Harvesting New Suckers

As I warned back in December, it appears that the Jones Harvest vanity press is following the loathsome example set by Airleaf, the notorious publishing scam, and is targeting the elderly with false promises of bestseller success and instant celebrity. The Airleaf Victims blog reports:

In the past six months, I personally have received nine different
horror stories about Jones Harvest Publishing primarily from senior
citizens who invested thousands of dollars into an Airleaf-type dream
and in all but one case, after they invested and lost thousands of
dollars at Airleaf.

[…]When the
first set of victims came to me in November, I told them to request
their money back as I did all of the future ones who wrote to me. Some
of these new victims had their money returned after they wrote Jones
Harvest a letter threatening to report the company to the FBI and
Attorney General. However, there are other victims whom I have recently
learned about who have not had their money returned.

[…]Another note of interest: Part of the hook is promising reviews to customers. In a standard letter, it stated:
"Also
enclosed is a review we've received after sending it to a professional
reviewer… "

People pay Jones Harvest to get their books
reviewed. I read the review. It was signed by Tim, Brien's former phone
receptionist and college nephew. His title under his name was "Media
Researcher and Educator, T&R Reviews." The T&R stands for Tim
and Rosa, Tim's wife. That's really a credible "professional" source to
pay money for, isn't it?

It's no surprise that Jones Harvest is running the same, old scams.  Jones Harvest was founded by former Airleaf exec Brien Jones. I love this part of his pitch, which he has the gall to make to the Airleaf victims:

We will not be satisfied until we place [Your book] in bookstores
everywhere and [You] is a celebrity. This program has a one-time fee
of $7500. There are no further charges of any kind.

Sincerely,

Brien Jones, President

P.S.
In your case, the price is $5,000. That is my way of apologizing for
the past misfortunes AND showing you what we can accomplish at cost.
Please keep this offer confidential. All but a very few authors must
pay full price.

The solicitation is straight out of the Bookman Publishing/Airleaf book of scams and, if the Airleaf Victims report is accurate, is just as dishonest (That said, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for any Airleaf sucker who falls for this scam, too. Those people are beyond stupid…they must be brain dead).

It seems that Jones is intent on meeting the same fate as his mentor Carl Lau, the Bookman/Airleaf conman who lost his vanity press business and is finally being prosecuted by the Indiana Attorney General for his scams. I just hope the Attorney General's office doesn't take as long to investigate Jones Harvest as they did to look into Airleaf.

4 thoughts on “Harvesting New Suckers”

  1. Does this mean my book about painting walnuts to look like Barry Goldwater that I placed with them won’t make me rich? Rats!

    Reply
  2. $7,500 to have your book published?!?! Even with the ‘discount’, making it $5,000, that’s insane. I want to be sympathetic with people who are scammed. However, my sympathy limits are pushed when I know that the people who were scammed shelled out an amount of money like that.

    Reply

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