About six months after I filed and defended my dissertation at UCLA, I received the following email from LAP Lambert:
Dear Lisa Luise Spangenberg ,
While researching publishable academic papers at the Library of University of California, Los Angeles University, I came across a reference to a work entitled “The games fairies play: Otherworld intruders in medieval literary narratives”.
LAP Lambert Academic Publishing AG & Co. KG specializes in the publication of theses and dissertations.
I am therefore wondering if you would be interested in cooperating with us towards a worldwide marketed publication of your work.
Your reply including an e-mail address to which I could send an e-mail with further information in an attachment would be greatly appreciated.
Looking forward to hearing back from you.
The sig area of the email included a link to their web site: www.lap-publishing.com and the information that their Board of Directors included: Dr. Wolfgang Müller (CEO), Christoph Schulligen, Jürgen Gerber, Esther von Krosigk Supervisory Board: Prof. Dr. Johannes G. Bischoff (Chairman), RA Thomas Bischoff, RA André Gottschalk
Then last May, I got another email from them:
I am writing on behalf of an international publishing house, Lambert Academic Publishing.
In the course of a research on the University of California, I came across a reference to your thesis on “The Games Fairies Play: Otherworld Intruders in Medieval English and Celtic Literary Narrative”. We are an international publisher whose aim is to make academic research available to a wider audience. LAP would be especially interested in publishing your dissertation in the form of a printed book.
Your reply including an e-mail address to which I can send an e-mail with further information in an attachment will be greatly appreciated.
The LAP website notes:
LAP publishes academic research worldwide—at no cost to our authors.
We are one of the leading publishing houses of academic research. We specialize in publishing theses, dissertations, and research projects.
What they are is an academic author mill; they exist to exploit the work of naive scholars who think they’re a legitimate academic/scholarly publisher, the kind that counts for tenure and hiring committees. There are several similar companies who offer to print your dissertation or thesis. LAP has a number of other branches; one of them is their German alter-ego VDM Verlag Dr Mueller
Victoria Strauss of SFWA Writer Beware, observes that:
VDM uses digital technology (which it dubs “print-to-order [PTO], a further development of the print-on-demand [POD] procedure”) to make its books and monographs “available” (which just means they can be special-ordered) through online and physical booksellers. There’s no cost to authors, who receive a “fee” plus “up to” 20 free copies of their book. There’s also no editing or proofreading: what you turn in is what’s printed, and the process for doing so, in which authors essentially create their own books and covers, is very similar to uploading content to a self-publishing service. Retail prices are absurdly inflated, even for a digitally-based publisher. As for marketing, “data is optimized by the publishing house and entered in all relevant catalogs worldwide. The book is offered to the leading international book distributors.” Put another way: there isn’t any.
VDM, in other words, is an academic author mill.
They aren’t really publishing your dissertation, they aren’t making it available for other scholars, and they most certainly aren’t going to help you pay off your student loans. Do go read all of Victoria Strauss’ post; she knows what she’s talking about. By the way; it’s not terribly bright to waive all your rights to your dissertation—it puts paid, among other things, to you revising and publishing your work as a scholarly monograph from a publisher who will help you up the tenure-track ladder, and quite possibly, put money in your pocket. Victoria Strauss and I are not alone in being less than delighted at the practices of LAP et al.
Nothing in the Ph.D. process prepares us for this kind of thing. When I was filling out all the paperwork for filing at UCLA, not even the library seemed terribly clued in to copyright. For instance, as part of the filing process, UCLA students are asked to grant permission to ProQuest to microfilm the dissertation. Page 26 of the UCLA Graduate Division Policies and Procedures for Thesis and Dissertation Preparation and Filing states:
Students are required to complete and sign the ProQuest Agreement form regardless of whether they do or do not copyright the dissertation. Signing the form does not affect control of the manuscript; it simply allows ProQuest to microfilm the manuscript for UCLA.
I did not waive my copyright; despite having the library return the form to me, with the instruction to waive my copyright, I refused. I also did not give ProQuest/UMI permission to sell my dissertation.
So imagine my surprise when in June of 2009 I received a letter from ProQuest that included the following:
We see that you didn’t order pre-publication with our previous discount, but you can still order at a special price. The standard hardbound edition, which is normally $74, is just $46 now, a 40% savings! And if you order multiple copies, you can save even more. Consider who else might want to have a quality-bound copy of your work: your advisor, your committee, the graduate school, mentors, or even colleagues or family.
