FOULED! Part 2: Getting Your Editor to Edit

Predatory Publisher Month at Indies UnlimitedAuthors who have gotten sucked into a vanity press contract often get their first inkling of problems when they review their “edited” manuscript. It’s often riddled with errors – many of which have been introduced during the “editing” process. And if they complain, they’re pointed to a provision in their contract that states they need to pay extra for extra rounds of editing.

We talk a lot about Author Solutions because they’re a big outfit. But there is a whole host of other vanity publishers out there. I ran across this page of complaints about Tate Publishing while researching this post. And of course, there’s America Star Books, which used to be called PublishAmerica until criticism of their business practices got to be too loud. Continue reading “FOULED! Part 2: Getting Your Editor to Edit”

PublishAmerica Changes Its Name, but Can It Change Its Stripes?

americastar2Recently, Victoria Strauss wrote a post for Writer Beware about a change at PublishAmerica. If you’re not familiar with PA, they are one of the most seductive of vanity publishers, primarily because they promise so much and require no up-front payment from authors, blurring the definition of vanity publishing just enough to make it sound good. When I first stumbled onto them over a decade ago, they blared in very large type across their webpage, “We don’t want your money! We want your book!”

And they did, and were very happy to have it.

I won’t lie; I fell for it. While I had had several books traditionally published by then, I still had several unsold manuscripts and uploaded one; they gobbled it up. It sure seemed like a win-win. It didn’t take too long before I was disabused of that notion. Continue reading “PublishAmerica Changes Its Name, but Can It Change Its Stripes?”

LynneQuisition: Victoria Strauss

Scammers have been targeting creative types for a long time – maybe even since the first time somebody drew a pictograph on a rock. For the past few decades at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s website, Writer Beware has been fighting the good fight against scammers on behalf of authors. Author Victoria Strauss, who co-founded Writer Beware, has agreed to climb into the hot seat for this month’s LynneQuisition. Continue reading “LynneQuisition: Victoria Strauss”