Absolute Write Reviews 

I was mistreated while using Absolute Write
The owner of Absolute Write, whose real name is Melodi Susanne Sherman while operates under the DBA, MacAllister Stone. Why is Melodi hiding her identity under a fictitious name as a business owner? Because it allows her to bully users without accountability. Also because Absolute Write has a history of scams that the public should be aware of that MacAllister is trying to hide. The public deserves to know about the scams. Absolute Write made money exploiting writers and authors. They first created a fake university called "Absolute Write University" and Absolute Classes that charged desperate writers $40 an hour for writing tutorials with promises of making them successful. They ran Absolute List, and Absolute Market, and Absolute Editorial where they charged authors. This, while now running a forum that branded itself as a non-profit consumer watchdog that currently has on its website that it is nonprofit and charges no fees. This was a massive financial contradiction because they did charge writers fees but had to shut down after they scammed a bunch of people. You can find the information on The Way Back Machine and on several blogs talking about it that go back more than a decade. Absolute Write was absolutely charging writers and running a fake university that they had to shut down because of financial misconduct. It was a branch on their website they called "Absolute Classes." They were charging writers and authors for editing and other services. Absolute Write was a for-profit company but has spent years accusing other people of being scammers when Absolute Write ran the ultimate scam and even had a scandal. They scrubbed every trace of Absolute University and their predatory services from the internet, but the internet is forever. You can still find their for-profit schemes on the Way Back Machine. Absolute Write was defended by their co-conspirator from Writer's Beware, Vicky Strauss, who claimed it's all a big retaliation scheme from the people they exposed and that none of it is true. But the evidence is right there on The Way Back Machine that shows a cached backup of Absolute Write. Vicky Strauss of Writer's Beware also does not disclose a conflict of interest, which is that she was a moderator on Absolute Write during the time of the scams, and thus, complicit in the scam and the coverup by using her "Writer's Beware" platform to give Absolute Write legitimacy and credibility even though Absolute Write was scamming writers who never made a profit or became successful from their expensive for-profit classes and fake University. Absolute Write also scammed the the people who worked for them and taught those classes then banned them when they complained about not being paid.

Why would a person running a "legitimate" watchdog group hide under an alias and run their operation out of a storage facility? The website claims it is a watchdog group but uses its platform to attack new users or anyone who disagrees with them. Absolute Write scammed editors and instructors out of money yet pretend to be a watchdog group for writers. They were taking student registration money and pocketing it. It's not just that, but even the owner openly bullies members and in the past has sent them messages and threats filled with expletives. AbsoluteWrite.com is not a professional site, obviously. They openly bully new members and shut down any voice that disagrees with their way of thinking. What they run is a massive echo chamber. They operate in bad faith, dishonesty, and deceptive tactics in order to smear competitors, embarrass companies, and individuals with lies on top of their history of stealing from employees and previously operating this editing, writing business (fake university) under a fictitious name that they filed with the government, which was super illegal. They're a mob, which can make it seem like everyone agrees with them. They use each other's platforms for legitimacy, so search engines believe them. They have a history of being sued for defamation but because the owner hides behind an alias, they have escaped accountability. The controversy they create around businesses is meant to drive website traffic to Absolute Write. That's the new scam, pretending to be a watchdog group when they were the predators who scammed people. If they can smear a company, they'll get views and clicks whenever someone searches for it. Melodi S. Sherman is the owner of Absolute Write.com so if you need to sue, you now have a name. The fake-editors who remain now have removed any evidence of their past editing services, and now offer them under "peer reviews" on their forums. My advice to writers is to avoid Absolute Write. Protect yourself from their malice.

They sent wrong item. Called and another item sent out same day. Shipping takes 7-8 days. Customer service person was very helpful. I've ordered several items and all work fine. Will use again.

I'm been a semi-frequent user and long-time lurker of this website. Everything the other posters here (except the person complaining about politics???) say is true. This website is not where to go for publishing advice. The moderators and "super members" are snarky, rude, and will latch onto the most infinitesimal thing you say to be nasty to you. These people clearly have never held any other position of authority in their lives and are using this circa-2000s style writing forum to power trip. It's sad because there are so few compiled resources online for writers to turn to, and AW positions itself as THE place for writing advice. Meanwhile, most of the members are white knights for the Powers That Be in the trad (yes, TRAD) publishing world in the hopes that Senpai might finally notice them.

I have only frequented the forum in relation to possible writers' scams and to be fair it has been helpful in the past. But I just had an experience of having my original post ignored (genuinely asking about s possible scam). Nobody was interested in that - the trolls on there just seemed to be interested in correcting my use of 'trad' publishing which they all piled on and told me wasn't the right word and that I should have used 'trade'. It was eye-wateringly petty - and wrong actually. I meant 'trad' short for traditional and I was told it was offensive. Never heard such drivel. They seem to live in a parallel universe.

