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LitFire Publishing

aliceshortcake

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I've just come across another mysterious LitFire book, Randall Biehl's A Survey of the New Testament:

http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A_Survey_of_the_New_Testament.html?id=E6faoQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y

It was supposedly published on 10th October this year but I can find no other references to it.

Just in case you're wondering, Randall Biehl is a real person. He's also the author of A Survey of the Bible's Minor Prophets, published by Westbow in 2011.

Another book allegedly published by Litfire in 2010 is Confessions of a Substitute Teacher: Don't Work for PESG or Teach in Ypsilanti, Michigan by John Barr Jr:

http://books.google.co.uk/books/abo...tute_Teacher.html?id=hI3RoQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y

It was originally published by Xlibris. The following one-star Amazon reviews speak volumes about what may be lurking within the covers of largely unread self/vanity-pubbed books:

Nothing Much Here Except Demented Slander
By B. Martin on March 12, 2010

This self-published book is an invitation to a lawsuit, I am sure. Mr. Barr murders the English language as he slanders students and staff alike in a variety of school settings. Please, please do not waste your time or money on his demented ravings. He has strange tendencies to avenge a job dismissal that he was most certainly justified in receiving. You'll agree with me if you, too, spend even five minutes with this book. And then, like me, you will want your five minutes back!


Poor is an understatment
By The GV Kid on February 15, 2012

Disgusting how this author uses real names (of CHILDREN nonetheless). The book is the ranting of a person who, by his own testimony, was rightfully terminated from a job. His details on his daily routines demonstrate that it is in fact his lack of skills that were the problem, not all those people that he has libeled with this book.

It sounds like you've picked a winner here, LitFire!

ETA: I did a Google search for LitFire Publishing and found - beginning on page five - the author pages of another nine LitFire authors. Every one of their books had previously been vanity published by Trafford, Tate, Xlibris, Outskirts, Balboa and others, and there is nothing on Amazon to indicate that a new edition is available through LitFire. None of these author pages are linked to LitFire's own website, so goodness knows how anyone is supposed to find them.
 
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aliceshortcake

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Christopher Biggs' page has disappeared. Imagine my surprise to find (through Whoisology) that the admin contact for the site (Sam Francois at pcreativeworks) is also the contact for other sites promoting works by non-existent Litfire authors. Pcreativeworks seems to be situated in a shopping centre in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

Sam Francois has a few more sites. I'm assuming it's the same person, based on some of those links. But it might be that something very odd is going on here, because if you look at the Whoisology data for one of those book sites, you'll see that the email address is immoola. Immoola also happens to have been used by Tai Huynh of Norcross, Georgia (cached version, scroll down). I believe that Tai Huynh has appeared in the Google+ circles of Portia KC normanns, Chrystabelleianne and the crew.

ETA: There's this too. (Bearing in mind that Tai Huynh is not an uncommon name.)

I knew pcreativeworks sounded familiar. The website of LitFire's imaginary author Caroline D Greene is registered to Perpetual Creative Works LLC of 1625 Pleasant Hill Road, Duluth, GA 30096 (email adress [email protected]).

Perpetual Creative Works LLC is a Georgia Limited-Liability Company filed on October 2, 2012. The company's filing status is listed as Active/Compliance and its File Number is 12078710.

The Registered Agent on file for this company is Huynh, Tai Huu and is located at 5817 Dana Dr. Norcross, GA 30093. The company's principal address is 1625 Pleasant Hill Road # 180 Duluth, GA 30096.
http://www.bizapedia.com/ga/PERPETUAL-CREATIVE-WORKS-LLC.html

Tai Huynh has another company, FTW Promotions LLC:

Ftw Promotions, LLC is a New Mexico New Mexico Domestic Limited-Liability Company filed on February 16, 2010. The company's filing status is listed as Ex-Exempt and its File Number is 4266235.

The Registered Agent on file for this company is Tai Huynh and is located at 2003 Southern Blvd Se Ste 102 Rio Rancho, NM 87124. The company's mailing address is 5817 Dana Dr. Norcross, GA 30093.

The company has 1 principal on record. The principal is Tai Huynh.
http://www.bizapedia.com/nm/FTW-PROMOTIONS-LLC.html

FTW Promotions LLC is a small, fairly new public relations company in RIO RANCHO, New Mexico. It opened in 2010 and now has an estimated $76,000 in yearly revenue and approximately 1 employee.
http://listings.findthecompany.com/l/29927479/FTW-Promotions-LLC-in-RIO-RANCHO-NM

Well, that explains the Rio Rancho connection. And I see that Tai Huynh's page on the Dunwoody Toastmasters site has now been deleted, which is a shame as I would have liked to hear more about the outsourcing company he owns in Cebu.
 
