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[Publishing services] Accurance / Publish Wholesale

CaoPaux

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Recovered from 7/7/11:

Today, 08:17 PM
James D. Macdonald
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[Self-publishing service] Accurance

Advertised by spam:

At Accurance, we want to do all we can to get your finished manuscript published
So, for a very limited time, we are offering our Whole Nine Yards Package:
-Mechanical Editing
-Interior Formatting
-Custom Cover Creation
-Print Publishing Account Set Up
-Print ISBN
-Proof Copy
-Global distribution to Amazon.com, BN.com, etc.

Everything you need to turn your manuscript into a published book
$649
(Comparable packages elsewhere cost thousands)

Have questions? That is exactly why I am here…
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Today, 08:29 PM
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Mechanical editing, eh? That sounds novel.
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Today, 08:43 PM
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Accurance? Sounds like a brand name for phentermine....
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Got this in my inbox this morning too! And I thought I was special . . .
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CaoPaux

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We lost a few posts, beginning with me posting the link ...

Ac'curance Group: http://www.accurance.com/

... and ever-so-helpfully observing how the site is a model of mechanical editing. :cool:
 

James D. Macdonald

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As they say themselves:

Accurance Group was the first in the industry to pioneer the business model of American owned, managed and operated seamlessly integrated onshore and off shore operations. Offering its customers the only solution provider partner in the industry that integrates all the sophistication of the highly competitive American business culture with the technical prowess and optimized pricing of our offshore operations. In a word, integrated 'right-shore'.

As I say, "What the heck?!?"
 

DreamWeaver

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US management, everything else outsourced to foreign shores?

"Right-shore" sounds just like the double-speak term "right-size", a euphemism for "downsize." Not a real good sign...but then, the jargonbabble wasn't a good sign to start, IMO.
 

amergina

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They're still spamming. Found this in the spam trap of the e-mail listed on my writing website (which is not a link, btw, but written out as "name at gmail dot com") :

Hi!

My name is Bill Earle and I would love to be your author partner at Accurance, Inc. For over a decade and almost 30,000 titles thereafter, we have consistently produced the highest quality copy editing, manuscript formatting, and custom cover design—at the fastest turnarounds and for the lowest prices in the world—less than half that of any other comparable company. How?

The answer is simple. We cut ourselves out as the middleman. For years, we supplied a large percentage of the interior and cover work for many others, who turned around and charged authors more than needed, of course. We took our business model, offered for years only to large publishers, and brought the savings directly to our new author friends—among whom I hope you will be one!

Our biggest problem is convincing authors and publishers that they pay much more than they need to anywhere else in the world for comparable services—but I know you simply have to try it to be convinced.

The bottom line for you is that rather than having to spend $1,500 - $2,500, just spend $299 to $999, and get much more than you ever expected. We invented it, we perfected it, and we deliver it…book after book…year after year.

And now we are doing it again with ebooks.

Read all about and purchase any of our packages right here.

Write to me, tell me what you are looking for, and ask me anything you want. I am ready and I am fast. Your very first question and answer will indicate just what customer service means to us…and what we know it means to you.

We know what you expect. Give us a chance to prove why we say we are dedicated to performing far beyond your expectations. We really are all this for far less, and it is just that simple.

Happy Holidays and thank you,


Bill Earle
your author partner
Accurance, Inc.
[Phone number snipped]
(I broke all the links they had in the e-mail. Don't need to drive traffic there)
 

Terie

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A four-figure advance?

This isn't really reasonable, since the company is a self-publishing service provider, and self-publishing service providers don't and shouldn't be expected to offer advances.

There is a demand for quality self-publishing services. The question here is whether this is a reputable company that offers good value for money, not whether the company is a commercial publisher.
 

amergina

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Ok, so this is creepy. It's probably because I did click through the links in my e-mail to see what they were linked to...

But it's still creeeeeepy.

Hi Ann,


Thank you so much for your interest in Accurance. We are working really hard to save authors thousands on print publishing and eBooks, and yet produce the highest quality. For eBooks, we provide a service level you can’t find anywhere else.

We also know that the only way to prove what we say is to get authors to try us. As always, if you aren’t satisfied, your money will be cheerfully refunded—although it has never happened.

If you still have questions or concerns, write to me today. You will find customer service at Accurance is not just a service, it’s an art—and when most others are abandoning it for cost, we simply believe it’s far too important to give up.

Thanks so much again for checking us out. I hope we get the chance to impress you.

