A Packful of Lies

My (Our) Experiences with a United Kingdom Vanity Publisher

A PACKFUL OF LIES

PROLOGUE
From about 20 long years ago

Although this has been a very traumatic episode in my life, I have decided to put pen to paper. I'm reliving the stress and pain of the experience, but I'm doing it to warn other aspiring writers of the danger of what are termed "vanity publishers" in the trade. These unscrupulous people make promises to good and sensitive writers, and when these raised expectations are invariably never met, they dash hopes and can inflict terrible turmoil in people's lives. I went in to my writing in a very big way; so my life was turned on its head, when I found out that the publisher I was with weren't what they said they were.

Time to start at the very beginning...

I had started writing for fun some years back. Then in my job as an insurance manager here in Gisborne, New Zealand, I came across what I thought was some very good material. I found it very helpful in my personal life; so I thought I'd put it down and share my thoughts with others to hopefully help readers. I started writing this work, whilst still working at my job. About a year and a half later, I finished the manuscript and HANDBOOK TO SURVIVE THE NINETIES was born. I was then made redundant from my job in a major restructuring operation throughout the country.

I took my manuscript to Cape Town and showed it to a publisher there. They liked it; but after about two months said it was really "nothing new" (at that early stage of my writing career, I had not yet developed my own distinctive style and the manuscript was really only a handbook). The publishers said it would cost about R15000 (fifteen thousand South African rand = +- $6000 US dollars at that time) to publish with no real idea of whether they could make any money in the very tight South African market, just emerging from a long recession.

I also tried a few other publishers in NZ. No luck.
In the meantime I had seen some adverts in prestiguous magazines, looking for new authors. I wrote off for information from one or two. They made vague promises of distribution through their agents. They also charged quite a bit for publication; so I dismissed most of them, as I had never ever heard of the publishers (not that I knew much about the business at that stage of my "illustrious" career!).

Then one day I saw some excellent reviews of books in the prestiguous Guardian newspaper from Britain. They were published by Minerva. At the bottom of the page was an advert for new authors from Minerva Press seeking all types of work. I assumed they were part of the Minerva Group - a department dealing with new authors...so off went the manuscript.

Great excitement a few weeks later, when a very good appraisal of my work arrived..."this work has been extremely well written and should do well in the marketplace". The cost was 2300 pounds (UK), which was quite a bit less than the 30000 rand, or so the South African publishers said would take to produce the book. I assumed (very wrongly, as became apparent) that Minerva Press were only charging a portion to help new authors get started in their writing careers.

The contracts arrived a week or two later. Then we sat on those contracts for a number of months, whilst I made enquiries about Minerva Press. I got out every book for writers in the local library. But I could find nothing about Minerva Press. Only Minerva, who I assumed were one and the same firm. Similarly enquiries at the local bookstores, assumed the same thing.

Then one exciting November day in 1993, our lives changed forever. We signed the contract with great celebration and off went the cheque for the first installment (from my redundancy payout).

craig lock 1997
From my books Writing into the Light , The Writing Journey, An Open Book 2 and The Writing Journey all available at Kobo