Austin Macauley Publishers, Ltd. (formerly Austin & Macauley)

[Selkiegirl]

Old Hack, Ref: my previous comment about writers actually being paid royalties from AM, I had forgotten about thread 159, posted in January this year by a former AM employee, who, according to one of the AM team that writers only earn back 1% of the net profit, in other words, if someone has paid AM, say, £2000 to be published that means they'll be lucky if they earn back £20! Also poster 204, Wide Genre commenting about Remus House publishing their poetry for very little. Well in the late 1990's/early 2000's I had three poems and a short story published in poetry anthologies by Anchor Books/Forward Press for nothing, as long as I agreed to it, but if I wanted a copy of the book(s), which contained poems and short stories by other writers I would have to pay for them, but I didn't mind, in fact I was happy to do so, because, I just wanted to see my work and name in print, I wasn't after 'fame' or 'fortune' and wanted to give a copy to my family, just like everyone else who had contributed writings, although the book price was £15.99 for a hardback copy, if I bought, say three, I would get three for the price of two. Plus the quality of the paper, book cover, and type were of a good standard, as the publishers seemed to go out of their way to make the effort for their writers. The way I see it is, paying a little more than £30 for even just two books is neither here nor there in my opinion, and it's not going to break the bank, but paying thousands to a vanity publisher like AM, for very little, if anything in return is another matter entirely. Another previous comment of mine, saying that celebrities who get published and paid within months of announcing they're writing a book, when they'll likely just do a 'half-baked' job, and putting their name to it, with a ghost writer doing most of the work, whilst said celebrity takes all the credit, to boost their already inflated ego. Whereas 'ordinary' people who aren't famous and have been writing for years and actually can write get turned down by mainstream publishers and because they want to be published make the mistake of turning to a vanity publisher, one being AM, only to end up a lot worse off financially. One more point I forgot about regarding vanity publishers, including AM, is that they (conveniently) fail to mention the add-on costs that the writer has to pay, e.g. book promotion, etc... that's even after the writer had signed the contracted, and has handed over a large amount of money, that they cannot afford.

[Ganedia]

I sent my manuscript to them 8 weeks ago (I have previously published elsewhere) just got the following - an offer of a Publishing Contract - sounds great? Not so - they say 'whilst the book has great potential we would ask for a small contribution from you....." etc - the small contribution they want - $5000 AUS - STEER CLEAR OF THEM just another Vanity press !!!!

[EMaree]

$5,000 AUD = $3,750 USD = £3,000 GBP

Blimmin' eck! Definitely stay clear!

[Selkiegirl]

I was just looking at the Neon Books website titled, 'How To Identify A Vanity Publisher,' and one of the things it says is, 'it is in the interests of vanity publishers to cast a wide a net as possible, to publish anything.' Looking at AM's website, and under the title 'About Us,' says, 'Our winning policy is to cast a widely as possible in search of great books.' Says it all really.

[davidjgalloway]

Did we all note the new US address?

We will officially be opening our office in New York in January 2017. The address of our new office will be: Austin Macauley Publishers, 28th Floor, Trump Building, 40 Wall Street, New York, NY 10005, USA.

[Filigree]

Birds of a feather flock together. Not to be charitable, but many of Trump's supporters are in the perfect target markets for vanity publishers.

[Alcasgra]

Oh, goodness me. I'm not a US citizen, but that damn election has a severe impact on world economy. Even my president has warned us of turbulent times ahead. I am rarely political in my writing, but dammit! I seriously can't stand that... (I want to call him something totally crude so let's just leave it as ...).

[ctripp]

https://www.davincivirtual.com/loc/u...s/facility-677

I don't even know what this is, or if it's really "a thing" but when I googled the "trump building" address, this came up

Yes, the association between Trump and a Vanity Press is VERY apropos!

[Old Hack]

I might be wrong but I think their address in London's Docklands was a virtual office rather than their real office. If that's the case, chances are that their New York address is also a status address rather than a real one.

[Filigree]

I expected it to be such. Given Trump's propensity for licensing his name, I suspect a lot of status mail drops and virtual offices are in Trump Tower. Especially for anyone in vanity-publishing, gold schemes, real-estate, or multi-level marketing.

[davidjgalloway]

Well, Trump Tower and Trump Building are two different entities, though.

[Filigree]

My bad, just realized that while researching the address. Austin Macauley probably can't afford Trump Tower 40th Floor.