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CNSensse

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Has anyone else been approached out of the blue by LitFire? They are based in Atlanta. I got a call from a woman who had read one of my novels on Book Country, and wanted me to sign on for their publicity/marketing packages (2000+ bucks for 3 months)--first red flag was she said she'd come to LitFire after leaving AuthourHouse (although she had no good words for AH) and second flag was, she immediately started getting all personal with me, asking me if I was married or had a girlfriend etc., giving me the impression she was interested in me personally. Now, in the back of my head I suspected it was merely a (sleazy) sales tool, to "woo" me... Anyway, I put her off and she and I kept talking off and on for 3 weeks or more, always hitting the package angle hard at the end of the call (which was always more personal than sales) until I finally said I was not going to sign. Now, I don't know if LitFire is a scam or not, but I wondered if anyone else has had any dealing with them? As I said, I DID NOT (and never intended to) sign with them. Comments?
I have been approached by them as well. I can't remember the guys name but the fact that he was obviously in a telemarketing boiler room, and hadn't even read the book he wanted to charge me to promote told me all I needed to know. NO THANKS!
 

aliceshortcake

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I'm so confused by all the connections here.

I know. It's turning into the Habsburg family tree, in which the same ancestor appears fourteen times and everyone is everyone else's cousin.

We need a whiteboard, a set of markers and a bottle of gin.

Oh, I've already got the gin. Give me a few more days and I can get started on the eggnog.
 

Chris P

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I'm so confused by all the connections here. We need a whiteboard, a set of markers and a bottle of gin.

You might need a whiteboard that goes into four or five dimensions.
 

JulieB

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FTW Promotions LLC is a small, fairly new public relations company in RIO RANCHO, New Mexico. It opened in 2010 and now has an estimated $76,000 in yearly revenue and approximately 1 employee.
http://listings.findthecompany.com/l...-RIO-RANCHO-NM

Just a small note of caution. I plugged a DBA of mine into that site. It has my information correct, but if I had the income they claim, I'd have all my bills paid off and money left over. Just sayin'.
 

aliceshortcake

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Just a small note of caution. I plugged a DBA of mine into that site. It has my information correct, but if I had the income they claim, I'd have all my bills paid off and money left over. Just sayin'.

I took the yearly revenue thing with a large pinch of salt, but it's interesting to see the Tai Huynh - pcreativeworks - LitFire author websites link confirmed.

For those of you struggling to keep score, Tai Hyunh's name and photo appear in Portia Peterson's Google Plus profile;K C Normanns/Ernestine Paredes claims, at least in her Skillpages profile, to live in Cebu.

Curiously, someone named Tai Huynh is the Secretary of Hong's Custom Tailor Inc of Norcross, Georgia. He's also the author of several online articles about the company, all of them written in the ESL style of LitFire's emails and pre-purge website:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Stand-Out-in-the-Crowd-With-Tailor-Made-Shirts&id=5458372
http://ezinearticles.com/?Spice-Up-Your-Looks-With-a-Custom-Made-Suit&id=5458401

Just to add to the confusion, earlier this year Perpetual Creative Works imported 268kg of brushes from art supplier Sinoart Shanghai Co Ltd:

https://www.importgenius.com/importers/perpetual-creative-works-llc

*goes in search of second bottle of gin*
 
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aliceshortcake

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Sam Francois has a few more sites. I'm assuming it's the same person, based on some of those links. But it might be that something very odd is going on here, because if you look at the Whoisology data for one of those book sites, you'll see that the email address is immoola. Immoola also happens to have been used by Tai Huynh of Norcross, Georgia (cached version, scroll down). I believe that Tai Huynh has appeared in the Google+ circles of Portia KC normanns, Chrystabelleianne and the crew.

I'm not sure if the following info ties up a loose end or adds to the confusion, but here goes:

Im Moola LLC is a Georgia Domestic Limited-Liability Company filed on September 1, 2009. The company's filing status is listed as Admin. Dissolved and its File Number is 09061796.

The Registered Agent on file for this company is Huynh, Qui Huu and is located at 5817 Dana Dr. Norcross, GA 30093. The company's principal address is 5817 Dana Dr. Norcross, GA 30093.
Company Information
Company Name: IM MOOLA LLC
File Number: 09061796
Filing State: Georgia (GA)
Filing Status: Admin. Dissolved
Filing Date: September 1, 2009
Company Age: 5 Years, 3 Months
Registered Agent:
Huynh, Qui Huu
5817 Dana Dr.
Norcross, GA 30093
Principal Address:
5817 Dana Dr.
Norcross, GA 30093
http://www.bizapedia.com/ga/IM-MOOLA-LLC.html

Im Moola LLC was dissolved in 2011 and I was unable to find out what sort of business it was, but a Google search revealed that Qui Huu Huynh is 31, lives in Norcross, and is related to 30-year-old Tai H Huynh (aka Bao Bao Huynh) and 54-year-old Ke H Huynh (the co-owner of Hong's Custom Tailor):
http://www.publicrecords360.com/georgia/people-search/huynh/tai

All of which is fascinating, but we're no nearer to discovering the connection between Tai Huynh's mysterious outsourcing company in Cebu and LitFire Publishing!
 
