DON’T MISS PREVIOUS PARTS OF THIS SERIES!

EXTREME AUTHOR ALERT – PART I: This International Scam is Fooling THOUSANDS of Authors Across the Globe!

EXTREME AUTHOR ALERT – PART II: 19 Signs You’re About to Get Scammed By a Foreign “Book Publisher”

EXTREME AUTHOR ALERT – PART III: How WritersWeekly Communicates Directly with Deceitful “Publishers” to Expose Their Appalling Practices

Remember: Any company posting book covers they did not design (copyright infringement!), or trademarks from well-known organizations that they’ve never worked with (trademark infringement), or posting fake employees, or posting anything false at all is using “deceit” (fraud!) to try to get your business. Obtaining money under false pretenses via a debit card / credit card or wire transfer constitutes Wire Fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1343, et seq. A single count is punishable by up twenty years imprisonment.

BEWARE! We have connected all of the companies below after Googling the addresses and phone numbers they provide on their websites and on Facebook:

• Author Book Creators / AuthorBookCreators.com
• Author Books Publisher / AuthorBooksPublisher.com
• AMZ Publishing Firm / AmzPublishingFirm.com (they’ve been reported to the law firm suing fake publishers for violating Amazon’s trademark!)
• Book Publishing HQ / BookPublishingHQ.com
• McMillan Book Publishers / mcmillanbookpublishers.com (THE FAKE ONE, NOT THE REAL ONE)
• Pantheon Books Publisher / PantheonBooksPublisher.com (THE FAKE ONE, NOT THE REAL ONE)
• The Ghost Writing / TheGhostWriting.org
• US Book Professionals / USBookProfessionals.com
• Twayne Publishers / TwaynePublishers.com
• Venture Book Publishers / VentureBookPublishers.com
• Your Books Publisher / YourBooksPublisher.com

Last week, I alerted all of you to the appalling practices of Book Publishing HQ / BookPublishingHQ.com. Remember that we had also discovered Author Book Creators located at the same “address.” Shortly after the article was published, we were threatened with legal action. And, I was blocked from their Facebook page. That was not a surprise. However, during the “chat” I was having with “Sandra Collins” on BookPublishingHQ.com, she said they would remove the book covers (that belong to books they did not publish) and the fake employees within 48-72 hours.

Yesterday (long past the 72-hour mark), I checked once again on their website. They didn’t just remove the covers and authors. They completely changed their website design. Here is the before and after:

BUT, WAIT!!! I had literally just seen that identical website an hour before when I was researching TheGhostWriting.org! When I was working undercover, talking to these folks on Facebook Messenger, TheGhostWriting.org had sent me a copy of their Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).

So, I opened another window in my browser and looked at both websites side by side. Here is TheGhostWriting.org on the left, and Book Publishing HQ on the right:

BUSTED!!! Remember, BookPublishingHQ.com had promised to remove the fake covers and fake employees from their website. So, I did a deep dive into the new website and, guess what? It ALSO has fake covers and employees!!

Check out this book on their homepage and look REALLY close. Check out the spine. Talk about sloppy website work!!! Not only did neither one of these companies publish that book, but the spine is for a completely different book!!!

The book at the top of both websites was published by AuthorHouse. They then have a picture of a stack of books. Most logical people would assume that the “publisher” published those books, right?

NOPE! It’s a stock photo image that appears on many websites:

UPDATE: Approximately one hour after this article was published, BookPublishingHQ.com put their old website back up, complete with the same fake book covers and employees:

They still retain identical parts from their other website, however. TheGhostWriting.org is on the left while BookPublishingHQ.com is on the right.

IDIOTS…

Author Book Creators has a typo on their website where they accidentally used the wrong “company” name above the logos for major media outlets (trademark infringement):

Author Books Publisher / AuthorBooksPublisher.com has the same website design as Author Book Creators, along with the same trademarked logos, covers, etc., etc. Same company!

When I Googled the phone number that appears on authorbookspublisher.com – (442) 446-2407, the results came back with:

McMillan Book Publishers / mcmillanbookpublishers.com (The company is infringing on the trademark of the real Macmillan Publishers.)

Pantheon Books Publisher / PantheonBooksPublisher.com – That website is dead. The real Pantheon Books is owned by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. This scammer’s website was likely shut down for trademark infringement.