Bill Earle
Your Author Partner
www. accurance.com
[Phone number snipped]
 

James D. Macdonald

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For eBooks, we provide a service level you can’t find anywhere else.
As Lewis Carroll put it:

'Another sandwich!' said the King.

'There's nothing but hay left now,' the Messenger said, peeping into the bag.

'Hay, then,' the King murmured in a faint whisper. Alice was glad to see that it revived him a good deal. 'There's nothing like eating hay when you're faint,' he remarked to her, as he munched away.

'I should think throwing cold water over you would be better,' Alice suggested: 'or some sal-volatile.'

'I didn't say there was nothing BETTER,' the King replied. 'I said there was nothing LIKE it.' Which Alice did not venture to deny.
 
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overfiend

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Editing and Accurance info plz

Hi
need your help with some feedback plz. I am thinking of giving my manuscript for editing to accurance. It is editing only and nothing else..so that I can submit a polished work to various publishers around. Do you recommend it.
thanks
 

FluffBunny

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Take a gander farther up-thread and read the previous entries. Skipping the part about managing the company from the US while "right-shoring" the actual work (which means the actual work is being done overseas), here's a couple of examples from their own webpage of their idea of proper grammar and/or English:

High-level of Customer Service and Responsiveness: Accurance is quick to respond to customer inquiries and problems, primarily those concerning our products and services

That last bit? "...primarily those concerning our products and services"? What else would they be receiving "customer inquiries and problems" about? Why even put that there?

Adherence to Ethical and Legal Standards: Accurance always seek to comply with existing legal and ethical standards on selling, advertising, and marketing. It maintains high level of integrity, honesty, and professionalism, constantly adhering to its Core Values in all its endeavors.

"Seek" should be "seeks" and I would certainly hope a company would seek to be behaving in a legal, if not ethical, manner. "It maintains high level" seems to be missing an "a" between high and level. If this is how they handle the grammar on their own webpage, why would you have any confidence that they would do a better job for you? Not to mention that "adherence" would be sticking to something as opposed to merely attempting or "seeking" to do so.

A copy of Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King is running $11.50 new on Amazon or you might find it through your local library or a used copy online. A copy of the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition is $41.36 new, ditto the above about libraries and used copies. Both are invaluable tools. Combine either or both of those with a critique group and/or beta readers and you can save yourself a large amount of money. The choice is, as always, up to you.
 

James D. Macdonald

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Actually, I don't recommend hiring a professional editor at all prior to submitting your work to commercial publishers.

Your usual mix of beta readers and your own editing should suffice. Publishers have editors on staff who are eager to work with you on accepted manuscripts.

What are you going to do if you hire these folks, get accepted somewhere, then get a revision letter? Try to hire that same editor again to do your revisions for you?

That's assuming that these fellows are capable of editing their way out of a wet paper bag to start with. Remember, they're spammers.
 

overfiend

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thanks for the honesty and replies so far but I have done what I can with my manuscript and I doubt buying any more books on editing will help. The manuscript needs new perspectives..new eyes if you will to give it that pro touch. I tried one beta reader so far and aside from the common mistakes, not much. I am thankful to the beta reader who helped me but I would say that the 5000 word free evaluation from accurance blew me away. It simply infused a lot of that professional touch as I said before into it . That is why I want to make sure I am not jumping into another thing I should not. I hate paying for it especially it is a big sum but I feel my manuscript has no chance without it.
Would love to try another few beta readers but seriously...I do not have the time to return the favor.
Can anyone suggest where I could find a few Beta readers who love to read and give feedback
thanks
 

LindaJeanne

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As they say themselves:

Accurance Group was the first in the industry to pioneer the business model of American owned, managed and operated seamlessly integrated onshore and off shore operations. Offering its customers the only solution provider partner in the industry that integrates all the sophistication of the highly competitive American business culture with the technical prowess and optimized pricing of our offshore operations. In a word, integrated 'right-shore'.

As I say, "What the heck?!?"

This reads like computer generated text

(On a lark, I tried to run it through An inauthentic paper detector, but it said that the sample was too short to tell if it was written by human or by a computer program.
 

FluffBunny

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Nah, it's just marketingspeak. Yet, it looks like it's geared to management at large companies rather than self-published authors.

