Stop me if you’ve heard this one: iUniverse ‘Trifecta’ Book Review Services Huge Ripoff
In-mid April, Author Solutions—the company that owns iUniverse and several other vanity press imprints—announced that all book reviews conducted through their review partners between April and December 2012 would be “sent to Meredith Vieira Productions (MVP) as a means to evaluate the books for Film or TV development consideration.” (Read the full press release.)
So, essentially, the company is doing authors a huge solid…so long as they’re good little customers and they promise to pay for it…
…out the ass.
Book review packages through Author Solutions, Inc. are conducted by “partners” Kirkus Indie Reviews, ForeWord Clarion Reviews and BlueInk Reviews. The finished book reviews are then forwarded to MVP where they will be promptly discarded evaluated by one of MVP’s representatives.
Author Solutions, Inc. claims this parntership will “provide authors with greater opportunities to have their books optioned for film and TV show consideration.” Hahaha. Sure it will.
Let me break this down for you all by taking a look at the numbers. The “Trifecta Review Service” is offered through at least four Author Solutions imprints: Xlibris, iUniverse, Trafford and Author House. It includes three standard (as opposed to expedited) caveat emptor reviews from Kirkus, ForeWord and BlueInk, and Author Solutions sells the Trifecta package to writers for a whopping $3,000.
I’ll pause a moment to let you guys release your WTFs into the world, but don’t use them all up just yet—it gets waaaay better.
Kirkus Indie Reviews, ForeWord Clarion Reviews and BlueInk Reviews exist independently of iUniverse or Xlibris or any other Author Solutions vanity press imprint. That means that as an author with a published book, you can put your big girl panties on and approach these reviewers directly. The cost to purchase these book review services without the scammy middleman? Well, let’s have a look.
Yes, that chart says what you think it does. Author Solutions companies mark up the cost of reviews by nearly 160% and then dare to spin this as an “opportunity” for writers to be discovered and have their works optioned for film or TV. Look at that chart again, would you? If you wanted, you could even upgrade to expedited reviews from each of the review companies, and you’d still save $1,595!
The only question I have is how does someone like Meredith Vieira agree to let her name be uttered in the same sentence with Author Solutions? I reached out to MVP via the email on the company’s very limited website, but have so far received no response.
*All prices valid as of 5/10/2012. To my knowledge, ForeWord does not offer an expedited service. Standard price was used to calculate “Expedited” column total.
Author Solutions, Inc.’s customers—particularly those self-publishing under the iUniverse imprint—have been crying ‘scam’ for years now, but on Thursday an anonymous employee stepped forward here on Suess’s Pieces confirming that the company’s royalty system is “in meltdown” and calling the marketing services offered by the company “the big scam.”
Posting with the screen name Angry at ASI, the anonymous writer says, “You folks have no idea how deep the deceit runs at Author Solutions.” The comment came in response to a series of ongoing posts about the deceptive practices of iUniverse and its parent company, Author Solutions.
Author Solutions, which maintains offices in Bloomington, Indiana and the Philippines, has acquired a number of self-publishing imprints in recent years in addition to iUniverse including Author House, Xlibris and Trafford.
Considered to be vanity presses, these and other self-publishing companies offer print-on-demand publishing for writers who simply don’t want to publish traditionally or have not had success finding a traditional publisher. According to Writer Beware®, a committee created by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, “The average printed book from a POD service sells fewer than 200 copies, mostly to ‘pocket’ markets surrounding the author–friends, family, local retailers who can be persuaded to place an order–and to the author him/herself.”
Angry at ASI confirms suspicions that aspiring writers are often pushed to buy overpriced publishing packages and add-on marketing services by the sales teams of Author House and iUniverse who work out of the same Indiana office. “Sales people brag about pushing customers to overextend themselves, promising them the world, laughing about how they’ll probably only sell a dozen copies,” the employee writes.
The whistleblower also calls out Kevin Weiss, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Keith Ogorek, Senior Vice President of Marketing, specifically for their lacking leadership. “Authors are regularly ridiculed for how bad the covers/content can be,” Angry at ASI writes, adding, “Keith Ogorek has a shelf of the ‘worst’ books in his office that he laughs about.”
