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AUTHORHOUSE ILLEGAL SCAM UNCOVERED.
Last year Tony Liddicoat sacked 'authorhouse publishing company' who he had paid handsomely for publishing his book, "Five Bells " ~ Job Done. A Divers Story. During his association with them he published his book which became very well received and reviewed by over 25 major journals around the world. The RRP of the book was £9.90. For each book sold he received £1, 88. Authorhouse kept
the remainder, [£8. 11] This went on for over a year before he realised something must be wrong. When serious outlets asked to sell the book, they were told by 'authorhouse' that they had to pay the RRP, which of course meant they could not earn any money at all. He learnt about the outlets discount for new books which range between 35% and 65% of the RRP. Tony Liddicoat was informed by 'authorhouse' that if he wished for his books to be sold by major outlets then there was a fee payable, [approx £500 annually, for each outlet, !]]
He could not afford to do this and continued being paid the £1, 88 per copy, During this time he was lied to, his private mail was intercepted and opened and his requests for clarification to 'authorhouse ' were ignored.
He then re printed his book with a new ISBN number and published the book himself. He is now the only legal publisher of his book and has been for over a year, However even though he received assurances from 'authorhouse' that they would stop selling and supplying the book, his books were still being printed,
advertised and sold without his knowledge or consent. He realised this when he received unexpected 'royalties' [ in itself a rarity without having to chase them] The royalties were for books sold by 'Amazon'
who had been given the pdf file of the book by authorhouse, to print their own copies and sell them on demand or when they wanted. [Without the Authors knowledge or permission ] The 'royalties' offered were the £1, 88 per book. Which means that the cosy little arrangement between 'Authorhouse' and 'Amazon' where they print and sell their own copies and were quite happy to give the author £1.88 per copy and keep the remainder for themselves. Now this is against the law. When he contacted 'authorhouse and asked what on earth is going on. he was told that it was human error and he has no cause for complaint as I had been paid the pittance of £1.88 per book.
This information is being forwarded to the legal authorities in the UK and every blog site known, enable the unsuspecting to know just how 'authorhouse 'operate. It is a scam and if you multiply this by the 60, 000 authors they say they have 'published' then it is a huge sum.
BE WARNED ~ BE ADVISED.
Anybody who knows of legal action against authorhouse, please contact me.
I tried publishing a book by Authorhouse, and as a compositor in the printing trade set up a perfectly good book, they asked me to change it from JPG to Wordprocessor 365 and after almost a year where they asked me to then to dismantle it, text separated, pictures as well, and each pic numbered/ Then they wanted me to take quite a lot of material out which they discovered had already bee printed in some books 50 years old, then told me that they could not print it in the A4 landscape was the only possible size as it is full of maps. After other telephone calls when they tried to get me to pay several thousand dollars for "4 good reviews in 4 of the top magazines in the USA" plus several hundred dollars for professional business cards" which I never use. I might add that this is a very local book for local interest only. I eventually gave up and had it printed beautifully by a local printer very cheaply.
i have three books published with Author House since 2012. do you know i have not seen over ten dollars for my book sales. but i had over six hundred people that came with my book at one of my book signings.
At the end of 2018, I decided to publish my book through AuthorHouse. Since they seemed to be compliant with publishing laws in terms of content, I got sucked into believing that they were okay. However, since then, I have paid $19K for their marketing services, which have turned up no results that I can see. During the same time, I sent out pro rata letters to my creditors and lenders, explaining that I was $150K in debt and could no longer manage to make the minimum payments. Despite explaining my financial situation to them, they still will not take "No" for an answer and continue to call me to sell $6K-10K marketing packages. They call four times in a row and several days in a row. I used to hand the calls to my husband, but now I refuse to answer their calls. I still work with them via email because the people who do the actual work never use the phone for their communications with me.
