We compete directly with AuthorHouse. When we reject a manuscript, we never refer those authors to AuthorHouse.
As many of you know, AuthorHouse is owned by Author Solutions, which owns many other firms as well. Author Solutions calls itself “The Most Trusted Name in Self-Publishing,” which we find HILARIOUS!!!
Here are just a few quotes from the the NUMEROUS scathing reviews posted about AuthorHouse at the links appearing below.
- “RUUUUUUNNN!!! Run far away! If there was an option for zero stars I would absolutely do it!” – Bryson G.
- “It was the worst experience I have ever had with any vendor in my entire life.” – Matt T.
- “DO NOT DO BUSINESS with them…” – TeAndrea P
- “I have been requesting a refund for weeks…” – Michelle F.
- “Never work with these people.” – Trey W
- “Stay away from AuthorHouse.” – Susan F.
- “…my experience them with as an Author has been appalling…” – E. H. Asamoah
- “Overall this was a terrible experience.” – B. Bartley
- “I did not like being handed off to a new person every other email.” – Blackbow
- “Terrible at responding and doing their job” – ‘customer’
- “No calls… no replying to emails. They got all the money they needed and now they have moved on to another poor author…” – Kim A.
- “I have never seen a publishing house that has little concern for the quality of your book.” – ‘customer’
- “There is not one person I can contact to resolve my issues. I get bumped from department to department and no one follows through with their promises to contact me.” – Beth
- “After my inquiry I received two or three emails offering to have a chat, which is fair enough, but also so far 22 phone calls from a number that my phone can’t block, presumably some kind of automatic dialling.” – N. Hodgkinson
- “I have made at least 10 phone calls and have written several e-mails over the past few weeks without response from those responsible for the fiasco.” – J. Amellio
- “Authorhouse False Hope, Expensive Mistake” – Kim
- “Since they did not want to print the manuscript, I have repeatedly asked for a refund which they have failed to honor.” – Kitty C.
- “I believe authorhouse is wrongfully withholding my royalties” – C. Watson
- “I sent them over $5.8k back in May under the belief that they would get me on the (New York Times Bestseller) list. I gave them everything I had foolishly in hopes they knew better than I did about book publication.” – TurnipCreed
You may think, when you see all of the Author Solutions’ companies online, that they are separate. However, they’re all owned by the same firm Some of them are:
AuthorHouse
iUniverse
Xlibris
Palibrio
Archway Publishing
Balboa Press
LifeRich Pubishing
Westbow Press
Patridge
and more!
They have partnerships with other firms as well. I’ve always wondered why one company needed so many identities. Incidentally, Author Solutions has been sued twice by their authors – class action.
There are no shortage of complaints about AuthorHouse online (and some of the comments are real doozies!!):
BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU – 67 reviews with an average of 1.27 stars (out of 5). That’s an even lower star count than when we last researched Author Solutions.
TRUSTPILOT.COM – 119 one-star reviews! Interesting, TrustPilot is the logo Author Solutions uses on their homepage when they claim to be the “The Most Trusted Name in Self-Publishing.”
RIPOFFREPORT.COM – I stopped counting at 50 complaints
PISSEDCONSUMER.COM – 90 one-star reviews
YELP.COM – 49 one-star reviews
COMPLAINTSBOARD.COM – I stopped counting at 50 complaints. There are 12 whole pages of them!
The ALLIANCE OF INDEPENDENT AUTHORS has issued a “Watchdog Advisory” about Authorhouse.
LAWSUIT AGAINST AUTHOR SOLUTIONS
MORE LAWSUITS FILED AGAINST AUTHOR SOLUTIONS (skip past the ads at the top of that page)
Somebody even wrote a book about them: THE AUTHORHOUSE SCAM
With the years and years of complaints about this company, we honestly can’t believe anybody pays AuthorHouse to publish a book anymore!
Angela Hoy lives on a mountain in North Georgia. She is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, the President and CEO of BookLocker.com and AbuzzPress, and the author of 24 books.
Follow Angela: twitter | facebook | linkedin
Angela is the creator of the Original 24-Hour Short Story Contest!
Learn more here: https://24hourshortstorycontest.com/
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Sheesh! These idiots are still around? I’d have thought AuthorHouse and their subsidiary firms would have all been out of business by now. They have been bilking nd cheating self-publishing authors for 50+ years now.
I’ve had two books published by Author House, one is called Havana Moon, the other is GreyWolf Down. They are on Kindle and Amazon. I didn’t have any problems with the quality of the finished product itself. Where they get you is the fees for advertising. I got a call from a guy at Author House about my second book. He offered to write a movie script about it and then post it on a website he claimed people who were looking for movie scripts would see it. He said the fee was 20,000 dollars. I said no thank you the price was too high. He called back the next day and offered a reduction in price of 10,000 dollars. I said no thanks the fee was too high. He got really offended until I explained to him I could hire a college student to wright a script about the book for around 1500 dollars. I had another guy from Author House call up and offer to display my second book at a book fair in Miami for a fee of 500 dollars. I asked him how many of my books would I have to sell to make up the 500 dollars I would give him. I periodically get phone calls from people claiming to represent a publishing company that would re publish my book for a much lower fee and promise me full profits from each book. Amazingly every person who calls me usually has a Philippine accent. I then look on Google to find reviews of their companies but rarely find them. The reviews I do find usually are bad. I’m not sure where these people get my phone number but it has to originate from Author House somehow. They always know how many copies of each book I have sold. Right now I’m not sure where I can go for legitimate representation for a fair price because of all these rip off artists who call me. It is really demoralizing to put your efforts into a project only to have to deal with these situations. Best of luck to those who choose to go with Author House, better have your own affordable advertising plan established first.