I was contacted today by a representative of Lambert Academic Publishing requesting that I change the title of my blog post "Academic Spam", in which I criticize their marketing tactics as consisting of sending poorly written spam enticing vanity publishing. That's right: Lambert Academic Publishing and VDM Verlag send poorly written academic spam. Parse that and put it on the search results, Google.
In their latest message, Michael Davis, a Customer Service Executive, insists they are not a vanity publishing house. The two central premises of his argument are that they don't charge the authors, and the publications are available on Amazon.com and in physical bookstores. Anyone can post products on Amazon.com, and removing the pay aspect doesn't make it less vain to essentially self-publish. Oh, and they offer a dedicated "Acquisition Editor" -- someone who apparently can't even write an email without English errors.
As I understand vanity publishing, it basically means you get a publisher to print up your thesis and sell it without proper editing or peer review. This seems to be exactly Lambert's model but they don't charge you (in cash). Instead, they charge you in terms of removing your rights to your own work (you can re-publish only up to 80% of your work). In response to my original post, several people have argued that no harm is done in publishing with them -- it gives you something nice for your bookshelf and CV. I suggest these authors find a local print shop and bindery and do it themselves. Having a self-published on-demand book from LAP is likely to be a negative, not a positive, on an academic CV. Experienced researchers will see right through this in a second. It doesn't bring with it any weight in terms of peer review, it just shows your own vanity and your inability to make your thesis available freely online.
LAP is essentially an on-demand publishing house. I would like to know how many of the submitted theses actually go into the physical bookstores? I would wager that the vast majority exist only as cover shots in Amazon.com listings and in print form on the bookshelf of the author and his or her proud parents. They spam all of us in the hopes that someday someone with a gem of a thesis will fall for it and actually make them some money.
The letter I received today was obviously carefully written -- if they had taken similar care in their initial message, it may not have raised my suspicions. Their spam emails read like shady Nigerian 419 messages.
Well, I decline to change the title of my post, and instead I will link to several others who also consider LAP's emails to be academic spam. Steer clear of this company.
See also:
http://sandcountyfrank.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/academic-spam/
http://littlecomputerscientist.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/investigating-lambert-academic-publishing-with-google-square/
http://hjhop.blogspot.com/2008/12/shady-academic-publishing.html
Monday, June 7, 2010
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36 comments:
I absolutely believe that Lambert Academic Publishing is a fradulant attempt to access/misuse academic work. Delete!
Bev
It's interesting how I haven't heard back from Mr. Michael Davis yet...
Nice blog.
-Frank (sandcountyfrank)
(Found this post through google, after getting my first journal spam from LAP.)
The funniest thing to me is that I got their spam two days _after_ getting the acceptance letter from a legitimate journal for publishing my thesis work.
The upside of leaving in spam/scam - people all over the world (Australia) receiving an LAP email will find your blog high up a google search for 'LAMBERT Academic Publishing scam'! Thanks for the info.
I liked the complaints about Outlook- I changed institutions and this one uses Outlook and it drives me nuts. My pet hate with the web interface is when it's over the storage limit (uni has small allocations), and you hit send on an email, then that email will be lost with no warning.
Thanks for the information on Lambert Academic Publishing. I got the same spam mails from them. However, be careful on how you point accusing fingers....especially with this kind of statement "like Nigerian 419". It doesnt speak well of a well educated person. It might be sending the wrong signal to other people and could be damaging to the image of the country. There is scam from every part of the world, which is not coming from just Nigerians but from other sources too. I won't mention any country. Cheers.
I've just been offered from them. Thanks for the information and suggestion. I agree with you. This place is not a good place for academic publishing.
I've received the same (esentially) email, but in a spanish version (my thesis is in spanish, since I graduated from Universidad de Buenos Aires).
I paste the mail I received here, so it may point other who receive it to this place :). Sorry about the length of the comment, though.
---
Estimado [Nombre/Name]:
Me dirijo a Usted en representación del grupo editorial internacional de textos científicos, Editorial Académica Española.