Hello,
I have been concerned for some time after writting books via Author house very good books that received proffessional bodies calling for radio interviewers but author house keeps saying i have received no royalities since 2017 rather disturbing news and i know people have bought them what can I do as yes it is fraud.Please could you give some advice my email is doughtyamanda287@gmail.com
I just got scammed by AuthorHouse and am FURIOUS! This is a scam, scam SCAM! Please people, don't fall for this. I wanted to write a book (thank God I never submitted a manuscript) and thought they were legit. My fault as I got so excited reading their website, I didn't read the reviews. They "sweet talk" you and will keep doing that. I made arrangement to make payments, so I didn't pay in full (I thank God again). They will LIE LIE LIE, even in comments from them on bad reviews. WHAT THEY POST IS A LIE! I was first assigned a male assistant whom I didn't like (he didn't seem to really care). Then one day, I get contacted by another lady telling me she is my new assistant. When I finally told her that I wanted to cancel via email, I got no response. I feel I was conveniently ignored. To make a long story short, I find that I am NOT due a refund for what I did pay dues to fees and penalties. They will get you every which way the can. A bunch of con artists and scammers!
I publish 3 book with authorhouse and I enjoy it. My books turn out Okay. I give authorhouse 4 / 5 stars. You always need to get a editor. They're a lot worse publisher out there. I publish my books for people to enjoy. I don't care about money. I offer all my books to everyone free on my facebook page. The Unknown Crystals.
https://www.facebook.com/The-Unknown-Crystals-1960582220855721/
From May I have been trying to send a complaint and request to Author House. Finally at the beginning of August there was talk via email about my issue and request. Then it took them 3 weeks to reply. So by then I had made up my mind I want to leave. So I told them I wanted to activiate the section of the contract for refunds, which is section 8.2 on the contract. Since then Author House is trying anything to get around it. It is clear they want to earn off innocent authors, not from the sales of books. I have sent several emails over 24 hours to say that I am leaving. Yet they keep replying about other services instead. What point of leaving don't they understand? They owe me £900 + in refunds, I don't want to be with the foul behavioured company anymore.
I first published my book Birth of a Tumbleweed with First Books Library which was purchased by Authorhouse due to the sensitivity of the material. At this point Authorhouse is advertising 3 of my books on Amazon.com. My books are being sold world-wide, each have 5 stars and I am not
receiving any royalties. I have seen the above books advertised with other booksellers world-wide, the first one above being recommended
in Universities to be read by students of history and I have received many e-mails proving that my books are selling. So where are my royalties I
wonder? I would like to change my author information on Amazon.com but nobody has been willing to assist me.
Should anyone from that company read my complaint please contact me under my e-mail ladyauthor@sapo.pt and look at all the pages to be
found on me as a legitimate author on every search engine. This is simply unbelievable, a scam if I ever saw one. I would never recommend
another author to publish with them, Amazon.com has their own self-publishing department now and that is where I will go next. I have
actually seen "Birth of a Tumbleweed" Memoirs of Growing-up in Post-Nazi Germany listed for over $60 in hard-cover. It makes me wonder
how this company is getting away with what they are doing.
I am at present dealing with one Dan Pastranak, and he is very willing to assist me. I find it too good to be true. So please tell me more about him.
David,
When you pay for publishing, your book is generally available for sale until you tell the publisher/distributors to make it unavailable. After your initial monies are paid, it doesn't cost the publisher any additional money to keep the book available for sale, so it would be really bad business to take a book down, regardless of whether it is selling well or not. Self-publishing doesn't work that way.
I've followed a few of your complaints to different threads on this board. I really feel that you have a huge misunderstanding about how self-publishing actually works. Check us out on the Better Business Bureau. We're rated as an A+ because over their 3 year reporting period, we've had less than 200 complaints, but published well over 50, 000 titles during that period. 200 complaints out of 50, 000+ titles shows that we have far more satisfied authors than unsatisfied.
I see a lot of authors that come on here to vent, but the numbers don't support your accusations. I truly feel it's because you are uneducated about how the real world of self-publishing works. That could be your fault, or you could share in the blame with your Publishing Consultant if they did not set correct expectations.
I, unfortunately went to Authorhouse. When I wanted to publish my book. That was in April 0f 2008. According to them, only three copies were ever sold. But today, May 24, 2010 I happened to be looking at Amazon's book website and noticed that they are still selling my book. I haven't bothered to look at any other sites. But isn't odd that any website or even Authorhouse would continue to list for sale a book that only sold three copies in that length of time? I've sent complaints to the the Fair Trade Commission, Indiana's Attorney General, Federal Consumer Fraud division. Even though I was told that a file on Authorhouse has been created. Not one of the agencies I've contacted has ever taken any action against this fraudulant company. From what I understand, Indiana has over fifty complaints against Authorhouse. If and when anyone decides to act. This company will do what it did before, change its name and continue theft on a large scale.