Anyone familiar with "Powerful English"?

[PennLady]

I received an email from Powerful English today, asking about publishing with them. It was sent via my profile page. The email was from "powerfulfilmsandbooks.com". I looked up both Powerful English and the email, and both places seem legit. What concerns me is I see a lot of offers of copy editing and such, and I fear it's a scam to get you to pay for all of that and then not much happens.

I could be wrong, but I figure it's best to be careful.

Anyway -- anyone heard from or of them? Know anyone who's worked with them? They offer testimonials and even to put you in contact with authors who have worked with them. I'm very leery about receiving unsolicited stuff like this. I'm gong to investigate more but was curious about any other info people might have.

http://www.powerfulenglish.com

http://www.powerfulfilmsandbooks.com

Content of the email:

Dear Pennlady,

I am very impressed by your erotica. You have already published some work for the Amazon Kindle and the other platforms, and was curious about the royalties that you're getting. I run a boutique publishing house, with a new erotic imprint. I am looking for writers to build a slate of novellas & story collections around.

We are not Penguin. We are a very small company, with a carefully selected roster of authors. Despite our size, we are pros, some of the highest rated copywriters and ghostwriters in the world, and you won't find a more experienced, harder working team in the industry. We have a ton of references. Above all, we are also writers like you, and our aim is to nurture the very best talents.

Could we talk perhaps?

Alex
Powerful English

 

[estragon]

SA Penn Lady, this looks awfully like a similar solicitation that was the subject of a thread maybe a month ago. I don't remember the upshot of that one exactly, but I don't think it was favorable.

 

[sr71plt]

The first URL you give goes to something entirely unrelated.

The second one reveals a self-publishing packager that specializes in teasing with the possibility that you can win a free publish (fat chance). It mealymouths about what they are "offering" in their website language.

The letter looks fine, but if I answered it, I would ask up front if they are an all-expenses-covered-by-them (including promotion and copyediting) publisher and watch for the "sliding off the flat 'yes'" response (if they answer at all).

 

[sunandshadow]

absolutewrite's forum has a subforum dedicated to bewares and publishing scams, I'd look this company up there.

 

[sr71plt]

Absolutewrite feeds the watchdog service Preditors & Editors (http://pred-ed.com), which is also a good place to check. Do be careful, though; neither of these are run by trained consumer advocate folks and they (along with Writer Beware, also coming out of the Absolutewrite stable--all of them come out of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America organization, which means they are a little hazy on any genres other than that) have been known to flip off into vendettas and make false claims just to get what they want (and have been successfully sued for it). So just use them as another piece of evidence.

P&E doesn't list this publishing service under the names you give or the one it gives itself at that second URL: Vittoriosa.

 

[Darkniciad]

At least they went to a little more trouble than the one who emailed me today.

Hi Dark,

Danica is outstanding, are you interested in selling me the rights to a full manuscript? Email me if interested - (email removed)

Yeah, I won't be answering that one. Nobody jumps on a 500k+ word manuscript from an amateur porn writer out of the blue.

And there aint a way in hell anybody is getting exclusive rights to Danica or anything that she's in for any amount of money in the world

 

[sr71plt]

Hey, we have folks receiving $5,000 anonymous checks for not winning the Survivors Contest rolleyes. If you hadn't included the second paragraph, I was going to suggest that you name a stiff price and open a PayPal account if you didn't already have one.

 

[Darkniciad]

Ugh... No paypal. Just one of the many things above and beyond my work not being good enough to charge people real money for that keeps me from ever considering publishing for pay.

 

[TxRad]

At least they went to a little more trouble than the one who emailed me today.



Yeah, I won't be answering that one. Nobody jumps on a 500k+ word manuscript from an amateur porn writer out of the blue.

And there aint a way in hell anybody is getting exclusive rights to Danica or anything that she's in for any amount of money in the world

I've gotten that same e-mail on a couple of stories.

PennLady, I got the same e-mail and from what I've seen so far, I'd say scam.

 

[MattblackUK]

Scam or

An amateur outfit. Either way... stick with what you are doing.

 

[PennLady]

Thanks, everybody. I may investigate a little more, but I think I'll steer clear. I always look a little askance at any of these unsolicited offers, and the websites put me off as well.

 

[PennLady]

Found this list of "thumbs down" publishers via a search today.

http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2007/02/happy-valentines-day-from-writer-beware.html

ETA: Reader beware here, too. Just passing along something I found, can't vouch for accuracy.

 

[sr71plt]

Probably right in most of this, but Ann Crispin, IMO, is one who has no training or disposition or sense of responsibility to be playing consumer advocate. Her real connection to the publishing world is quite limited (to writing Star Trek fanfic) and she's a hatchet lady without being all that careful about swinging her hatchet.

 

[PennLady]

Probably right in most of this, but Ann Crispin, IMO, is one who has no training or disposition or sense of responsibility to be playing consumer advocate. Her real connection to the publishing world is quite limited (to writing Star Trek fanfic) and she's a hatchet lady without being all that careful about swinging her hatchet.

Thanks. I should have added a caveat emptor type thing, and have added it now.

Been having some interesting experiences with the sites. My beta reader couldn't get to "powerfulenglish.com;" instead he was redirected to a site called "Amercia.com." I had the same experience, even though it worked for me yesterday, although I can get to powerfulenglish.co.uk.

My beta reader (who's in Canada, not sure if that's affecting things) also couldn't get to the other site, powerfulfilmsandbooks.com. I could, but only after googling it. When I tried typing it in again, I got a page saying the index hadn't been updated. Anyway, none of this makes me any more apt to use them.

I haven't been able to find much on them specifically, no independent comments or reviews, although I'm not always good at searching for such things.

 

[sr71plt]

Been having some interesting experiences with the sites. My beta reader couldn't get to "powerfulenglish.com;" instead he was redirected to a site called "Amercia.com." I had the same experience, even though it worked for me yesterday, although I can get to powerfulenglish.co.uk.

That's where I was directed too.