These comments in particular lend credibility to earlier accusations that the folks at iUniverse don’t take customer complaints seriously. And Angry at ASI’s description of the workplace environment just might shed a little light on why customer service reps are accused of being rude to authors. “I’ve never seen such a demotivated, miserable office,” Angry writes, “probably because a lot of us feel terrible about what we’re doing.”
We’ve got a more positive story to share today, and the moral of the story is this: You can self-publish without iUniverse.
Last week my friend Paul Little suggested I take a look at the non-scammy options available for authors who want to self-publish, and a few minutes later Rachel Lynn Brody volunteered to answer some questions about how she self-published Hot Mess without being ripped off.
Before we start the interview, let me introduce you to Rachel:
Rachel Lynn Brody is an award-winning playwright, as well as a blogger and theater critic. Her short fiction includes Restaurants Are Rated Out Of Four Stars (A Foodie Romance), The Tell Tale Tech, and “Sweetheart” (part of the Sassy Singularity anthology). Later this year, look out for “Millennial Ex,” a ten-minute play premiering at Glasgay 2012, as well as the original web series “Unfamiliar Lives”, co-written with and directed by Eric Sipple. Rachel produces theater, short films, e-books and results.
Brody: I decided to self-publish HOT MESS: Speculative Fiction About Climate Change for several reasons, but primarily because as an independent writer and artist who has worked across multiple disciplines (theater, fiction and short film, but also criticism, journalism and online media), I wanted to understand the powerful platform of being able to create e- and print books on my own. I also think it’s important for artists to own the means of producing and publicizing their own work, and e-publishing wasn’t something I had tried before.
ES: Did you try the traditional publishing route first? (Why or why not?)
Brody: “HOT MESS” was never going to be a traditionally published book, because part of the goal was to learn how to self-publish – which websites I needed to know about, where I could get the word out, and how I could publicize the book effectively.
ES: You’ve said that you self-published without spending a dime, how did you do it?
Brody: I don’t believe funding yourself as an artist is a sustainable creative pathway. After hand-selecting writers whose work I was familiar with to collaborate on an anthology about climate change, I worked with them on their stories and coordinated with some close friends who were willing to provide illustrations and our cover design. One of the authors involved connected us with another writer who was willing to format our book for Kindle. Ultimately, we reached March 20th (“Upload Day,” as I called it!) having spent $0. I spent several evenings reformatting it in various ways for both Smashwords and Barnes & Noble. Because the book sold into the top 20 for its Amazon category (science fiction anthologies) within its first day of sales, by the time I started working on the print edition (available from CreateSpace) we had earned enough to cover the cost of proofs. To date, we’ve spent nothing on marketing, mostly doing guest posts and posts on our own blog. I appeared on an internet radio show called The 99 Report when they did their Earth Day episode, and me and the other writers constantly discuss our work on Twitter (I’m girl_onthego, feel free to follow me). None of the money was spent before we’d made it in royalties, so no one wound up out of pocket. My experience as an editor and the generosity of our cover designer meant that we didn’t have to pay for these services.
ES: Do you think anyone can do what you did?
Brody: Yes. It takes time and dedication and a willingness to put yourself out there, but if you want to write a book there’s absolutely no reason to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on getting it to today’s e-market. That said, I benefited enormously from my past production and project management experiences, and from having the luxury of working with established collaborators. Networking isn’t the most natural skill a writer might have, but it’s absolutely critical when you’re self-publishing.
ES: How long did it take you to get the manuscript in publishing shape once you had an initial draft?
Brody:Aside from one story, all the drafts were initially due on Jan 1st, 2012. Most of the editing work was done in the first two weeks of January, with all but one story ready to print by the end of January. The entire book was uploaded on March 20th, so I would say about two and a half months for an 18K-word-book, but that was a very generous and deliberate release date because I had never self-published before and didn’t know what kinds of snags we would hit.
ES: What was the toughest part of the process for you?
Brody: The cover art, by a long shot. I tend to orient more towards language than imagery, so it was difficult to a) come up with an idea of what I wanted and b) communicate that effectively to the cover artist. In the end, our graphic designer was able to come up with a much better concept than I ever could have.
