[Publisher] Puppy Dogs & Ice Cream, Inc.

[Filigree]

This Christian Children's publisher is based in San Diego but the mailing contacts are through Englewood CO.

www.puppydogsandicecream.com

They're apparently claiming other publishers' work on their catalog (Eric Carle is published by Penguin!)

They came to my attention through this fake 'testimonial':

https://main.puppydogsandicecream.c...mw&lptoken=15d9895a719656605504&s1=ay&s3=[ON]

Both the 'grandmother' and 'grandson' are stock photos. The 'Cross vs Coronavirus' header is epic. The Church image seems to come from a pastor's website (DesiringGoddotOrg)

 

[Maryn]

Wow. Have people no shame?

 

[Filigree]

Er, no, obviously not. I have a special hatred of publishers who prey on religious folks.

 

[Maryn]

As do I. Taking faith in common and turning it into trust, then running your business like thieving scum, is just a wretched thing to do to someone.

I really wish people would do their damned due diligence. It seems as if people submitting to faith-identifying "publishers" are especially gullible.

Maryn, faithless but not gullible

 

[frimble3]

It's called 'Affinity Fraud'. Religious, ethnic, age group, political, whatever group you've got, someone claiming to be 'one of you' and therefore trustworthy, is out to scam your money. Religious affinity fraud is common, because you think that the fraudster believes as you do, and is therefore playing by the same rules.

I see that they are purporting to publish a 'Peanuts' book by Charles M. Schultz, and one by the Berenstains. I assume that Simon & Schuster and Random House would be after them if PD&ICP claimed to have published them, so I'm guessing that they've padded their 'books for sale' lists with other publishers' works, and are hoping that people are misled. Anyone complains, they can yell "Oopsy!" and claim that they were acting purely as a bookseller for people's convenience.

Oh, and their colouring books appear to be their regular books, only without the (wait for it...) colour.

 

[frimble3]

And, as for Grandma, wait 'til that poorly socialized little brat gets to school, and finds out it's not about amusing him for hours every day. Hah!
She and her children seem to have done a poor job of explaining 'life' to him - or, if the others are fine, maybe he needs some other explanation, but his behaviour doesn't really suggest 'boredom', or thinking that 'Jesus is fake'. I hope the whole thing is just a lying testimonial.

 

[ctripp]

This is bizarre!
Was reading their blog, by Jessica Palmer and recognized a well known Canadian Author/Illustrator's book being featured (Nov 20, 2019) "The Most Magnificent Thing". It, like many of Ashley Spires other PB's, is published by KidsCan Press. So just to verify that the blogger/"publisher", wasn't just commenting on a great book she enjoyed but is not published by them, I clicked on the buy now button and yep, they profess to be selling it (and making it look like they published it)

 

[Filigree]

It's bizarre. There's no real 'About' page, but I'd guess 'Jessica Palmer' is a founder-owner-author. And from the structure & syntax, (she?) is the author of the Concerned Grandmother testimonial. I'm not wasting more time on a deep dive. I just wanted to get a listing up on AW for potential submitters.

 

[Filigree]

Added: I did a little dive. Their submission page forces one to submit a phone number. I suspect that would lead to a vanity publishing offer.

The contact info leads to www.shipoffersDOTcom, a marketing and mailing service.

 

[frimble3]

So, not very 'Christian' of them, is it? Lying to a trusting audience.

 

[Maryn]

(I knew Filigree wouldn't be able to resist at least a little dive!)

 

[Sonya Heaney]

Added: I did a little dive. Their submission page forces one to submit a phone number. I suspect that would lead to a vanity publishing offer.

The contact info leads to www.shipoffersDOTcom, a marketing and mailing service.

Out of interest - as they've started turning up in my sponsored Facebook ads - I went to their submissions thing. They rejected my phone number as fake(?!), but thank god for that, because I didn't need scammers phoning me.

Their Facebook ad has several major grammatical errors. They have no idea how apostrophes work. (Edit: or commas!) They claim that other publishers don't pay authors for "years and years" after their book comes out. And they literally finish the ad with "Make your dreams comes true".

And - good god - all the comments under the ad are people who got excited and plan to submit to them.

 

[Sonya Heaney]

I should add that I keep commenting on these weird scammer site threads because I've been asked to give a couple of talks about publishing and publishing scams in a few weeks, and I'm doing research and trying to figure out how to tell the truth without destroying people's egos.

 

[Ravioli]

Oh shit, I just completed their little form... I should go to sleep, my brain is obviously done for today. Thank God for this forum.

 

[Rc2147]

I filled the form out just to see what happened - got as far as "submit and we'll tell you the next steps" and stopped. Glad to find this forum!