See, guys? Narrative magazine isn’t a scam. THIS IS A SCAM.

Earlier, I posted about Michael J. Duckett, the self-help predator who sent me an unsolicited email promising me he could teach me to SELL A MILLION COPIES OF MY BOOK if I only go to his weekend seminar (Regular price $999, but with the “scholarship” he was offering, only a measly $299.) I wrote back with the following reasonable query: “Where did you get my email address?” I didn’t get an answer, but today Michael J. Duckett sent me a new solicitation:

Dear Author:

We are interested to speak with you about the possibility of publishing or distributing your book.

Only a select number of authors are called upon each year to submit their work for Hyper Publishing Company’s consideration. Your book has been recently brought to our attention and we would like to open a discussion for publication or distribution of this work.

Please click here for submission guidelines or go directly to our website http://hyperpublishing.organd click on the Submission link.

You have ten days to complete the submission package and mail to our office.

We look forward to receiving your submission package and communicating with you in the near future.

Sincerely Yours,
Dr. Michael J. Duckett
President/CEO
Hyper Publishing Company

It’s obviously a scam–but how? He doesn’t ask for any money. There’s no submission fee. Hmm. Well, I clicked on the “submission form” and that’s where I found it. There are several pages of queries, among them these two questions:

What is your total available budget for this project?

[  ] Under $10K
[  ] $10K–$25K
[  ] $25K–$50K
[  ] $50K–$100K
[  ] Other

What is your available marketing budget?

[  ] Under $5K
[  ] $5K–$15K
[  ] $15K–$25K
[  ] $25K–$50K
[  ] Other

So now we see how it works. You tell Duckett what your “project” and “marketing” budgets are, and then he takes more or less that much of your money in exchange for publishing and “promoting” your book. Wow. No wonder the Hyper Publishing website bills itself as “focus[ed] on independent authors.”  The trick is obviously to convince you that by putting up your own cash, you’re essentially forming a “partnership” with Hyper, who acts as “publisher and distributor.” By paying your own way, the “logic” seems to run, you maintain your “independence” as an author–a totally bizarre, basically nonsensical concept which preys on desperate and ill-informed people’s lack of understanding of what it means to “sign” a deal with a real publisher.

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