I work at Xlibris you guys have no idea how deep the deceit runs at Xlibris and Author Solutions. I work there, and every day, I see what seems like fraud happening. That's my legally-neutral phrasing. Many of us are miserable, because we feel terrible about what we're doing for a living.
They know they're not tracking the royalties well, mostly a token payment is paid out at the beginning and then the rest of them are ignored. .
That's nothing compared to the big scam at Xlibris and Author Solutions: Marketing Services. A lot of the sales reps brag about pushing customers to overextend themselves, and take out loans. They say they've "pwned people" promising them the world, laughing about how "screwy" the customers and their "***" books are, how they'll probably only sell nine copies. Then customer service ignores complaints and tries to squeeze them for even more with promotion scams. Sometimes people pay $100,000 or more and barely sell a thing.
One manager at our office has a room full of the worst books that he laughs at.
Here is a list of some of the imprints associated with Xlbris they are all owned by Author Solutions which is owned by Pearsons. They all have the same scam going.
BOOKS:
XLibris
Author House
Balboa Hay House-branded line
iUniverse
Trafford
Palibrio
Abbott Press
WestBow
Inspiring Voices
Legacy Keepers
MODERN MEDIA:
FuseFrame
Pitchfest Authors pay to come pitch their stories for film adaptations that never happen.
Author Learning Center - online learning tool hoping you'll forget to cancel your credit card after the free trial ends
WordClay
BookTango Scamming ebook imprint
Monetary Loss: $3700.
Thank You for Your Reply! We are processing your message.
Comments
Please avoid publishing any personal information and promotional content
It's not racist to say you should be able to write and speak proper English when you are involved with a company that claims it can produce books written in English. But Xlbiris run by super greedy people in the USA use sweat shop workers in poor countries who have poor English to print the books so they can save even more money.
Oh and the free company gave me 60% of ALL royalties. What does the Xilbris scam offer?
20% of NET royalties. NET means they can take out anything they like and claim it as production costs that you don't get paid on.
What I know is that Smashwords is a company that only makes money when you make money via your books actually selling.
Think about it why would someone like Anna come on here to pissed consumer's Xiblris page to talk about how you should all pay rather than get something for free....only one reason because she's an Xiblris sales rep wanting to get her greedy hands on your hard earned cash in exchange for nothing. The free publishing service make money when you sell your books only, real traditional publishing makes money when you sell your books only. Xilbris gets money for nothing and tries to scam you for as much as they can
No "free" isn't free for a reason. In the case of self publishing free means that Smashwords is honestly getting only a percentage of your books sales they make money when YOU make money so not a scam.
Author Solutions Xilbris etc.... is a scam, they make money from YOU. You get noting but a book printed with the worst cheapest crappiest materials they can find and DELIBRATELY filled with tons of errors to try and charge you for each one.
Google Xilbris No!
Xilbris NEVER! youtube to see the truth about the quality you get with Xilbris.
Smashwords is free but they make plenty of money from when your book sells only.
They don't pay only twice a year that is a lie.
They pay 4 times a year which is much better than Xilbris because it is well know all over the rep that Xilbris NEVER pays but tells everyone they've had no sales while keeping the money.
You cannot have poorer quality than Xilbris as the video "Xilbris no Xilbris never" on youtube shows.
Anna Houston is an Xilbris sales rep spreading more lies. Xilbis sales reps are going to keep saying "free is free for a reason" but the reason is fairness Smashwords are making money from you selling your books instead of just plain stealing from you and trying to steal more by filling your books with errors and then demanding you pay per error what a scam Xilbris is.
A word of caution Smashwords isn't the whiter than white company they claim to be. They claim 'the biggest stores' but this doesn't even include the biggest Amazon.
When pushed into a corner they say they are working on it. This has been stated for over 3 years now. Author Solutions are awful but at least you get something for it. Smashwords is about getting volume and FREE is free for a reason.
The quality of the books produced are very low and you spend weeks trying to get it to work in their 'meat grinder'. My advice free is free for a reason and you get what you pay for. Go to Bookbaby pay a couple of bucks and receive all your royalties. One more shocking hidden fact is Smashwods only give you your money twice a year!
That's right they keep it for 6 months. Thanks but I'd rather pay and get my money before it's to late to check if the sales match the volumes. I've heard 45% of Smashwords authors have large differences in sales made and dollars received with 'refunds' being claimed to excuse the difference.
Worrying. Smashwords are good at spreading their 'truth' but investigate and the scary facts start appearing.