Remember, I explicitly indicated that I did not want my dissertation offered for sale; the reason I didn’t want it offered for sale is that ProQuest/UMI charges too much, even for unbound copies. Graduate students, the people most likely to be purchasing dissertations for research, don’t really have spare cash.
I wrote ProQuest; I got back a form letter basically saying, yes, in fact, there were “two restrictions” on my dissertation and they would remove it from their catalog. As far as I know they have, and I’m gratified, but I also less than happy that UCLA provided ProQuest/UMI with my contact information; UCLA did not have my consent.
By the way; while I’m not OK with someone else profiting from selling my dissertation, I’m quite willing to give it away. If you want a bound copy, why not take a look at lulu.com or Amazon.com’s Create Space?
ETA: Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware notes that LAP Lambert et al have a new tentacle aimed at Christian writers: Blessed Hope Publishing.
Of course companies like VDM and LAP exploit recent Ph.D.s and itinerant scholars. It’s much easier than trying to rip off people who may have lawyers on retainer!
Seriously, though, it almost amounts to criminal negligence when graduate programs in the humanities have almost no resources or expertise to offer their students about intellectual property issues.
Those companies even prey on folks lower on the academic food chain than recent Ph.D earners. A couple of them sent me phishing emails similar to yours offering to publish my profoundly insightful MA thesis. Right.
Thanks so much for the post. I received the same query letter one month after submitting to Proquest. After months of academic publishers not even acknowledging my proposals it of course seemed too good to be true. Shame.
Academic life doesn’t at all prepare us for this kind of thing. I’d suggest you go look at your book shelves; who published the books you like the most in your field? Go look at the sites for those publishers. Look at their submission criteria; think about revising the dissertation (you’ll need to anyway, for professional publication). Write a proposal that fits the submission requirements for that publisher; while you wait to hear from them, look at a second and third choice.
And don’t forget about submitting new material to journals!
Best of luck to you–
i would like to publish my desertation with LAPP
i am a young african writer who specialised in poems of climate change, nature, contemporary Nigerian issue and africa. I will like my works to be publish by your establishment.
IS LAP LAMBERT PUBLISHERS a real, not a scam or fraud. Will they give us the royalty.
Victor, you need to conquer the basic skill of reading the post you comment on, including the links.
Because you’re exactly the kind of fresh meat scammers look for; they will take your book and your money and leave you weeping in the dust.
There’s a point at which I rapidly begin to lose sympathy with victims of vanity and subsidy publishers; because often, they authors are looking for something for nothing. It’s the thing con artists pick up on; greed.
If you don’t know faculty who publish with them and have good things to say, if you can’t find the publisher’s books in your library and bookstore, run the hell away.
Thank you. I was investigating this company because they sent me the same information as they did you and I did not know what to make of it. Your information was truly eye opening. Thank you for your service.
I’m glad I could help Terren. If you’re trying to have an M.A. thesis or a dissertation published, I’d suggest looking at it closely in terms of revising it to be a stand alone book, rather than a proof of proficiency. Look at other books in your field: who published them? Look at the way the structure of a monograph or book is different from your dissertation or thesis and think about the necessary revisions. Look at the submission requirements from publishers in your field (see their Web site) and start working on a query. Talk to your advisers and faculty mentors about what they suggest–especially in terms of revisions.
Last week , i too received the mail and i have no idea about the publishers and ,,when i was searching information about them .. i found this post really helpful..thank you !
How do you know about my research work on ” Ameliorative effect of Ocimum sanctum leaf extract in lead induced toxicity in rats. As you mentioned in the mail the printing of research work in the form book,really is it possible. Still I am having some doubt please clarify it.
K.Sujatha
1. I am not LAP Lambert.
2. I do not know anything about your work on “Ameliorative effect of Ocimum sanctum leaf extract in lead induced toxicity in rats” nor do I care to.
3. I am not a publisher.
4. Read things before you comment on them.
5. LAP Lambert is not a legitimate academic or scholarly publisher.
A real eye opener. A friend of mine (classmate) actually recommended them to me saying they published his work. Mine are literary jobs. I’m taken aback by the comments I’m seeing.
I’m not surprised. Academe doesn’t really prepare us for publishing in the real world. There are any number of fake publishers and vanity presses out there. If they don’t require you to submit a proposal for a scholarly book, if they don’t send it out for peer review, and most especially, if they ask for money, be wary. Look for a publisher whose books are in your university’s library, and reviewed in the peer reviewed journals of your field.
