Wake Up...Live the Life You Love (Little Seed Publishing / New Caledonian Press)

This doesn't look like a good idea.

They keep putting TM next to "instant credibility," but I'm not sure how this would give you any credibility with anyone. From what I've read on their site, their target is business people who do speaking engagements, but I'm sure there are cheaper ways of doing this.

I don't think this is aimed at writers, as such, but people who have other types of business and who want a book to help promote that business.
It reminds me of the recent Judge Judy case.

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36328

I think it's a sub-species of vanity publishing.

It's a scam, sort of like selling counterfeit greenbacks at a wholesale rate to people who want to pass them off to the general public. I doubt it's worth the price, unless the participant intends to make some clever use of it in some other scam.

This thread sure was invaluable to me. I personally don't write in that genre, but know others who do. They're always looking for opportunities that sound something like this.

It's good to know this type of fact so we can head off our peers at the pass.

I'm sure others might say, "what's the harm?" Simply because from what I've seen, say they want to find a mainstream publisher someday. Being taken seriously by them could be a challenge by listing those types of books in one's track record. And from what I also understand, if they want to get that same work published somewhere else, many publishers may not consider it after it's already been published by a vanity press.

I'm fairly new, so please correct me if I'm wrong. But overall, I believe mainstream publishers would know better, and wouldn't buy into the razzle-dazzle.

I'm going to hold out for LiveLoveWorshipMe[SUP]TM[/SUP] or LiveLoveJazzHands[SUP]TM[/SUP].

Dear Soon-To-Be-Best-Buying-Author Friends, what book will you want buy into and who will be the celebrity author?

LiveLoveSnark?

Flo

Anybody can call themselves a bestselling author. Anybody can call themselves a superstar diva, too -- but it won't make them Annie Lennox.

If you're going to observe industry conventions, writing a little dab of an essay for a much longer book doesn't make you its author or co-author. It makes you a contributor. And being in this book doesn't make you a bestselling anything. A bestselling author is one whose book has spent at least a week on an established bestseller list -- NYTimes or USAToday or People, for example. If the book's science fiction or a mystery or romance, or some other established marketing category, and it makes it onto one of that category's established bestseller lists, it may then be referred to as a genre bestseller.

Cumulative sales and self-accounted sales don't count. Most (maybe all) bestseller lists are compiled by consulting with that publication's super-secret list of bookstores. It's not reliably impartial. It's just how things work.

Total sales at those bookstores is not the only consideration. There's also velocity: how fast the book starts selling right out of the gate. This is why some big books will have dates on them, before which stores aren't allowed to sell them. The publishers want that rush of initial velocity to kick in over a couple of days, not dribbled out over the week or two preceding the official pubdate.

Conclusion: This is one of those unusual sets of circumstances where "You can't cheat an honest man" actually applies. (Honest men and women get cheated all the time.) WULTLYL's customers think they're sneakily buying their way into co-authorship of a bestseller. They aren't. They're just buying into a scam.

Legitimate publishers aren't fooled. They know about these deals.

They can always punch the book's ISBN into Bookscan to see how it's really selling.

By pretending to be something you're not, you're betting a slight augmentation in your credibility against the zero credibility you'll have if someone checks up on your claims and finds they're false.

Writer Beware has blogged about this scheme.

- Victoria

Talia said:

Oh and there is a HUGE industry out there now on marketing your books. a recent teleseminar stated that a book is just a giant business card that opens the door to consulting and coaching engagements where you can earn 100s of 1000s of $$$ each month.

i am thinking i should quit writing books and instead tell other people how to sell them. lots more money

Click to expand...

I take it you weren't using that soul you have anyway....

Wake Up...Live / Little Seed Publishing / New Caledonian Press

Ok, I did some poking around to see if there were any threads about this already, and didn't see any...

A friend of mine made a passing reference to this concept earlier today, but we didn't have time to discuss it in depth.

Apparently she's paid a lot of money (something like $2500 for 200 copies) to "be a part of" some book that is a "guaranteed bestseller". Some sort of new business model(?) relating to piggyback marketing(?). Supposedly it will give her leverage when she goes to publish her own book, because she's already been published (?).

Of course this immediately reeks of SCAM out every stinking orifice...but...WTH is it all about? Curious if anyone here has had any dealings with or read anything about this. My first instinct was to tell her "RUN!", but this concept is so foreign and bizarre to me that I didn't even know where to start. I'd like to (gently) steer her in the right direction, but I'm scratching my head wondering what it's even all about.

Did I miss something?

It sounds like a really good deal. The guy who got the $2500 must be very happy. For your friend, sounds like she got screwed. It sounds like a variation on a pyramid scheme, but without more info, it's hard to tell.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Name of the book or organization running this...um..."opportunity?" Link? It sure smells fishy.

I have seen similar (spurious) arguments used to get free content from writers. But actually charging for it is new to me.

Yep, it sounds wrong to me, too.

Do you think she could at least try to get her money back?

Unless this "guaranteed bestseller" has Grisham, King, or Patterson on the cover, it probably isn't.

aka eraser said:

Name of the book or organization running this...um..."opportunity?" Link? It sure smells fishy.

Click to expand...

Like I said, I didn't have time to get the info about it, which is why I couldn't find any info myself. That's why I wondered if it rang any bells with anyone here.

I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, but I am trying to figure out how to lead her away from it before she loses MORE money. I've told her that money flows TOWARDS the writer, but Good God, she's brainwashed...

Okay, I got a link. It's made of some serious WTF??

http://www.wakeuplive.com/

WOW. A $2500 or $5000 investment. This thing is insane...I can't believe people are falling for this.

"If you like, You don’t have to write it yourself, so even if, you’re a poor writer, lousy speller, hate to use a word processor, don’t feel qualified, or are just too busy, you can have our expert editors record, transcribe, "ghost write" and edit your story for a special coauthor additional fee so you would have this powerful book as a tool to grow your business!"

So you get "instant credibility" as a "bestselling co-author", but all you have to do is cough up $2700 or $5500 (but when you sell the books you get for that money, you'll make $3000 or $7000...HUGE MARGINS THERE, FOLKS!).

Wow. Just...wow. I'm trying to explain to my friend that this is a huge scam, but she's not buying it. Plus, she's already literally BOUGHT IT, so she can't get her money back anyway...wow.

You forgot the (TM) after "Instant Credibility".