ParaDon Books Publishing / Amazon Book Clubs

I've read that three times and am still struggling to understand it.

>hasn't been an author for a long period of time

has went back to his roots

[FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]Before you know it, you are showing concern for various people within the book, because the details and experiences are so ric[/FONT]h<


[FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]OMG, Abayomi's pathetic lack of knowledge re the English language was never MORE apparent! I couldn't stop cringing, the more I read, the worse (hard to believe) it got! There are new writers though who are buying this whole train wreck of a "publisher", grammatical errors and all!!![/FONT]

Yes, they are buying into it. I will feel sorry for them at some point, I promise. There's plenty of info out about Korede Abayomi. If new writers cannot be bothered to do their homework, they're just going to have to count this an expensive life-lesson. And I get to throw popcorn from the sidelines.

(Sorry, mods. I know that's unkind of me.)

I'm turning into Filigree. Even if no information about Abayomi was available on the internet it should be obvious from his poor English and laughable claims that ParaDon is a joke.

A "see inside the book" reveals a blatant disregard for correct use of commas, and the first page contains such gems as "Well get use too it" and "[character name redacted] jumped from her chair and walked out the door." Business people really shouldn't jump from chairs. . . .

aliceshortcake said:

Nicholas hasn't been an author for a long period of time, but that hasn't been displayed in his body of work. He entered the world of literature with a romance/drama, titled "White Collar Woman". This was the book that opened the door for two more books, each in its own genre. Now, Nicholas has went back to his roots. A Man's Appetite is the second fiction book by the up and coming author. In comparison, A Man's Appetite is Nicholas L. Maze at a higher level. Although White Collar Woman was a good read, A Man's Appetite is great! White Collar Woman built a story around one character, Marla Evans. With this book, there are numerous characters/lives and numerous relationships. Before you know it, you are showing concern for various people within the book, because the details and experiences are so rich. This created a new challenge, which Nicholas easily succeeded. What is left to be seen is how will Nicholas L. Maze be able to top his current work, A Man's Appetite.http://www.amazon.com/Mans-Appetite-...5TJYBEFHBD18PX

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I feel so much better about my own clumsy blurb-ish texts now.

And to his credit, the writer I mentioned a page back, who tweeted and posted about Paradon on his fb page and blog and then stated he had joined the Affiliate program has taken it all back. Removed his blog post and has added instead a warning about it on his fb page. He has also thanked folks for posting warnings to him and supplying him the link to Aliceshortcake's terrific history of a predator named Abayomi
So, some people are listening.
Saw your "review" Ravioli and Julie's on Paradon's fb page, well done. At least Paradon can't remove that

If you google "ParaDon Books", the first two results are the outfit's facebook and webpages. The third is a BBB listing (grade: F). The fourth is this thread. The fifth is a page where the blurb-text visible on Google refers to ParaDon as a "mega-spammer". The rest of the first page is unhelpful.

In most cases, I'm sympathetic to new authors not knowing what to look for when doing research, or being confused by contradictory information and oft-repeated myths. And if someone speaks English as a second language (or just has a poor grasp of grammar and usage themselves), they might not be warned of by the poor writing.

But given the first three non-official-ParaDon sites from simply googling "ParaDon Books"? It's hard not to slip into Filigree's Rule, at least for this publisher. It's hard to see how a writer could consider this a good idea, without some serious willful self-deception (which is something we've all been guilty of at some time or another, but still.)

Did Paradon edit Mr. Maze's book? I'm not going to go into the actual words or anything as I don't want to talk about the author (besides I'm about to self publish and ...he who casts the first stone and all that). However, the formatting sucks...what's with offset indents during the dialog. Did anyone else notice that? I just had the thought that maybe it was my computer's reader.

Has ParaDon really reissued anything?

First we were told that Richard Wold's Stan would be published on 19th January and could be yours for $3.99:

Available worldwide, soon.

The PDF and audio copy of this book will be immediately available for your downloads to start reading and listening to if you Pre-order the paperback version, to be delivered to your physical address.
https://paradonbooks.com/books/stan-the-awakening-by-richard-wold/

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A link on Indie Writers Support invites us to pre-order the book for $9.99.

