From Writer Beware:
A couple of years ago I featured Waldorf Publishing in a post about a manuscript contest it was running, which was replete with red flags–not least of which is that Waldorf is a vanity publisher. At the time, it was charging a menu of fees, from which authors could pick and choose:
In 2019, Waldorf switched to a book purchase requirement: authors were required to buy 50 or 100 books, “to ensure us that Authors are participating in marketing and actively promoting their book”. Possibly it won’t surprise you to learn that there is nothing on Waldorf’s website or in its publicity materials to suggest that fees are involved.
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Recently the company has re-branded as Waldorf Publishing, Marketing and Public Relations–the marketing and PR being provided by Barbara Terry Public Relations Group, which promises MAXIMUM IMPACT without providing any examples to illustrate the claim (and no indication as to whether these new services entail extra cost for Waldorf authors). Ms. Terry has also started several spinoff businesses: Waldorf Bookstands LLC, which “provides books on spinner display stands to businesses all around the United States” and has no web presence other than a single mention on an investment website; Shaggy Pup, a distribution company focusing on “libraries and school curriculum” that also seems to be on pause (its Facebook page hasn’t been updated since January 2020, and clicking on its webpage URL produces a 403 Forbidden notice); and Waldorf Book Fairs, whose website is currently blank.
Other business ventures undertaken by Ms. Terry include Dream Coast Films, a production company she established in 2013 that doesn’t appear to have ever gotten off the ground, and Master Media Class, a short-lived media training course she co-founded in 2020 with two Waldorf authors.
Over the past couple of years, complaints trickling in from Waldorf authors and contractors suggest a company under stress: unfulfilled marketing promises (such as paying for Kirkus Indie reviews that were never delivered), books paid for and not received, under-reported sales, and unpaid royalties. You can see additional complaints in the comments thread on my original Waldorf post (Ms. Terry threatened at least two of the complainants with legal action) and in other places online.
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As for the services writers are being asked to buy, they are at best dubious, and at worst undeliverable. The shoddy quality of much of Waldorf’s design and formatting work is not a huge recommendation for the reformatting offer–plus, there’s no guarantee it would result in a file that was usable by another publisher or publishing platform, all of which have their own requirements and protocols.
Link to the rest at Writer Beware
PG expects that the regular visitors to TPV are knowledgeable and intelligent enough to avoid vanity publishers, but visitors may know people who aren’t as knowledgeable.
Setting aside the question of whether self-publishing on Amazon or elsewhere is a better idea for many authors, a real publisher won’t ask an author to pay for anything, including buying X number of books.
A real publisher pays the author, not the other way around. A real literary agent receives a percentage of the money a publisher pays an author and promptly forwards the rest to the author (if the author has failed to obtain a publishing contract including a “split checks” provision in the publishing contract, whereby the publisher pays the author 85% of the royalties owed and the publisher pays the agent 15% of the royalties owed as the agent’s commission. In PG’s undivided opinion, split checks is always the better way to go.).
Vanity publishers are always and everywhere a bad path for any author to take. If anyone who is not extremely wealthy has had a different outcome from a vanity publisher, PG is happy to hear about it via the Contact PG button at the top of TPV. (Since digital buttons don’t gather dust, one has no idea how often they’re used. However, PG can attest that no one has ever told him via any form of communication that they had a good experience with a vanity press. Since people who use vanity presses don’t tend to read any contract the press may provide them, there is generally nothing PG can threaten to help them get their money, or any significant portion of their money, back.
Since vanity publishers never identify themselves as such, one way to check an unknown publisher is to search for the publisher’s name on Amazon’s books section. If you find any books listed, check on the sales rank of those books. It will be a very, very large number, reflecting sales to the author’s mother.
If physical bookstores ever reopen, you can ask the manager whether he/she has ever purchased any books from the vanity press. If the manager says something like, “Who?” you’ll also have valuable information.
Thanks for posting, PG. I continue to share with my writing critique group and suggest they always run “publishing” offers by the group before they write that check. That said, there are a few hybrid publishers out there with legit offerings and requires a trained eye to sort them out.
As always, the sign of a vanity publisher is whether they get their money from the reader or the author.
There is a gradient, of course, ranging from direct author to reader sales, to the worst of the vanities who not only grab copyright (in part or completely) but also charge tbe author for the “privilege”.
By the above, we can tell where Waldorf falls, right?
(And here I thought Author Solutions was as scummy as scummy gets.)