The new brag line from Author Solutions is as dubious as its old one

 

 

In advertising, a tag line is a slogan that often accompanies a company name, such as "we bring good things to life" (General Electric) and "better living through chemistry" (duPont). Some tag lines are in use for decades; others vanish quickly.

 

I like to use the term brag line to describe a particularly empty -- or even dishonest -- tag line.

 

Author Solutions, Inc. (ASI) is a massive pay-to-publish empire which has grown by acquiring and combining such former competitors as AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford, Wordclay and Xlibris. ASI has a Spanish-language division called Palibrio, operates the self-publishing businesses for traditional publishers Harlequin, Thomas Nelson and Hay House,  and has operations in the USA, England, India, the Philippines and maybe elsewhere. In 2012 ASI became part of giant traditional publisher Penguin Random House.

Until recently, ASI claimed to be "the world leader in indie book publishing—the fastest-growing segment of publishing."

• That's bullshit. A writer who pays ASI to publish books is NOT indie, but is merely a customer of a huge company.

Fickle, ever-morphing ASI has recently adopted a new brag line. Perhaps as a response to criticism, it has abandoned "indie" and now claims to be "The leading supported self-publishing company in the world."

• That claim of leadership is as hard to prove as the previous one.

ASI publishes crappy, overpriced books and pisses off its customers. STAY AWAY.