Earlier this week ago I posted about Indies Unlimited March Madness, the feature of the month being experiences - usually bad - of independent authors at the hands of predatory publishers, Predominantly the vanity presses and new material has been posted on the site since my piece was published here.
The big player in the field is Author Solutions, but they are not alone and the predators aren't always the size of the proverbial Great White. Some are smaller, akin to the Piranha but the methods and principles are the same.
The series is continuing apace, with three or four more posts in the last couple of days, and a rough and ready survey of author's experiences. The idea is to give a general overview of the situation, and the survey is accompanied by the experiences of authors who have travelled the road. Melinda Clayton offers some hard won advice on how to protect yourself from the predators. Daniel Peyton reveals his experience of dealing with PublishAmerica and Melissa Bowersock unfolds the story of how she extracted herself from a similar situation.
I take my hat off to all of them for sharing their experiences and wish them every success with their endeavours. Putting your hand up among friends in the same room and admitting a mistake can be daunting; raising the same hand before the world must take real nerve.
Another name crops up here, PublishAmerica, I would recommend checking out the blogs and website of the people who have shared their story and any others you come across chasing the links in this post. They are a talented bunch, worth following and reading, and if you are thinking of stepping out along the publishing road yourself, start with Indies Unlimited, David Gaughran at Let's Get Digital and Writer Beware, From these you can start to build a valuable knowledge base and spread the word about the changes happening in the publishing industry - traditional and independent.
There's more to come as the month progresses, and if you haven't done so already, add them to your follow list and keep up to date.
Martyn, thanks so much for spreading the word. As we all know, people's feelings of shame when they've fallen for a scam keep a lot of this information under wraps, and it's time those wraps came off so others can avoid the traps. At IU we'd love it if NO one ever fell for any of these scams again. Great post. Thanks for your support.
ReplyDeleteMelissa; thank you, this topic needs unwrapping. All credit to you and the team at Indies Unlimited for taking it on and opening up the discussion on a wider basis.
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