Learn How to Avoid Bad Coloring Books
How can a coloring book be bad? Well, anytime something becomes wildly popular, there are going to be people who wish to take advantage of its popularity to cash in. The adult coloring trend is no exception.
Every day, more spammy, scammy, and just plain bad coloring books are appearing on Amazon. Did you know that from late 2015 through these first six months of 2016, approximately 3000 new coloring books are being released every month on Amazon? It’s a staggering amount! And unfortunately, a lot of these new coloring books are fakes or poor quality books.
Defining Bad Coloring Books
What makes a coloring book bad, and how do you spot the fakes and the scams? Read on so you don’t get duped. It’s time to stand up for good coloring books. And don’t miss the Gallery of Shame at the end of this article for real examples of bad coloring books and colorist experiences.
First, let’s go over what constitutes a bad coloring book. Here are some examples and criteria:
Knock-off Fakes of a Popular Title
Johanna Basford fans might be familiar with this one. Unscrupulous overseas sellers will take a popular title and reproduce its contents using cheaper quality printing, binding, and paper, and sell it online or through brick and mortar discount stores.
Fake copy of Johanna Basford’s best seller, “Secret Garden.” The fake on the right was bought through a Groupon deal of the day.
Unoriginal Art or Designs
This can include outright pirated content as well as stock images such as clip art.
Pirated Images
A large number of the fake books on Amazon are made up of poor quality, low resolution, pirated images taken from image search results without obtaining permission from the artist. Oftentimes, these fake books will use different covers with the same pirated images inside of each book, or just a few variations to trick the automated approval systems. These books are in blatant violation of international copyright laws. In other words, they are made illegally.
Three different coloring books? Wrong. When you look inside the book, you’ll find the book interior doesn’t even contain images relating to the book’s title. They’re all identical inside with low quality pictures ripped out of image search results.
Quite often, these pirated books are produced to capitalize on a popular keyword phrase and the content of the book isn’t even what it claims to be.
Stock Clip Art and Public Domain Images
Does your coloring book induce déjà vu? It might be because you’ve seen those images before… before… before… before…
Sometimes coloring books are made up of stock images and clip-art that was either purchased from a stock image agency or acquired through public domain sources. These books aren’t illegal, or even necessarily bad, but it’s good to be aware of this practice if you’re wondering why you often see the same images repeated in many coloring book titles from varying authors.
There are many ways coloring book creators use stock images. Not all of this constitutes a bad book, but it is something to be aware of.
- Some will purchase the stock images and put them into a book in their raw form without any editing or modification. These are often the types of books you will find in the dollar stores and bargain bins of discount stores.
- Some coloring book publishers are acting as curators where they acquire stock images of a similar theme and style and assemble them into a cohesive book. Penny Farthing
is one coloring book curator using this practice, and it’s not what I would consider an example of bad coloring books as the images are carefully chosen specifically for the purposes of coloring books for grown-ups.
- Still others are using public domain images. That is, images which are not protected under copyright due to their age or because they have been released by the original creator as copyright-free. There is nothing wrong with this practice and it can produce both good and bad coloring books. The good books consist of carefully curated public domain source images which are usually cleaned up, restored, and refined specifically for the purpose of creating coloring books. These curators are providing a valuable service by preserving this vintage content for future generations. Vintage Coloring is one curator using public domain images to create high-quality coloring books.
- Unfortunately, there are also coloring book publishers who do nothing but assemble public domain images into a book format with no editing, no theme, and no attention to quality. Often you will see these same images repeated over and over, in poor resolution, resulting in blurry or smudged and dirty-looking coloring book content.
- Now that gray-scale coloring books are taking off, you will often find coloring books curated from huge public domain photo collections. Again, there is nothing wrong with this practice, and there is some artistry in converting a color photo into gray-scale for coloring, but it is good to be aware of. As the number of coloring books increases, you are likely to see the same popular public domain photos repeated across these types of books. If you want to avoid this possibility, look for books that advertise having original photography.
Computer Generated Images
One of many web sites that makes it easy to churn out hundreds of simple mandala patterns in minutes. It’s free, so if you like coloring these, why not just make them for yourself?