I checked out a few random books from their cover gallery, and they're mostly self-published. There's nothing wrong in that, obviously, but I'm with Jim here. If you're looking to send your work to a commercial publisher, skip the edit and get some really good beta reads. A commercial publisher is very likely to ask for rewrites. This can happen whether or not you pay an outside editor.

If you're planning to self-publish, then you may (or may not) find an outside editor valuable. YMMV. Any editor worth their box of blue pencils will be happy to send you a list of references.
 

aliceshortcake

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I wanted to ask Accurance how much they'd charge for editing a 120,670 word manuscript, but couldn't find an e-mail address on their website. When I contacted them via Facebook I got the following reply from Publish Wholesale: (http://www.publishwholesale.com/index.php)

We only charge $2 per page and an average page of double-spaced manuscript is about 375 words. So, if we take your 120,670 words and divide by 375 we get 321 pages, so the cost with us would only be $642. Our competition at Authorhouse and Trafford, by the way, would charge $.029 per word (believe it or not, for your manuscript that would be $3499 for the exact same service!)...and Xlibra would charge $.01 per word (that would be $1206 for the exact same service!)

At least they admit that they're competing with vanity presses. But...'Xlibra'?

Here are the details on our service, where two editors from a large and professional staff that has served small, medium and large publishers for decades would be dedicated to your project...

It would be helpful to know who these editors are and which publishers they've worked for.

Professional Mechanical Editing concentrates on the mechanics of your manuscript, including correcting errors in spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and tense consistency.

Unfortunately, with virtually every other firm worldwide, it increases your publishing costs by $1000 to $3,000. That expense forces many authors to forego it and publish an inferior book.

I hope that 'virtually every other firm worldwide' refers to vanity presses, not to the commercial publishers who provide editing as part of their service (many novice writers don't seem to understand this).

As an accomplished author at PublishWholesale, you'll receive a much lower rate-an average of just $390 per edited manuscript - produced by editors who have decades of experience and are experts in our rigorous version of the rules of Chicago Manual of Style.

Publish Wholesale loves the phrase 'accomplished author': 'volume publishing for the accomplished author', 'if you sew stories (?!) faster than others you belong to a special class in need of our special attention for the accomplished author', 'accomplished authors, book after book, choose us over everyone else in the world'. My favourite:

Many can write a poetry collection or an amateur novel, but some authors - accomplished authors - write book after book because they have to - it is in their souls to write. We serve these special writers like no other firm worldwide can.
http://www.publishwholesale.com/index.php

Nice appeal to egotism there! I have to wonder why these accomplished authors aren't submitting their work to commercial publishers who provide editing as part of the service.

Anyway, back to the e-mail:

Our Mechanical Editing provides comprehensive manuscript review to ensure your draft's structural consistency and accuracy in 18 different editing categories. You can read details of what is provided at Mechanical Level Editing Specifications (please note: this is not substantive editing, such as recommending or changing style, changing content or content order for story clarity purposes, cross checking references, etc. We can do a substantive editing evaluation of your work, however, if you like).

Our Mechanical Editing is much more than proofreading (but, as you've just admitted, less than the content editing provided as a matter of course by commercial publishers); we provide comprehensive manuscript review to ensure your draft's structural consistency and accuracy in 18 different editing categories found at Mechanical Level Editing Specifications.

5,000-Word Money-Back Guarantee! At Publish Wholesale, we also edit the first 5,000 words of your manuscript if you wish, so you can see what Mechanical Editing is and isn't. After your approval, we then complete the editing of your entire manuscript. If for any reason you are not satisfied with the work, we'll return 100% of your money, no questions asked. Please note: never in the history of our company or parent company has an author ever asked for their money back on this! That should give you an idea of the quality of this service.

And remember, if you purchase a package that includes formatting of your interior, custom cover design, set up and publishing in print, and/or eBook conversion and epublishing, the cost of your editing is discounted even further - actually all of the above can be less cost with us than editing alone ($1206) alone...http://www.publishwholesale.com/services.php?tab=0&bar=2&acc=3

I hope you will place your trust and faith in us as your team. Please email me back or call me if you have any questions or confusion. I am your author partner at Publish Wholesale, and that's exactly why I'm here!

Thanks,
Bill Earle

More about PW's parent company Accurance:

In 1999, serial entrepreneur and industry pioneer Jon Fitch, realizing thousands of publishing companies across America needed a cost-effective resource for production services in order to compete with industry giants like Random House, Simon & Schuster, and others, opened Accurance. Four years after partnering with his first client, which saw Accurance™ doing 100% of their production for 25% as much cost as the client charged their author clients, that client became and remains the largest POD author services firm in the world. Since then, several of the largest providers in the industry have joined them to have most or all of their work done by Accurance.


