Ron Hogan and MJ Rose both beat me to blogging about a press release flogging a new book written by iUniverse execs that reveals how to get your book published…by iUniverse. How did they fill a book on that topic when I can sum it all up in one sentence: "send us your manuscript and your credit card number?" Then again, I’m a professional writer. Ron is impressed by their chutzpah:
The boldness
of the transaction model is actually rather impressive, when you stop
to think about it. Can you think of any other company that charges a
fee just to learn about its services?
I’m glad to see that Susan Driscoll, who was greeted with a warm tongue bath by bloggers such as Poddy Mouth when Driscoll was hired to head iUniverse, is taking its lead from PublishAmerica. One of PA’s founders wrote a book extolling their virtues last year.
Not to mention that you can get whatever the book contains on the iUniverse web site for free.
I’m betting that more than a few copies will be sold thanks to the generic title, which will show up in Google searches (“how can I get published?”), as well as the intentionally vague bullet points on the book’s Amazon product page, which disguise the fact that the book only tells one how to get published through iUniverse.
I’m glad to see that Susan Driscoll, who was given an oleaginous interview by blogger Poddy Mouth when Driscoll became iUniverse’s CEO, is now taking her lead from PublishAmerica. Almost a year ago today, PublishAmerica co-founder Willem Meiners’s How To Upset a Goliath Book Biz: PublishAmerica: The Inside Story of an Underdog with a Bite was published. That book was a laughable attempt to counteract the bad publicity Publish America had been getting in a series of stories in major periodicals such as the Washington Post.
Now Driscoll, together with Diane Gedymin, editorial director of iUniverse, have published a book extolling the virtues of using iUniverse. Despite the title, their book is not a guide to getting published through a reputable trade publisher. For $9.95, you get a sales tool promoting iUniverse put between covers. You lucky dog! You can get whatever the book contains on the iUniverse web site for free.
I’m betting that Driscoll and Diane Gedymin will sell more than a few copies thanks to the book’s generic title, which will show up in Google searches (“how can I get published?”), as well as the intentionally vague bullet points on the book’s Amazon product page, which only once mention that this is a guide to using iUniverse without also mentioning that iUniverse is a vanity press.
I think our grannies used to label this sort of behaviour as GALL.