Thanks for this info. I just received an email from LAP and was very surprised and curious to know how they got my email and how they came to know that my dissertation is complete! A reply to the sender of the email bounced though.
I am thankful for LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing Gmbh & Co.Kg germany who provide academias and researchers I am also one of them. I am waiting for my book project which is under publishing process. I am thankful my book editor N.Tutalea who edited my book. My second book on economics on piple line soon I submit to LAP LAMBERT for publishing.
Yeah, good luck with your book.
I’ll watch WorldCat to see if any libraries pick it up.
Word to the wise: My publishers pay me an advance, edit, proof, design, typeset and create an index, produce multiple digital formats as well as print, and make sure that my books are available in bookstores all over the world, translate them, and then send me royalties.
Real publishers do that. They do all of that.
Have you ever seen any LAP Lambert books in your campus library?
Do you know anyone who has ever bought one of their books?
Are you being paid for the right to sell your book?
Sir i have done a c program to solve four integral problem(Trapezoidal,Simson’s 1/3,Simson’s 3/8 &Weddle )which also compare among them and will give best accuracy ,also done a four differentiation problem(EULER,MODIFIED EULER,RUNGE-KUTTA SECOND&FOURTH order) in similar manner.I want to publish this work via your publishing house.
You know, if you’re so stupid that you reply to a blog post pointing out that LAP is a fake publisher and you think that I’m the publisher, you’re essentially TSTL.
Go away. You’re an idiot.
Aw, come on, Lisa – tell him what you REALLY think!
Seriously, some people cannot be helped. People like the ratbags behind LAP Lambert must be so grateful for them.
So, if Lambert is a reputable publisher and not a shady print-on-demand service…. why do they make up the names and pictures of their “acquisitions editors”?
http://journalology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/lambert-academic-publishing-or-how-not.html
You really need a brain transplant if you trust your work to these people….
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Thank you all for that information, Lisa in particular. I was almost confused and at the same time ready to send my masters thesis just before I googled and reached this site.
Thanks Lisa once again!
Netsanet
And here is what they wrote me in case it could help others:
—————–
Dear Netsanet ***********,
According to the AIS – Association for Information Systems’s online repository you wrote a research paper in the field of ************************ during your studies.
I am an Editor of LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing, an international publisher specialized in the publication of research papers.
We would be pleased to consider integrating the above mentioned work in our catalogue of printed books.
In case you are interested in our offer please contact me at your earliest convenience. I will be pleased to send you a detailed brochure for your perusal.
I am looking forward to hearing from you.
——————–
And then in another email, this one:
————————
Dear Netsanet **************,
Thank you for your interest in our publishing house.
We would be pleased to consider publishing your work as printed book.
To find more details about our services for authors, please click on the following link to download an e-brochure:
https://www.lap-publishing.com/information/LAP_information-for-authors.pdf
We publish about 10,000 books annually and are therefore one of the leading academic publishing houses in Germany. We are also an associate member of the American Booksellers’ Association (www.bookweb.org) and the Booksellers’ Association (www.booksellers.org.uk) of the UK and Ireland.
We publish books in the form of monographs, which means that our books are independent scientific publications (and not journal articles). Thus, we would be interested in publishing your work in its entirety. Our books are distributed by wholesalers worldwide, so you can review them on http://www.morebooks.de, http://www.amazon.com, or http://www.barnesandnoble.com (the easiest way is to go on our website http://www.lap-publishing.com and choose ‘Catalogue´).
We usually publish monographs, scripts, diploma(bachelor) theses, master theses, dissertations, postdoctoral theses, and lecture notes in different scientific topics. But, your work should be written in English, the minimum of pages must be of 42 pages. Should you have written academic papers and you consider them suitable for publishing, I would be happy to review them.
If you are interested in working with us, please submit your work by e-mail along with a telephone number at which you can be reached. You will then receive a feedback as to whether we will publish your work, as well as any requests for corrections if applicable. Although this goes without saying in publishing, I would like to expressly guarantee that your work will only be used for in-house review. Should we not arrive at an agreement, all your data will be deleted from our records.
Please note that your manuscript should have at least 42 pages to be considered for publication.
Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
I look forward to hearing back from you.
————————
Netsanet