Jean you can self publish your books for FREE on Smashwords. They only come out as ebooks, but they go to all the major on line stores, and Xlbiris lie that people make money self publishing print books.
You make money self publishing E-books only. People rarely want to spend the money trying a new author in print, because it's expensive but people will pay for a cheap ebook. And if enough people buy your ebook then the traditional publishers will pay you to put it into print.
But you have to do a lot of social networking to get people to buy it. You you have to promote on tumbler etc...
Google Smashwords. I don't work for them or anything I promise I just know of them. Anyway they are FREE they only make money when you book sells to a customer they take 15% of each sale.
Please can you at least tell us how to move our books away from Xlibris to a real publishing company. Do you have a list of names?
Google Smashwords. I don't work for them or anything I promise I just know of them. Anyway they are FREE they only make money when you book sells to a customer they take 15% of each sale.
If you work there and see all of this then do something to correct the mess. Stand up and be counted to do the right.
I have really had it with people that just follow the leader. Stand up do what is right instead of the easy way out.
It's a gigantic multinational scam with 16 different names and offices all over the world scamming people. Not sure how one employee can do anything to "correct the mess".
I think he doesn't want to be fired and out of a job.
I also worked at Author Solutions before, and these companies are under one building:
XLibris
Author House
Balboa Hay House-branded line
iUniverse
Trafford
Palibrio
Abbott Press
WestBow
Inspiring Voices
Legacy Keepers
They fired me because I don't know how to scam people, my manager shouts at my face everyday.
I'm glad I'm not connected with these people anymore. For the authors who want file a lawsuit I will not hesitate to be a witness and bring this company down! The only problem is that I'm from the Philippines. By the way, almost all publishing consultants are from Cebu, Philippines.
Yeah the only thing they would fire someone for is honesty because honesty can not be tolerated in that company because it makes money only by lying to people and scamming them. The only thing they care about is selling more scam packages and more scam promotions. AND THEY NEVER EVER HAVE ANY FOCUS ON SELLING BOOKS. They could care less about the books. All that matters is getting the wannabe authors to fork over cash for more fake marketing. Sending out unwanted spam emailto a 100,0000 ill gotten random email addresses isn't going to sell a single vanity published book and they know that, but they will charge $2000 for it (something that takes a robot a minute to do, and that is what they call "marketing your book."
Author Solutions
XLibris
Author House
Balboa Hay House-branded line
iUniverse
Trafford
Palibrio
Abbott Press
WestBow
Inspiring Voices
Legacy Keepers
ARE ALL THE SAME SCAM!
HI, well I am glad I read all of this as I been dealing with this woman (Grace) from that company and have not as of yet send any money. I thought for sure it was for real. Usually I can pick up on these things.
Anyway I have send her poems through email and she liked them, however now I am wondering if she will keep my poems as her own, although my poems are dated on my word/note pad program
thank you
Try not to worry she will probably not do anything with your poems. I am sorry but she told you she liked them to try to sucker you in and scam you.
Real publishers don't charge people. But guess what there is a company that honestly won't charge you one cent and you can self publish your poems with them. The way they make their money is that if someone buys your book they will take 30% and give you the rest of the money. You have to upload it yourself.
It is a place called Smashwords. The only thing you might want to buy a premade cover and you can by those from a lot of places for only $60 if you google "premade cover" Or you can just have a really plain cover for free from Smashwords I think.
So no reason to pay these awful scams thousands of dollars and Laurie you want to see the quality of the work you end up with if you do pay Xlbiris just google "Xlibris NO Xlibris Never Xlibris they R AWFUL!" it is a youtube video where the old woman shows how bad her book was and the terrible things they did to her.
Google "Author Solutions, Xlibris class action suit" to see proof this company is before the courts right at this very minute. I don't think theres anything anyone can do for my relative that was scammed or all the other people that are scammed, I'd just like to save as many people from this evil scam as possible.
The Xlibris sales rep with his terrible, *** English is just making himself look more and more ridiculous. Real publishers not run by Author Solutions don't have all the same accusations of fraud and theft, all the ones with accusations of fraud and theft are the ones on the whistle blower's list because they are run by the giant fraudulent company Author Solutions.
Notorious for scamming and theft.
All the people who work for these companies should be in prison for fraud. False advertising and theft is what they do.
Google these "Author Solutions, Xlibris class action suit" to see proof this company is before the courts right now.
Google "Xlbiris no Xlbiris never" Xlibris rip off report" "Xlibris the author must have nerves of steel" "My awful Xlbiris experience" "Xlbiris is a scam no doubt about it" it goes on and on and on