Raider Publishing / Purehaven Press

From the 'Why Raider' page (link in Alice's comment):

Unlike other publishers, we realize that a book won’t sell if it’s not produced with quality in mind. Our team of book cover designers will
never place a limit on how many designs they will come up with until you are satisfied with the final product.

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I can only imagine that first cover was designed to lure in Gillian Wotsit, the Awful Poo Lady.

If any USA-based Raider victims are reading this it might be worth their while to pass the evidence of the fake testimonials on to the Federal Trade Commission. Apparently they've cracked down on this sort of thing in recent years.

Oh dear!

ranga said:

Does anyone actually know someone who has published a book with Raiders. I would like to know. I am also very new at this game. And so far, from this thread, I have not seen any actual constructive criticism that has not been based on spelling??
I can’t spell! I am the first to admit that! However, you can be the most grammatically correct person in the world and still not have a bone of creativity in your body to write a book.
So....I would love to hear someone’s actual experience of Raider Publishing. I’m sure there are a lot of others out there who would too.
I would also like to hear if anyone can suggest good publishers that might consider a submission direct from the author and not through an agent. The agent thing just seems like yet another mine field. I had no idea that trying to get a book published can be such a minefield of scammers and dodgy dealers! Shame I didn’t find this site earlier!
K

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Ranga Ranga! You only have to read the posts here on this blog to know whatever there is to know about Raider Publishing International and Green Shore Publishing. I am one of Raider's victims - he raided my purse and my talent! Don't this its Adam Salviani with a 10-foot pole, please.

Sure should

aliceshortcake said:

If any USA-based Raider victims are reading this it might be worth their while to pass the evidence of the fake testimonials on to the Federal Trade Commission. Apparently they've cracked down on this sort of thing in recent years.

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Ah! If only the Raider victims will come forward and join in. I can count those who are actively trying to get Adam Salviani into a courtroom on the fingers of one of my hands.

I've just read the Amazon blurb for one of those non-ranking Raider books:

Brought together by the prophecy of the Which-Doctor...

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*FACEPALM*

It's also interesting to note that the most recent (2013) book mentioned on Raider's website was published through CreateSpace. I wonder if this indicates problems with printers as well as distributors?

Maybe they're trying to cash in on the popularity of the Who-Doctor?

Interestingly, the preface of one of those books (The Ultimate of Life) contains a warning against Raider Publishing International. The author, Mr Bhatt, refers to Adam Salviani as "a taint of the publishing field of the world & especially America".

I couldn't get that quote from the Amazon entry - in which version did you find it? Although I may have been bowled over by the wall-o-text and poor English in the 'preface'. And it's too painful to read again...

Never mind, I found it in the Kindle edition. Terrible writing aside, it's actually a poignant snapshot of the typical vanity victim.

Sorry. I should have provided more details. It's the section headed 'To the Authors & Publishers of the World'.

Mr Salviani is a "taint", certainly! And that mind-boggling preface is a classic example of why writers should do their homework before trying to find a publisher, not afterwards.

Many thanks to Unhappy for alerting me to the presence of more alleged testimonials on Raider's Facebook. Again, they're all so excited to be singing Raider's praises they forget to provide us with the all-important surname and book titles. One may be genuine, one is undoubtedly from Fiverr and I suspect the others are also from Fiverr but I just couldn't find them (after a while the site becomes so excruciatingly slow to load I couldn't devote any more time to the search. If anyone out there has better luck please post your discoveries!)

'James' is supposedly from the north of England but speaks with a strong Ulster accent. He's just had his first signing at Waterstones!


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Raider-Publishing-International/109809812521275

What a shame he didn't tell us the title of his book.

'Nikola' from Prague has published no less than THREE books with Raider:


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Raider-Publishing-International/109809812521275

Would it be too much trouble to ask for the titles? Yes, apparently, but she holds up three fingers to make it more convincing.

With laid-back New Yorker 'Chris' we're back on painfully familiar ground:


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Raider-Publishing-International/109809812521275

Here's 'Chris' in his natural habitat as 'extrainput':


http://www.fiverr.com/extrainput/do..._type=rating&funnel=2014080120110347019441660

He does "natural believable testimonials" and advertises "LEGIT PRODUCTS, NO SCAMS!" If you're lucky he may even throw in guest appearances by the dead spider, cockroach (?) and giant stick insect proudly displayed in boxes on his wall. Each to his own and all that, but I get a distinct Norman Bates vibe from this kid.

Next in the queue to praise Raider is Englishman Jeff Mason. At last - a Raider author with a surname, even though he doesn't use it on the video!


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Raider-Publishing-International/109809812521275

I couldn't find even one Raider book written by Jeff Mason, let alone the "several" he claims to have published with the company.

