Xlibris

With lots of promises on promoting my book I took the plunge. My children's book, "The adventures of Tecan" was printed.

first the cost of printing was way too high to make even a small profit. I sold my supply at a loss just to get the book out there. The Xlibris "sales team" hounded me for more money and wouldn't listen to reason that I thought they were way over priced. Those who did read the book thought it was a good story but again thought the price was too much.

Xlibris said they hadn't had any sales through their distributors but when I pointed out I knew of several sales they then admitted they had sold 2 books in eBook format. I then received an international cheque of $3-00.

After numerous descriptions of how my true stories are centered around photographs that I took while working as a police officer the rep representative today told me that they didnt know if these photos were legal or not

To settle a matter, I asked to talk to a legal representative of theirs

I was told the only way I could talk to a legal representative was to buy a package of about $9000

In other words, even though my stories are centered on photographs, I wasnt going to be sure the photographs were going to be published until after I gave them the money

They said I know theyre legal. They were taken in the public domain. She asked me what that was.

So what she wanted me to do was give them money and then find out later on if I could publish or not

Goodbye

Absolute scam artists. Overpriced packages meet terrible service.

Once you buy a publishing package they hard sell you things like marketing and book Fair packages that are complete rip offs. Marketing packages like all their packages contain a laundry list of worthless inclusions. Marketing packages do zero marketing where it matters (ie: on Amazon) and there is no disclosure of how much ad spend is included. The book videos are terrible and most have fewer than 25 actual views.

When you stop buying their add ons, they drop you like a rock and you have to fight to even get your published book finished. Xlibris are part of a group all owned by the same US company, so all equally terrible and almost predatory in their actions. For thousands less you can self publish without the rip off.

Also, they own your book, you don't. Read the small print.

So Xlibris boasts on their website about working with authors all over the world. Turns out, they don't pay royalties to non-US bank accounts.

Neither do they accept online banks such as Wise - even if they are set up in an US-American standard and provide all the necessary numbers for wire transfer.

They claim that they pay you per check - what they don't tell you in advance is that they deduct a THIRD of your royalties for "tax reasons" when writing a check. In addition, most countries don't use checks anymore and you'd have to pay a fee to even cash them.

Their customer service is beyond bad. If you contact them with an issue, you will never write with the same person twice. They always transfer your message to somebody else and you'll have to repeat yourself over and over again.

If you ask three questions in a mail, you'll receive an answer to one of them at best.

Answers are never clear, they're usually standard phrases that don't help you in the slightest.

Despite me telling them a dozen times that I married and my last name changed, they kept calling me by my maiden name - despite me using the new name in the signature. This is beyond disrespectful.

Now, I have quit my contract with them and they are REFUSING to pay my remaining royalties.

They claim that they have been paid, but I never received a dime form them.

Also it's funny how they kept saying that wire transfer doesn't work because I don't have a US-bank account, but now that I've quit, all of a sudden, they claim they've sent me the money.

Xlibris does not only suck but they are criminals. Stay the *** away from them!

I published a maze art book with Xlibris. The representative told me to send my originals to them, they would scan the images, and then send them back to me.

They scanned the images and published the book. Three months later and they still havent returned the art. They said they dont know what happened to the art. I spent thousands of hours working on the art book and planned to use the originals in promoting my book.

No one there knows where one hundred original drawings went. They make it sound like its my fault they lost them. Then they have the audacity to try to upsell me on products and marketing.

I have sold similar pieces of art for hundreds of dollars and they lost one hundred original pieces. Im heartbroken and angry and one person in marketing even said they were too busy to help.