Exposing predators #1: New York Book Publishers

The first in a series because I hate scammers

I believe in taking care of your community. I believe in shining a light on the work of others as much as you can. I belief in protecting new writers from fucking scammers. The first two are relatively easy. I review, blurb, write intros, talk about books on social media, etc. The last one is tricky. First, it’s tricky because it requires a bit of time. You know, time I should be using for all those things I just mentioned and, of course, time that I should be using to write. However, from time to time, I will come across some assholes that need to be exposed. Up until now, I mostly did that on social media, but that space is always limited, so I decided to bring that here and turn it into a series because fuck scammers.

NY Book Publishers, welcome to the show!

Backstory time! I saw an ad. Looked fishy as fuck because it had an image with a bunch of books by folks like Marlon James and a few others. Listen, I’m not good at a lot of stuff, but I’m very plugged in when it comes to publishing, and I know that folks like James, Chuck Wendig, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Charlie Jane Anders, to name a few, aren’t publishing with some vanity press. Anyway, the more I looked, the shadier it got. Next step was obvious: get in touch with them using the chat on their site. So I did. They didn’t want to answer anything and kept asking for a full name and phone number so we could talk. I had things to do, so I said no and and took care of business. Next day, I tried to start a chat again, but I was blocked:

Anyway, that was on my phone. I still had my laptop. I used it. I already told you I’m not good at a lot of things, so I’ll save you the second dose of self-deprecation and instead tell you this: I have a PhD in journalism from an R1 university and have worked as a journalist since around 2000. Yeah, I can look things up when I want to. Like, really look into things. Let me give you some of the highlights here so as not to bore you to death:

• NY Book Publishers (I think the name is hilarious) is located, according to their site, in NYC. Their address is 1490 Crotona Park E, Bronx, NY 10460. That’s cool. All the big publishers are in New York, right? Well, this one is in a dilapidated residential building in the corner of Crotona and Wilkins Ave. They don’t even have a sign outside.

• Most of books they show on their site fall under two categories: books they didn’t publish and books that don’t exist. During one of my chats, I kept saying I wanted to read something they published before I made up my mind. I was sent a link to someone’s memoir. I won’t share the link here because the poor guy was duped and I don’t want to hurt him any more. In any case, the guy I was talking to for the second time—“Nas Demir”—said it was a bestseller!

  (05:03:21)Nas Demir This is our latest best seller

  (05:03:38)Nas Demir Became a best seller on September 3rd.

  (05:04:07)Gabino Nice! On Amazon?

  (05:04:13)Nas Demir Yup, on Amazon.

  (05:04:55)Gabino Can I see a NYT one?

  (05:05:15)Nas Demir Do you want your book to become a best seller on NYT?

  (05:05:38)Gabino Of course!

  (05:06:09)Nas Demir Alright, then we'll need to talk.

  (05:06:18)Nas Demir Let me know when you're gonna call me.
  

  Listen, Amazon is weird. I know that. The ranking can be all over the place. The book that became a bestseller on Amazon on September third now (noon on September 10) has these rankings:

  Hardover:

  Best Sellers Rank: #2,954,920 in Books (No surprise there because the hardcover costs $39.99. That’s not a fucking typo.)

  Paperback:

  Best Sellers Rank: #1,446,971 in Books

  Ebook:

  Best Sellers Rank: #407,736 in Kindle Store

  My guess? Maybe the first day it was a bestseller in one subcategory because the ebook is just $2.99. That said, Mr. Demir obviously didn’t give me any details. There are bestsellers and there are bestsellers, you know?

• The blurbs on their page are good. Sadly, they’re also fake. I was already bored and didn’t search for every single person, but none of the ones I looked for had a website or social media or anything else. Oh, and they were twins or something?

  

  Joy and Shawn are twins! That’s awesome. Wait… is it Newyork Book Publishers or New York Book Publishers? Listen, if you’re going to scam folks, at least be consistent and put more than twenty minutes into. the lies you tell on your site.

• Ah, speaking of lies! Here’s a good one to close this thing. I told them I knew some of the authors were published by other folks. Here’s Mr. Demir’s response:

  (05:15:15)Nas Demir To answer your question, digital book marketing is what we're known for. That's something that the traditional 'bigger' publishers struggle with, quite frankly.

  (05:15:29)Gabino With selling ebooks?

  (05:15:48)Nas Demir So, a lot of the times, while a title may have been published by a different 'bigger' publisher, they hire us to market the book online.

  (05:16:09)Nas Demir Not just Ebooks. Paperbacks and hardcovers too.

  (Insert a bunch of emails and a phone call here)

  (05:42:28)Gabino Sorry about that. A little busy today.

  (05:43:11)Gabino So anyway, Del Rey hired you to do promotion for Wendig?!

  (05:46:15)Gabino And why can't I find most of the people who gave you quotes for your "Our Happy Clients" section?

  (05:49:19)Gabino Also, where can I buy "All about coffee" by Jamie Krebs?

  (05:51:48)Gabino Hello?

  Mr. Demir was gone.

• Oh, one more! I got in my car yesterday and decided to give the number on the website a call. Demir picked up. I asked some of those same questions. He got a little nervous. Then I asked some more things and told him I knew a lot of the writers they mentioned on their page and not one of them had worked with them. Mr. Demir started screaming: “The things on our page are not your problem? Who are you? Who the fuck are you?!” I told him I was going to use that line as his official statement. To answer your question, Mr. Demir, I’m an angry brown motherfucker with a bit of time, a but of a platform, and a hatred for scammers. You’re scum, and in the immortal words of the great Val Kilmer in Tombstone, “I’m your huckleberry.” After I hung up on Mr. Demir (he was still screaming), my phone immediately started buzzing. A NYC number. One very similar to the one I’d called. It was…insistent. I blocked it.

  

  I’m a nice guy. Really. This morning I decided to give these folks a chance to come clean, to say something, to show me one truth in a sea of lies. Here’s how that went down:

Chat started on 10 Sep 2024, 03:45 PM (GMT+0)

(03:45:45)*** Gabino joined the chat ***

(03:45:45)Gabino Hello!

(03:45:48)*** Jeff Anderson joined the chat ***

(03:46:00)Gabino Quick question.

(03:46:08)Jeff Anderson Hi, how can we help you today? =)

(03:46:55)Gabino Will publish a piece exposing the lies on your website. Giving you a chance for a statement here. I tried it over the phone, but the guy freaked out and started yelling "Who the fuck are you?!"

(03:47:27)Jeff Anderson I think you are on the wrong website.

(03:47:43)Gabino Haha. Nah, man. I'm right where I need to be.

(03:48:25)Jeff Anderson All calls are recorded for quality assurance. I believe you are confusing us with different publisher.

Mr. Anderson decided to kill the chat while I was typing about talking to some authors and knowing it’s all a lie. So yeah, no statement, no truth.

Anyway, here’s the link to their site, in case you’re curious…or want to give them a hard time:

https://nybookpublishers.com/book-publishing-service/

The rest of you scammers? I’m coming for you whenever I have time. Stop taking advantage of folks who want to see their name in print. Vanity presses are trash, but at least some are honest about what they do. These folks aren’t. They claim to have worked with “250+ #1 New York Times bestsllers.” That’s bullshit. “400+ national bestsellers.” Bullshit. “25,000+ published books” and “2MIL books sold”? Bullshit.

Thanks for reading. More soon. Have a great week~