Received this in the mail today:

Dear Sir or Madam willow55,

I am writing on behalf of a new international publishing house, JustFiction! Edition.

In the course of a web-research I came across a reference to your manuscript An Almost Perfect Plan and it has caught my attention.

We are a publisher recognized worldwide, whose aim is to help talented, internationally yet unknown authors publish their manuscripts supported by our experience of publishing and make their writing available to a wider audience.

JustFiction! Edition would be especially interested in publishing your manuscript as an e-book and in the form of a printed book, and all this at no cost to you, of course.

If you are interested in cooperation, I would be glad to send you an e-mail with further information in an attachment.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

Evelyn Davis
Acquisition Editor


Sounded a bit dodgy to me, so it didn't take long to find this on a 'writers beware' blog:

A couple of weeks ago I started getting a rash of questions from writers who'd received out-of-the-blue emails from a company called JustFiction! Edition, offering to publish their books.
In this case, you don't have to look far for the tipoff: it's right in the sig line. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing also does business as VDM Verlag Dr. Mueller, a.k.a. VDM Publishing and a number of others. I blogged about these companies a couple of years ago. They are author mills that acquire enormous numbers of books without editorial oversight, make them available via POD, and distribute them on the Internet with no meaningful marketing or promotional support.

There are no publishing fees, but the VDM contracts I saw had nonstandard terms (including a life-of-copyright rights grant with no provision for rights reversion) and an unfavorable payment policy (with royalties paid just once a year and vouchers in lieu of payments if royalties average 10 euros or less per month); and the books' cover prices are head-spinningly high. All the VDM-related companies are notorious for their prolific cold-call solicitations.

Till now, the VDM-related companies have concentrated on students and academics. With JustFiction! Edition, they seem to be branching out into general fiction and nonfiction (and also jumping on the epublishing bandwagon). There's no reason to suppose, however, that JustFiction! Edition's acquisition, marketing, or payment policies will be significantly different from its parent company's (according to its FAQ, JustFiction! Edition pays just 10% of the publisher's net for both print and ebook--not a terrific print royalty, but a truly awful ebook royalty).

If you're looking for traditional publishing, this definitely isn't it--and if you want to self-publish, you can likely get a better deal elsewhere.

-----------------------
Anyone else received an email from them?

Yes, also got one yesterday. To quote someone else 'It's never that easy.' It set my alarm bells ringign straight away.

I think we recognised it for what it was-my thought originally was that it was a phishing scam and they were going to "groom" me for my bank details etc. This deal might suit someone who actually wants to get their book in print for nothing & doesn't seek any financial gain from it-the organisation is at least legit, and a lot of people who self publish will not recoup the original outlay. But it just goes to show you don't know who's who and who's out there in the big bad world of cyberspace, or what their motives are.



Only an "s" stands between laughter and slaughter.

How did this company get personal mail addresses? I know someone else from YWO who has had a communication from this company. She has never given her mail address out publicly, and writes under a pen name. She does however have a facebook page. So where is this coming from?
Chickin and Tinky I agree totally, it’s scary. I suppose we all have to accept cyber space…. And e-publishing is going to be the way forward.
BUT
If you get any approaches from a company like this, (and let’s face it they may be just starting out.)
Speak to them. If you can’t…. Forget it.
Are they editor controlled, or will they publish anything?
If they are editor controlled, who is it?
What happens to your work – if they aren’t paying you, do you retain the copyright? (You should anyway)

'He who learns from one who is learning, drinks from a flowing river.' Proverb.

I got one too! Ignored and deleted. If only it was that easy...

Jo x