May 09, 2022
WRITERS REPUBLIC (WR) has called me twice so far. They promised me my refund but gave me no time limit on doing so.

I asked them to give me all the audited sales reports, but they didn't say anything about doing so. They never denied they were in the Philippines. I asked them for a detailed breakout of where all my money went, and they didn't say anything.

April 07, 2022
In April 2021, I signed up with Writers Republic to print and market my book. I paid USD$3600 to start, an additional USD$4000 for a Hollywood Treatment, and USD$2400 for a National Radio Interview with Kate Delany.

They said they would put my book in the big book chains in the US and internationally, talk to Hollywood about a movie/TV deal and try to get a big book publisher to take over my book under their label and I would get 80% of the profits. They produced a few books, which went up on Amazon for sale. That was it. Come to find out, they are not even in the USA nor the Philippines.

It was all lies, a 100% scam, a bogus rip-off. I asked them for an accounting - nothing. I said when is the book going into the book stores I paid you to do - never went. Hollywood?

These people couldn't find it on a map. My national radio interview was at 11:00 PM in Tucson on Christmas Eve, which no one had heard. Profits?

Maybe I got 10% from Amazon, and the checks stopped after 90 days. 100% fake company.

So sorry to hear about your misadventures, Leonard.  I'd like to think you'll get something of your investment back, but realistically it's unlikely.

The only comfort I can offer you is that you being so honest about your problems will save a lot of other people having to experience them too.  We all talk about the pit-falls of vanity publishing/subsidy publishing/hybrid publishing/whatever they choose to call it, but there's nothing like a first-hand report to drive the message home.

The message is, of course, that if there's money to be made from a book, somewhere there's a publisher willing to pay the author for it.  If they're asking you to pay them, alarm bells should be going off.

If you just want to see your book in print, self-publishing seems to be a viable route - I've never done it myself, but a number of people have written on this site and others about their generally positive experience.  Again, there's not much money to be made, usually - but then, usually, there's not that much money to be made using traditional publishers either.  Writing is a shamefully underpaid profession.  But at least it shouldn't be costing us our life's savings.

Jo got in whilst I was still writing my response, but I'll post it anyway.

I know nothing of Writers Republic, either for or against, but...

This serves as timely reminder that generally speaking publishers should be paying the writer, not the other way around.

If you're taking the self-publishing route then you may be willing to pay someone to turn your words into e-reader ready copy, but that shouldn't cost you a fortune.  It's basically just a file conversion.  It's not editing, proofreading, or marketing.  The first two are really your job.  As the writer you should know your own work, you should be well aware of your own strengths and weaknesses

As an example of the last sentence, there are several dyslexic members on this forum, but generally speaking you'd never know it by reading their posts.  Because they do their own checking before hitting 'SEND'.

You should never be seriously out of pocket just in order to 'get your work out there'.

If it sounds too good to be true, then it almost invariably is.

Gyppo (Who hates to hear of people being ripped off.)