I’m going to talk about “computer-generated” images here too. Notice I didn’t say computer generated art? Digital art isn’t the problem–I am a digital artist myself–but I create original designs. One of the shortcuts taken by the get-rich-quick publishers, is to use software to churn out hundreds of images per hour (usually mandalas and patterns). These are often very simple and repetitive designs lacking the organic quality of true art. They’re not all bad, but they’re often simple, bland and boring and the publishers of these kinds of books generally don’t take the time to understand what colorists want.
Hobby Artists
Hobby artists aren’t doing anything wrong if they are using their own imagery or legally obtained images. But all too often these hobby artist don’t take the time to learn about publishing and how to create a quality book that people want to color. Hobby artists may have oodles of talent, but they can still produce a bad coloring book because they don’t take time to learn the ins and outs of preparing their artwork for publishing.
Hobby artists may produce a bad coloring book because they don’t take the time or care enough to learn how to prepare their artwork for publishing.
It’s absolutely fantastic that independent artists and authors can easily and inexpensively get their work into print through Amazon’s CreateSpace print-on-demand platform, but that means it’s also inexpensive and easy for any Joe Blow to put out an inferior product.
Avoiding Bad Coloring Books
So now that you know what makes a bad coloring book, how do you avoid them? It’s not always simple to spot them, but I am going to give you a few clues and tips to help you avoid bad coloring books.
Use Amazon’s Look Inside the Book or Look for a Book Preview
Take time to use Amazon’s Look Inside the Book (LITB) to preview some of the designs from the book before you buy. Look to see if the images are consistent in style and appropriate to the theme of the book. If the book is supposed to be about woodland creatures but LITB shows a bunch of geometric mandalas, you probably are looking at a pirated book.
This is a screen shot from look inside the book on the “Erotica Coloring Book.” Perhaps I’m just not dirty-minded enough to find erotica in this mandala, but I don’t think so.
Little known fact: At first, LITBe will only show a handful of pages from a book, but if you are signed into your Amazon account, you can click “Surprise me” repeatedly to see many more pages from the look inside preview.
It can take days several days or weeks for LITB to become available for a new book, however, so sometimes this is not an option. If you can’t look in the book, do a search for the author’s website, sample pages, a preview video, or a book flip-through video. Genuine artists with a quality book will always have a web presence of some kind.
Look for examples of the book’s content before buying so you can avoid getting a bad coloring book from a misleading description.
Shrink-Wrapped Books
Avoid buying a shrink wrapped coloring book from a discount store, especially if it’s a popular title and the price seems too good to be true.
If you are shopping in a brick and mortar store, especially a dollar store or discount bin, avoid the sealed books that you can’t open up to see the paper quality or images inside. Especially if it’s a popular title at unbelievable prices! The same goes for online if it seems to good to be true; ask around before you fall for cheap knock-off from those deal-of-the-day sites.
Author Name
Click on the author name on Amazon and see if you get an author page or simply a search result page. Quality authors will have set up an author page on Amazon with a bio, follow me button, and links to all their books. Fly-by-night scam book sellers don’t want all their bad books associated, so they often won’t have an author page.
Does the author have hundreds of other books listed? None? Both of these can be red flags. Look at the publication dates of the books. If you are seeing a large number of books published in a short amount of time, there is a good chance they are producing bad coloring books.
Actual screen shot from Amazon taken 6/11/2016 – This author page has no author photo, no bio, and an unrealistic number of books published in a short amount of time. The book covers are also unprofessional with grammar and spelling errors.
Is the author using a real name or a generic pen name? A “collective” pen name isn’t always a red flag–Blue Star Coloring, Creative Haven, and Global Doodle Gems are all legit coloring book publishers, but “Sparkling Unicorn Coloring Books for Adults” (I made that up) likely isn’t. If the author “name,” the book title, and the series name are all a direct repeat of the book’s prime search keywords, then it’s probably a fake book. Use this as one more gauge in your quest for clues.