In fact, if you have already published a book with a print-on-demand or self-publishing company, there is a very good chance Accurance did the production work.


That's why, for the first time, we're offering these same services, plus affordable and proven promotions, directly to authors at wholesale prices through Publish Wholesale.com.
http://publishwholesale.com/aboutus.php

I really don't think industry giants like Random House and Simon & Schuster worry about the POD competition.

HOLY CRAP! Publish Wholesale has two publishing packages - the Ready to Sell package for works that have already been edited, which will set you back $899 for ten softcovers, and the Whole Nine Yards, which costs a mere $1199 for ten softcovers.

:Jaw: :censored

For that price I'd expect my books to be bound in unicorn hide, and since they're published through Lulu and not in the Magical Kingdom of Booktopia I don't think that's likely. No wonder their glorified copy editing is so cheap.
 
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FluffBunny

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Publish Wholesale loves the phrase 'accomplished author': 'volume publishing for the accomplished author', 'if you sew stories (?!) faster than others you belong to a special class in need of our special attention for the accomplished author', 'accomplished authors, book after book, choose us over everyone else in the world'.

(bolding added) I prefer Smythe sewn to side sewn. That's liable to make me slower than others and, therefore, not "accomplished". *sad eyes*

Oh, James! They're just rounding up for...um...your (Oooh! That sounds good!) convenience. ;)
 
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aliceshortcake

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An average page of double-spaced manuscript is 250 words.

Thanks for pointing that out, Uncle Jim - I was so gobsmacked by the price of those softcovers I didn't notice the bad maths.

So the cost of editing that 120,670 word ms would in fact be $864.
 

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[Publishing Svcs] Publish Wholesale

I searched and did not find a thread on Publish Wholesale.

Just received an email from them this morning:

At Publish Wholesale, we believe that when you’ve finished your manuscript you don’t want to have to worry about trusting your publisher. We provide half the largest author services firms in the world. Now, you can skip the complicated and expensive process and get better results and superior attention at all times.​

We offer:

Ready-to-Sell Package (Manuscript Review, Custom Cover Design, Page Design, Print publishing account set up, Print ISBN, Proof Copy, and Global Distribution to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc.)

eReady-to-Sell Package (Manuscript Review, Custom Cover Design, Page Design, Print publishing account set up, Print ISBN, Proof copy, and Global distribution, E-book Creation and Distribution)

Whole Nine Yards (Mechanical editing, Interior formatting Custom Cover Design, Page Design, Print publishing account set up, Print ISBN, Proof copy, and Global distribution to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc.)

eWhole Nine Yards (Mechanical editing, Interior formatting Custom Cover Design, Page Design, Print publishing account set up, Print ISBN, Proof copy, and Global distribution, E-book Creation and Distribution)

Everything you need to be published… (which normally costs $2000 anywhere else in the world)​

is offered between $799 and $1299 Only, No Hidden Charges



Buy one of these world’s best offers in July, and we’ll give your book marketing a huge boost by giving you our Website Creation package - a $500 value - at absolutely no charge at all.

A warning though: we are offering this to a limited number of authors only until July 31st

so Inquire now.​


I'm sure everyone here can elaborate on the warning flags for anyone who might even consider going the vanity route.

Of course, I hope anyone diligent enough to check here would never, ever go vanity, regardless of the number of times agents or publishers reject a book they're querying. Write something new and try again - please don't waste your money on these "author services".
 
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Marian Perera

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Of course, I hope anyone diligent enough to check here would never, ever go vanity

A few people have. What I've never seen are those people coming back to say that, despite the warnings, they made a success of their vanity-printed book (unless "success" was redefined as selling a few copies to friends and family).
 

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Thanks for fixing the original post, CaoPaux. And yes, very true, Queen of Swords!
 

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[Publisher] Publish Wholesale

I did a forum search, but found nothing. I admit I may have done it wrong, and if I missed the thread about this, please delete/merge/etc.

I was recently approached by a woman with a company she calls Publish Wholesale, claims they're "the HONEST publishing company" (her words, not mine). All I've had from her so far is an invitation to talk about publishing. Has anyone run into these guys before? Anyone know anything? She mentioned a book I published a couple years ago, though that's probably just a ploy to say "See? I looked you up!"