All of these “companies” (all the same company!!) want you to think they published those books that appear on their websites. They want you to believe they won those awards, that this or that book was a #1 Best Seller on Amazon, that they’ve worked with all of those media companies whose logos they have stolen, etc., etc. It’s a large, organized SCAM! And, I strongly suspect that, as we keep peeling back the onion layers, more “company names” are going to emerge.

So, Book Publishing HQ, despite promising to get rid of copyrighted covers of books they did NOT publish, simply switched to a different website design (being used by another one of their companies), and keeps trying to scam people with their lies!

• We already called out Book Publishing HQ for their use of a fake cover for The Green Witchcraft. They are still using that. There is a book by that name and from that author but the cover being used by Book Publishing HQ and TheGhostWriting.org is not the correct cover for that book.
• What You Leave Behind was published by William Morrow.
• Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books was also published by William Morrow.
• Sandwich by Catherine Newman was published by Harper.
• A Happier Life, written by New York Times bestselling author Kristy Woodson Harvey, was published by ‎ Gallery Books.

TheGhostWriting.org has this on their homepage:

London Underground by Chris Angus was published by Yucca back in 2015, YEARS before these scammers had even registered their websites!

They are still using FAKE EMPLOYEE PHOTOS. One of them even got her name changed! This is “Yajaira A. Harris.”

Except, last week her name was Ethan Martinez. And, last week, she lived in California! I kid you not! Check it out!

On BookPublishingHQ.com, this guy is listed as an author (with no name):

 

(By the way, a classic sign of a fake author is that the “publisher” doesn’t have the author’s book title listed, nor a link to where that book can be purchased.) Did BookPublishingHQ.com put an “order number” on the image above to make it look legitimate? It actually just makes it look more scammy!

AND, BookPublishingHQ.com also has him listed as an employee named Olivia Smith!

Per my last article, “Olivia” is a model. His photo is on numerous websites unrelated to this scam. I want to personally thank Book Publishing HQ for making our job so easy! Incidentally, they also offer web design services, which is HILARIOUS!!!

His photo is ALSO on TheGhostWriting.org as an employee named Jason Dowson. Hey, at least THAT page got the gender right! And, he moved from Bakersfield, CA to Mankato, MN in just the past week! Ha ha ha ha ha!!! Does this company really think authors are that stupid?!?!

Incidentally, TheGhostWriting.org and BookPublishingHQ.com ALSO put a variety of “awards” and logos (trademark infringement) from other companies on their websites to make it appear they are successful. TheGhostWriting.org wasn’t launched until 2022…yet they won awards in 2019? Book Publishing HQ’s site didn’t launch until 2023 but they have the exact same awards! It’s a freakin’ miracle!!!

Here’s the Facebook account for TheGhostWriting.org. Guess what? THEY DIDN’T PUBLISH THOSE BOOKS, EITHER! Yes, I’ve reported them to Facebook but, as we’ve seen in the past, Facebook is hesitant to remove scam pages if those scammers are paying for Facebook ads.

TheGhostWriting.org is the company that sent me the NDA this week. I sent it to attorney James M. Walsh. You MUST read his article on how publishers can use NDA’s in an attempt to stop you from posting anything negative about them, and to stop you from reporting them to the authorities.

Incidentally, TheGhostWriting.org’s website was registered by Hosting Concepts B.V. d/b/a Registrar.eu, which has 31 reviews on Google, almost all of them one-star. That company is located in the Netherlands. They’ve been accused of hosting scam websites.

For step-by-step instructions on how to figure out if a so-called publisher is being dishonest, click on this article:

How WritersWeekly Communicates Directly with Deceitful “Publishers” to Expose Their Appalling Practices

NEVER, EVER hire a publisher that hasn’t been in business for many years, and that doesn’t have an excellent reputation! And, never hire a “publisher” that steals the work of others!!!

This series will continue next week. Stay tuned! 🙂

If you, too, have been in contact with any scam publishers, please tell us about it in the comments box below!

RELATED

• EXTREME AUTHOR ALERT – PART I: This International Scam is Fooling THOUSANDS of Authors Across the Globe!
• EXTREME AUTHOR ALERT – PART II: 19 Signs You’re About to Get Scammed By a Foreign “Book Publisher”
• EXTREME AUTHOR ALERT – PART III: How WritersWeekly Communicates Directly with Deceitful “Publishers” to Expose Their Appalling Practices
• How to Tell if That So-Called “Publisher” is REALLY Located in the U.S.! By James M. Walsh, Esq.
• COMPLAINTS about Publishing Mojo / PublishingMojo.com – by James M. Walsh, Esq.

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