This fake coloring book uses the same book title for its author name and series title. In addition, the book’s description isn’t even original!
Kindle and Kindle Unlimited
Publishing a coloring book on Kindle is against Amazon’s guidelines, and most legitimate coloring book artists won’t do it. You can’t color or print from a Kindle ebook, so why would you put it on Kindle? It’s a scam. Most Kindle coloring books say they come with a “free” download of the digital pages for you to print yourself. The trick here is that Kindle Unlimited pays its authors based on number of pages read. By putting a link to a free download in the back of the book, the scammy publishers can fake the number pages “read” and get paid a tidy sum.
They are not thinking of you. They are using a scam to trick Amazon’s system into paying them more.
Even though you might not be paying directly for these fake books, you’re still putting money in the pockets of scammers. There is also a real danger of getting a computer virus or malware from these download links as they are not monitored or verified by Amazon at all. This is exactly what happened to a friend of mine after downloading several files linked from the “free” Kindle coloring books she had collected.
Poor spelling and grammar can indicate a bad coloring book. If the author doesn’t take care with proofreading and editing the cover text, chances are they won’t have taken care with the book’s artwork either.
Do Judge a Book By Its Cover
With art-oriented books more than anything, the book’s cover can be a good indicator of what you will find inside. Is the cover professional in appearance, with good spelling and grammar? That said, once again this is only one part of the puzzle–a bad book can also have a very good cover as scammers take advantage of templates and cheap overseas design services to put a pretty wrapper on their garbage books.
Or, just like the content of these fake coloring books, the cover might be pirated, as seen above. Also look at the back cover of the book. Is it plain except for an ISBN, or does it show examples and describe the book? Scammers won’t bother taking time to design the back cover of the book because they know search engines can’t “read” it and it can’t be used to trick you into buying a fake book.
The rip-off “artist” of the Fantasy Coloring Book even ripped off the cover design for their book from a user on Deviant Art. The real artist of this copyright-protected page is producing an adult coloring book for Blue Star Coloring.
Book Description
Read that book description and look for one that is well-written and professional, with good spelling and grammar. Does the description mention original designs or hand-drawn art? Does it ring true? Watch out for excessive use of repetitive keywords, weird word combinations, unrealistic claims, and vague descriptions. Good coloring book authors will want you to know the number of illustrations found in the book, the types of illustrations, and whether they are printed on only one side of the paper.
This coloring book description is a bunch of keyword-filled nonsense. In addition, a Google and Bing search of a small snippet of this book’s description turned up around 6,000 web pages containing nearly identical text, with many of the top results being coloring books–from astrology to evangelism to Wicca! What are the chances???
Copyright Page
Who looks at the copyright page, right? But the copyright page can provide clues to whether the book publisher understands copyright or not. Here’s an example of the copyright page from one of my books, compared to the copyright notice taken from Look Inside the Book on a known pirated book on Amazon.
My book’s copyright notice is on the top. The pirated book’s copyright notice on the bottom.
Besides the typo on the pirated book’s copyright notice, the bad coloring book does not use standard book publishing conventions on the copyright page.
Lots of one star reviews? You might be looking at a pirated coloring book!
Look at Reviews
If there are reviews, look at the low ratings and see what the comments are. Customers are getting better at spotting the stock image and pirated books and often want to warn other colorists. If all the reviews are good, look for reviews with pictures from the book, and make sure the comments ring true. Unscrupulous book makers also use unscrupulous means to acquire reviews, so all positive reviews won’t ensure you don’t get a bad book.
If you enjoy coloring books, please help your favorite coloring book artist out by reviewing their books, and help other colorists by posting reviews for the bad books as well. I can’t tell you how important honest reviews are to us coloring book artists!
Page Count
Amazon will always list the page count for books. Most colorists want images printed on only one side of the paper, and if this is important to you, you will want to check that the page count listed is more than double the number of illustrations that is said to be in the book.
