The thread about the poetry anthology reminded me of the time that I was offered publication in an anthology, and wanted me to shell out $40 to buy the book. Then I remembered that I was also included in the annual book “Who’s Who Among American High School Students” and again offered a chance to buy the book… (they have a site, www.honoring.com ) … I never saw the book, but the concept is mind numbingly dull… lots of short bios of high school kids you’ve never met. So is there actually a market for these books OTHER than the kids/families who are in them, to see their name in print? Just seems like a huge scam to me…
Probably just the folks who are dumb enough to pay to have their names published. But there must be enough of these folks to keep the scheme going. I’ve gotten 3 or 4 e-mail solicitations at work in the past couple of months.
Opal, you could start one! Who’s Who - the elite of message board posters! You could become a hundredaire.
I got the book when I was in Who’s Who Among Student in American Colleges and Universities.
Yeah, kinda a rip. Just a bunch of bios, cross-indexed with the institutions.
I noticed that large and/or prestigious universities didn’t have a proportional number of Who’s-Whoers compared to my college. Matter of fact, we had more that many of them. I think our profs innundated them with nominations that year.
The Canadians. They walk among us. William Shatner. Michael J. Fox. Monty Hall. Mike Meyers. Alex Trebek. All of them Canadians. All of them here.
Who buys/reads Who’s Who books? Those in the Who’s Who Book I guess.
I have no accomplishments worth publishing, a year or so ago they solicited me to be in one of those books. Proof positive they are meaninless in value if they wanted to include me!
Ok, I can whistle through my tongue, but that is not quite a worthy of publication.
According to family legend, one of my great uncles is in the Catholic Version of the Book of Who’s Who for discovering some dead saint’s grave or soemthing like that. I’ve never seen it and haven’t a clue of what edition it was in.( mid 60’s, I’m guessing).
There are, of course, legitimate Who’s Who publications, but they are thoughtful compilations of people who are notable in the particular subject of the book, whether it’s the richest, or the most accomplished, etc. These publishers DON’T solicit.
I think it really kind of depends. Most Who’s Whos are scams where they want you to buy your name. I do think that there are a few professional Who’s Who’s that are usefull, these aren’t really biographical in nature, more bibliographical. IE. I read a paper on depression management by C. Brown, and look in something like Who’s Who in American Pyschology, to get a list of other papers by Mr. Brown. I say I think there are a few WW’s like that, but I could be wrong, I don’t have any WW’s, though I believe my aunt is in a few nursing Who’s Who’s due to her work writing textbook chapters on terminal cancer care, and I assume those are more like the professional than scam.
>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry…unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<
I don’t want to discourage any budding writers, but many of the offers to publish your short story/poem are the product of “vanity presses”, who make money by selling books at a price that vastly exceeds their printing costs/publicity costs.
Read Umberto Eco’s “Foucault’s Pendulum” for an entertaining description of vanity publishers.
“Who’s Who in America” published by Marquis is the one in most public libraries. It has information on legitimately famous people. Other than this company, I think they are all scams. I’ve had people come to the library where I work to check for these vanity Who’s who books. They’ll tell you it’s a famous book and every library is supposed to have it. Then you have to break the news to them that little Judy or Elroy isn’t in a famous book, no library on earth would buy it, and they have been victim to a sleazy if legal con.
Well, they do solicit your biography. They do not ask you to buy the book.
Gale Research, for instance, is a legitimate publisher of various books, including Contemporary Authors. They send out mailing to new authors when their books are announced in Publisher’s Weekly and send followup mailings thereafter. But the authors aren’t asked to pay anything.
To see if a “Who’s Who” is legitimate, go to a good research library. If it’s there, it means something. Otherwise, not.