal laws about collusion and price-fixing, and arrogant enough to assume they'd never be caught. Scared enough to offer unconscionable contracts to writers and arrogant enough to assume (and in most cases be correct in assuming) that the writers' agents would allow their clients to sign them.
So I thought I'd spread the word to a few more writers and hope I can make any kind of difference. I'm encouraged that more writers every day are taking control of their careers, and disheartened that so many are so eager to abrogate that same control to pursue a dream that wasn't true even when I was trying to live it decades ago. I'd just like more writers to make informed decisions, and not decisions informed by the very people who will profit by them making the wrong ones.
-Bridget McKenna
But if not us, who?
A couple of days ago, David Gaughran, one of indie publishing's most intelligent and articulate voices, published an article titled The Author Exploitation Business, in which he took to task not only Author Solutions, “...one of the worst vanity presses out there...” for their campaigns to part writers from their money under false pretenses, but also the publishing companies that use them and the industry media (such as The Bookseller, GalleyCat, and Digital Book World) that time and again fails to warn hopeful writers against their tactics. Even the Science Fiction Writers of America's Author Beware blog--who have been hard on Author Solutions in the past--have had remarkably little to say about them since they were acquired by Penguin. It seems now that Author Solutions in owned by a traditional publishing house, all their past and future sins are forgiven. Publishers Weekly, who ran a feature article on the new powerhouse that is Penguin Random House and Author Solutions, fails to mention anything about AH's reputation for scammery.
David says this all much better than I can possibly paraphrase, so go read it at his blog.
On the same subject, this from a class action suit on behalf of authors against Author Solutions and their parent, Penguin:
“Therefore, even while Defendant Author Solutions prominently markets itself on its website as '[t]he leading indie publishing company in the world,' authors often discover, once it is too late, that Author Solutions is not an 'indie publisher' at all. It is a printing service that fails to maintain even the most rudimentary standards of book publishing....”
And as if that weren't enough underhandedness, a number of literary agencies, including one with whom I used to have a business relationship, are using a distributor called Argo Navis to publish electronic versions of their authors' books in what they call “agent curated self-publishing.” The authors who have let their agents lead them down the Argo Navis path are handing over publishing rights to a company that offers a total lack of knowledge about e-publishing and some of the most horrible covers in the industry in return for yet another bite out their royalties. You can read David's coverage of that story here.
Traditional publishing houses are, by and large, running scared. Scared enough to break federal laws about collusion and price-fixing, and arrogant enough to assume they'd never be caught. Scared enough to offer unconscionable contracts to writers and arrogant enough to assume (and in most cases be correct in assuming) that the writers' agents would allow their clients to sign them.
So I thought I'd spread the word to a few more writers and hope I can make any kind of difference. I'm encouraged that more writers every day are taking control of their careers, and disheartened that so many are so eager to abrogate that same control to pursue a dream that wasn't true even when I was trying to live it decades ago. I'd just like more writers to make informed decisions, and not decisions informed by the very people who will profit by them making the wrong ones.
-Bridget McKenna
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