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Publishing Mojo Is Furious That I Exposed Their Scam! – by James M. Walsh, Esq.

September 28, 2024

Publishing Mojo Is Furious That I Exposed Their Scam! – by James M. Walsh, Esq.
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The firms listed above are REALLY located in the United States!

I’ve been very busy predator hunting online. That is truly what publishingmojo.com is – a recalcitrant, Internet publishing-scammer and predator.  Publishing Mojo is a precision trolling machine bent on eviscerating your legacy and publishing dreams without so much as a flinch.

Don’t believe me? Check out these additional victims of Publishing Mojo:

Let’s begin with PublishingMojo.com’s address: 50 Iron Point Circle Suite 140, Folsom, CA

If you Google that address, you’ll see that is a “virtual office address.” You can read more about those in my article: How to Tell if That So-Called “Publisher” is REALLY Located in the U.S.! By James M. Walsh, Esq.

Here is their phone number: (844) 722-6140

On Google, that phone number also appears to be associated with a company under a different name that is located in New Delhi, India.

When you open the PublishingMojo.com website, a spinning circle appears.

When you open that other website, you also see a spinning circle. Both websites have eerily similar designs.

An email recently arrived in WritersWeekly.com’s inbox. That unsigned email insisted that I unfairly maligned Publishing Mojo in my Writer’s Weekly article. My “unfair,” “unprofessional” and “unethical” truths are certain to “ruin” publishingmojo.com’s illustrious Internet presence. “Immediate action” must be taken.

Ipse dixit is a Latin term that translates to “because I said so.” In law, it refers to a dogmatic and unproven assertion made by an individual based solely on their own authority, wholly without any supporting evidence or proof. Publishing Mojo has been unfairly treated simply because they said so.

Publishing Mojos’s muskateers work in concert with Ace Content Writing (which has a D+ rating at bbb.org) to perfect their predatory enterprise. They’ve been caught red-handed stealing the covers of novels from successful authors, and have used them as their own exemplars of accomplishment on their patently fraudulent website.

Those are just four of the covers on their website. There are many more! In the screenshot above:

Forever, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid was published by Atria Books back in 2013.

In the Likely Event by Rebecca Yarros was published by Montlake in 2023.

The Unwanted Marriage by Catharina Maura, a New York Times bestselling author, was published by‎ Ichara Publishing in 2023.

WritersWeekly contacted the author of Don’t Let Her Stay and she confirmed she had never heard of Publishing Mojo and she never gave them permission to use her book cover.

I took the liberty of reaching out to those authors in hopes of mobilizing their piracy teams.

After I notified Catharina Maura of the unlawful conversion of her novel, The Unwanted Marriage, Cat’s piracy team went into action. Incredulously, Publishing Mojo simply unlawfully and arrogantly replaced Cat’s work with Cognac Vixen, copyrighted by an equally well-known author, Nicole Fox. Clearly, Publishing Mojo sees itself as above reproach. A sordid and besmirched, grifting reptile.

As of this writing, PublishingMojo.com has removed all of the covers from its homepage. However, there are other covers on their website and I would not trust anything they post or say!

I also alerted the FBI’s Internet Complaint Center (IC3).

PublishingMojo falsely claimed to be part of Amazon, even offering me a three-way call with Amazon. That was a complete lie. The name Amazon is even in the signature of their employee Oliver Grant’s emails.

Publishing Mojo surreptitiously prints books through Silicon Valley Graphics & Signs, in Fremont, California, under a fictitious entity called The Ghost Writing.

Publishing Mojo has been banned from at least one publishing platform because of its illicit practices. Oliver Grant used my co-author’s social security number to circumvent Publishing Mojo’s ban from Barnes & Noble. Publishing Mojo is also the recipient of CEASE & DESIST letters from Draft2Digital.

Here is my response to Oliver Grant (and I do NOT believe that is his real name):

I’m sorry, Oliver, but my co-author and I don’t have a presence on 16 platforms as contracted, you disabled our website URL until you could extort another $1,200.00 from my elderly co-author before the site would go live, and the final novel is replete with errors that would make an editor prefer to baptize a cat than proofread our manuscript. Is this “your side of the story” you so desperately wished to share with WritersWeekly?

Don’t forget the $585.00 Publishing Mojo charged for an unnecessary website plugin. Publishing Mojo’s banking deceit is perfected through a dark entity, Ace Content Writing, located at 24922 W Robin Lane, Naperville, llinois 60564.  Allegedly. Dubious at best.

This is Ace Content Writing’s “office” in Naperville.

Endorsement Liability

There has been a marked uptick in aspiring authors calling “bull*hit” on predatory and deceptive advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, and other renowned social media platforms. Keep those SCAM & FRAUD memes at hand. Share them! Post them!! Call these predators out!!! It’s about time we all push back and eviscerate these unscrupulous street urchins. You have NO idea how many thousands of U.S. authors have been duped by companies like Publishing Mojo. They all operate in very similar ways. They quote low prices in the beginning, but then keep asking for more and more money. Many of them also use stolen book covers on their websites, pretending that they created those covers designs.

Thus far, there has been little, if any, interest by social media platforms to police these publishing predators. Why should they? After all, it’s revenue – albeit dirty revenue. Social media platforms know exactly what is happening.

 I’m not a proponent of choking governmental regulations but, when it comes to unchecked predatory practices and fraud like Publishing Mojo’s, it’s necessary. The social media platforms have no interest in protecting you unless called to task by the government. I’ve routinely referred scammers to Facebook, and simply get a summary dismissal.

In a recent reported and appealed fraud referral to Facebook, the publishing scammer was Harper Kollins. Sounds like someone was stealing the legacy publisher Harper Collins’ goodwill, no? Facebook declined to intervene. Money prevailed  over the integrity of its platform. Shocker!

I believe that, if enough complaints are made, a case could be made that social media platforms could and should be held liable for their implicit endorsement of these publishing predators, especially when Facebook is SELLING ADS TO SCAMMERS.  There should be a “duty of care” when these platforms are best suited to police,  ferret out, and eliminate predatory fraud.

Folks, Publishing Mojo is a sinister and predatory embarrassment to publishing  Join me in predator hunting by posting a link to this article on your social media pages. Or, use my jpg below.

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JAMES M. WALSH, ESQ., is a former Navy JAGC officer and a recipient of the American Bar Association’s coveted LAMP Award for excellence in military legal assistance practice. A rolling stone, J.M. has globetrotted most of his adult life. After the military, J.M. pursued commercial real estate development, leasing, and asset management. He resides in Catania, Sicily. He spent almost twenty years in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Luzerne, Erie & Lackawanna Counties. His handiwork as an editor and author is interspersed throughout this novel. Leo A. Murray fondly refers to J.M. as his collaborative, literary ‘Coach’ or ‘Lieutenant.’ Agnes claims that he has gypsy in his heart and rabbit in his feet.