Writing a book is a hard task. Pushing yourself each day to meet your word or page minimum. Staying focused and disciplined to complete your book, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction.
The job is not easy and not one for the feint of heart. Many people may think they want to write a book and some even start, but those that actually do it are dedicated to the task.
I get calls from vanity houses (even though I’m published by a reputable publisher). I get calls from people who want to use my book or information from my books in their own promotions.
The call comes in with something like, “We are a literary agency whose scouts identified your book (and they’ll know one of your book titles). It comes highly recommended and we’d like to represent your work. Please give us a call.” I didn’t call. Instead I Googled Reader’s Magnet and learned of the scam. Sure, they will promise to market your highly recommended book by their literary scouts for a small fee of $450. No reputable agent charges for their services. Agents do not market the books. They sell your books to publishers. And for that service they charge a percentage of the royalties you get from your sales. So, as you can see agents take a big risk. If they do not sell your book to a publisher, they get nothing. If they do so and the book doesn’t sell, they get nothing. That’s why it’s so hard to find a good agent.
Beware of such scams. They make money on naive authors who think this is the path for getting their books out there. It’s not!
I published my book with Xlibras, which in my opinion is a total scam. They charge an exorbitant amount of money to publish the book, and then they keep hitting you up for more and more money for various marketing packages. Granted, they give you a nicely printed book, but everything else they do is just a way to get more money out of the author. I tell anyone who asks me about them to run as fast as they can in the other direction.
Hi Rhani,
Thanks for sharing this. There are so many scams out there and they seem to be increasing. Xlibras keeps calling me even though I have a good publisher! Fortunately you got out of their network without losing more. We all need to publish these scams everywhere to protect our fellow writers.