Don’t Do It
admin June 25th, 2009
I came home from a vacation recently to a rather interesting email in my inbox. At first, I thought it was about my role in licensing a patent on one of my research discoveries (oooh yeah!). It wasn’t.
This is now the second time I have received this letter. It reads:
Dear PA ,
I am writing on behalf of the international academic publisher, LAP Lambert Academic Publishing AG & CO.KG.
In the course of a research at the Library of YOUR UNIVERSITY, we came across a reference to your thesis on “ESOTERIC THESIS TOPIC IN THE SCIENCES”.
As we would like to make your work available to a larger audience, I am wondering if you may be interested in publishing your thesis 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.
I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely yours,
Kind regards
Bryan Narroo
Acquisition Editor
LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing AG & Co. KG
Theodor-Heuss-Ring 26 / 50668 Köln, Germany
Fon +49 681 3720-310
Fax +49 681 3720-3109
b.narroo@lap-publishing.com / www.lap-publishing.com
Handelsregister Amtsgericht Köln HRA 26549
Partner with unlimited liability:
VDM Verwaltung Aktiengesellschaft
Handelsregister Amtsgericht Saarbrücken HRB 16777
Board of Directors: Dr. Wolfgang Müller (Chairman/Vors.), Christoph Schulligen, Jürgen Gerber,
Supervisory Board: Prof. Dr. Johannes G. Bischoff (Chairman/ Vors.), RA Thomas Bischoff, RA André Gottschalk
The first time I got this letter I was a little excited. I mean, they wanted to publish ME! Who cares if my dissertation is already widely available for anyone who ever cares to read it. They think it could be a BOOK! Like with real pages and binding and my name all big on the front and people will buy it. I was also out of a job and more than a little vulnerable. Of course, I did have some things going for me. First, I’ve done my fair share of publishing in good journals and have no real need to publish my dissertation. Second, I’m am deathly afraid of violating copyrights and going to “pound you in the ass prison” (or any prison, really). And last, I know how to use the internet. So I did what any good little researcher would do.
I googled.
And I found out that this is a scam, people. Don’t do it!
See here: http://hjhop.blogspot.com/2008/12/shady-academic-publishing.html
And here: http://littlecomputerscientist.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/investigating-lambert-academic-publishing-with-google-square/
They really do have a pretty website. But sadly, a good website is a (mostly) necessary but not sufficient condition.