I keep getting emails from J. Crowder at Lightsword Publishing. The emails have no message, just a link to their site. Brilliant marketing, huh? I finally gave in and clicked it. The link takes you to an astonishingly amatuerish website. But if you think the site
looks bad, you should see their book covers. They must have hired a class of third graders as their art department. You have to wonder what J. Crowder hopes to gain by these emails…
Godawful covers. It is not clear from their website of they are a vanity press. They probably are the type that charge nothing and then sell books back to the authors at a high price.
There are legitimate royalty-paying regional or independent presses that have brilliantly designed and attractive covers intended to enhance sales. My favorite of these is Sunstone Press (www.sunstonepress.com), the publisher of three of my books.
Look pretty typical of most of the self-published/vanity press crap I get in the mail. The only thing worse than the covers is the writing contained therein.
I’ve designed better straight lines on paper. With a pencil. With no tip. And no lead. And no pencil.
That cover would look okay with a solid background instead of the buildings and a different font.
Easy changes.
Lightsword Slop
I still keep getting inundated with unwanted email from Jennifer Crowder at Lightsword Publishing, even after I ridiculed her company’s inept promotional efforts and ugly covers here… and after I emailed Crowder to please take me off their mailing list.
Falling on your Lightsword
The wonderful Writers Beware blog reports that Lightsword Publishing is a scam run by imbeciles (no news to anyone who is a regular reader of this blog) and that the owners have been successfully sued for fraud by one of their swindled authors: