I’m in such deep s**t. I signed a publishing contract and was going to pay a large sum of money (which was going to be lent to me by someone) to the publishers to invest in them publishing my book. Then the bank didn’t want to accept the invoice, so I couldn’t pay them. Then I wanted to cancel the contract, but they said they already started work on my book, so I have to pay them a fee when cancelling it. But the money that was going to be lent to me was not lent to me anymore, so now I don’t have the money anymore. Now the publishers overseas are after me and I can’t pay them. Oh God it’s such a mess! My anxiety levels are playing up now. What on earth am I going to do?
Can you get funding somewhere else?
What about Go Fund Me?
get legal advice .
you can get it for free from ’ legal aid '.
then go from there.
but the fact you are sz/mentally ill…and they are an overseas company…should not be a problem
don’t stress…it will be fine.
also you can plead you were not in a fit state of mind when you signed the contract.
take care
I wouldn’t fret it. they shouldn’t have begun work on the book without payment. screw the cancelling fee…just write it off…it’s overseas and they can’t touch you !
Come on you guys, publishing a book should be a great adventure. I would just work on getting the funds. You have a voice and right to be heard. I personally would love to read your book.
i published my childrens book for free on kindle…
no one will ever read it…but at least i did it
take care
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Let them (pretend they are going to) sue you (though they won’t; suing people costs money). This is one the biggest rackets out there right now. (It has a name: “Vanity publishing.”)
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If they serve you, get an attorney. Or call one now, and ask him to send them a cease-and-desist letter.
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Don’t worry. These creeps will never show up in court. (They know they will lose, or even worse, wind up being indicted.) But they will send you dunn letters.
(This life is not my first rodeo.)
I doubt they would begin publication before receiving payment. It would be foolish on their part to invest in setup costs. They are likely trying to get you to pay a “cancellation fee” just to get money to “cover” what they haven’t really invested in.
Sounds like a scam.
Wish you luck op
does sound like a scam,
i was almost scammed the same way a long time ago.
I don’t know. Sounds awfully fishy to me man. Usually, as I understand legitimate publishing - YOU get paid for your work. Paying a publisher to publish is almost the same as publishing it yourself except it seems they have zero expectations of a return on their investment from actual sales or they wouldn’t be demanding money from you. They would be forwarding you money based on projected profits in sales. Otherwise what we have here is a scam. That is, since this B.S. company never expected to actually sell your book for a profit, they only expected to profit from the money YOU sent them. That’s the scam. I suggest you invite them to sue you. They’ll back off, with threats made to your credit rating of course. You may be well advised to contact the Better Business Bureau and other authorities concerned with this kind of fraud and implicate this particular company in a suit of your own. Welcome to the wild world of capitalism.
B.T.W. I truly doubt that any ink ever dried as they were “preparing” your book for publishing.
I’m not as sure about authors, but in the music business I will not sign a contract that asks me to pay the publisher. It’s the other way around. I get paid for the rights to the material based on projected sales in a percentage, and then I get paid royalties based on all kinds of other sales factors. The percentage may be small but when estimating total sales in a business plan, a company must make a reasonable offer, otherwise I don’t sign. The idea that my friend here actually paid a big publishing house for their costs seems ridiculous. What do they need the money for when it is they who will profit the most? I’m sorry, but this man was scammed, no doubt about it.
Business is ruthless. Its ugly. There are sharks.
P.S. I’ve never been signed as a musician because the band I was in was not approached with a sufficient offer. But we sure as hell would never pay a company to publish our music and then capitalize on it for themselves, or just run off with the money, laughing at us as they went. Right now my friend who has this problem is far better off being angry than afraid. Its a much stronger position, and as I see it, he’s got every right to be pissed.
No matter how intelligent or well educated a person is, he or she can still be deceived. That’s how crime works - temporarily, until the crooks are caught again, and again, and again, ad nauseam. It may be a comfort to my friend for me to say that back in the day. if my band saw a sweet deal on the table, we could have been fooled, even if we had a lawyer look at the contract first. The last thing I’ll give as a strong piece of business advice is this: Never let them take you alive. That is, don’t be anyone’s slave. Get out of this contract. They failed their legal duty to you at face value by leading you to believe that you would profit by their participation, when they had zero intention of participating in anything but your bank account.
Sincerely, Dragonfyerfingers, the bass player from hell.