Not A Great Deal

April 02, 2008

Angela:

I receive your newsletter and do like your views on the world of publishing. I recently received an email about an incredible way to do vanity publishing. The offer is at the bottom of the "enticement" text. I thought you may want to look at it. (URL removed)

All the best,

It looks like:

1. This company spammed you (if they're so great at promotion, why are they breaking the law by spamming?)

2. They're simply compiling anthologies of articles by different people and publishing them, probably at grossly inflated prices charged to the contributors. They even charge you to edit your own "article"....or you can hire them to write the article for you. Except for the editing part, this kind of reminds me of that old series of books that supposedly featured really great people...until we all realized pretty much anybody could get into them (and were then up-sold on incredibly expensive books that people only bought so they could see their own name in print).

This isn't anything new and I, personally, would hesitate to send money to a company that flashes celebrity photos and uses words like:

Yes! I mean YOU!!

this amazing program!

you will be considered a "celebrity" in your industry

If you want your name in/on a business book, you'd be better off writing your own business book and selling it or giving it away to your customers.

There are two ways to do this:

1. Write a quality how-to book
2. Write a history book about your company (customers love that stuff - especially business history books with a strong human interest angle).