From: Danny Kingsley <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 00:08:31 +0000

Hi - following on from this thread:

"I Sold My Undergraduate Thesis to a Print Content Farm - A trip
through the shadowy, surreal world of an academic book mill"

By Joseph Stromberg

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/03/lap_lambert_academic_publishing_my_trip_to_a_print_content_farm.html

A couple of excerpts from a first-hand account of the Lambert experience.  Danny

*******

If you’re an academic (or were once an aspiring academic), you may
have once received an email just like the one I got at 6:10 on a sunny
morning last August.

“As stated by the Washington University in St. Louis’s electronic
repository, you authored the work entitled ‘Lands of the Lakota Policy
Culture and Land Use on the Pine Ridge Reservation’ in the framework
of your postgraduate degree,” Karen Holmes, an acquisition editor at
LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, told me. She added that she worked
for a “top international publishing group” and was interested in
publishing my work as a book.

.........

I flipped through the softcover book, reading the words I’d written
four years ago, during my senior year of college, never thinking that
they’d be reproduced on cheap paper and owned by a multinational
publishing conglomerate. They looked exactly as they had in the
original PDF of my thesis, just shrunken down onto A4-size paper and
surrounded by page numbers and a title page printed in a different
font. My thesis had been transformed into a mass-produced commodity.

Then, as I paged through the book, I remembered something funny I’d
done when reformatting the text for submission. For kicks, I’d buried
an errant phrase deep in the middle, partly to see if LAP Lambert’s
editors ever actually read the thing. When I got to Page 86, I was
gratified to find that they hadn’t noticed it. Right there on the
middle of the page, amid talk of Oglala Lakota politics and tribal
sovereignty was my insertion.

“Is any proofreader actually reading this book before it gets
printed?” I’d asked. “Didn’t think so.”


-----Original Message-----

From: Danny Kingsley <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2014 01:50:02 +0000

Hello all,

Here are a couple of webpages in Australia which warn about the
problems with publishing with this group of publishers:

http://www.acu.edu.au/research/support_for_researchers/research_achievements/herdc/important_information_about_vdm_publishing

http://www.research.swinburne.edu.au/researchers/resources/lap-publishing/

Generally we advise people not to publish with them - our advice tends
to be make their thesis open access in their institutional repository
- this gives them exposure and there are no impediments to future
publishing with a reputable publisher (whereas publishing with these
guys prevents any further publication). We do occasionally have
requests to subsequently take open theses down from publishers - which
is fine.

Danny

-----Original Message-----

From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2014 16:03:37 -0400

From a librarian I don't know otherwise.

Jim O'Donnell

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 3:44 PM
Subject: RE: A questionable publishing model
To: [log in to unmask]

Dear Professor O'Donnell,

This year I've received at least one query a month regarding Lambert
and VDM subsidiaries. We advise graduate students to think carefully
about whether publishing with Lambert would benefit their career, and
its reputation in their subject field. What we don't say outright is
that we consider Lambert a predatory publisher.

In my personal opinion, a vanity press would be better, because at
least they would let the author keep the copyright. Publishing with
Lambert prevents an academic from publishing that work in a more
reputable venue.

Best,


-----Original Message-----
From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 19:11:09 -0400

Seen today:

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/03/lap_lambert_academic_publishing_my_trip_to_a_print_content_farm.single.html

This is a not-quite-vanity press -- they will in fact "publish" your
book without asking you for money; then they will ask you for money,
encouraging you to buy an appreciable number of copies of your book.
The book may be virtually any master's or even baccalaureate thesis
they can find evidence of on the web anywhere.  By this model they
"publish" tens of thousands of books.

What's interesting is that there's clearly a need being met and
clearly a business model at work here.  Few serious readers of this
piece will make excuses for the model, but the company will continue
to find those tens of thousands of authors, who will find value in
even this sketchiest of deals.

Jim O'Donnell
Georgetown