[davidjgalloway]

[authorwannabe]

Check out this comment on Google:

"A vanity publisher with no ties to London, New York or the publishing industry. After much research and sourcing current and previous employees through the wide capabilities of social networks, it's obvious the company only holds one address, a unit at Sedgeway Business Park in Ely, Cambridgeshire. None of the people working for them, or have worked for them in the past I can see have London addresses, they're all Cambridgeshire for reasons obvious the company is pile of crock.

If you delve in further to the addresses supplied at CGC-33-01 Canada Square, London and 28 Trump Building, Wall Street, they results are almost immediately condensed fully with virtual office spaces.

My cousin works in Canary Wharf, so I asked her to pop-in to 25 Canada Square for a look at the company listings; however, Austin Macauley has no name on these. The company which comes up on the floor numbers is MWB Business Exchange, said virtual office above.

Next time you consider submitting your manuscript to Austin Macauley Publisher, please bear in mind the £2,000+ we've seen them charge really isn't worth it. To quote, from a previous employee on a well used site, authors are paid net royalties from sales, not gross. If we put this into terms from available contract information and on a sale of 1 book priced at £10 through Gardners, the author will receive 0.80p for that sale. This works out as follows - Austin Macauley will distribute books through Gardners on small orders (via little demand) at a cost of 60% discount (leaving £4 royalties) and then pay the author 20% royalties of the net (£4), leaving them with 80p in their royalty checks.

Not quite the dream, I assume?

At no local store of Waterstones, WHSmith, etc. have heard of Austin Macauley and when they search for items, they come as special order. After querying them on how they're online and not in-stock (naive, I guess), the manager commented most of the website data is for books available in the market registered on Nielsens, via Gardners books and several other businesses for this. He continued, any company with a simple account can link their publications to sites to ensure the perceived store presence of stock.

I'll be continuing my concerns after reviewing a contract being forwarded by on of their previous 'clients'.

Picture - Business park of main operation, not a distribution warehouse as stated on the website."

[JulesJones]

Incidentally, I've been seeing a "writer, get published!" ad from Austin Macauley in the second banner ad slot at the top of the page for the last couple of weeks.

[Selkiegirl]

A few points about Austin Macauley


A: Post by Authorwannabe dated 5th January, titled, 'check out this comment on Google.' Before detailing Austin Macauley's practices. Yes, I had already done that, and find it outrageous that people are paying £2000 to be published only to earn back 80 pence in so-called 'Royalties.'

B: Austin Macauley established themselves as a 'traditional publisher' in 2006, yet within just 2 years people have been very dissatisfied with their 'services,' as well as their expensive fees they're charging a writer to publish their book, for very little in return. Just by looking at the complaints on this site alone, which on the first page stretch back to 2008. If so, why are they still in business, when they are scamming people? Why isn't enough being done to put them out of business?

C: It wouldn't surprise me if, before 2006, AM had already traded under another name, but due to the number of angry writers who had been duped, were closed down, either voluntary or involuntary.

D: Just before Christmas I read up about AM on Wikipedia, and there was a paragraph about them, saying they were a vanity press trading in the guise of a 'traditional publisher,' and were listed on the Writer's Beware Thumbs Down List. Yesterday I read about AM on Wikipedia, (just to see whether or not anything else had been added), which been updated in the last few days, and the negative, albeit accurate paragraph had been removed. All I can assume is AM must have found out and complained, not wanting their 'reputation' to be marred by criticism. Which, in my opinion, makes me think AM has a double-standard in the sense of it's perfectly acceptable to scam hopeful writers out of huge sums of money, yet are denying people the right to free speech, even though the contents of the paragraph were correct.

[Casey Karp]

Selkie, it's always interesting in looking at the history of changes to Wikipedia pages.

In the case of Austin Macauley, it appears that the "Controversy" section of the page was deleted by "Johndickens" on January 10. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php...ldid=759295712 )

As best I can tell, this is the only change Johndickens has ever made to a Wikipedia article. Food for thought, certainly.

But there's nothing preventing you or anyone else from reinstating the information and even supplying more information.

[Selkiegirl]

Earlier this evening, I checked my emails, and today a female employee from Austin Macauley emailed me, reminding me they hadn't heard from me since their last correspondence six months ago, (July), more or less saying she liked my book and was keen to get it published, and would send me another contract if I had lost the first one. Something that isn't going to happen, unless they plan to pay me an advance and royalties, (highly unlikely) should my book sell, quote Yog's Law, 'money flows towards the author.'