Consultando la base de datos de la Biblioteca de Universidad de Buenos Aires, encontramos una referencia a su trabajo científico sobre "[título de tesis/thesis title]".
Nuestra editorial está interesada en colocar su trabajo a disposición de un público más extenso. Por consiguiente, me comunico con Usted para conocer su interés en publicarlo en forma de libro impreso.
Agradeceré que incluya en su respuesta una dirección de correo electrónico mediante la cual pueda enviarle información adicional en un archivo adjunto.
Esperando su respuesta, me despido de Usted muy cordialmente.
--
Atentamente,
Damian Omar Petoletti
Departamento de Adquisiciones
Editorial Académica Española es una marca comercial de:
LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing GmbH & Co. KG
Dudweiler Landstr. 99
D – 66123 Saarbrücken
Teléfono: 068137208364 - *0*
Fax: 068137208364 - *9*
Email: d.petoletti[at]eae-publishing.com
Web: www.eae-publishing.com
Registro de corte/número: Handelsregister Amtsgericht Saarbrücken HRA 10752
Número de identificación (Verkehrsnummer): 12917
Socio con responsabilidad ilimitada/Persönlich haftende Gesellschafterin: VDM Management GmbH
Registro de corte/número: Handelsregister Amtsgericht Saarbrücken HRB 18918
Los directores generales/Geschäftsführer: Dr. Wolfgang Philipp Müller, Christoph Schulligen, Esther von Krosigk
Thank you for writing this post. It kept me (and I am sure many other people) from making a terrible mistake.
I received one recently too. I checked on COPAC and I was surprised to see that many UK libraries actually hold some of their books. I reckon that that is how they make their money: a poorly informed academic or librarian orders the books from Amazon or Barnes and Noble after having seen a vaguely interesting title and the university buys a book that has the price tag of an academic monograph but is really a print-on-demand item with no quality control that should only cost a small fraction of that money and should not be taken seriously as a reference by anyone. To me, that is a fraud.
Good post. I got these emails too. Funny thing; they say they need to evaluate the work before deciding on publication. Well, apparently 150 pages of mathematics takes less than a day to evaluate! And, guess what, they want to publish! ;)
Good thing I thought a little more about this: if someone would actually buy my work from them in printed form they would be terribly overcharged AND it would probably be a mistake as anyone genuinly interested in my work (if such a person exists!) would find it anyway; it available online at no cost at all.
But, as this blogpost also points out; it is probably detrimental to publish your work with Lambert as it is so obviously a fraud of sorts.
I do agree that there might, in fact be something shady about LAP. However, i find the author of this blog really shallow-minded and offensive. How else does one describe someone who claims to be educated but says things like "Nigerian 419 scam" when in fact, he means internet fraud? I'm Nigerian and I find your hasty generalisations highly offensive.
I have just received the Spanish version of the mail quoted by Pablo (3:12 PM, July 14, 2011 post), but this time signed by Augusto Rodríguez, from Departamento de Adquisiciones, Departamento de Print Management. All I can do is hope that inexperienced junior researchers realize that publishing with this company will surely be a mistake.
They send email to my supervisor and asked my supervisor to contact me. My supervisor forwarded the email to me and I thought my supervisor knew them, and now I have sent my thesis for them to review!
What can I do?
Kami: Just tell them that a different publisher has agreed to publish your work and that you have already signed the contract...
I went along with it to see where it lead and received a free published book and free marketing. I didn't pay a sent, worked with an editor and receive royalty on sold books.... not that many will sell, but it is a start.
Amahagger:
Thank you very much for your advice!
Excellent pieces. Keep posting such kind of information on your blog. I really impressed by your blog.
Vee Eee Technologies
I searched for lambert academic publishing on google scholar and found out that 617 book details are available with 450 citations. I am confused...
