Books.by

Shell company running plenty of social media ads because it's clearly making them money. This is their second go around under a new company name too. That's enough of a red flag but I didn't do my homework because I expect people to keep the promises they make. It's a pay to play platform for authors and in the process of uploading about 20 books of mine, I came across some technical problems that made my life more challenging than it needed to be.

For example the st^pid "magic link" instead of a password, you need to request this and wait for an email link to sign in, every.... single... time... and you don't always get the link, so sometimes you've requested it 6 times and it's been 25 minutes when I literally just need to login, edit something and leave. But no... we have to be fancy and make things more difficult because "technology."

I sent them multiple emails for support, it's been three weeks and nothing. Messaged them on social media and receive the automatic replies that tell you the same nonsense... someone will be in touch.

Couple days later I messaged again on social media and that was left seen. No auto message, no reply, nothing.

The printing costs for authors are high. The printing price for author copies are HIGHER.

It costs me $35 to order an author copy with booksby as opposed to a $10 author copy from Amazon. Which means I'm paying more for my own book, than what a reader pays?

That has to be a sick joke, right?

The only thing that communicates with me is their st^pid chatbot on the website that doesn't even know what it's talking about and lies for them. Says they're in, says they're not. Says they're not in Melbourne, says they are. Says they operate during 9-5, says they're out of the office. It'll spin so much cr#p that it runs out of answers and closes the conversation. Forcing you to open up another one to finish asking questions.

It's a complete joke. I thought if this is how they're treating authors that have paid to be on their platform, imagine how they'll treat my readers that order books from them.

I had no confidence they would even receive their books.

I even tested it, purchased my own book as a customer to see what the process would be like, there was no order confirmation, no proof of purchase.

I asked the chatbot where's my confirmation email? It said they don't send them, they only update you when your order has been shipped. I asked how do I prove that i made an order without a confirmation email?

It said you need the order id.

I said how do I get the order Id with no confirmation email?

It said it will be in the dashboard.

(I'm the author, the dashboard is mine.) The reader doesn't have access to my dashboard, so how they hell do they get the order id to check on their order?

Oh...... they have to ask me for it......

Which means I have to do books.bys job for them...

And my readers are going to blame me for this disgusting process because I've associated myself with it and they've had to experience this because of me?

They promise to print your books between 3 and 5 days and pay your royalties as soon as it ships. Tomorrow is their 5th day, so we'll see if I even receive my book, email, tracking, update or royalties

If you're an author, just stay the hell away this company. They'll just pop up again with another business name in a few years but you can't do that with your name and reputation