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Safa Publishing / Modern Publish (Safa Shaqsy)

ctripp

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The really crazy part of this tweet of her's is, in the article, beside the cover, she is speaking to how she offers Authors "professional editing and covers". I only hope none of this has cost him any money so far :(
 

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The poor guy. The book in question is listed with his title and name on the Modern Publish website, but it looks like she took the cover art, slapped her name and another title on it, and claimed it as her own book in the article she tweeted about. No wonder the author is confused.

Her response is also weird. He pointed out that the book had the same cover as his, and she was just like, "I hope you like it!!" Then didn't respond when he asked her point blank whether the two books were going to have the same cover, but she did favorite both of his tweets, so it's not that she hasn't seen it yet. The guy is being very diplomatic with the question, but I bet he's fuming.

Oddly, there's no mention of Desolated on her website or in her tweets. I honestly wonder if she slapped on her name and a different title onto his book, under a weird delusion that it was doing him a favor to get the cover into the magazine.

The little research I did to try to figure this out shows me that the publisher's website shop, which is really confusing, doesn't list a description of the book, only the cover. Good luck selling books without a description.
 

mrsmig

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You're crediting her with more scruples than I did. I figured she was trying to amp up her own creds for the article, so she just grabbed the cover art (which is eye-catching), put her own name and title on it, and forwarded the graphic to the magazine.

If I was that author, I'd be seriously questioning my association with her. If she'll bogart a cover design for her own purposes and doesn't see anything wrong with that, there's no telling what other shady business she practices.
 

ctripp

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You're crediting her with more scruples than I did. I figured she was trying to amp up her own creds for the article, so she just grabbed the cover art (which is eye-catching), put her own name and title on it, and forwarded the graphic to the magazine.

Sage, you ARE very kind because I too, like Donna, immediately thought the same. She also probably thought at the time, who the heck in the US will ever know what she's done... when it's published in a magazine in Oman. But then she forgets herself and tweets it where her 1 (or is it 2) Authors can see it. I think the radio silence from her to his second question was an "uh-oh" moment. I'm sure she's already privately emailed him with some ridiculous explanation. I don't imagine he was fuming but more completely confused and he'll believe what she tells him because he really want's to believe she is a publisher and not a self publishing Author :(
 

gckatz

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I was trying to figure out whether "Desolated" is a real book, and her bibliography is a mess. She has four books and a short story listed on Amazon, one of which is unavailable. Just one of her books is listed on Modern Publish, even though they were all self-published. Why isn't she releasing the rest of her own books through her own publishing house? And on Amazon, she actually has TWENTY titles to her name, all from the past three years--all but four of which have had their Amazon pages completely deleted and are totally unavailable. Why is she purging her own books?

It would not surprise me one bit if it turned out they were actually plagiarized and that's how she managed to turn out 7 books a year. More generously, maybe she threw up a bunch of Goodreads entries for books she hadn't actually written. Or maybe she churned out a bunch of drek, realized it was drek, and is now trying to erase it from existence. Either way, she obviously either doesn't know or doesn't care about the most basic publishing conventions and ethics.

Poor Robert, though. Not on Amazon, not on Goodreads, no description, no release date, no preorder link, no list price, literally nothing except that cover and "coming soon." And then his publisher steals his cover to put on a fake book to promote herself. I hope he finds away out of whatever contract he signed.

P.S. Can't help noticing that the publisher that was going to help diverse authors get published has bought one book, and it's by a white guy from Florida.
 

mrsmig

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The same guy that had his cover stolen and used is now saying the company is ghosting him.
https://twitter.com/Robt1066/status/1078373802403381248
Is it bad to say I don't feel too bad for him, because he didn't his research? He seems eager to be published and don't care about going through proper sources, which is a shame.

I think that's a bit judgmental. Most writers are eager to be published, and some are naive and too trusting. I do feel bad for him because he got suckered in by a fast talker's promises, and may not have realized there are resources like AW and Writer Beware to help writers make informed choices.
 

quianaa2001

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I think that's a bit judgmental. Most writers are eager to be published, and some are naive and too trusting. I do feel bad for him because he got suckered in by a fast talker's promises, and may not have realized there are resources like AW and Writer Beware to help writers make informed choices.

You're right. I guess I just hope he takes this as a lesson to look into thing first. It's just frustrating when I see people pulled in by scams when there are so many legit resources to publication out there. Research people please! Don't let your hard work go to waste!
 

Polenth

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I think that's a bit judgmental. Most writers are eager to be published, and some are naive and too trusting. I do feel bad for him because he got suckered in by a fast talker's promises, and may not have realized there are resources like AW and Writer Beware to help writers make informed choices.

That's exactly what I saw going down. He tweeted that his book was done. Safa Shaqsy jumped on it with a direct reply saying to send it to her. No one else responded with better advice. It's very easy to target someone new before they've found decent resources, made friends with other authors, or can otherwise find the help they need.

