Penguin Takes Underperforming Authors to Court

[pskelding]

I work for a company owned by the same parent company as Penguin, so I have *some* bias (it's not a publishing company though).

The folks at Penguin and our parent company value professionalism above all else. This move doesn't surprise me very much but it's quite possible that the authors can't repay the money as they've spent it.

Without knowing more I'd say any author who didn't deliver a book to be published by Penguin is a total idiot!

Being dead would be the only thing to stop me!

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

I'm with Penguin on this. I love Penguin. I want to be published by them someday. n_n

Oh, I don't think I'd go that far. . Penguin IS the company that bought the Author Solutions family of companies - pretty much the most notorious collection of "scam the writer" companies on the planet, at this point. Buying a business that's a repeat customer on both Writer Beware and Preditors & Editors for ripping off writers isn't especially ethical; and frankly, in today's publishing industry, where gaining writer goodwill is increasingly important, it's just plain stupid.

No, I don't have any real interest in being published by Penguin. They've clearly demonstrated how much (little) they respect writers.

 

[Devor]

Penguin IS the company that bought the Author Solutions family of companies - pretty much the most notorious collection of "scam the writer" companies on the planet, at this point.

There's lots of reasons to buy a company, and business practices are easy enough to change after a buy out. But I've never heard of Author Solutions so is there any way you could elaborate?

 

[Steerpike]

I'm beginning to wonder if anyone read the article and got the point.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

There's lots of reasons to buy a company, and business practices are easy enough to change after a buy out. But I've never heard of Author Solutions so is there any way you could elaborate?

Author Solutions is the parent company which owns companies like AuthorHouse, IUniverse, Xlibris, Trafford, and a number of other well known "scam the writer" companies. Basically their business model is to grossly overcharge for initial publishing services to "help the writer self publish", then keep 50-90% of the post retailer profit, and hard sell expensive (and generally ineffectual) marketing products to the writers as well. It's like every disadvantage of self publishing AND every disadvantage of traditional publishing, all wrapped up into one nifty scam with none of the benefits of either. They've been repeatedly blasted by every major writing industry watchdog site.

 

[Mindfire]

Author Solutions is the parent company which owns companies like AuthorHouse, IUniverse, Xlibris, Trafford, and a number of other well known "scam the writer" companies. Basically their business model is to grossly overcharge for initial publishing services to "help the writer self publish", then keep 50-90% of the post retailer profit, and hard sell expensive (and generally ineffectual) marketing products to the writers as well. It's like every disadvantage of self publishing AND every disadvantage of traditional publishing, all wrapped up into one nifty scam with none of the benefits of either. They've been repeatedly blasted by every major writing industry watchdog site.

In a sense, Penguin assimilating them could be a good thing. Now that they've been absorbed by a legitimate company, they're not out scamming people anymore. One of the easiest ways to kill a company is to buy it, right?

 

[Steerpike]

These companies are still operating under Penguin, as far as I know.

 

[Devor]

In a sense, Penguin assimilating them could be a good thing. Now that they've been absorbed by a legitimate company, they're not out scamming people anymore. One of the easiest ways to kill a company is to buy it, right?

Maybe. It depends on what Penguin does with them. I'm a little skeptical that Penguin would risk their reputation like that, so I'm assuming there's got to be more to it. But I don't really have the time to Google it at the moment.

@Kevin, thanks for filling me in.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

It's been going on three months now since the purchase. No changes to any of the companies. They are still ripping off thousands of writers a month (that's not exaggeration; these companies collectively produce a LOT of books per year). Sad, but it seems Penguin just saw a company making a bunch of profit off the "self publishing craze" and decided to cash in.

I think the fact that they are clearly NOT worried about their reputation does not speak well of how they think of writers.

On the flip side, it means someone can technically publish through an Author Solutions company through whatever method is cheapest, then take the book down (you can sever the contracts), then publish the book themselves and put "Previously published by a Penguin imprint" in the blurb. . If all a writer wants from a traditional publisher is the bragging rights of saying she'd been published by a big six company, well - you can buy that, now. /snark

 

[Steerpike]

I don't know about "scam." They're not hiding anything are they? When you look at their terms you see what they do and what it costs.

 

[Mindfire]

I don't know about "scam." They're not hiding anything are they? When you look at their terms you see what they do and what it costs.

Yeah. Some companies like this are actual scams. Others might seem like scams, but only if you go off half-cocked instead of reading what's being presented to you. In which case... some of the blame lies with you as well.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Merriam-Webster defines scam as "a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation". And while fraud has a very specific legal meaning in the US, which these companies are careful to avoid, they absolutely fit the bill as a "deceptive operation".

