So, I was looking on Craigslist, in the "Writing Gigs" section, and I saw the following ad:
AUTHORS/NEW WRITERS REQUESTED BY PUBLISHING COMPANYOur company HPC Books is searching for new writers to join our roster of published authors.
We welcome first time writers and published authors to submit basic preliminary outlines of their work.
All genres are considered with the exception of very explicit horror and adult themed material.
We especially welcome submissions from writers of mystery,
thriller, business and finance, self-help, historical fact and fiction, autobiographical genres and children's books.We also look at book ideas that can translate well to film adaptation and production. Please note we DO NOT accept film scripts, only books that can be adapted into film productions. Our company has affiliations with a film production company.
In responding please note the following strict instructions:
DO NOT send a complete outline/synopsis of your entire book by email.
DO NOT send a complete or unfinished manuscript by email.
We DO NOT accept stand alone film screenplays/scripts.
We strongly respect and value the confidentially of our writers and their work.
Please DO NOT contact our company directly at this time as we have a screening process set up to assist us in selecting new writers.
If you are interested in contacting our company please response to this listing with your basic contact information including a contact telephone number with email address and a very brief paragraph describing your book/manuscript concept or idea.
We will only be able to contact the writers we are interested in considering publishing.
Please allow a period of up to 2-6 weeks to be contacted from your initial email reply to us.
HPC Books has been in business for over 11 years and is based in Vermont.
Now here's what's sketchy about their ad. They did not provide a web URL for their company or contact information. You have to e-mail them via an anonymized Craigslist proxy. If you do a Google Search for the exact phrase "HPC Books" and require that pages with that phrase also contain the word Vermont, you get 5 results. Three of them are copies of their Craigslist ads (which they seem to be posting widely) and two are not related to them.
So this company claims to be in business for 11 years, but they have no web site they're willing to list, the poster hides his e-mail address, and a Google search for a page displaying both their company name and state turns up zilch.
This could be on the level, but the lack of information available about this company, both in their ad and on the web, makes it just seem extremely suspicious to me. So, HPC Books, would you like to open the kimono and clear the air on this suspicious behavior? Feel free to e-mail me an official response to this post, or just post a response in the comments section.
UPDATE 4/24: I e-mailed the HPC folks at the via the Craigslist proxy and let them know I was calling shennanigans on their ad. They have not provided an official response for publication, but they did write back to say that HPC is an abbreviation of their name and that they do not go by that abbreviation. They said that the covering-up of their identity was to prevent them from being overwhelmed with spam on their office e-mail system. They did not, however, tell me the name of their company.
Part of my reply... "If you leave things to the imagination of writers, what do you think they're going to imagine?"
Hopefully they'll provide an official response soon. For the time being, we still have to take their word for their legitimacy.
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no listing in yellowpages.com either i sent in a reply but now That you mention it it might be a scam
= scam unless notified otherwise
I completely agree that this is yet another scam of massive proportions and that anyone, anyone who is in their right mind would not communicate with this pap. I applaude the first responder for posting this and hope that the unsuspecting author will read this intently and NEVER respond to a CL posting like this.
Yeah, I just saw this on my own Craigslist. I was hopeful at first, but Google dashed those. At best they're a vanity company, or author mill, I'd wager.
Their ad has multiple grammar and punctuation errors. What credible agency would post something so poorly written? There also are no mentions of copyrighting for the author's protection. SCAM.
Also not listed with the better business bureau...I always check companies out at http://www.bbb.org before I worl with them. There is absolutely no record for HPC Books.
You make some good points. Thanks-- Jerry
This may be so they can steal your story line and/or concept for a screenplay they will write. You will get no credit or payment.
I agree with all you guys. I have been published by royalty-paying houses for years and make it my business to know the good from the bad from the ugly. This could be anything from some college student doing a thesis study (desperate authors) to, as someone suggests above, people looking for ideas. We writers are an especially gullible sort - after all, dreams are what we write. Here's my policy: I never show my work to anyone unless I KNOW they are in a position to make it better or pay me money for it. And, as far as I know, legit publishers do not go on CL looking for authors. Nor do agents. We work hard to create our projects - don't give anything away!
most likely a scam...I didn't want to believe it, but after reading all the responses and giving in to my suspicion, I decided to, grudgingly, accept the obvious reality:( I've been trying to find a literary agenct for my book idea. I have never had any work published and thought this was my golden opportunity. Turns out I was wrong:(....Back to the never-ending search...
Thanks everyone for the heads up!
Definitely a scam, they only "publisher" I could find on yellowpages.com in Vermont that had those initials was a graphic design company.
Jacqueline, since they claim they abbreviated their name for the Craigslist post and do business under their full name, not the abbreviation, their failure to turn up in a Yellowpages.com search is not necessarily cause for suspicion.
So I did a yellowpages.com search for "publishers" in Vermont and a Heritage Print & Copy turned up, but their web site doesn't work and it sounds like they're a printer, not a publisher. Going to Superpages and Google turned up more candidates. The likeliest candidate is The Historical Pages Company. It was founded in 1997, so the "been in business for over 11 years" fits (especially if their 12th anniversary is later in the year). It's in Vermont. It publishes fiction and non-fiction.
So, that would mean they're telling the truth. They're a small press, looking for new writers, decided to try posting to Craigslist, but were afraid that if they revealed their true identity, they'd get swamped through all channels. So they tried to anonymize themselves, but that just made people think they were pulling a scam. Of course, who hasn't seen a legit company make a blunder when it comes to venturing out onto the internet?
E-mailed them to see if my guess as to their identity is correct. We'll see.
Did you ever hear back from these folks?
No response either confirming or negating my detective work. I think this has been such a fiasco for them, they're trying to bury their heads in the sand.
Which indicates to me either they are not what they say they are or they are too small to take any sort of literary leaps for now. I mean, wouldn't a legit company at least try to respond to questions/concerns from the very writers they say they are looking for? My advice would be to sit back and wait. I still don't know of any agents or publishers who advertise on CL for clients/authors.