I received an email this evening from Just fiction offering to publish me. I'm not linking to them as I don't want to boost their SEO or promote them in any way. It doesn't appear to be a scam as such, but the terms are dubious (the little bit I could see, at least; their website is rather sparing with any details).
I had a wee look into them and the alarm bells started ringing pretty quickly - they don't specialise in any genre, and they don't offer proofreading services. They state that 'the author is responsible for proofreading of content' which should raise a red flag immediately. I tried the link for their author brochure in an attempt to get more info and it links to a domain name setup page for linking 'your magazine'. I've pasted the email content below, but my research indicates they'll do a basic ebook format and upload, in return for which they'll give you 10% net profits in royalties. Once a year. Which may be substituted for vouchers (and I could hazard a guess where they could be redeemed...). Their rights requests are non-standard (i.e., they want all rights, in perpetuity) with no reversion clause.
Oh, and they have this fancy technology called Print To Order. Guess they haven't hear of Print On Demand.
Email content:
I am Ion Artin from JustFiction Edition.
We are an international publishing company, specialized in publishing novels, fiction and short stories of all genres.
In this context, would you be interested to publish one of your fiction writings?
Our worldwide distribution network as well as the free publication services are great tools for sharing your creative works.
What do you think? Would you agree to receive more information?
I am looking forward to your reply.
I was dubious the minute I read this email - you'd expect an international publishing company to master basic grammar, after all. Also, I was rather perplexed. What 'fiction writings' of mine are they referring to? All my work is either published, or it resides on my PC (and my backup drive, but that's a tale for another day) and has only been read by myself, my editor, or my writing group. I don't think it's impossible for an editor to come across a writer via the internet and approach them, but given the size of the average slush pile, I can't see any editor having the time to actively hunt out and cold-call a writer to ask them to submit.
This doesn't appear to be in the same league as some vanity presses. There's no mention of any up-front fees. (For dubious marketing 'services' - if you want to see how nasty some of these presses, look up the complaints on Author House. David Gaughran also has a wonderful blog that covers this topic (amongst others) in great detail.) My guess is it plays on authors who aren't that comfortable with the self-publishing side of the business. In return for making your life a little easier, they'll take the lion's share of the profits - remember, KDP pays a minimum of 35% royalties; if you get 10%, they're pocketing the other 25%. And that's without checking the quality of their formatting. I've seen some horrendous examples of so-called 'professional' formatting from various vanity presses.
So if you do receive an email from them (or something similar), do yourself a favour and delete it. There's a thriving community online of indie authors, most of which are more than happy to help with any queries. It costs nothing to ask, and you might be pleasantly surprised by the responses you receive.
And needless to say, I haven't responded to them, or agreed to 'receive more information.'
Now, back to the writing.
I had a wee look into them and the alarm bells started ringing pretty quickly - they don't specialise in any genre, and they don't offer proofreading services. They state that 'the author is responsible for proofreading of content' which should raise a red flag immediately. I tried the link for their author brochure in an attempt to get more info and it links to a domain name setup page for linking 'your magazine'. I've pasted the email content below, but my research indicates they'll do a basic ebook format and upload, in return for which they'll give you 10% net profits in royalties. Once a year. Which may be substituted for vouchers (and I could hazard a guess where they could be redeemed...). Their rights requests are non-standard (i.e., they want all rights, in perpetuity) with no reversion clause.
Oh, and they have this fancy technology called Print To Order. Guess they haven't hear of Print On Demand.
Email content:
I am Ion Artin from JustFiction Edition.
We are an international publishing company, specialized in publishing novels, fiction and short stories of all genres.
In this context, would you be interested to publish one of your fiction writings?
Our worldwide distribution network as well as the free publication services are great tools for sharing your creative works.
What do you think? Would you agree to receive more information?
I am looking forward to your reply.
I was dubious the minute I read this email - you'd expect an international publishing company to master basic grammar, after all. Also, I was rather perplexed. What 'fiction writings' of mine are they referring to? All my work is either published, or it resides on my PC (and my backup drive, but that's a tale for another day) and has only been read by myself, my editor, or my writing group. I don't think it's impossible for an editor to come across a writer via the internet and approach them, but given the size of the average slush pile, I can't see any editor having the time to actively hunt out and cold-call a writer to ask them to submit.
This doesn't appear to be in the same league as some vanity presses. There's no mention of any up-front fees. (For dubious marketing 'services' - if you want to see how nasty some of these presses, look up the complaints on Author House. David Gaughran also has a wonderful blog that covers this topic (amongst others) in great detail.) My guess is it plays on authors who aren't that comfortable with the self-publishing side of the business. In return for making your life a little easier, they'll take the lion's share of the profits - remember, KDP pays a minimum of 35% royalties; if you get 10%, they're pocketing the other 25%. And that's without checking the quality of their formatting. I've seen some horrendous examples of so-called 'professional' formatting from various vanity presses.
So if you do receive an email from them (or something similar), do yourself a favour and delete it. There's a thriving community online of indie authors, most of which are more than happy to help with any queries. It costs nothing to ask, and you might be pleasantly surprised by the responses you receive.
And needless to say, I haven't responded to them, or agreed to 'receive more information.'
Now, back to the writing.