ANNOYING! Don’t Ask People to “Vote” For You Online! By Angela Hoy

Published on February 19, 2015

An writer recently asked me to go to a website and “vote” for her. She wanted me to have our readers also click to vote for her, even asking me to post notices on Facebook and Twitter. I receive those types of requests all the time and, frankly, they’re insulting…

How to Test Your POD Publisher’s Sales Reports By Angela Hoy

Published on February 4, 2015

How to Test Your POD Publisher’s Sales Reports By Angela Hoy

On occasion, we hear from authors who are accusing their distributor of theft because their Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com “ranking” moved…but their actual sales numbers did not. Several years ago, one author claimed she was owed millions because her Amazon ranking was…in the millions. As you’ve probably guessed, this is a common problem. New authors often try to use bookstore rankings to estimate their sales and that doesn’t always work…especially if those authors don’t understand how the rankings are calculated…

POD POACHERS! When Bottom Feeders Lure Authors Away from Their Existing Contracts, and Charge Thousands More! By Angela Hoy

Published on January 21, 2015

POD POACHERS! When Bottom Feeders Lure Authors Away from Their Existing Contracts, and Charge Thousands More! By Angela Hoy

Slick sales talk and false praise will always draw in a certain percentage of the gullible population.
For vanity publisher salespeople, it can be difficult to find folks who are in the process of writing a book, or who are considering writing a book. But, after someone has published their book, it’s very easy to find those books and, subsequently, those authors online. I’m not going to tell you the simple method these folks use to find these authors because I don’t want to give other scammers any ideas. I can tell you, however, that it’s very easy, and only takes a few seconds. Unfortunately, new authors are frequently the target of spammers and scammers. Many authors report receiving spam from a variety of firms shortly after their books were released.
And, it happened again this week. One of our authors asked about terminating their contract. They said they were contacted by a “reputable publisher.” I first assured them our contract at BookLocker.com is non-exclusive, and can be canceled at any time. But, I’ve seen this type of victimization of authors before so I, of course, searched for that firm’s name on Google. I wanted to save this particular author from the heartache others have endured. What I found didn’t surprise me…

Writers, Are You TRYING To Get Ripped Off?! Yet Another Reason To Avoid Pubs That Pay Crappy Rates! By Angela Hoy

Published on January 14, 2015

Writers, Are You TRYING To Get Ripped Off?! Yet Another Reason To Avoid Pubs That Pay Crappy Rates! By Angela Hoy

I received an email from a writer who wrote seven articles for a website. She stopped at that point. She wanted to wait until she got paid for those before starting on more. And, she waited, and waited. It’s now four months later and, not only has she not been paid for the original articles, but the publisher already published her work, and, according to the writer, has now refused to remove her articles from his website…

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