I know this thread is a few years old BUT...a local author published a book with Austin Macauley (even though I advised them not to and provided links to this exact thread and other informative links). I decided to be supportive and check it out since they seem like a lovely person. But I was shocked when EVERY SINGLE PAGE had an error on it. It's one thing to pay a ton of money for editing/cover/etc, but then it's mind boggling that this book reads like a first draft. Did anyone at Austin Macauley even read it? It makes me so angry. I understand why people are willing to go with vanity presses, because they want the packaged deal and don't want to do the run around of finding a cover designer and an editor, etc, but this book just proves they do NOTHING but take people's money. For example: the word too is used exclusively, whether it should be to or too, through the entire book. And that's just one of the very small things wrong with this book. I don't know if there are different packages and maybe this author passed on the editing option, but I just can't get over how poorly edited this book is and how it looks like not a single person proofread it. The plot also makes zero sense, but that's a whole other can of worms. At the very least AM should be doing basic line edits for the products they are producing.
I feel bad for the author. But they seem blissfully unaware and happy. This is actually their second or third book with AM, so they must already know they're never making their money back? I guess they don't care, they're rich, or have a rich relative supporting them? And I will admit there is a small part of me that is annoyed because this author loves to tell people they are traditionally published and they give writing advice on various social media outlets, but when I tried to have a polite conversation about AM they chose to just stick their head in the sand and refused to even come read this thread.
This whole thing just made me angry and I wanted to add on to this thread, in case there is anyone out there reading through the whole thing and needs even more reasons to not go with AM.