Finally, here's what may be the only genuine testimonial on Raider's Facebook or website. Meet 'Anil' from India:


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Raider-Publishing-International/109809812521275

Anil is a very common Indian name, but let's give Raider the benefit of the doubt. Could this be Postman Anil K Bali, whose book God's Mail to Mankind was published by Raider in 2010 and has an Amazon ranking of 5,661,466? Your guess is as good as mine.

aliceshortcake said:

I've just read the Amazon blurb for one of those non-ranking Raider books:

Brought together by the prophecy of the Which-Doctor...

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My eye is twitching now

I just had a look through F*v*rr, but I can't see those people. (Except for Invertebrate Chris up there*.) Jack, Thingo and Green Screen Clive keep popping up, though. I got through the whole page, then the screen froze and I had to restart everything. I felt much the same.

I think that site ought to come with the Nietzsche quote: And when you gaze long into an abyss F*v*err, the abyss F*v*rr also gazes into you.


*I think that third critter is a South American giant lantern bug. Yeah, I can recognise animals, but people have me stumped.

I think Invertebrate Chris could do a really convincing testimonial, if you were selling something of interest to young guys with computers in their bedrooms. And an interest in bugs.

aliceshortcake said:

Mr Salviani is a "taint", certainly! And that mind-boggling preface is a classic example of why writers should do their homework before trying to find a publisher, not afterwards.

Many thanks to Unhappy for alerting me to the presence of more alleged testimonials on Raider's Facebook. Again, they're all so excited to be singing Raider's praises they forget to provide us with the all-important surname and book titles. One may be genuine, one is undoubtedly from Fiverr and I suspect the others are also from Fiverr but I just couldn't find them (after a while the site becomes so excruciatingly slow to load I couldn't devote any more time to the search. If anyone out there has better luck please post your discoveries!)

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I also spent some hours on the fiverr site looking for Raider's testimonials and I also had a frozen screen, and not just once but several times.

Some of the people on fiverr who gave fake testimonials to Raider (Salviani) might by now have found another way of making a living and will therefore no longer be on the site.

I agree with you about Anil being genuine. He looks as if he was expecting a monster to jump from the video camera. Someone on the 'do not publish with raider' fb page recommended him (sarcastically) for an Oscar.

It's worth pointing out that Fiverr.com isn't the only source of fake testimonials. There's also this outfit:

All the testimonials services which you will get are guaranteed to be natural, realistic and 100% unique. They are delivered by talented and experienced professionals from all around the world. We have the biggest selection of actors available on the web. They really know what they are doing when they get in front of the camera.

http://www.buytestimonialservices.com/

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Their prices start at $25.

Others include:

http://buyvideotestimonials.net/

http://buy-testimonials.net/
Am I imagining things or is their spokeswoman 'kymmypops', the face of Green Shore Publishing? She also does gigs dressed as "a cute geek girl". ETA: No, I'm not! It's definitely her. "Imagine what a video testimonial can do for your business!" she says. To which I reply "It can get you into trouble if you're found using one." From their website:

How realistic are your videos?
Very realistic! Our actors sound just like a regular, average customer and do their best to make it sound as realistic as possible.

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This must be a multi-million dollar industry. At this point I think I can share the email I received from the Advertising Standards Authority regarding Adam Salviani's other company Green Shore Publishing (my bolding):

Green Shore Publishing have not responded and I will shortly be referring this matter for formal Investigation.

I believe you have also made further complaints to the ASA in relation to testimonials alleged to be false.

As paid-for testimonial videos through sites such as Fiverr.com are new territory for the ASA, we’ll be discussing the issue internally shortly.

We may decide to put the matter of Green Shore to the ASA Council as a “test case”, allow them to make a decision and set a precedent on the matter for the other complaints of this nature.

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I hope they go ahead with this. Fake testimonials seem to be spreading like cancer.

I'm not sure if this link is going to work, but Freelancer isn't hiding anything: Fake video testimonials. (I think they might need to sharpen up their search terms.)

Helix said:

I'm not sure if this link is going to work, but Freelancer isn't hiding anything: Fake video testimonials. (I think they might need to sharpen up their search terms.)

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I think you may be right!

More fascinating info from the Raider website:

Our top priority in terms of marketing is getting your book on as many shelves as possible. This can only be done if the sales terms that we offer global retailers are favorable. We offer a 50% trade discount on our titles to our retail partners. As this figure represents the profit margin for stores, this gives our books a better chance for success. On average other publishers offer discounts around ten percent. Below is a listing of the discount rates for other leading publishers, along with
an average sales ranking, provided by Amazon.com statistics. You can see that this approach does lead to higher sales. Here at Raider Publishing International we are serious about selling books.

Publisher Retail Discount
_________________________________________________________

Raider Publishing 50%
PublishAmerica 10-15%
iUniverse 15%
Authorhouse 5-15%
Harper Collins 5-40%
Penguin 40%
Random House 35-40%

***Statistics Provided By Ingram International Book Distribution

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Why doesn't Adam just tell us how many Raider books have been sold by (not through) bookstores? How many of them were on the shelves because authors had begged bookstore manages to stock a few copies they'd paid for themselves? Raider, PublishAmerica, iUniverse and AuthorHouse are all POD vanity presses. It's absurd to compare them to Harper Collins, Penguin and Random House.