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BenPanced

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Can someone whiteboard all of this? My head hurts.................
It might look like Alice's chart in The L Word...

140514_original.jpg

 
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aliceshortcake

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LitFire now has a Bookstore page!

https://litfirepublishing.com/bookstore/

Of the six titles currently available one is by the non-existent Dominic Wolff, three were previously published by Abott Press and Xulon and two are Richard J Ward's books for children. There are no excerpts, and Amazon's Look Inside for Chad'tu still uses the poorly-edited Abbott Press edition. Two of LitFire's authors invested in the hardback option, so if you want copies of Chad'tu ($28.63) and The Poe Consequence ($30.78) you know where to go...
 
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victoriastrauss

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LitFire's latest press release.
LitFire has been in the business of digital book publishing since 2008. It wasn't until 2014 when the company ventured into the world of self-publishing. Today, LitFire offers a wide range of services poised to help indie authors produce high-quality books at very friendly prices.

<snip>

Media Contact: Jill Bennett, LitFire Publishing, 1(800) 511-9787, [email protected]
I called the phone number (which as far as I can tell doesn't appear anywhere on LitFire's website). I got one of those menu option recordings: "For sales, press 1. For service, press 2."

"1 for sales" produces a blast of cheery muzak, and then a hangup. "2 for service" produces more muzak, and then another recorded message: "The person at extension 8012 is unavailable. Please leave your message after the tone."

- Victoria
 

victoriastrauss

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More LitFire victims--these are all consumers of its "marketing" services:

Manny Dean Fernandez, WAKE UP, GOD'S TALKING TO YOU (West Bow Press)

Edmond P. DeRousse, THE COMMON MAN ADVENTURE SERIES (Mira Digital Publishing) He's also, sadly, a Tate victim.

Marcella Martyn, NEW AGES AND OTHER WONDERS (Balboa Press)

Holly Reese, RISING FROM THE ABYSS (Self-published, platform unknown)

Dean G. Van Wie, THE ABCs OF NON-VIOLENCE (Balboa Press)

J. Arthur Moore, JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS (Xlibris)

Dan Brannen, UNPACKIN' THE BAGGAGE OF LIFE (Balboa Press)

Robert Greenough, WONDERFUL WORLDS (Trafford)

Truus Geraets, LOVE IN ACTION (Trafford)

Alan R. Olmstead, REFLECTIVE POETRY FOR THE SPIRIT (WestBow Press)

There's more, but I got bored.

I'm thinking that LitFire's main intent is to sell its marketing services, rather than its publishing services (which bears out the reports I've received, all of which were about marketing solicitations). I wonder if posing as a publishing service isn't just a way of drawing in marketing clients. That might explain the fake books: they're window-dressing.

Also--of the ten authors above, eight are published by Author Solutions imprints. That just strengthens my hunch, based on this thread, my own research, and info I've received from an anonymous source, that LitFire is an Author Solutions clone established by ex-ASI Philippines call center employees who are using ASI client lists or other proprietary ASI information to identify and solicit victims. I think any apparent US connections are red herrings. This is all out of the ASI playbook: the fake names, the pretense of a US location, the hard-sell tactics.

- Victoria
 
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Chris P

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I'm trying to follow the money, here. With so few authors paying, how is this netting any profit for anyone? PublishAmerica, Tate, and the like make their money by convincing a lot of authors to buy their own books or other "services." Or is something like this so cheap to run that you only need to score a couple times to make it worth it?

EDIT: Bah! Cross posted with Victoria. LitFire seems to be scoring more often than I thought.
 
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PVish

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Of the authors that Victoria listed above, all the websites seem to be made from similar templates—and only two have dark text on light backgrounds. What's with all the hard-to-read white text on dark backgrounds? And, of course, there's a "copyright 2014 © litfire" at the bottom of each.

I'm sure the authors could have gotten a much better website for a less expensive price.
 
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victoriastrauss

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That's another leaf from the ASI playbook--offer marketing services that are cheap to provide and can be sold at a huge markup. LitFire comes up with a basic Wordpress template that can be "customized" with a few different colors and other options (do you want the wooden shelf or the drop shadow under your book cover graphic?), into which it pastes information and graphics provided by the authors. It probably takes about 15 minutes to create one of those websites. And LitFire's cheapest marketing plan costs $2,499.

Among other crap, the plan promises social media presence with weekly updates. But several of the websites have no social media links at all, and for those that do, either the links don't work or lead to empty Facebook pages and Twitter profiles. The plan also promises a "news release service," but I don't see any sign of that either.

I think it won't be long before I start hearing from some pretty unhappy people.

- Victoria