My correspondence with Lambert Academic Publishing

The bait

Lambert Academic Publishing is one of the imprints used by VDM Publishing, a print-on-demand publishing house that aggressively advertises to recent recipients of graduate degrees, offering to publish their theses and dissertations as printed books. They have no peer review process and their marketing and business practices are considered ethically questionable at best. Late in 2014, a representative of LAP sent me an unsolicited email that looked very much like spam. Five minutes of Googling revealed that LAP is an organization that I would never, ever trust with anything I’d written.

From: Emma Collins e.collins@lap-publishing-house.com

To: "Nicholas (daniel Sibley) Welch"

Subject: To: Nicholas (daniel Sibley) Welch / University of Victoria

Dear Mr. Nicholas (daniel Sibley) Welch,

I am Emma Collins from the editorial team of Lambert Academic Publishing.

I’m getting in touch with you today concerning an interesting work from 2008 which I found at the University of Victoria.

Is it correct that you authored the work entitled “Northwest Passage: Northern Athabaskan Copulas and Auxiliaries”?

A short confirmation would be greatly appreciated. I believe this particular topic could be of interest to a wider audience and we would be glad to consider publishing it.

Should the commercialisation of your work as printed book meet your interest, I will be glad to provide you with further details in an electronic brochure.

I am looking forward to hearing from you, Mr. Nicholas (daniel Sibley) Welch.

Thank you in advance.

Best regards,

--

Emma Collins

Acquisition Editor

LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing is a trademark of

OmniScriptum GmbH & Co. KG

Heinrich-Böcking-Str. 6-8,

66121, Saarbrücken, Germany

Of course, I couldn't let such a wonderful letter go without a response.