Publisher Average Amazon Sales Ranking
_________________________________________________________

Raider Publishing 805,003
iUniverse 1,392,950
Authorhouse 2,954,839
PublishAmerica 4,885,444

***Statistics Provided By Amazon.com

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Ah...now Adam is only comparing Raider's average Amazon sales ranking to those of the other three vanity presses with whom he's published! Whatever happened to Harper Collins, Penguin and Random House? And how does any of this prove that Raider's approach "does lead to higher sales"? It's notoriously easy to make almost any book an Amazon bestseller, albeit very briefly, by arranging for a surprisingly small number of people to each buy a copy at the same time. And the reason why PublishAmerica has such a dismally low ranking is that it has a HUGE number of books that have sold few or no copies through Amazon, far more than Raider.

Since Raider doesn't have an online bookshop or catalogue the only way to browse the company's titles is through Amazon. I'm struck by the number of Raider authors who obviously aren't native English speakers, which is the only charitable explanation for blurbs like this:

[Redacted] is a haunting novel, hatched in a historically romantic setting. Along with a flavor of wisdom and sprinkles of thrill on top, it addresses the accent of the mutual cultural understanding phenomenon between humans originating from different cultures, linguistic heritage, religious views, skin color and ethnic backgrounds. The novel enunciates the competency of kindness the fundamental role of morals to be implemented even through gargantuan circumstances.

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Yes - this is actually printed on the back cover. Whatever happened to editing?

Our editors will comprehensively work on the text of your book in order to bring it up to market standards. They will then take the time to go over the book with you, one on one, to work out any issues they might have noticed. On the open market our editing service alone has been appraised at over three thousand dollars...

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Is Adam trying to say that a writer would have to pay an independent editor $3000 to get the quality of service provided by Raider? Y'know...the service a real publisher would provide for free?

We hope that this information will help you in your search for the publisher that is right for you and your book.
http://www.raiderpublishing.com/Why_Raider_.html

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I hope potential clients will be sufficiently well-informed about publishing to search elsewhere, but sadly many of them won't be.

ETA: the author of the book quoted above has since published a 20 page illustrated children's book with America Star (formerly PublishAmerica). Price: $24.57 on Amazon, reduced from a list price of $24.95. Filigree's law strikes again.

I don't believe for a second those are real statistics--he made them up.

- Victoria

I'm sorry to say that I'm almost innumerate, but how did Adam work out those "average Amazon sales rankings"? Did he begin by cherry-picking the best-selling Raider titles and worst-selling iUniverse/AuthorHouse/PublishAmerica titles? I can only think that he hopes most potential customers won't know the difference between Amazon rankings and actual numbers of books sold. I'm reminded of the poor woman on the old PA message board who thought she'd sold tens of thousands of copies when actual sales could probably have been counted on the fingers of one hand.

Sadly, I've seen that mistake made by newbies, right here on AW.

I just checked the ranks of the first 15 RPI books under 'new and popular'.

The most popular (the alien Jesus book) is ranked #396,908. Then there's a huge leap to the next one at #1,238,123. The third is #1,400,464.

The remaining dozen are ranked from #2,245,554 to #6,259,170. Most of then are in the mid-2,000,000s.

Very roughly (because Amazon shrouds their algorithms zealously), that translates to single digit (one through nine individual copies) sold through Amazon since publication. For anything around one million in rank. For books ranking four million and higher, that can effectively mean one or two copies sold since publication. Yeah, great bestsellers. Author-bought copies can probably account for most of those sales.

Even at the 300K to 400K range, that still means a rank comparable to low double digit sales per month, at best. With a sales rate that's probably unstable, and dropping quickly toward the millions. For a book ranked in the millions, a single sale can (briefly) lift it into the 300K range. Check again in a day, and you'll likely see that very book back down to 700K or thereabouts.

I only know this because I did a two-year forensic study of some other vanity publishers.

Here's the range (for what it's worth, i.e. nothing) for the first five of:

iUniverse: #27,520 -- 186,188

PA: #296,239 -- 670,398

Authorhouse: # 18,835 -- 69,086

(Incidentally, the highest-selling iUniverse book is by Mark Sircus and is on transdermal magnesium.)

Helix said:

(Incidentally, the highest-selling iUniverse book is by Mark Sircus and is on transdermal magnesium.)

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A brief reminder: Mark Sircus' promotional video can be seen on the Medical Opinion page of Amazing Oils: http://www.amazingoils.com.au/medical-opinion/

If you pop over to the Your Opinion page you can say hello to Fiverr.com's 'yoogle', who's posing as Brian Stacey but is better known to us as Green Screen Clive, successful Green Shore Publishing author:
http://www.amazingoils.com.au/testimonials/

It's a small world, isn't it?