Long waiting times, sloppy editing and false promises
I decided to go with Collins Book Publishers for my first self-published book, back in December 2024. After my initial phone call with my Project Manager I wasn't sure if the whole thing was a scam, because it seemed too good to be true. Both me and my partner had signed for Christmas book deals, which included ghost-writing (a service I never took advantage of), proofreading, editing, formatting, and publishing across a number of platforms. The package also included a press release to announce the publishing of my book across a number of online platforms. To this day, despite numerous attempts at chasing up the press release, I've had no update as to whether it has been done or not. Despite being pleased with the final outcome of my project, which took just three months for me to complete, I found the experience of working with CBP to be a negative one, fraught with long waiting times, sloppy editing and false promises.
The first red flag appeared just after I had signed the contract which was missing a key part of the package. Whilst I had been told I was paying for my book to be released across Amazon, Ingram Spark, Apple Books and Google Books. Only Amazon showed on the list. I then had to ask for the contract to be corrected to include these other platforms before proceeding.
The second red flag was the sloppy editing and attention to detail. The first edited draft I received back had incredibly positive, uplifting feedback, which made me feel excited about the project. But several drafts I received after this included spelling mistakes, grammar errors, things had been changed so that they no longer made sense chronologically, and there were sometimes multiple fonts or type sizes in the one document. I then had to spend time correcting all these myself.
Another feature of the package I went with was that they designed the cover art for your book, based on prompts from you. The result they came back with was good and fitted the aesthetic I was going for, but I'm 99% sure it was AI generated and not specially designed by the inhouse artists they claim to have. So this was another thing I could have probably done myself, rather than paying someone else to do.
When I had signed the contract, CBP had agreed that both me and my partner could pay in installments each month, to make the overall price of £2,500 more manageable. However, they would sometimes ask for these monthly payments at earlier dates or when I expressed concern that I wasn't getting the service I was paying for and was considering terminating the contract, they would claim the services they had already provided (the sloppy editing) meant I had to pay the full amount. I got the impression that the desperation behind their instance that I pay them the money meant that the company was struggling for funds. Either way, it came across as unprofessional and honestly a bit scary. I felt like I was involved in some sort of scam. Especially when I paid them £425 one month to cover that month's payment and an ISBN number which I now realise I could have purchased myself elsewhere. When the book was finally published on Amazon, there was an option to ask CBP to send you several authors copies, but when I was told it would cost me around £300 I was horrified and decided to order the copies directly from Amazon.
I would strongly recommend not going with this company whether you are a new or accomplished author. They will rip you off and chase you for more and more money, offering you services they will either do sloppily or never fulfil. You'll be left waiting for months, like I am, for things to be done or even just for an update. My book went live in early March 2025 and I still have no idea what's happening with the press release five months later.