Strategic Book Group / Strategic Book Publishing / Eloquent Books / SBM

IceCreamEmpress

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Victoria..It would be great if people like me didn't have to go thru the false euphoria, hope, then dissappointment of finding out that they have been scammed by conmen poising as publishers

You don't have to, if you do a modicum of due diligence in advance. Would you work with a real estate agent without checking out his or her credentials, sales, record? I hope not. A literary agent should be examined equally carefully.
 

James D. Macdonald

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Uh oh. Another one. Google Adsense:


Can You Write For Money?
Author School Free First Week. Learn to Write. Get Published.
www.AuThOrScHoOl.com

Note the URL obfuscated in the same way as Strategic Book Publishing.

Click through and note that proud and happy Authorschool alumnus, Pete Parente. What do we know about Pete?

He's one of Bobby Fletcher's stooges. Note too that he self-published, and his publications predate the existence of Authorschool.com.

Looks like a new arm for the octopus. Bet you a nickle that Authorschool.com is designed to feed their graduates into Strategic Book Publishing.
 

Writerviv

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Oh. My. God. Why didn't I look here first before I got sucked in? I sent them my ms. Now what do I do? I don't have a contract, the word advance is apparently not in their dictionary, and they have my work.

How the hell can I get it back? I'm naieve, obviously, but I'm not stupid. I do know better than to PAY for editing and/or publishing. As I have no written agreement with them, can I go ahead and query other agents?

I refuse to do business with them, but I am freaking out that they may steal my work. What can I do? Please help!
 

DaveKuzminski

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Writerviv, don't worry. Without a contract, they can't do anything with your manuscript. Just email them withdrawing your work from consideration and advising them that you don't want them representing it to anyone. Keep a copy for your records. Then find a legitimate publisher or agency.
 

NoelleB

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hey....... ridiculous non-related question. you know the neat little word counter ya'll have....um...how can i get one? that exact one not an ugly one with rabbits and clouds...
(hangs head in shame)
 

CaoPaux

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James D. Macdonald

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I refuse to do business with them, but I am freaking out that they may steal my work. What can I do? Please help!

They aren't going to steal your work. Put that out of your mind. They don't know how to sell a book to a legitimate publisher. If they did, they wouldn't have to be scammers. As for illegitimate publishers, those all rely on the authors buying their own books. You, and you alone, would be the market for Strategic Books or any other vanity press, so they won't publish it there, either.
 
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Jane totally scammed

Oh God it's me the missing link. I have invested in over £800 getting 2 books published by elequent books, and now I read everything from you about this company. I'm mortified. I was so pleased to get my stories into print, so proud. It read to me 50% royalties paid to me for each book sold. America, England, everywhere. Whatever shall I do now???
 

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Eloquent books?

Are they requiring you to buy copies of your own book?

Have you paid any money to anyone beyond the 800 quid?

What you should do is get in touch with the Florida Attorney General's office and ask their advice.
 
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jane totally scammed

Compared to a previous deal with another publishers here in England which asked for £2000 pounds for publishing my work then did nothing to help market my work, the deal from eloquent sounded good. £450.00 and a contract yes please they even offered me 50% royalties which before I had been offered only 18% and never made back my £2000. So it sounded good and the to and throw of editing and corrections along with the cover designs appeared good and flowed nicely along the wave of completion. They are publishing a book and it's sequel concurrently. So what is it exactly that will go wrong do you think? Do they not market it well, do they rip you off with the royalties? What horror awaits me?
 

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Jane, in real, mainstream publishing writers don't pay to get published: their publisher pays them an advance against royalties, and edits, prints and promotes the book for them, while they get on with writing their next book.

It's likely that Strategic will make no effort to sell your book to anyone but you. Your book probably won't be edited to any professional degree, won't get onto bookshop shelves, and won't get any decent reviews.

You might be entitled to 50% royalties but if your book sells no copies, that's not very impressive. Sorry.

You could contact Jonathon Clifford, who works to reveal vanity publishing: his website is here. And you might want to look at the articles I've written about vanity publishing on my blog, How Publishing Really Works--there's a link below.

I'm sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.
 

ChristineR

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Hi, Jane, welcome.

Commercial book publishers do not ask you for any money, ever, period. None, nada, nil, zero pounds and zero pence. The end.

Publishers who make their money from author fees have no incentive to sell your books at all. They publish as many books as they can convince people to pay for, and never market the books at all. The more honest services will tell you this, and warn you that you'll need to have some way of selling of your own books if you hope to make your costs back.

Even among the pay-to-publish houses Eloquent does not have a good reputation. I would advise that you not give them any more money at all. They will try and sell you all sorts of things, like book display cases, that real publishers provide at their own expense.

Do you retain the rights to your books? Are you contractually obligated to buy copies? Do you plan on selling your books yourself? The next step depends on your situation.
 
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jane totally scammed

I am not obligated to buy any books of my own in my contract. I did plan too. I have a rather good ms ready edited for any one's consideration and now I don't know where to go with it. I've been through every agent in the writer's handbook and cannot find any one. It's like trying to get into a secret service unless you pay isn't it? I'm still paying a bank loan for my other novel with the publishers in England, and now I'm in debt with these two books by Elequent. I thought, oh yes America I stand to recuperate my losses here when my books go on sale over there. It's enough to make you give up writing isn't it? I will just have to see what happens now and see if they take off on Amazon or somewhere like that I guess.
 

veinglory

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You need to give up paying publishers. That way even a sale to the smallest of presses puts you in the black. Fee-charging presses do not make a profit for their authors except in exceptional cases, so going into debt to publisher in this manner is extremely ill-advised.
 

