Published on May 29, 2013
author solutions, authorhouse, complaints, Complaints about specific publishers, iuniverse, pod complaints, trafford, xlibris
Earlier this month, Author Solutions was (finally) sued by a group of writers who are unhappy with their services. Author Solutions is the parent company of AuthorHouse, Xlibris, iUniverse, Trafford, WordClay, and other properties. The suit is seeking class-action status. At WritersWeekly, we have received numerous complaints from unhappy Author Solutions authors over the years. Each year, it seems to get worse…
Published on December 19, 2012
amazon, Complaints about specific publishers, Print on demand, self-publishing
Someone recently brought to my attention that on Amazon, there is a listing for people to buy a “new” or “used” copy of a book (that’s from a P.O.D. source) for a reduced fee or sometimes an extraordinarily high fee. Do you know where these books come from or where I can learn more about this?
Published on August 15, 2012
complaints, Complaints about specific publishers, lulu, pod complaints
We’ve previously covered the numerous complaints posted about Lulu.com to their own forums by their own authors. The complaints are about customer service, quality, costs, and much more, including the fact that it’s difficult for authors to get a response out of them.
But, savvy Lulu authors have figured out how to bypass regular email. They’re posting complaints directly to Lulu’s Twitter account. Here are a few snippets posted just in the past two weeks…
Published on November 17, 2011
complaints, Complaints about specific publishers, lulu, pod complaints, top page
Back in 2009, we published THIS ARTICLE, which featured numerous complaints about Lulu, posted directly to Lulu’s forum by Lulu’s own authors.
I recently surfed back to their forum to see if things have improved. Apparently, they have not. Below are quotes taken directly from Lulu’s own author forum…
Published on September 21, 2011
complaints, Complaints about specific publishers, createspace complaints, pod complaints
At the end of 2009, the name BookSurge was retired, and that business was rolled under the CreateSpace name. Since there were so many complaints about BookSurge posted online (we were a previous victim as well), we investigated CreateSpace’s forum in April, 2010 to see if things had gotten better. You can see our past findings (they’re not pretty!) HERE.
We have continued to receive complaints about CreateSpace since that time and, this week, we decided to revisit their forum to see if things have improved. We weren’t terribly surprised by what we found…
Published on April 28, 2010
complaints, Complaints about specific publishers, createspace complaints, pod complaints, top page
We’ve been getting more inquiries from disgruntled CreateSpace/BookSurge authors lately. From what we can tell, a service claiming to be “free” (if you follow all their rules and specs to the letter) can sure be expensive. Some authors are spending hundreds to thousands of dollars to get their books published there. Here are some comments from recent CreateSpace / BookSurge authors who have approached us about moving their books to BookLocker…
