BAM Publishing

Since I used to belong to Books-A-Millions's frequent buyer club, I received a lovely e-mail from them last Friday (February 3) concerning their brand-new publishing arm.

First of all, the links within the e-mail I received didn't work. I had to view the e-mail within a browser to access the links. Those took me to a page that had, well, a zillion red flags.

- FREE guidebook (You can't even see the TOS online.)

- To obtain the guidebook, you must give them your name, e-mail address, and phone number (How much do you want to bet that information is sold to a third party?)

- They want you to write on their website. (Um, why? I write where and when it's possible. In fact, I picked up my son at school one day, forgot my phone, and wrote an entire scene on the back of a grocery list.)

- They have a FREE Introductory 15-minute call you can schedule! (That doesn't go to a toll-free line.)

- BAM Publish has "all-inclusive packages"! (When they won't tell you the price, it means you probably can't afford it.)

- When I tried to go to BAM Publish directly, I got a 404 Error for a company called Infinity Publishing. (So Books-A-Million isn't running this program. They're just taking a cut for recruiting naïve writers.)

- When I tried to google Infinity Publishing, I landed on a porn site from clicking on its main company URL. (For the record, I have nothing against porn, but I prefer it AFTER I've had my second cup of caffeine of the morning.)

- So I tried looking up Infinity Publishing on complaint sites, and it has a nice, solid "F" from the Better Business Bureau.


All the world needs is another #(&$&(@*# vanity publisher, because that's exactly who Books-A-Million has gotten into bed with. Personally, I'm staying away from BAM Publishing.


EDIT TO ADD: After I'd drafted the post above over the weekend, I discovered an article on Indies Unlimited on Monday. The author Lynne Cantwell had much of the same to say about this scam.

Lynne took one for the team by sending in her private info to find out about BAM Publish's (aka Infinity Publishing) prices. There's a fee of $59 on top of the cost of your print books. The really sick part was the $349 for global distribution of your print and e-books. And the prices skyrocket from there.

All I can say is stay far away from these BAM Publish/Infinity Publishing folks! Very, very far away!