Complaints about Ghostwriting Companies: Twenty Things You Need to Know

The complaints against ghostwriting companies are out there if you do your due diligence.  In fact, ghostwriting companies are far more vested in being vanity publishers and marketers.  Ghostwriting is a way for them to bring in customers for these other services.

If you don't believe me, Google the name of the company you've seen advertising online and type the words "scam" or "ripoff" after the company name.  After you recover from shock, ask yourself if you really want to give them your money.

Here are some of the things you'll learn about these companies.

1) Many subcontract writing to inexperienced writers across the country.

2) Many companies abandon customers after they get paid.

3) The owners and CEOs of most of these companies have no background in publishing.

4) The companies have been sued several times and have complaints lodged against them with the Better Business Bureau.

5) Some work is outsourced to other countries.

6) The sales reps, owners, and department heads at some companies are often lawyers, not people in the publishing industry.

7) The contracts at many companies are detailed, and if you read the fine print, you'll learn that you have no recourse for work that is not performed or just plain botched.

8) Complaints against these companies exist on dozens of sites online (and the best place to begin is the trustworthy "AbsoluteWrite WaterCooler")

9) The editing at many companies betrays a lack of basic knowledge of grammar and punctuation.

10) Marketing and promotion are usually package deals that offer to send your finished book to reviewers who are not interested in your genre or category of book.  The press releases they send out are almost always ineffective.

11) The claims that they have handled bestselling books are usually false or based on a different definition of "bestseller."

12) One company features pictures of book covers on their websites even though it never handled the books.

13) Most mainstream publishers, as well as most reputable literary agents, have never heard of these companies, which claim to be industry leaders.

14) Sales reps know little of the publishing industry and frequently tell potential customers things such as "Successful books are rarely longer than 200 pages anymore."  The statement is totally false.

15) To keep their costs down, many of these companies try to restrict the length of a book, sometimes to 200 to 225 pages long.  The truth is that books are as long as they need to be.

16) Offering you coffee mugs, T shirts, posters, postcards, and other "stuff" with your book's name will probably not result in sales for your books, but this is another part of the "package deal."

17) Prices for creating cover art and eBook conversion are extremely high.

18) Most companies deal in volume, meaning that one-on-one contact is often limited.

19) Ghostwriting and self-publishing are simply business models that some entrepreneurs found lucrative. when POD became popular.

20) Many companies prey on customers' lack of knowledge about the publishing industry.

When searching for a quality ghostwriter, it's better to hire an independent writer who has training, experience, credentials, and knowledge about the publishing industry.  Let the buyer beware.