Publisher of Record (Updated)
This is not a big indicator of a scam book, but if red flags have already been raised it’s one more thing you can look at. As mentioned earlier, many scam books are published through CreateSpace, a print-on-demand company owned by Amazon. There’s nothing wrong with that–I use them myself. However, I pay a small amount for each book to have the publisher of record changed to my branding so the publisher is listed as “SuziQ Creations Publications.” Why? Because I am proud of what I created and want it distinguished and identified as my brand.
Most of the lowest of low book tricksters won’t pay this fee because they only care about maximizing profits. That said, many authentic artists can’t change the listed publisher either, so again–don’t use this as your only indicator.
Update 6/26/2016 – CreateSpace no longer offers the low-cost custom publisher ISBN option, so even authentic artists are likely to show CreateSpace as the publisher.
Tricksters producing bad coloring books will often show CreateSpace as the publisher if the book is offered through Amazon. Also of note, this isn’t even a full-size book–it’s 6 by 9 inches.
This area of the product listing on Amazon is also where you will find the page count, the book dimensions, and the series title.
#1 Way To Guarantee a Good Coloring Book
As I’ve mentioned repeatedly, none of these things alone can guarantee you won’t get a bad book. So the number one thing you can do to guarantee you are getting a good coloring book with artwork you will enjoy coloring is…
Get to Know the Artists You Love
The Adult Coloring Book Treasury series is a great way to sample work from a variety of independent coloring book artists (including me!) and get to know them in the associated Facebook community.
Legitimate coloring book artists will almost always have a social media presence. In addition you will often find them participating in Facebook groups and other social platforms, promoting their books, answering questions, seeking feedback, and commenting on the coloring.
Book scammers are a lazy bunch so you usually won’t find them out there interacting with their buyers and building relationships in the coloring community.
You can find many authentic coloring book artists eager to get to know coloring enthusiasts in Facebook groups such as Best Independent Coloring Books, Adult Coloring Book Treasury, Coloring Books for Adults, and many more. Visit our Colorist Spotlight series to learn more about coloring groups and colorist’s favorite artists.
A Note About Printing Errors
One last thing I feel I should mention is about printing errors. Hey, it happens. I’ve already mentioned that most independent authors are using Amazon’s CreateSpace service to publish their books. CreateSpace prints the books and ships them as soon as they are ordered, freeing the author from the fulfillment side of self-publishing. That means they can’t personally inspect each book going out. Unfortunately, CreateSpace makes mistakes from time to time including bad prints, poor cutting of the books, and we’ve even seen book covers with an entirely different book’s interior inside! In the off chance that you get a misprinted book, contact Amazon and they will always make it right for you.
Coloring Book Gallery of Shame
Now peruse this gallery of shame, including screen shots of actual scam books and comments from duped buyers. Names have been removed to protect the innocent–but not the guilty. Share your stories of bad coloring books below.
Click to open a larger image in a slideshow. Click the pause button to page through at your own pace.
Check out this video from Coloring Queen where she flips through a dud coloring book she bought. Her article is linked below.
Share Your Stories of Bad Coloring Books
Have you experienced bad coloring books? If you know it wasn't simply a printing mistake, be sure to post a review of the bad coloring book online and report it to the seller, whether online or in a store. Writing positive reviews of the coloring books you do enjoy will help other colorists find good coloring books and benefit the coloring book authors you want to help. Independent authors especially rely on reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations to keep producing high-quality, original coloring books for you to enjoy.
Share your bad coloring book experiences in the comments below, with examples, if desired.
Tori says
Hello, purchasing images from stock sires doesn’t necessarily give you the right to resell them in a coloring book or anything else. You would have to buy a very expensive extended license to get these rights. Even on free-image sites there are often limitations depending on the license; for instance you may in some cases modify an image then sell it. Read each license carefully and check with the rights holder.
Kimba Maria Wiggins says
As a kid, even the $1 coloring books were better than the ones they’re selling now. I’m an illustrator and designer but due to time constraints at work, I have an artist design the book for me and I buy the rights from them. Unfortunately the book I’m editing now the artist did such a bad job that I had to take nearly a wwhole day to undo the mess. 12 hours of acutual editing, a job that was very tedious and painstaking. Sometimes I take images I find from Pixabay or Pexels and I edit them, changing the design a bit and truly making it my own. But nowadays many actually get away with posting bad content and then these “artists” get mad when they get caught.