Curiously, ParaDon is still using images of the novel's original cover and their Amazon links lead to this 2014 self-published version. There is nothing on the book's website to indicate that it has been republished by ParaDon:

http://stanthenovel.com/

According to Amazon, the Kindle editions of Nicholas Maze's trilogy are published by ParaDon - White Collar Woman has been assigned the impossible publication date of 1st April 2011 - but Look Inside shows the original versions published by Pearle Pages Publishing.

Strangest of all, yesterday Indie Writers Support sent an email claiming that yet another novel, described as 'a romantic sleuth story', was available for pre-order. This came as a surprise to the author:

I ended up not completing the process when I saw that they wanted Money. Something didn't feel quite right, so I'm glad I stopped.

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I've asked the author for more details of ParaDon's request for money.

The latest from Indie Writers Support:

279 Ways to Become a Bestseller. Apply for the year-long course below. (888) 852-4901.
Do you know that there are 279 ways (e-stores and short-cuts) for any writer to become a bestseller at any genre?
The independently successful authors could tell you the secrets, but many of them wouldn't, because they want to continue gaining from this knowledge that is unexposed to 99% of self-published authors.

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Nonsense. Publishing isn't a zero-sum game. And 279 is a weirdly specific number of ways to become a bestseller.

Think about it. How is James Patterson able to garner 90,000,000 downloads a year? Because his books are expertly marketed.

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WTF? I thought we were talking about self-published/indie authors. James Patterson is hugely successful for two reasons: he can write the sort of books millions of people want to read and he has the resources of a major publisher behind him.

Since it is our job to expose every knowledge within the publishing business, you can rest assure that we would share them with you, in full details.

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Why, why, WHY does poor English like this not act as a giant red flag to warn people that they're dealing with a scammer?

The bi-weekly courses would not be easy, but the task would be greatly beneficial. 279 exclusive tutorials in total, that may take a year to complete.
http://indiewritersupport.com/

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A Google search for '279 ways become bestseller' turned up Chris Guillebeau's 279 Days to Overnight Success: an Unconventional Journey to Full-Time Writing, a 79-page guide to blogging that's now available as a free pdf. I don't know if there's any connection between this and Abayomi's course, the author of which isn't named, and I don't feel inclined to pay IWS $150.00 to find out.

aliceshortcake said:

Why, why, WHY does poor English like this not act as a giant red flag to warn people that they're dealing with a scammer?

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Perhaps because the would-be authors have language skills that are at the same level?

James D. Macdonald said:

Perhaps because the would-be authors have language skills that are at the same level?

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God, Unk. there's a grim thought: a grammatically-challenged publisher seeking manuscripts from grammatically-challenged writers. Kind a literary circle jerk.

And PAraDon is back at it, spamming FB groups this morning under their Artis Reed and Bolade Omo Niaja IDs. They hit at least 15 groups. I posted this thread to the comments. Let's see what happens.

Does anyone have more recent experience with Indie Writers Support. I read the earlier posts about Paradon.

changemakers said:

Does anyone have more recent experience with Indie Writers Support. I read the earlier posts about Paradon.

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Here's some information:

https://davidgaughran.wordpress.com...s-text-from-my-book-to-sell-pirated-software/

https://www.indiesunlimited.com/2015/12/03/fouled-update-on-indie-writer-support/

And Korede Abayomi is at it again on the LinkedIn Book Publishing Professionals forum, touting ParaDon. His post has four Likes, but I can't imagine the likers have actually dealt with him. He's beginning to remind me of cockroaches. Once you have them, getting rid of them is a challenge.
______
Dennis

I have also seen someone named Celina M. (Celina Marka, I presume) spamming a publishing thread in a LinkedIn writer's group. ETA: she claims ParaDon books is "launching this summer," as if it were a brand new company.

She provides a link to this website. https://www.paradonbooks.com/

(It looks unfinished at first, but if you scroll down, there's a working menu.)