Lately, my inbox has been riddled with emails with subject
lines like "Help with your writing", " Book Printing Services
", "Publish your book with reliable services", "Publish
your manuscript", "Learn to publish”. And "Do you have a story
to tell?" Your spam, of course, advertising for payment companies to
publish, which pay marketing companies by email (for example, senders of junk
mail) contact lists of email addresses collected, with the hope to attract
writers to register with them. Those who are knowledgeable about the Internet
or the publication are probably wise in this. But new inexperienced authors may
not be.
By clicking on the links of some of these spams (spammers
track the click, so the more you click, the more junk mail you will send to
fake price comparison websites / buyer guides (actually links farms) like this
one or this one, where vanity editors like Durance Publishing and publishing
services like universe and Create Space pay for advertising. One would think
that most people would know better than to trust such sites, but I listen
regularly of writers who have purchased services (often reluctantly) as a
result of one of these links.
More insidious and more numerous are the spams that direct
writers to websites like Choose Your Publisher ("Your book is your
passion.) It is important to select an editor you can trust ... Choose Your
Publisher will help you find the publisher which best suits your personal
publishing goals ") and Search For Publishers (" Designed
specifically for budding authors, Search for Publishers gives you free access
to an impressive range of options for anyone wishing to publish a book ").
Ostensibly, these websites are intended to match authors with the right
editors, but if you complete the information forms, one of the first questions
you will find is how much money you are willing to "invest" in the
publication ("zero" does not is an option), and the publishers with
which it will be "paired" are all POD publishing services.
Neither Choose Your Publisher nor Search for Publishers name
an owner or sponsor. Search for Publishers has an anonymous domain record, but
a little search on the web reveals that it is owned by Platform Advertising,
which maintains several lead generation sites (e.g., tarred link farms). Choose
Your Publisher is registered with Author Solutions. This explains why AI's
brands are the only ones on the website, but Writer Beware considers that the lack
of disclosure is a bit misleading.
ASI has another website, Find Your Publisher ("You
have devoted your heart and your soul to writing your book, and you have
dreamed for a long time with the day when you will finally see your words
printed"), which also "combines" with the writers. With the ASI
marks. ASI reveals that it owns Find Your Publisher and the companies it
recommends; Still, many novice writers may not be familiar with the name of
ASI, and they probably pay more attention to references to the
"publication of independent books" that are plastered throughout the
site.
Spam is not the only place where you can find these fake
comparison sites. Write "search for an editor" or "publish my
book" or "book publisher" or "how I publish" in a
search engine, and you will be subject to sponsored links on the first page of
your search (along with other paid services) to publish). This is just one of
several reasons why you should not start your search for an editor on the
Internet.
Although you may be tempted by an email that promises to
save you time and effort by matching it with the right editor, remember the old
adage: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Or this: there are no
shortcuts.
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