Julie Sisnroy says
Hi! I just started “creating” coloring books, more for kids. However, I’m not an artist, nor am I a scam artist. I take images an artist creates. with a commercial license, and with an SVG editor, make tweaks, then combine them with inspirational quotes or just coloring pages. I take some of these images, create my OWN cover, bc and publish them. I take a while to zoom in and fix any errors from image, add my own colors for the cover.
I hope this isn’t frowned upon since I do take pride in my work, even if I did not draw the images from scratch Again, mostly for kids.
Do all coloring books need make from scratch sketches? Thoughts?
Renae Cianci says
I bought a book by Beatrice Harrison a few months ago, and could definitely tell that the images were not drawn by the “author”. However, I actually ended up really liking some of them, so I kept the book. But I won’t buy another one, especially after reading this.
Debbie Russell says
this is a great article! Kudos to you! There are 88,000 coloring books on Amazon at any given time and I think 2/3’s are bad coloring books. One thing I add to my books and want to see in the books that I buy are compendiums showing all of the designs included in the book prior to purchase. Amazon doesn’t let independent authors add images. after 30 days online, Amazon will add the look inside feature themselves. I put that compendium right up front and rather than the typical couple of pages, Amazon understands what I am trying to do and shows all 8 pages of the compendium. So the buyer gets to see all of the designs prior to purchase. If a book is older than 30 days and there is no “look inside feature” than Amazon has determined that the book is crap and chooses not to show you the inside. Clear red flag. While I take reviews with a grain of salt as so many fake reviews are out there, I totally rely on bad reviews when it comes to coloring books. They are usually written by people who have been burned and are truthful because they don’t want you to get burned as well.
Thanks!
Debbie
The Big Coloring Book Of Bengal Cats (Color Me Happy)
The Big Coloring Book Of Bengal Cats and Kittens: 40 Background Free Coloring Designs featuring Bengal cats and kittens (Color me Happy) (Volume 2)
Real Men Color: An Adult Coloring Book For Manly Men! (Color Me Happy)
The Big Coloring Book Of Angel Cats: 40 Amazing Angel Cat Designs To Color! (Color Me Happy)
The Big Coloring Book Of Maine Coon Cats – Volume 1 (Color Me Happy)
The Big Coloring Book Of Maine Coon Cats – Volume 2: 40 AMAZING Maine Coon coloring pages! (Color Me Happy)
The Big Volleyball Coloring Book: An Amazing Volleyball Coloring Book For Teens and Adults (Color Me Happy)
Kristin says
Look inside the cover of a genuine Basford book. It says printed in China. The Chinese will fake anything. Penguin , which publishes these and lots of other books, IMO brought this on themselves by outsourcing printing offshore. It needs to be brought back here!
Clara Harmonson says
This article totally made me giggle… hilarious but also very important for colorists out there. I am working on my own coloring book and making each drawing by hand takes me like a whole day… the end result doesn’t look at all like edited clip-art. (at least that’s my goal).
Emma Heinemann says
You are the kind of artist that us colorists really appreciate! Thankyou for taking your time and producing quality work for us to bring to life using color.
Johanna Ans says
What a great and good article…. and really needed too! Thanks for doing such a great job!
Penny Farthing says
What a GREAT article!!!
I tried to write something like this months ago but it doesn’t come close to yours 🙂
I appreciate you pointing out that my books don’t fall into the scam category and I would like to point out that I have been doing this for three years now well before the adult coloring trend started.
I have spent countless hours curating images for my books and often the images need substantial work to make them look their best.
I also have found many images to be unsuitable after licensing and downloading them.
Too many “publishers” will download an image and paste it into Word and call it a day. Not so, with my books.
The one thing that bothers me is the recent influx of the “get-rich-quick crowd” using the exact same images I used years ago along with unscrupulous tactics like keyword stuffing the subtitle to the point of absurdity or having multiple keyword related author names.
