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Puppy Dogs and Ice Cream books

  • 26-03-2021 3:47pm
    #1
    AlmightyCushion
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 35,125 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    Has any one ever heard of these guys?

    They have contacted my Dad about publishing one of his stories which sounds great but it seems a bit strange to me as I can't see how they found out about him and I can't see much info out there about them.

    My Dad has written some children's stories over the years. It was just stories he came up with off the top of his head and would tell us when we were kids and now the grandkids. About 5 years ago, I got him to write them down and I bundled them into 3 different e-books and put them on Amazon kindle store. Nobody ever actually bought one until a few months ago. I assumed this is how they found out about him, they bought the book, liked the story and got in contact with him. But he was telling me that they ask him was it published anywhere else, like Amazon so it doesn't seem like that was it.

    Obviously, I'd be delighted if this was legit. It would be really cool to see one of his stories actually printed and being bought by people. However, I am worried about him being scammed or something dodgy going on.

    I see they have a website https://shop.puppydogsandicecream.com/ but it says they are based in San Diego. Their contact details say Englewood Colorado. The address on their website is used by a lot of different companies. I thought that was suspicious at first but a company called ShipOffers seems to be owner of the building and it offers book printing and fulfillment services so they probably just use it as their business address.

    The only writing I do is writing code :pac: so this whole area and publishing and all that is completely alien to me so hope you guys might know more about them or offer advice.


Comments

  • #2
    echo beach
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,252 ✭✭✭echo beach


    A simple test is are they going to pay him or do they want him to pay them?


  • #3
    km85264
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 146 ✭✭km85264


    The good: the books on their website do appear to be real books, most are available on amazon and some have very good positions in the bestsellers.

    The bad: while some of the books are published under the name of the company, others are clearly self published. This is almost certainly not a “legitimate publisher’ who will pay for the work, but they are a self-publishing house who offer bundles of services to would-be authors.

    In and of themselves, self publishing hubs are not a bad thing. They can give you good advice on publicity, clearly something your Dad is missing :-) However, them presenting themselves up front as a legitimate publisher and then asking for money later is an inherently deceptive approach and you should not touch them with a barge pole, nor is it worth looking to the US market if you haven’t sold anything into the domestic market.

    My advice: have him respond, but the moment they start talking about services and costs, walk away. If he wants to take the publishing further there are some really good courses on offer from the likes of Irish Writers Centre and Writers Ink and so on.


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