ES: What advice or encouragement would you offer to other writers looking to self-publish their work?
Joan Moran is a speaker and author of Sixty, Sex & Tango. After self-publishing with iUniverse, Moran ran into problems with the company. She’s agreed to share her story with the readers of Suess’s Pieces. You can learn more about Moran on her blog.
For more information on this series, please read “iUniverse Rants: Coming Clean.” Have a similar story to share? Contact Emily.
ES: Can you tell us about how you ended up working with iUniverse?
Moran: I looked at several publishing companies. Lulu was recommended to me and I randomly found iUniverse. I had already experienced xLibris and Harvest Moon, and neither one of them impressed me. I decided on iUniverse because of the sales person whom I encountered when I called. I called back several times over a two month period, and he asked me if I wanted to talk to someone in the company. I did and spoke to a very professional woman who had come to work at iUniverse from a publishing company. (There are many people like her working at these companies because they were laid off by the largest publishing companies in the recession.) I chose iUniverse because [the employees] are well-spoken and had a package that I thought was affordable. As Mr. Fisher did, I selected the Premiere package.
I moved through the initial editorial sessions easily, received their feedback in a timely fashion and thought all was smooth. The cover copy came, and I was pleased with it. This took about 4 or 5 weeks to accomplish. But as I was working my way through the process, I noticed that the woman I had so loved working with in editorial was no longer there, as were several other people with whom I had contact. I was passed from person to person regularly, and it became impossible to actually contact someone at the company for support.
By the time the book was completed and the sales team made their assault, I was worried. I had a similar experience as Mr. Fisher did with the email blast—submitting my own copy and working with a group of people who, in the end, had no accountability for anything. No check list in place. I called and asked for a list of those cities and places that my blurb was supposed to have appeared, and there was no record of it actually hitting those people and places. I never availed myself of their marketing services again.
ES: What problems did you have with iUniverse, and how did they attempt to resolve your complaints? Were you happy with the result?
Moran: The first time I contacted iUniverse with a complaint (before I pulled the book from iUniverse), it concerned the email blast to 6 cities, including my own. It was a fiasco trying to get anyone to be accountable for that marketing ploy.
iUniverse sales people call all the time to sell authors marketing programs, which are simply cons to get money.
The second time I called, it was about the way their bookkeeping is set up. The accounting is very poor and inaccurate. The $11 [royalties] I received quarterly clued me into the fact that they were ripping me off. Mr. Fisher had the same awakening. The actual number of books sold is hard to come by. Their so-called spread sheet is non-existent.
ES: How was your book publicized? Did you do it all yourself? Pay for them to help you market the finished product?
Moran: The book was never publicized. I only asked them to send the email blast to those six cities. I stopped giving them money after that for anything.
ES: Is there anything else you want to add? Do you have advice for writers looking into iUniverse?
Moran: I’m an the author that Penny wrote about [see the comments on this post for clarification] who was caught in the web of iUniverse. Penny got it right. What was so egregious was that when I wanted to leave iUniverse and get my files, it took me weeks of calling and emailing to get any action. And I talked to so many people, it was ridiculous. It was a maze of passing the buck with alternate players at any given time.
Then when I got the PDF file, it was useless. They don’t tell you that you cannot correct a PDF file. I already had paid them to make the file, and then they charged me again to get it back. A wasted $150. I just used my Word file that I originally submitted to iUniverse and paid to have it reformatted in a new version of my book.
I tried to get my $150 back. I called so many people that I was just plain worn out. My experience was that after publication, iUniverse is simply a boiler room to sell ineffective programs. Customers think they are professional, and they are absolutely not. iUniverse employees read from a script.
iUniverse and similar companies are middle men who take a hefty percentage of royalties before the book is sold, and then more royalties are taken out by Amazon, B & N, and others.
Before I get into the meat of this post, there are a couple of things newcomers might need to know and followers might want to be reminded of:
My ex-husband is an employee of Author Solutions.
Author Solutions owns iUniverse.
Author Solutions used me to get free reviews for their self-published customers.
