A few nights back, an Australian current affairs program ran a hard-luck story about a Brisbane-based amateur author by the name of Douglas Rowell.

‘Doug’, who is 88 years old and resides in an aged-care home, claimed to have been scammed out of $55 000 (AUD) by an American self-publishing (aka vanity press) book company.

The American publisher at the center of Doug’s misgivings is Indiana-based XLIBRIS.

A company bearing the XLIBRIS name also has an Australian HQ based in Chatswood, Sydney NSW.

This is a link to their website – Home | Xlibris Publishing and this is the story that ran on the Channel 9 Australia program A CURRENT AFFAIR a few nights back –

Like pretty much all pay-to-publish companies, XLIBRIS offer a collection of tiered packages, starting at no-frills and affordably priced bundles right up to all-inclusive, ‘gold class’ packages that manage and streamline every detail of the production and marketing of a self-published book.

The claim by Channel 9’s A CURRENT AFFAIR that Doug had been charged $55 000 AUD seemed odd, considering the most expensive, all-inclusive publishing package offered by XLIBRIS – their SIGNATURE package – is priced at less than half that amount.

I got in touch with a representative from XLIBRIS and made some interesting discoveries. The Channel 9 story claims that XLIBRIS cold-called Doug after they spotted his book on-line, already self-published by another company (IN HOUSE PUBLISHING).

The XLIBRIS representative I spoke to (Sandra Powell from Xlibris’s parent company AUTHOR SOLUTIONS) was clear that XLIBRIS never solicits authors or cold-calls prospective clients. Doug would have had to have filled out a form asking to be contacted by XLIBRIS.

The story also makes the claim that after forking over $55 000 (again, Channel 9 provides no clues or itemization as to how this random, so-perfectly-rounded mystery figure was determined) Doug’s book was never published and his requests for a refund were ignored.

XLIBRIS deny both accusations. They maintain there is no record of Doug ever having requested a refund for any portion of the fees he paid and that Doug himself effectively prevented the book from being published as he failed to sign-off on approvals for cover and interior design that were sent to him.

I know from my own experience self-publishing last year (with the company TELLWELL) the process cannot proceed to the next stage until that back-and-forth approval procedure conducted between the author and the publishing company has been completed.

Scenic Writer’s Shack suspects the ‘something else’ going on is quite simply A CURRENT AFFAIR doing what it has always done so well – that is, funneling information into overly simplistic good guy vs bad guy scenarios in an effort to spark outrage and play on viewer’s emotions.

In this story, nursing home resident and memoir-writing ‘Doug’ is depicted as the innocent good guy, while publishing company XLIBRIS is given horns and a pitchfork and painted as a money-hungry, deceptive and face-less corporation that cruelly sought to exploit the well-intentioned ambitions of a humble retiree.

The truth, as I have uncovered, is far less black and white.

More than a thousand customer on-line reviews of XLIBRIS reveal that 2 out of every 3 people who have self-published with the company awarded the experience a four or five-star rating.

SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK was beyond impressed at the way XLIBRIS responded on-line to customers who expressed dissatisfaction.

It is my belief that the self-publishing industry comes inbuilt with a certain percentage of dissatisfied customers.

Amateur hobbyist authors who begin to realize after they are already a fair way down the self-publishing track that their initial lofty ambitions of becoming the next James Patterson, Danielle Steele, James Grisham or Nora Roberts are in fact never likely to be realized, can and often do direct their frustration at the very people attempting to turn their writing dreams into some form of reality.

When I first watched the hard-luck story put to air by Channel 9 Australia on hobby-author Doug earlier this week, I was, like most other people, and certainly like the on-line commenters HERE and HERE, initially outraged as well.

With emotion-charged language supporting ‘Poor Team Doug’ sent flying like confetti at a wedding and screen-shots like those pictured below ramping up the anti-publishing company sentiment to fever pitch, this was exactly the type of response the producers of the story were hoping for.

However, after some digging, it’s clear there’s other sides to this story that don’t appear to be as black and white. Channel 9 have been approached for comment but are yet to respond.