The fact that they are a shady print-on-demand service of self-publishing rather than a real academic publisher is becoming more notorious. A Venezuelan university has recently advised not to use their services (those of Editorial Academica Espanola, the name under which VDM operate in teh Spanish-speaking world) due to their dubious practices and the fact they do not uphold regular editorial practices:
http://www.usb.ve/home/node/272
I don't need to point out how extraordinary is for the council of a University to produce this kind of advice, but it's probably due to the fact that many people are falling for it and reputations are therefore being ruined (although if you had the misfortune of publishing with them, you could simply not mention that item in your cv).
I received the same offer to publish in Spanish, but I didn´t trust the source and thought it was scam. However, I found this book in Amazon published by Lambert and it seems to be interesting and well done (I know the author and his work).
http://www.amazon.com/Reshaping-Natures-impacts-environmental-communities/dp/3845416793/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320269322&sr=1-6
I had been contacted by Lambert Academic Publishing after my masters thesis long before. then I raised some queries to which answers look legimate. But after reading such blogs and googling, I refrain from sending my work as I would loose the right on my work. Two years have passed out now.
Suddenly same kind of mail has been sent on my institute id (where I am doing PhD) telling exactly my name, my department name and topic of my research. So these guys are really using some smart services to send these automated mails or handcrafting them.
Plz stop bugging LAP as we know what u r.....
Why is it supposed to be a scam? They publish your work (put it on Amazon, make a website, etc.), and pay you some royalties. They tell you exactly what they do, and then do it.
It's not Oxford University Press, but they don't claim to be it.
Have you read the comments above? There are a print-on-demand service in anything but the name, but also with the added disadvantages that 1) they publish ANYTHING you send them, 2) they keep some publishing rights from your work 3) they sell at exorbitant prices, way above the prices of books by any other print-on-demand service and 4) they are increasingly looked at with suspicion by the academic community, and some universities have published warnings against them. A Lambert tile in your cv is likely to be detrimental more than anything, but if you don't care about things like that go for it, is free.
Thnx for the details frnds i have received 3 to 4 mails from LAP but i didnt gave any rply as it is very suspectable and surprising.
Nice Blog
-Kirti(swtkudikirti)
Two years later, still a relevant and valuable post! I just received an email from LAP offering to publish my master's thesis.
I was a little suspicious as their introduction: "While performing some research on the [university's name] electronic library I became aware of the work you submitted for your degree." It immediately reminded me of the representatives from window replacement and vinyl siding companies who knock on my door and say that they just happen to be performing work in my neighborhood...
Does the author of this blog have an axe to grind? I've published with LAP in 2010 and everything they say is proven accurate. I'm afraid the readers of this blog will turn down or have turned down an opportunity based on no more than what the angry author says. Am I parading on Vanity Stage thanks to LAP? Perhaps. Yet my title is good, the cover is great, the subject does stir passions. And the book IS ON THE SHELVES.
Oh, and by the way, most of those "acquisiton editors" are bogus: false names and Facebook pictures taken from image banks:
http://journalology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/lambert-academic-publishing-or-how-not.html
I've just reveiced the email today. It's interesting that LAP wants to publish my 5 pages article that already published in a journal. When I read that email, I was very happy. And reply them I'm interested, because I guessed they wanted to edit a book including my article as one chatper. However, I think it may be unwise to publish through them. So, I replyed that I did not plan to publish now after discussing with my supervisor
I recently received an email from a person named Olga. He indicated his interest in publishing my work when he has not yet read any of my work was suspicious enough to say they're a fraud.
I am searching for my assignment and found your blog post ( Lambert Academic Publishing Continues to Spam ) on google search your post is informative an give me lots knowledge for my current assignment thanks for sharing such a wonderful information keep updating share the knowledge whole world including me.
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Nice post, and thanks for the warning.
However, as FM, naijangel and others have pointed out, I would suggest that the author of this blog edit and remove statements that portray countries (like Nigeria) in negative light. I mean, you're an Associate Professor but this is really un-educated and very shallow.
Good job on the post anyway.
Ah guys - are you serious about bashing the use of "Nigerian 419"? I mean its in that context just a pars pro toto for that kind of spam. A picture if you so wish.
And on topic:
My work is available online for everybody who is interested - as free pdf. And i assume being a scientist - that the target group of my work knows how to use google.
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