In several cases, Author Solutions employees contacted me pretending to be the actual authors, asking for absurd favors and portraying their customers in a negative light.
I got angry, stopped doing reviews and later scolded iUniverse, my ex-husband, Keith Ogorek and Author Solutions after discovering the truth about their scammy publicity tactics.
So, what did iUniverse’s Keith Ogorek do this past weekend? He sent Lawrence Fisher, the first dissatisfied iUniverse customer to be interviewed here on Suess’s Pieces, an email. Fisher shared the email with me and has given me permission to quote it here. (You’ll notice I’ve removed title and link information. Don’t want to give them free advertising now do I?)
Keith Ogorek writes to Fisher:
…Yes. But Createspace and iUniverse are very different. I explain that in my ebook [title redacted]. It is $.099 on [domain redacted]. Here’s the link
I have one other question and one suggestion.
First, why do you think word-of-mouth did not take off if you had such good reviews on the book?
Second, I wonder if Emily would do a review of your book on her blog. That might help spur sales as well.
iUniverse Complaints Aren’t Taken Seriously
Oh. My. God. Where do I start with this one? Look, only a real jerk would see a customer service exchange as an opportunity to promote his own ebook. If you’ve been on the fence about iUniverse and its motives up to this point, you should be seeing things pretty clearly now. They are not concerned at all with customer satisfaction or maintaining the integrity of their services. They are only trying to make as much money as they can by doing as little work as possible.
Next, don’t miss what Ogorek is trying to do when he writes, “why do you think word-of-mouth did not take off if you had such good reviews on the book?” He’s trying to distract Fisher from the real issue: iUniverse promised services they did not deliver and they promised Lawrence Fisher a refund. They desperately want to change the direction of the conversation by bogging Fisher down with nonsensical questions in order to avoid giving him his money back.
No one is forgetting that iUniverse promised Fisher a refund. I won’t let that happen.
This next one takes the cake. Ogorek suggests his customer approach me—a book reviewer who is clearly hostile to iUniverse titles and severely critical of self-published works in general—to request a review. This proves to me that the company’s employees do not take complaints seriously and they are not invested in the success of their writers.
That’s a screen capture of the comment Keith Ogorek (Global Marketing Director at Author Solutions, the company that owns iUniverse and several other self-publishing companies) left over the weekend on iUniverse Complaints: Interview with Lawrence Fisher. Isn’t that cute. He wants me to be “fair” and toss some interview questions his way.
Hahaha, No
I’ll give him this: it takes gall to pretend that interviewing him will benefit my readers or resemble anything even remotely close to fairness.
My purpose is to showcase real customers’ stories about iUniverse, not give the company free publicity and a chance to keep spinning tales. Their employee’s deceitful attempts to get free book reviews from me is what prompted me to fight on behalf of indie authors in the first place. And they’ve already sucked the Suess’s Pieces free publicity bottle dry.
If they want to keep lying, they can do it on their own websites and blogs. I’ll be damned if I invite them to do it here.
Fair is refunding the people you’ve hosed, iUniverse.
Fair is delivering the products and services you promise to writers without half-assing, shortcutting, and bullshitting people out of their money.
iUniverse Complaints Campaign Update
My campaign against iUniverse has garnered some attention from the iUniverse people, but so far they have failed to deliver the refund they promised to Lawrence Fisher. Instead Keith Ogorek continues to post comments on this blog and on Lawrence Fisher’s blog.
That’s not going to cut it.
Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing another interview with a writer and former iUniverse customer, Joan Moran.
In the meantime, I’d like to thank those of you who are supporting these indie authors, especially the writers at SheWrites.com who have shared these posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
UPDATE 5/31/12: Lawrence Fisher has pulled his book from iUniverse. The new version of Kill Me Now is available for Kindle here
Lawrence Fisher is the author of Kill Me Now! After self-publishing with iUniverse, Fisher ran into problems with the company. He’s agreed to share his story with the readers of Suess’s Pieces. You can learn more about Fisher on his blog.
ES: Can you tell us about your initial search for a publisher and what led you to contact iUniverse?