Using the word scam doesn't mean they're breaking the law. It does, in this case, mean the they are using deceptive marketing and tactics, in some cases outright lies, to encourage writers to buy into their products.

Yes, a writer who pays attention isn't going to get sucked in by these guys. Writers who are paying attention know that if they want to buy formatting/etc. services that there are reputable companies offering the same services for a fraction what the Author Solutions companies charge, AND since actual self publishing means uploading your work to your own accounts at the retailers and printers, there's no percent going to some third party company.

My own rule of thumb for novice writers on this is simple, by the way: you can pay cash up front for publishing (that's self publishing) OR you can give a publisher a percentage of the profit in exchange for publishing you (traditional publishing). You should NEVER both pay up front AND a percentage on the back end. That's almost always a scam of some sort.

 

[pskelding]

I did know about Penguin buying Author Solutions. I'm not sure what was behind the decision. My previous and current experience working in large corporations would tell me that it was the decision motivated by the profits they were seeing. They'll take several months to decide how to connect it to Penguin in a meaningful way. You won't see any changes in the near future.

 

[Steerpike]

Yeah, they think they can make money from those businesses, I'm sure. I don't know whether they'll change them a whole lot. There is no real incentive for Penguin to make the acquisition just to shut the whole operation down.

 

[Devor]

It's been going on three months now since the purchase. No changes to any of the companies.

Three months is, like, no time at all for something like that. They're probably still on staffing issues.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

My guess is they're going to let those companies continue business as usual, Devor. They bought them because they're profitable. If they were really worried about writers having a bad opinion of them as a result of the purchase, they would have done something to alleviate that negative PR right away. They haven't.

 

[MichaelSullivan]

I'm not a fan of any of the "subsidized" self-publishing solutions: Xlibris, Authorhouse, iUniverse etc. As Kevin points out they have a business model VERY weighted to them. They get the up-front money from the author and still offer only a small royalty...talk about having it "both ways!!"

But, they are not a scam...they are very honest and up front with what they do and for how much. They are a "poor choice" and I hate that authors go that route because they don't know any better.

If you want to talk "scam" that for me is reserved for Publish America which claims they are a "traditional publisher" and the money flows from them to the author. On the surface this looks true (they give a whole $1 for you signing with them) but their books are so overpriced that if the author buys even a few of them for their own uses they have padded their pockets pretty nicely. This is a case where the "fees" are not clearly defined...they aren't getting their money up-front (and documented) as the AuthorHouse people are...instead it is a "sneaky backdoor" approach that fleeces the authors.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Much like Publish America claims to be a "traditional publisher" - and isn't - scams (and I use that word with reason) like Author Solutions claim to be "self publishing companies", when of course they are nothing of the sort. They use the current craze around self publishing to lure folks in. However, they, not the author, publish the work. It's their name listed as publisher on the book; it is their accounts which control the uploads of the book; it is their bank accounts to which money first flows; and even the contracts they have authors sign specifically give them the right to publish the work in question. In most respects, they DO resemble a "traditional publisher" more than they do a self publishing services provider.

They're just a traditional publisher where the author pays for the entire cost of producing the book AND only gets a tiny fraction of the profits. =p

Their advertising themselves as "self publishing companies" is arguably fraudulent. The rest of their system is intentionally deceptive. Webster's defines a scam as something deceptive or fraudulent, so the deceptive marketing alone is enough to qualify them for the dictionary definition of scam. I stand by the use of the word in this case.

 

[Mindfire]

Much like Publish America claims to be a "traditional publisher" - and isn't - scams (and I use that word with reason) like Author Solutions claim to be "self publishing companies", when of course they are nothing of the sort. They use the current craze around self publishing to lure folks in. However, they, not the author, publish the work. It's their name listed as publisher on the book; it is their accounts which control the uploads of the book; it is their bank accounts to which money first flows; and even the contracts they have authors sign specifically give them the right to publish the work in question. In most respects, they DO resemble a "traditional publisher" more than they do a self publishing services provider.

They're just a traditional publisher where the author pays for the entire cost of producing the book AND only gets a tiny fraction of the profits. =p

Their advertising themselves as "self publishing companies" is arguably fraudulent. The rest of their system is intentionally deceptive. Webster's defines a scam as something deceptive or fraudulent, so the deceptive marketing alone is enough to qualify them for the dictionary definition of scam. I stand by the use of the word in this case.

Anything is a scam if you don't read the contract.

 

[Devor]

They bought them because they're profitable.

No, they bought them because they thought they saw an opportunity to make them more profitable. The current profit margins would have been factored into the purchase price. They're going to change something, somewhere, or they wouldn't have made the purchase. Whether they change something that would make a difference, you've got to give it a little time, I would say six months to a year, because there's a lot involved.