Which is why I wasn't giving Safa the benefit of the doubt right from the start, because seeing that go down, it's clear she was purposefully targeting people who were isolated.
 

ctripp

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I've been watching her and her "publishing" co since it appeared on AW (A bit obsessively I admit)
She was obviously looking for the most vulnerable people, especially when she decided trying to crowd fund to pub writers with mental health issues was a good way to pull in money.
She seemed to switch from Facebook and Twitter posts about publishing, to some kind of crazy string of ads for makeup, clothes? It's a mish-mash of weirdness and so long as Robert hasn't signed anything with her, he's lucky she has decided to just hid from him till he gives up on contacting her. He may have dodged a bullet, if there's no legal agreement between them.
There was always one other writer mentioned by her that she was apparently "publishing", a teenager but as far as google and social media is concerned, he doesn't exist. She may have just made him up to bring attention to herself and her books.
 

Polenth

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I've been watching her and her "publishing" co since it appeared on AW (A bit obsessively I admit)
She was obviously looking for the most vulnerable people, especially when she decided trying to crowd fund to pub writers with mental health issues was a good way to pull in money.
She seemed to switch from Facebook and Twitter posts about publishing, to some kind of crazy string of ads for makeup, clothes? It's a mish-mash of weirdness and so long as Robert hasn't signed anything with her, he's lucky she has decided to just hid from him till he gives up on contacting her. He may have dodged a bullet, if there's no legal agreement between them.
There was always one other writer mentioned by her that she was apparently "publishing", a teenager but as far as google and social media is concerned, he doesn't exist. She may have just made him up to bring attention to herself and her books.

She's using one of those services that posts tweets to fake making an account look active. Most likely she selected things like makeup as an interest, so it's selecting articles and pictures based on that. Those services fail, because they don't look remotely like a human posting, and often advertise their name somewhere in the tweets, but people still think it's a good idea.

The important thing is it means no one's there as it's an automated service. It doesn't look like anyone's been there for months.

I did respond to the ghosted author with some links and I've had some other Twitter likes based on it, so hopefully that's helped some people.
 

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She's using one of those services that posts tweets to fake making an account look active. Most likely she selected things like makeup as an interest, so it's selecting articles and pictures based on that. Those services fail, because they don't look remotely like a human posting, and often advertise their name somewhere in the tweets, but people still think it's a good idea.

The important thing is it means no one's there as it's an automated service. It doesn't look like anyone's been there for months.

Well, this makes sense for some other sketchy publishing folks I've seen this year (including the cover artist who took my money and ran). I wondered why they would keep posting (pointless) things when they were simultaneously hiding from bad behavior, but using a service makes a lot more sense than actually posting. Although, still, why bother to look like you're active?
 

ctripp

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She's using one of those services that posts tweets to fake making an account look active

Well thank you for that explanation, I had no idea there was such a thing, how insane, honestly think an inactive publisher site would look better then ads for pants and face cream but it gives you time for a clean getaway! I found one more Author yesterday, a woman back in Sept/October who announced her novel had been signed by Safa and still seems to be waiting patiently. Hopefully she finds Roberts tweets.
 

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The pinned post on her twitter leads to the Modern Publish Facebook page, which is confusingly called Bright Future Publishing.

The most recent post on there (by Bright Future Publishing? I guess it does say that this employee manages the FB page, but it's very confusing) says:
Dear friends,
I was working for several months for Modern Publish. Inter alia I managed this page.
Founder of Modern Publish Safa Shaqsy promised to pay me my salary on 23rd December (already three weeks later than it was supposed to be) She still didn´t do it. And now she is not responding to any any of my messages.
I would like to talk to you Safa but as long as you are ignoring me, my monologue in your messenger or email is kind of useless. So I hope to reach you this way. Maybe if your acts will be exposed publicly you will find some honesty in yourself and pay your debts.
It is very poor to break your promise on Christmas and now running away from your responsibilities.
Shame on you Safa. Karma will take care of it.
 
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VeryBigBeard

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Although, still, why bother to look like you're active?

I'd guess to give the appearance of still being "open".

A lot of times, these servives get used to fool mid-level marketing folks into spending more money on nothing. Bots see the posts even if no one else does, which nicely inflates the numbers for anyone who can't tell the difference between bots and real eyeballs (and given how proprietary some of these advertising tools are, that's often harder than you'd think).
 

ctripp

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I can’t believe this but she is back! She was tweeting under her own name, trying to find an Agent, attempting to sell her self pub books and had left being a Publisher behind her... I thought. But today I noticed she announced Modern Publish’s new website. And it’s as strange and confusing as before. It’s not going to last long of course but I’m sure a few writers will get taken, again, in the process.
 

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Maybe she deleted the tweet, because I don't see it.