Fisher: I looked for a publisher and one publisher said that my genre did not fit in with them. They suggested self-publishing. In the Google search for self-publishing, xlibris came up. Negotiating with them, I researched the company and found that they were number seven on self-publishing, iUniverse was number one. [Note from Emily: xLibris and iUniverse are actually owned by the same company, AuthorSolutions.]
At the time, I didn’t realize that I could do it all myself.
ES: What was the deal you originally made with iUniverse to publish your book? Did you buy a specific publishing package?
Fisher: I purchased the Premier Package because it included Editorial Evaluation, Star Program Eligibility and Copyright Registration. In addition, I paid for three Marketing Services so that I could get a discount. I gave them $1,500. I did not pay rent for two months.
ES: What problems did you have with iUniverse, and how did they attempt to resolve your complaints? Were you happy with the result?
Fisher: The problems started from the word go. My book went to Editorial Evaluation and they nominated it for the Star Program and Editor’s Choice. However, this was conditional on my paying for Editorial Services at a cost of almost $3,000. I was shocked. I said I had an editor. They told me that was acceptable but I must pay another $250 to go through Editorial Evaluation once again to become eligible for Editor’s Choice. They said I also had to pay them $200 for a service known as Cover Copy Polish, which fixes up the back cover. I told them that I had no more money for that. They said “okay” and sent me along to another department. Issue UNRESOLVED.
The design of the cover was awful, too. They asked me for suggestions, and I gave them. The final example was not what I wanted, but they told me that I was only entitled to one round of corrections.
“Say what?”
They did not carry out my instructions and then wanted to charge me more? After complaining, they asked me to look for a photo, which I selected, the girl with boxing gloves. I asked for them to put the image on the backdrop of a restaurant. They did not. When I complained, they told me that I was not entitled to another round of revisions. I told them that it was only 5 minutes of additional work and proved it to them. They insisted it would hold up work for a week.
Another week for 5 minutes of work? Issue UNRESOLVED.
I told them to just send it on.
Next came marketing. Terrible service. I paid for a press release service, but I had to prepare the text. Their copywriters did not do anything. They claim to have sent it out to newspapers, but I got no comeback at all.
I also paid for email marketing and requested that it be sent 11/11/11. Their copywriters did not do anything. They simply took the text from the back of my book, which I wrote myself. They did not even send it on 11/11/11. I do not know when they sent it, nor do I know if anyone received it. So they offered me Social Media as compensation, and I had to REDO EVERYTHING. It was poorly setup.
As for sales – they do not report all sales books sales–not even from their own site–and they actually asked me to prove that there had been sales. Someone purchased an ebook from their site, but it did not show up. Also, Kindle purchases were not shown, and I provided them with proof. They told me that there were no records… Sales that I know of simply do not exist in their reports.
Customer support still does not answer my emails.
ES: How was your book publicized? Did you do it all yourself? Pay for them to help you market the finished product?
Fisher: Only by myself. They offered me nothing unless I paid for it. Even guidance. They sent me a document containing sites to contact and that is it.
On my own, I have had 8 radio interviews and blog tours and a few others. I publicize it myself on Twitter and Facebook. But people get sick of hearing you publicize your book on the same networks.
In short, iUniverse did nothing to help, despite my book being originally nominated for Editor’s Choice.
ES: Is there anything else you want to add? Advice for others considering using iUniverse to publish?
Fisher: Customer support is unsupportive. They often do not answer emails. On the telephone, one person says one thing and someone else says something else. I was told for six weeks that there were no sales of my book, even though I was standing next to someone who had received his copy and wanted me to sign it for him. No sales?
They have since blocked me from their Facebook page, as well as the group of people that are following me.
My advice to anyone who wants to use this company is to give me the money instead. I will give you nothing back as well, but I promise you less heartache.
Stay away from iUniverse.
UPDATE: iUniverse made contact with Mr. Fisher yesterday in a rather odd exchange in the comments on his recent blog post. I think my favorite part is how Keith mentions refunding Mr. Fisher’s credit card and Mr. Fisher basically reminds them that according to iUniverse employees, they don’t keep credit card information on file. And, oh by the way, Mr. Fisher originally paid by wire transfer.
If something smells fishy to you right about now, congratulations! Your nose works.
