Lock Publishing

[aliceshortcake]

Lock Publishing is the brainchild of John Lock, three of whose books are self-published through his company. If you suffer from epilepsy, motion sickness or a simple lack of tolerance for ugly websites you'd be well advised to approach this one with caution.

Lock Publishing
"Where Dreams Come True.."

...we believe everybody should have the opportunity of having their book/novel published and if your first submission is unsuccessful, we will offer FREE help and advice to enhance your manuscript and re-submit it - several times if necessary, but we want your work to have the best possible chance of succeeding in a very competetive market - and you retain the copyright of your work.
http://www.lockpublishing.com/index.html

I can keep my own copyright? Splendid! Let's find out more. This button looks interesting:

I Want to be a Pubished Author

Oh, dear. Let's press it anyway:

We will evaluate the work submitted by new authors, request changes if necessary and once accepted will offer you a No Cost Publishing contract and pay you probably the best percentage Royalties in the business! There would be No Charge for us to publish you on Kindle and Paperback. We will obtain the ISBN and ASIN numbers and publish your book worldwide on Amazon.
There is No Charge for publishing and we pay you 50% of all nett profit in Royalties!
..Everyone has a book in them! If you have written a manuscript on any genre, send in the first three chapters now for evaluation.

Royalties paid on net, Arbitrary Capitalization and rampant exclamation marks...this isn't looking promising.

Unless you are an established, successful author or a famous name, then you have very little chance of having your book published by a major publishing company who would have the marketing resources to vigorously promote your book.

Yes, because established, successful authors are created out of thin air by Biblios, god of books. They didn't have to start out as unknowns.

To ensure we only get new authors who genuinely want to SELL books and not just be satisfied with seeing their name in print, we charge a one off registration fee* of £50 ($75) per book BUT we deduct that from your first Royalty payments so your outlay is nothing.

If your POD book fails to set the literary world on fire (Lock publishes through CreateSpace) your income could also be nothing.

Still, at least LP provides editing. Or does it? I picked four of their books at random and had a sneak peek via LookInside. None of them had been edited to anything approaching a professional standard:

She now found some words, albeit blame and it was aimed John's way.

Despite his best efforts to keep tracking the Range Rover, without being seen, the softer sand on the route Brian had chosen, slowed down his progress and he could no longer see the tell-tale tyre tracks in the distance.

"If this ever gets out that I have done this to you bitch," He snarled, making her freeze and look up at him.

The study empty, The bathroom empty, The spare bedroom empty and when Ned arrived at his parent's room there was only one thing left to fill the void on the wooden floor; a lonely photograph.

But what's this?

Sorry Our Books are full at the moment but you can send in your sample manuscripts ready for our October/November intake
http://www.lockpublishing.com/index.html

I really, really wouldn't bother if I were you.

 

[Osulagh]

...someone please tell me this is a joke. As a Fluffy Puppy trained in the Art of Fluffiness, I cannot recommend anyone who values their eyeballs to visit that webpage as it causes cancer... of the eyeballs.

 

[aliceshortcake]

...someone please tell me this is a joke.

I should probably have warned people to have a pair of sunglasses handy. Sorry about that.

 

[Clairels]

"Our books are full at the moment."

Full of poor editing, it appears.

 

[CaoPaux]

M'kay, although subpages are still there (e.g., http://www.lockpublishing.com/newauthor.html) the home page (as of last month) gives the impression they've dropped publishing services for promotion.

ETA: Ah, but on the Help page, we find:

Lock Publishing want to help ALL authors get the best possible chance of producing and promoting their work. We would like to offer authors basic editing and proof reading services, help with self publishing, Reviews and lots more. The cost of any of these services can be very expensive but to make them more affordable, we would like to keep these costs at a minimum. We are looking for people to provide basic editing, proof reading and reviews in exchange for free promotional advertising on our sites. If you are interested in helping your fellow authors out, and receive FREE Book promotions in return, then please complete the brief details below and we will come back to you as soon as possible

Oy.

ETA: site gone, recent books by owner only.