Bay Area Book Festival Defends Author Solutions Sponsorship

I follow David Gaughran's excellent blog. I think all writers should do so, especially if you are an independently publishing author - or have such aspirations.

David gave us an enlightening message today:

Originally posted on David Gaughran:

I discovered yesterday that Author Solutions was sponsoring the inaugural Bay Area Book Festival – something at odds with the breathless verbiage on the event’s site:

A new kind of book fair… the largest, most innovative, and most inclusive… [we will] create the nation’s leading book festival.

The event doesn’t take place until June, so I thought it was a good time to try and stage an intervention.

Shame on @BayBookFest for accepting sponsorship from known scammers like Author Solutions. What the hell were you thinking? #Baybookfest
— David Gaughran (@DavidGaughran) March 19, 2015

After I sent that tweet I felt a little bad.

Maybe the organizers didn’t know the full history of Author Solutions. Maybe they weren’t aware of the specific scam that Author Solutions runs at events like this. Deciding to give them the benefit of the doubt, I emailed the Executive Director of the festival, Cherilyn Parsons.

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