WestBow Press
reviews and complaints

Westbow want one thing. Your money. They prey on the hopes and dreams of aspiring Authors. They use Thomas Nelson as leverage, but offer a service that's quite the opposite. They have aggressive staff who tell you to ignore the negative reviews and take it with a "grain of salt". Quite frankly, any publisher that asks you to hand over generous amounts of money to publish a book you've worked hard at writing is not a company that has your best interests at heart. Think about. Then kindly decline.

I entered into a relationship with westbow press in june 2016. I explained to the sales person named gretchen that both my husband and I had cancer. I told her that our situation was beyond insane but my desire was to publish my book before christmas in the hopes of raising funds from the sales of the book.
I explained to gretchen that I did not have a lot of money and she told me that I could go into a payment plan and that I would not be charged a fee for the payment plan because she understood my situation.
She also told me that if I signed up that day I would get an extra bonus in having more privileges in my plan. I signed up and after that they dropped the ball completely.

I made my payments on time and the person who was supposed to help get my book ready for content review never responded to my emails. I got two emails from westbow saying that if I got my information in by a particular deadline, that my book would be ready for christmas. I got my information in but sadly the person it reached was no longer working there so my emails sat in her inbox for a long time.

I finally got an email from another person saying she was now taking over production of my book and I explained that I had been waiting to hear for a long time about my book as I wanted to have it ready for christmas.

She wrote back and said that they lost my files and wanted me to send her my files again. I sent her the files again and I never heard anything again for a while.

At this point, I decided I wanted my money back since this was going to be the way things were handled there and now i'm only getting a portion of my money back. They are keeping close to $400. They said it was part of my contract and that they don't have to give me the full amount back even though they dropped the ball repeatedly. I'm disgusted.

I told chris who I have been talking with regarding the situation that I was going to be having my colon removed on january 23 due to cancer and that I had made it clear to them prior to signing with them what my situation was and that I couldn't believe they were keeping my money.

I asked to speak with another manager and he referred me to a man named eugene who was not able to speak with me at that time. I left a voicemail in the hopes that he will have mercy and grant me the rest of my money back but I don't think they're going to. I'm looking forward to the day when they have a class action lawsuit because I will be the first in line to help.

I will never work with westbow press again.

I had lengthy conversations with WestBow before deciding to go ahead and use them to publish my autobiography. I told them that obviously some of the people I was writing about we're still alive but I had experienced considerable abuse in my life so there would be some upsetting but truthful details. I was assured this was OK as my book would be something uplifting to help others who had also experienced similar trauma. I was assured that should they feel they couldn't publish it or should I change my mind I would get 100% refund. So I paid up the first instalment. I was then send the contract to sign and once this was returned and only then, did they sent me detailed information about what the book could or could not contain. It was immediately obvious at this point that the Snr manager I had spoken to on the phone was wrong and my book would never meet their conditions. So I immediately sent notice on cancellation. This was ignored, I kept writing and getting obtuse replies, even saying " why don't you write a new book" In the end they returned one third of the monies paid. I lost a huge amount and felt doubly abused by the dishonest way in which this " Christian" company treated a vulnerable pensioner. If anyone out there feels able to take this company on in the courts Please feel free to get in touch. We need to act together to stop this exploitation under the guise of Christian behaviour.

The representatives called and harassed me about buying books, packages, and one name Matt said that I didn't do anything of selling my book, however, been doing a lot of things, I just could not sell in this area because of another huge author Nicholas Sparks lives in the area. I told them this would not work. Granted, I am not at his level, so it should not be a problem, however, the people in the area thought so and made it a vow not to buy the book. Some have come up to me personally and said they were not buying it. One even said that blacks can't be writers. However, I informed Westbow of what was happening. From them, I was accused of being a liar, let alone, they hate my sexuality, then they put someone on the phone who identified with me. Then, the one representative Matt started yelling over the phone playing this tactic game to get me to buy another package. These people do no more than take advantage of the disable, people with sexual identity issues, and say that they are a christian publishing company? I hate christians they think they are above God. They knew of my situation and I said you may not want to publish my manuscript, and they said it would be fine. Granted if you are black or African American, they have decided up front that you can't write, spell or speak English well.The person who was suppose to go over the manusript, said that his best friend shot himself, said someone else would get in contact with me which they or the person never did. Granted but Westbow Press pushed and harrassed me to get money from me to publish the book. I think someone like the justice department or consumer affairs should look into their practices as a business. They thrive on that you signed a contract and they do hold royalties and keep the rest for themselves. Granted they will sell your own books to you then, keep you in a demographic area and play on the hope and dreams of being a well know author. They should call them "West Doe Press."