Harry Bingham who writes for Writers' Workshop gave AM the opportunity to answer questions about their business model. Three of his questions were: 'What percentage of your writers are 'Traditionally published?'
The second: 'If a writer pays, say, £2500 'joint venture,' how much do they earn back in royalties?'
The third: 'Have you threatened bloggers, journalists and other writers from speaking out?'
Unsurprisingly, AM refused to answer his questions, replying that they would have to seek advice from their lawyer before engaging in further correspondence, as they didn't want to breach confidentiality between them and their authors. Furthermore, Mr Bingham was threatened with legal action from AM, unless he removed any comments about the company from his website. If AM is a 'legitimate,' publisher as they claim to be, they should not have a problem, responding to a general inquiry by a member of the public, which was put to them in a polite and formal manner, neither personal or intrusive.

One final comment, where AM are asking people to contribute as much as £4000 (that was one of the fees I was asked to pay) for the 'joint venture,' 'hybrid' publishing contract, who in their right mind is going to sign the contract and hand over that amount of money without actually seeing an employee of AM in person and discussing the terms of the contract?

[ctripp]

One final comment, where AM are asking people to contribute as much as £4000 (that was one of the fees I was asked to pay) for the 'joint venture,' 'hybrid' publishing contract, who in their right mind is going to sign the contract and hand over that amount of money without actually seeing an employee of AM in person and discussing the terms of the contract?

Lots of people, they have been for years. Writers starting out don't know how publishing is suppose to work and so if they start their industry education with "Google", they are truly going to believe paying is just the way it's done... because those very few BIG publishers don't touch new writers, non-celebs.
AM says just what the customer wants to hear.

Austin Macauley’s winning policy is to cast our net as widely as possible in search of great books. At a time when publishers and literary agents are closing their doors even to authors with a proven track record, we continue to accept unsolicited work from both new and established writers.

And I see they have a splashy new site, it actually looks very good, they have spent some money on it (though it's slow function with the html showing for a second first... gotta fix that glitch) And really, when the layperson reads NEW YORK OFFICE... thats all it sometimes takes!

[wide-genre]

I might be wrong but I think their address in London's Docklands was a virtual office rather than their real office. If that's the case, chances are that their New York address is also a status address rather than a real one.

Here is your answer: http://www.instantoffices.com/en-us/...ce/trump-tower

[Simms]

I stumbled across this thread when researching a job advertised in my area (Cambridgeshire).

A publishing company called AMP is advertising for an Editorial Assistant in Ely. It seems pretty likely this is Austin Macauley and that the Ely office is still much more than a 'distribution centre' (as advised on their website).

The advert says:
'In addition to general administrative work, the post will involve speaking and writing to authors. There will also be considerable scope for reading and writing reports on authors’ manuscripts and learning the minutiae of publishing contracts.'

Needless to say, having read the comments on this forum I do not want to work for this company.

The advert is here: http://www.indeed.co.uk/m/viewjob?jk...ace3277f6b99df

[Maggie Maxwell]

Welcome to AW, HistoryBuff.

The thread you're looking for is right here. Long story short, AM is a Vanity Publisher and should be avoided at all costs.

[JJPhoto]

Any views on a publisher based in London by the name of Austin Macauley Publishers LTD? They are always open to fiction and memoir submissions and boast book publishing packages, but state that new authors may need to come up with a portion of publication costs up front. Anyone had any experience with them?

[Helix]

There's a long thread on them here: <snipped>

[MickRooney]

I stumbled across this thread when researching a job advertised in my area (Cambridgeshire).

A publishing company called AMP is advertising for an Editorial Assistant in Ely. It seems pretty likely this is Austin Macauley and that the Ely office is still much more than a 'distribution centre' (as advised on their website).

The advert says:
'In addition to general administrative work, the post will involve speaking and writing to authors. There will also be considerable scope for reading and writing reports on authors’ manuscripts and learning the minutiae of publishing contracts.'

Needless to say, having read the comments on this forum I do not want to work for this company.

The advert is here: http://www.indeed.co.uk/m/viewjob?jk...ace3277f6b99df

And you should not work for such a company. As with all forum threads on AW, it is worth looking thoroughly through the historical threads. There isn't much more spoken and reported on AM, Olympia and Pegasus. The MO for entrapping would-be employees looking for a publishing career and authors hasn't changed in more than 10 years. Avoid.