Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd. Reviews 643

Vanity publisher - took over 2k of my money - Didn’t make any edits to my book and did no marketing. Please do not use.

Colleagues at Austin Macauley have proved to offer timely guidance and support with the overall processes in producing my book.

I’ve just released my first book with Austin Macauley Publishers, and they couldn’t have made the process any easier. Everything was handled quickly and efficiently via email — no long calls or complicated back-and-forths, just clear communication and professional support throughout.

I mainly worked with Jack Morris, who was an absolute legend! He made sure all my feedback was passed on to the right departments and kept everything running smoothly.

For my first publishing experience, I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better journey. Highly recommend Austin Macauley to any first-time authors looking for a professional and stress-free process!

The book the magic bogey am worked on absolutely fantastic from start to finish kept well informed beautiful illustrations could not fault

In a nutshell, I had to go outside of the United States to fin a publisher that was Professional an that offered not 8 or even 10% royalties but a full 20% Royalty to its authors.

The company, Austin Macauley, were very kind, helpful and supportive. Their email about my book was positive and it made me feel very happy.

I love the fact that I was given all the support needed at each stage of my book production process.

The team shows good communication skills with me,they were so patient with the illustration and editing process as well as actioning any corrections noted immediately. Lastly,my book came out as expected and it's so beautiful.

All, or most, of the positive reviews are fake, not in the sense that they're not by real authors, but their positive feelings are written before they've realised they've been scammed. I know from personal experience, having written positive reviews, only to discover later that Austin Macauley had been cheating me on library sales, which I, myself managed to promote successfully to some libraries (title of the book "VLAD DRACULA: THE IMPALER" (a novel of historical horror). Found in all Saskatchewan regional libraries, so AMP can't worm their way out of this one. STAY AWAY FROM THIS VANITY PRESS!!!!

Most of the positive reviews here seem to be written at the beginning of the reviewer's relationship with Austin Macauley, and the negative ones are written later on or after the relationship has ended. Keep that in mind as you read on.

I signed my contract with AM in 2019, and it took them until April 2023 to publish my book, it should have been done in about one year. It was a couple of years after signing before anything appeared to happen, I might imagine that Covid-19 might be blamed for the delay, but much of the work could easily have been done by remote workers.

When I finally did get the first round of suggested edits and corrections, they had replaced many of my UK spellings with equivalent US ones, the most amusing exception being when an American character used the word "mom", they replaced it with a British "mum"! They also broke up sentences arbitrarily, damaging the flow and losing important context.

Once the book was out in the wild, things went swiftly downhill. Yes, they got my book listed on all the top UK and US online retailers, but that's where I feel the marketing effort largely ended, apart from regularly inviting me to spend £200 per time for them to include my title in their stands at international shows which you might imagine a publisher keen to make sales would do anyway for its current titles.

I'm sure that AM will respond to the above comments that this was a "blended publishing contract", meaning that both they and I had a role in publicising my book, but there will be two flaws in any such argument; one being that I did quite a lot of marketing through my established social channels, but I never saw any mention of my book in any online marketing content from AM. The other flaw is that when I asked AM Marketing about accepting paid collaborations to publicise my book, they told me I did not need to spend money on any such thing because they publicised my book. I'm sure they did not.

Early on, I accepted their offer to have my book featured in the Publisher's Weekly magazine, which involved purchasing a digital subscription to PW. I should have received a hard copy of the edition that featured my book, but never saw it featured and never received the hard copy.

At one time, a lady from AM contacted me with a video she had created to publicise my book, but she clearly had not even read the blurb of the book because her video supposedly about my story bore little resemblance to it. Once the final version was created, I added a voiceover and used it in my socials, but they never used it.

If you're thinking of signing with AM, you will not have much of a relationship with them, especially once your book is published. I suspect that all communication is handled by an external contact centre because responses to e-mails seldom answer all of your questions, those that are answered get minimal detail, and they seem to want to wrap-up phone calls just as quickly.