James D. Macdonald

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1) Query every (legitimate) agent with your manuscript, in strict compliance with their guidelines.
2) Submit to every (legitimate) publisher, in strict compliance with their guidelines.
3) Write a new, different, better book.

Repeat.

A legitimate agent has sold books that you've heard of.
A legitimate press has books on the bookstore shelves that you've seen with your own eyes.

No legitimate publisher or agent ever asks you to pay for anything.

Agents get a cut of the income from books that they've sold, and that's it.

Publishers pay you, in advance. They do not make you pay for editing, for artwork, or for anything else. Nor do they require that you buy any of your own books, or guarantee the sales of some number of your own books.
 

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I know...I know..It's still hard to turn down!

Hi All. I have read through all the posts and I know what you will all say, but it is extremely difficult to have a contract sitting in my hands and not even consider it one little tiny bit. Here is my story with AEG.

Within a week and a half from query to "reading" of full ms, I received an offer of publication. I decided to look at it because Strategic Publishings was just at a major book expo with larger powerhouse publishing agencies. I looked at some recently published AEG authors and their books are all being sold at the places they said it would be.

In my offer letter, AEG stated that they felt that my book would be able to sell at least 5,000 books and it needed NO editing. They said that I would be a good candidate to be at next years expo to do a book signing. Of course, that does not waive the 895.00 fee. In the contract, it states that there will be no more fees involved and I would have 50% royality.

My 101,500 count urban fantasy/young adult novel has been kicked around by several agents. (Currently out with 3 agents, partials and fulls rejected by 6 others- all stating original and strong concept, but not for them). I have had 73 query rejections. SOOOOO...it is really hard to just walk away from someone that has finally shown an interest in going the distance with me.

I know it should be clear cut, but folks, this isn't easy...especially after their new track record and the hard young adult publishing world.

The floor is now open to lashing and beatings. LOL
 

JulieB

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73? You're just getting started. The positive response from agents suggests to me that you should keep plugging away. Paranormal goes in cycles. What's not hot today may be scorching in six months.

YA Urban Fantasy is hot right now. Keep plugging away. Go to the bookstores and check the YA section. Who are the publishers? Check the forewords or dedications. You may find some agents mentioned. You may find the agent's names on author web sites. Subscribe to Publishers Lunch. It's free, and you'll get a list of big publishing deals every week. You'll see what agent sold the book to which editor at a particular publishing house. Start reading agent's blogs. You'll get a feel for what particular ones are looking for.

Above all, don't pay to get published when there are publishers out there who will pay YOU.
 

James D. Macdonald

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their books are all being sold at the places they said it would be.

On-line stores, right? All you need is an ISBN and you'll be listed in all of them.

They said that I would be a good candidate to be at next years expo to do a book signing.

Which would be at your expense.

Information I have is that these clowns were at that last book expo on their authors' dime.

That isn't a contract: It's fairy gold. The stuff that turns into dirt at midnight.
 

Evenstarr1

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After thinking about this, I think what is bugging me the most is the fact that I submitted to Strategic (which they cover all costs), but they want to publish me under Eloquent (which is fee based). Perhaps I need to start asking some questions of AEG!!
 

ChristineR

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You don't really need to ask them anything except to be released from any contracts. There's no evidence these guys have ever sold anything to anyone except themselves (Eloquent). Real agent sales are recorded in places like Publisher's Marketplace and real agents brag about the well-known authors they represent.

Don't have any figures for Eloquent, but the average author fee published title sells about 75 copies, not 5000 copies. It will cost them much less than $895 to publish your book, and they will have no incentive to publicize it--that would be money out of their pocket, and their time is better spent trying to convince some other writer to give them another $895.

If you really want to give up on agents and commercial houses, you can do it for a lot less than $895.
 

Evenstarr1

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Nope...I Didn't Do It!

Hi All. Since I felt as though I needed to do my own research on this, I emailed AEG a list of concerns I had about their proposal (you can find my actual email on my blog: Evenstarr1.blogspot.com). Basically, I asked AEG to waive the 895.00 since I wasn't getting an advance royality with this offer. They "countered" back and said that they would offer me a regular contract with Strategic rather than with Eloquent. The contract with Strategic was free...although I would be required to purchase 250 of my own books at 10.00 a pop. So here were my choices:

1) pay 895.00 and get 50% commission,
2) pay nothing and purchase 250 of my own books for 2,500 and get 15% commission, or
3) say forget you and walk away.

Needless to say I have chosen #3...and NO I NEVER signed any contract of any kind. I walk away free and clear with no money ever being given. I guess the bottom line is that I have more faith in my book than to settle for this.

I sincerely hope my postings will help someone as the postings helped me. Have faith in your writing and don't feel like this is your only option! Do your research and don't give in to temptation without knowing who is really tempting you!

Steph :)
 

DaveKuzminski

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What you should do is also post those documents here so that other writers will have a greater chance of seeing the truth about them.