My self-publishing nightmare began in 2019

 My self-publishing nightmare began in 2019 when I published some books with blurb.com. I told all of my friends to buy a copy of my new books. I spent 1000s of hours writing and learning how to make books. As the days pass I noticed my friends sales were not showing up on the ledger on the blurb.com website. After waiting patiently for months the sales never appeared on the ledger. I hired a private investigator to look into this to see if anything nefarious is going on. The private investigator quickly uncovered evidence that Blurb.com, had been skimming 2/3 of my book sales right from the beginning. This discovery raised significant concerns about Blurb.com's business practices and their disregard for intellectual property rights of authors like myself.

The investigation that followed revealed several alarming facts about Blurb.com's practices. Blurb.com fake sent me royalty checks no less than 3 times in an apparent effort for me to give up. Blurb.com actually went so far as to fake send a royalty check then claim I cashed it within 48 hours after it arrived. Blurb.coms error in this deception was banks don’t report these transactions that quickly, especially over a weekend. The check supposedly arrived in my locked mailbox on Friday and was cashed on Sunday and somehow they knew all this by first thing Monday morning. Sorry but banks just do not work that fast. I told blurb.com to tell me where it was cashed so I can go get any security video and then send me a copy of the cashed check. Because blurb.com couldn’t prove any of it because it never existed I caught them in a blatant lie and the deception of fake sending me a royalty check then claiming it was cashed. When in reality blurb.com just made the entire thing up. After 3 fake sending of a royalty check and one fake sending of a check that was supposedly cashed I finally received the royalty check followed by another check for the 2/3rds of the royalties blurb.com skimmed from the sales up to that point.

So in 2020, just months after creating the account and going through all this I deleted all my books from the blurb.com website and closed the account. I do not want anything to do with any business that does any of what I just went through. Would you?

Plus during this time period I realized Blurb.com did not even require authors to fill out a W-2 form, suggesting an attempt to avoid reporting income to the IRS. That or somehow blurb.com knows the author would never get to the $600 reporting threshold.

When I deleted my books and closed the account blurb.com lost any legitimate right to print or distribute any further copies of my books.

To my dismay, I found that Blurb.com had been selling my books well after the PDF was deleted from their website.

I repeatedly requested Blurb.com to stop selling my books without permission or consent, but these requests were met with more deception and more lies. It became obvious that Blurb.com had retained my PDF files of my books and was selling them without any legal right or consent to do so. Their actions were not only unethical but also constituted a violation of copyright laws and intellectual property rights. Despite denying in writing that blurb.com was not selling the my books on any platform, the books were still available for sale on Amazon.com. Desperate to regain control of my now stolen property, I signed up for a publisher's account and successfully had my books removed from the Amazon.com platform. However, to my shock, blurb.com continued to sell my books on all other Amazon platforms without authorization or consent. Blurb.com lost the publishing rights when I deleted my books and then the account in 2020.

How does blurb.com get away with this?

Blurb.com knows the high cost of lawyer fees, which start at $2500 for simple cease and desist letter. Blurb.com caters to self-publishing writers by providing a platform tailored for those who have no money to stop them. Blurb.com does not ask for a W-2 suggesting you won't need to bother with a W-2 form since it's unlikely you'll earn enough to report to the IRS. 

I’d be willing to bet blurb.com don’t tell the IRS about a lot of book sales if any.

Blurb.com's unethical behavior extends beyond unauthorized sales. Upon investigation it was found all review platforms had mostly negative reviews except trustpilot.com. But why would this be?

The Investigation uncovered that Blurb.com was writing fake reviews on trustpilot.com using abandoned account names from their own platform. It is rumored blurb pays trustpilot $600-$1000 a month so they can keep some kind of reputation. This manipulation of reviews raises serious concerns about the credibility and honesty of Blurb.com as a platform. It's crucial for anyone who has published with Blurb.com to be aware of these deceptive practices.

Blurb.com's wrongdoing has been exposed. They engaged in the act of writing fake reviews on Trustpilot.com, employing abandoned account names to deceive readers and manipulate their perception of the company's reputation. Authors who had published with Blurb.com are unknowingly writing five-star reviews for the platform without their knowledge.

Blurb.com's unethical business practices have caused significant harm to authors and copyright holders. Their unauthorized sale of books, retention of PDF files, and deceptive practices with reviews demonstrate a complete disregard for intellectual property rights. If you have ever published with Blurb.com, I encourage you to check trustpilot.com for any reviews you may have unknowingly written.