I received a complaint from an author today about a company I am familiar with. Other authors have complained about them as well. And, there are a slew of complaints about them on bbb.org.
They are pulling the same stunt as another firm we recently wrote about. And, they are both telling authors the same lie.
One of their emails says, “…after having been highly recommended by the Amazon Book Company due to its first listing status on their slush file list.”
First of all, it’s slush PILE, not file. Morons…
First listing status? What is that??
And, Amazon Book Company? That’s not the correct name of the company!
Amazon does NOT look at books, and recommend them to other publishers. I seriously can’t believe some authors fall for this stuff.
If any company contacts you, and tells you that Amazon recommended your book to them, they’re lying. If you fall for the lie, you’ll end up being a thousand dollars or more poorer because of the services they’re also going to trick you into buying.
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.
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Hi, Angela,
I know I’ve said this (or a version of it) before, but THANK YOU for being the best industry watchdog out there. You dutifully hold publishers’ feet to the fire, and for that you deserve a medal at the very least. I enjoy every word of WritersWeekly; it’s one of the few things in this insane world that I truly look forward to.
God bless you and all your staff!!
Charles C.
This may be a regional uniqueness due to Reconstruction’s “carpet-baggers” throughout the South. Even growing up in North Central Texas, the term “bald-faced liars” was used as often as “flea-bitten dogs.”
What I perceive to be usage blips when reading anything, causes me to pause and research that which caused the pause. In this case it was bold-faced versus bald-faced. Unfortunately, they’re both acceptable with bald-faced the preferred choice in formal writing such as your article. Personally, I prefer blatant. If in this case, you had used blatant instead of bald-faced, there likely would have been no pause to distract me. Yet, if forced to make a choice, and since there seems to be no explanation as to why bald-faced is preferred by editors, I’d opt for bold-faced simply because it’s more accurately descriptive of the liar’s persona. I have trouble imagining a bald face; a bald head, yes, but a bald face?
I researched the difference before posting the article. 😉
Angela
Cheers to you!