Strategic Book Publishing & Rights Agency

buz

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Here.

Doesn't look good.

Googling "strategic book publishing scam" turns up some results as well...
 

Meems

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Has anyone here ever heard of an agency called STRATEGIC BOOK PUBLISHING & RIGHTS AGENCY?

I sent them a query letter months back and they recently replied me with acceptance, but I'd like to know how reliable they are.

So they didn't request the full manuscript but sent you an acceptance letter based on a query letter? I've never heard of a legitimate agent signing a client without even looking at their manuscript. That's all kinds of wrong.

What does the letter say? Is there a specific agent there that accepted you? Did they say anything about a contract or about calling and talking to you?
 

Cyia

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No matter the agent or agency, ALWAYS vet them by Googling [name] + SCAM before you send anything to them. It'll save you a lot of headaches down the line.
 

Terie

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It's one of the biggest scam agencies. It's under investigation by the Florida Attorney General. It's so big and bad that it doesn't just have a thread in the Bewares section of Absolute Write, there's an entire subforum.
 

Parametric

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My mother had what sounds like a hilarious trainwreck of an encounter today with a Strategic Book Publishing author at her local library where she volunteers. He did his absolute best to persuade her to buy his book on Amazon while ordering her around like a skivvy. You can imagine how well this combination went down with Mama Parametric, who is possessed of a death stare like none other. :D
 

victoriastrauss

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SBPRA has just issued a press release touting its "best selling" books of 2013.

Let's take a look, shall we? (To spare too much embarrassment to the authors, who are victims in this scheme, I'll link to their books but won't write out their names or titles.)

SBPRA's "number one selling book in 2013" was this book. It's available in paperback only, and as of this writing has an Amazon sales ranking of 1,408,946.

First runner up for beaucoup sales: this book. Amazon ranking: 728,667 for print, 992,252 for Kindle. This is especially sad, given the book's subject. To add insult to injury, the buy button on the author's shitty SBPRA-created "author website" (which she paid for) links to someone else's book.

Second runner up: this book. It's available on Kindle only, and has a sales ranking of 1,159,032.

In fourth place: this book, available in hardcover only, with a sales ranking of 2,650,837. This author's shitty SBPRA-created website has a buy button that links to Paypal.

There's more, but you get the picture.

If these books were SBPRA's top sellers for the year, either a bestseller for SBPRA sells around one copy annually, or these "most-purchased" books were purchased only by their authors. Or, maybe, SBPRA just picked these books out of a hat.

- Victoria
 
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James D. Macdonald

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Recall that Amazon numbers are meaningless.

Knowing Bobby, he didn't pick the titles out of a hat: he gave his victims a chance to be listed (for a small fee) and these are the poor slobs who ponied up.

Most of the reviews on those books are the typical self-published style: five star reviews from first-time/only-time reviewers clustered around a few dates. There's one three-star review, though, that includes this:

Another reason I decided not to give this book to my friend is that the production is not good quality. In fact, it's not really a book - it's more of a pamphlet; it's only 60 pages and it doesn't even have a title on the spine. The pages feel thin and cheap. The artwork is in black and white, and so poorly reproduced that you can barely make out the images.
 
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