Whilst AM does have a presence on all the main social platforms, the team operating those channels seems to concentrate almost entirely on gimmicky, Tik-Tok-style videos that do next to nothing to publicise any published titles. You also cannot contact them directly, they seem to be separate from the Marketing e-mail address that you have for marketing contact. During my time with AM, several attempts to discuss collaborations with them came to nought, nothing ever came back from them.

Some reviewers have mentioned not being paid all royalties. I didn't follow too closely at first, but towards the end when they claimed no sales had been made in a set period, I know of people that had bought the book so there should have at least been some.

After two years and four months, AM abruptly ceased publication with no prior discussion, and refused to entertain any discussion on the number of copies that had been printed and circulated, which I feel is very suspicious.

On the whole. the main thing I needed from a publisher was help with marketing, and that is where Austin Macauley fails hardest. If you don't already have an significant online presence or access to friends or other contacts that do, it's not worth signing with AM because they will not provide effective marketing solutions.

Terrible company, they are nice to start with but totally incapable of publishing a book correctly. We had to tell them how to do their job (and they charged us for this ) Names wrong, details wrong online. We canceled the publishing agreement in June 2025 they have not paid us our royalties, the statement they sent is incorrect, and they refuse to answer emails. Avoid like the plague

My overall experience with this company was one of huge disappointment in the formatting of my book and the lack of promotion after publication. It seemed to me they took my money (a considerable amount), then forgot about me. I would strongly urge caution and to approach other publishers before committing to Austin McCauley.

From the first anticipated contact till the release of my book, and more. Austin Macauley held my hand throughout the whole process. The details and the attention provided to me, speaks volumes in just how good hands I'm in.

The editing team, the marketing team have simply been amazing. This has been a watershed moment, I wish I had done this 10 years ago. I am having the most amazing adventure, it is simply life changing!!!

It was nice of Austin Macauley to publish my book and they have been very helpful on the way through. However marketing it in Australia has had its problems. Retail outlets seem to have trouble purchasing the book through their normal supply chains. Shipping Costs from London to Australia are also very expensive.

Prompt responses and informative step by step guide to publishing

As a writer, I really met a team of dedicated professionals. They know what they are doing and they do it right in every little, and yet, important detail. They know how to listen, they can help. At each and every step, you can feel they are experienced. I definitely recommend Austin Macauley Publishers.

AM kept me connected from the very beginning to end. The editors responded quickly to all of my questions and concerns.I was pleased with the finished product.

They take your money, publish an amateurish-looking book (e.g. the bottom lines of the pages on a two-page spread are not consistently aligned, and on some pages the ink looks faded), do absolutely nothing to promote your book except make it available on a few booksellers' websites such as Amazon, and then after two years, because the book hasn't sold well (and why would it when the publisher has done nothing to promote it?), they drop you altogether.

I wrote a previous review with 5 stars, at this point I was going through the publishing process however I am so disappointed. AC were great through the original process and the published book was great. Since publishing though, I feel a bit like a forgotten entity. I have done all my social media promotion, got 3 book signings off my own accord yet I havnt seen 1 single thing where they have promoted on my behalf. I thought that was why we pay all the money to them but obviously I was wrong. I really hope I can take my second book elsewhere but unfortunately I may be tied now.

This company first said they wanted to publish my book to say a few weeks later they wanted me to pay for it. I unwisely did and have not been receiving my royalties from my Amazon sales. The cost from them was nearly the same, so I'd buy from Amazon and sign and re-sell my books. I've purchased a hundred books with no royalties from Amazon, only from them in the UK directly, which has been limited. I have refered countless others to Amazon to purchase, but have received no royalties from people who showed me the book they purchased. I don't know how many other have bought my book I have not been paid for.
Also they butchered my manuscript after I hired my own freelance editor to revise it. They changed correct things to fit their british minds or something. They made tons of extra work and I never got it back right after they got a hold of it. I'd avoid avoid avoid..