Q –

Angela

I have a question. The publishing company for one of my books has gone out of business and I am told by (name removed) that they want to re-publish my book for $2100 dollars. What do you think about this?

H.G.

A –

Here are the warning signs from the email you received:

1. I’ve heard of bottom-feeder publishers crawling all over Amazon to find the names of authors, using Google to find those authors’ contact info., and then spamming them to Kingdom Come. Many also find the phone numbers of those authors online, and call them relentlessly with sales pitches, offering to publish a “better” edition of their book, and promising their book will be the next best seller. In the end, the author has basically the exact same book on the market under a different publisher’s name, but their wallet is a few thousand dollars lighter.

2. I have never heard of a publisher actually going after authors of defunct publishers in the same fashion. That’s a new one on me but it’s the same type of scam.

3. They spammed you. Any so-called publisher who is so desperate for new authors to scam that they use spam should always be avoided. They won’t be in business long.

4. I wouldn’t put it past some of these small, scammy publishers to purposely go out of business, start a new one under a new name (with different contact info.), and, through a “special deal,” convince the authors to pay the publishing fees all over again to the “new” publisher.

5. Do NOT pay $2,100 to publish a black and white interior book!!

You can find a far more reasonable deal RIGHT HERE.

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