The Latest From AngelaHoy.com

by Angela Hoy

This week, I’m sharing snippets of some of the worst book proposals we’ve ever received. I hope you get a giggle from them like we did. Yes, these are real!

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“The Complet Guide of How You Can Havethe most Happiest Family on Earth – my book is highly recommede for married couples.”

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“It is intresting, intriging and has a cute little twist.”

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“My book is a fresh idea. I have been told its original and there isnt any out there quit like it.”

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“A practical handbook fir families”

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This ebook is of exceptionally high quality and offerrs its readers a complete and unusually practical solution…”

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“This book will not be acceptable to 99% of people…”

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After all, hard work doesn’t necessarily get you anywhere in life. If anything, working hard is stupid, and theft seems a lot more intelligent.

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“This is a very offensive book, and the reader should not be warned of this in any way.”

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And finally, after rejecting their proposals, I received these lovely emails from the authors:

“I’m not a nice guy, because nice people get trampled on, and don’t say they don’t get trampled on, ’cause they do. (Yes, that’s a subtle insult to you.)”

“I think the one who is rude is you. I have tried my best to be diplomatic. I hope God forgive you of your sins……and cure you of the mental demons that are raging inside you!”

“You are a big over-reamed sloppy prostitute’s (bleep) who worships the (bleep) that rapes you.”

by Angela Hoy

In April, 2002, we published Tax Planning Strategies for the Self Employed by A.J. Cataldo. The process went quite quickly and A.J. was very pleased with the final product. We put the book up for sale and A.J. subsequently wrote articles during the tax season for our WritersWeekly.com readers.

So, we were stunned on Saturday when a reader notified us that, on the book’s Amazon.com page, there was a scathing review about the quality of the book, written by the author himself…but dated six months prior to the publication date. Huh?!

The complaint stated: “As the author, I cannot recommend my own book. Several illustrations and table were not reproduced as submitted or are simply missing, making these sections impossible to understand. The publisher failed to make corrections to the proofs…”

Since I knew there was nothing wrong with the book, and since the review was dated six months prior to the actual publication date, I immediately thought someone had sabotogued his book’s page on Amazon. I wrote to A.J., asking if he knew what was going on. And, he wrote back right away, explaining what must have happened.

Before being published by Booklocker.com, A.J.’s book was published by PublishAmerica. He stated they’re the company that “screwed up” his book and then refused to correct the defects. He added, “PublishAmerica offered to sell me the inventory, after they saw the Amazon.com statement I made, but why would I buy inventory that is not usable?” After his bad experience at PublishAmerica, A.J. went hunting for another POD publisher and ended up as part of the Booklocker.com family.

Unbeknownst to A.J., when Amazon removed the old version of his book from their site, they transferred the reviews on that page to the new edition’s page. We have no idea how long that review has been posted on the current version of his book’s Amazon page, but we have no doubt at all that it’s hurt his sales while it’s been there.

Amazon.com and the other big online bookstores don’t alert authors or publishers when unauthorized changes are made to their book pages. Not only can they make mistakes like this, but they also don’t notice reviews with profanity until someone complains about them, nor do they try to regulate anything if someone is sabotoging your page on their site. Basically, if you or your publisher doesn’t complain, the bad information will remain.

Be diligent about catching bad or incorrect public posts about your book by checking your book’s reviews on a regular basis.