Had a terrible experience with Absolute Write. I thought that they were supposed to be a hub for professionals in the industry. Instead it is a hub where you're not allowed to share your honest negative experience with previous agents. They claim that sock puppet accounts aren't allowed. However, they have no way of knowing whether or not people creating them. It is very easy to create these accounts and try to go on the defense for an agency. So, people aren't allowed to truly voice their negative opinion without being blasted. I made one honest write up on a thread for an agency and I found it odd that the thread was over-the-top siding with the agency. I stated my very negative experience querying them and suddenly everyone came out of the woodwork. Everyone was picking apart my comments, going way overboard on siding with the agency. It was highly suspicious. I've worked with marketing agencies in the past that create sock puppet accounts to improve reviews and try to mitigate situations from making them look bad. It's called reputation management. Politicians do it all the time during elections, etc. People do it on Goodreads. The moderators are unprofessional and add fuel to the fire. They encourage bad behavior and negative write ups by fellow gossipers and bullies. It's like they want more bullying to occur. I got ganged up on for simply stating that I had a negative experience with an agency and everyone just came out and started oddly siding with the agency. So, this site is 100% toxic and full of bullies with fake accounts. Some actually work for the agencies to try to mitigate any negative write ups about them. So, there is no way to share your honest input or actually express negative experiences about literary agencies without getting attacked. That doesn't help writers. if Absolute Write is supposed to be a hub to help educate, they aren't professional or capable to do this. It is a toxic site.

It is an awful, awful site full of trolls who do not stop bullying you. You are not allowed to share your opinion without getting hounded. You cannot delete accounts. You cannot block people. It is awful.

AbsoluteWrite.com is not a professional writing site, it's a website for trolls. Beware of asking a basic writing question or you will be met by their troll welcoming party. I thought it was a real company but their physical address is actually a storage facility and the owner uses an alias. Worst experience ever.

This is the worst writing site on the internet.
It is a SCAM - that robs you of your emotions not money.
The advice is incorrect - and the people unprofessional and incompetent.
The whole thing is to have fun with you - so you can be banned. Sometimes it is an instant ban for life. Otherwise you get a ban for a month - but find out that it is permanent ! 30,000 decent kind people who only wish to genuinely teach others have been banned to date.
No professional will touch these monsters with a barge pole. STAY AWAY.

Absolute Write is a site where anyone can spew misinformation in an attempt to garner the praise of their fellow members. They are in desperate need of some fact checkers.

AW is riddled with bigoted, intolerant far left extremists. Scum of the earth. Avoid them.

its a fantastic style which ur desire so use it

Stay far away from this site. I had my post unfairly locked so I went to the admin to ask why. She pulled out these extremely far fetched excuses as to why she did it, saying I did multiple stuff that I did not do, and when I defended myself to her, and asked if maybe she was confusing me with another, she unfairly banned me for a month without further discussion. When I tried to contact the owner, I had now way of doing so besides creating another account, and they permanently banned me for "sock puppeting." I was in utter shock and disbelief at the treatment I was receiving, so I sent in multiple messages but no one replied. When I finally got in contact with MacAllister on Facebook, she said my perma ban remains and that they will "hard pass" on me because of "entitled and demanding behavior" and "wasting our time" when I did nothing of the sort, then blocked me from replying. I am hurt, am in utter shock at this horrible treatment from MacAllister Stone and her admin, Lisa, aka "AW Admin." They should be ashamed of themselves. Stay far away from AW unless you want to be treated unfairly.

I was a member of AW for a while, and I find myself going back every few months to check up on some of the horrible discussions. The advice is juvenile and hardly critical or informed...incompetent in many ways. Creative writing is being taught on this site as though there were rules to writing fiction! Any opinion given as advice that challenges this status quo in any way is immediately dismissed, as though there were one way in which fiction must be undertaken, and one way only. I have also gotten into EXTREMELY passive aggressive debates with other users and mods on several occasions, and, although that is the lay of the land when it comes to internet forums, there tends to be causes to incite such exchanges. On AW, no such causes are needed. It is also important to note that the vast majority of advice being given is coming from fellow amateur/unpublished writers, many who are far too inexperienced in both life and actual writing to possibly have the perspective to form good critical advice, and many of whom clearly don't read books--how are they expected to write?!? I would put good money on 75% of the users not even knowing who Borges is, and these are people who are supposed to be giving legitimate advice? Their credibility isn't helped by the fact that several of the published authors on the site are self-published (not inherently bad), and most of the published works (both self and not) are horrible supernatural romance/horror romance/fantasy romance (notice a trend?), the kind with well built white vampire dudes on the cover. Again, nothing inherently bad about this fact, except that, to me, the trendy YA/teenage audience these cookie-cutter works cater to is further evidence that they actively perpetuate and defend a kind of status quo, in which anything that challenges the fiction they write is artsy/pointless/breaking nonexistent rules/evil.

Further proof that many of the users are incapable of reading critically, including mods: I tend to word my posts very carefully, using very specific vocabulary and always prefacing and qualifying what I am saying with caveats and so forth, so as to allow for the possibility of my opinion on said writing subject not meshing well with others, so anyone who puts a smallest amount of effort into reading it will be able to understand I am offering a single perspective on an otherwise all-encompassing issue. Yet I would get post after post, some from mods themselves, dismissing and attacking points I made, almost always ones I prefaced with something like "to NEEDLESSLY do this is bad", as if I did not go out of my way to state clearly that I did not mean what I said as an "absolute" truth. If the people meant to be giving advice cannot even read an internet post carefully enough to grasp what was actually said, I doubt their ability to truly help anyone. Thankfully, I can say in the few years I was with them back in the day, I gained a few pointers on how NOT to teach someone, and, now that I'm an English tutor at my college, I hope to do what AW can only dream of doing--actually helping someone improve their work with thoughtful criticism.