I have even seen some actually listing the top 10 books on Amazon in their product description in an attempt to game the system.
Oh, and let’s not forget abut the many reviews where the person says they bought the book and love it yet they do not have the verified purchase badge next to their name.
Regarding greyscale coloring books…
Without revealing any trade secrets I will tell you that the images in my book are more than color photographs that have been simply turned to B & W. I do extensive processing to make the images pop on the page and I will leave it at that 🙂
Once again, super article.
Angel says
I recently ran into this with a book I was given a discount on to give an honest review of. Well they got one… it was horrid. The Unofficial Game of Thrones coloring book had pics that seemed to have been worked with photo shop off of a REAL picture of the characters. The thing I can say good about it is it had decent paper… and that is really the only good thing I can say about it. I had a bunch of 4 and 5 star reviews when I was looking into it… Horrible.
Jodie Randisi says
aI bought what I thought was a brilliant combo, The Coloring Notebook, a moleskin journal with pages to write on along with a smattering of some coloring pages. It was a complete failure. I paid $19.95 but no shipping because I preordered off a wonderful website. Thankfully, I received a 100% refund when I shared my concerns. Bleed through problems and extremely small details, couldn’t color 90% of their coloring pages.
I am a real coloring book publisher who truly appreciates this information you’ve gathered and published. My credentials and experience have just been validated here. My series of professionally designed Vintage Vibes Coloring Books (series, Travel and Holiday Postcards) have the original artwork, obtained from public domain, next to the grayscale sketch, which I create. Thank you for pointing out all the right things to look for and what to avoid.
Ellen says
Great article. I was just recently looking into getting Lost Ocean via Amazon and then saw an amazing deal via eBay and sent a question to one of your fellow bloggers that directed me to your article. And pretty said if it appears too good to be true it probably is. What a wealth of information. I will definitely be more careful shopping in the future. You all deserve to be paid appropriately for your beautiful work that gives so much joy.
Tammy says
The question I keep asking myself over and over is this: why, if kindle coloring books are against Amazon’s policy, do they even allow the category? I mean, really, if something is against a company’s guidelines, they just don’t allow it to keep happening. When the first instance occurs (perhaps sneaks in), and the company discovers it, they are usually adamant about it not occurring again, and put procedures into place. I mean, c’mon, it isn’t like Amazon is a brand new company or something. And yet, kindle “coloring books” keep popping up, seemingly by the hundreds weekly. I really wish someone could explain this to me.
I actually think it would be handy to have kindle versions of coloring books such as yours or those printed by big name companies. It would allow the buyer to print the designs on the paper they wish to use. I understand though, that this would lead to “sharing” of images or posting them for others to use. Yes, it happens now, as you can copy and scan a coloring book onto paper of your choice. But it is time consuming and a bit of a hassle, and would probably be much more rampant if PDF versions were widely available.
(I’ve “purchased” a few free kindle coloring books, but haven’t downloaded any. I’m very leery that the PDF will contain spyware or malware (perhaps not the right names. Sorry, I’m a bit challenged when it comes to technology itself and the lingo. But I mean that it might contain a virus or some type of program that could harm your device or steal your personal information). But, I’ve basically quit even buying them, as they’re mostly shutterstock images and the like.)
Krystal says
Many artists have “etsy” pages where images are available to purchase and can be printed on paper of your choice.
deAnna Lea says
I have been leaving one star frank reviews for several months on Amazon for these bad books. Thanks for posting this blog!
Toni P says
Thanks so much for the info. Only once did I get a bad book but it was really really bad. I posted a poor review, as well as contacted this person who cranked out several books a month- another red flag, who said it must have been a publishing problem with the quality of the images. They were so blurry you couldn’t imagine. She offered to send me a new copy which was “better”. It wasn’t. Later I found most of the books in her series were no longer on Amazon.
Lynn Marie White says
Wonderful article Sue! There is some great information in here. I never knew that authors get paid through Kindle Unlimited. I guess I never really thought about it before.
There is only one thing I disagree about, and that is about Kindle coloring books. They actually aren’t against Amazon’s guidelines if they are published the way that Amazon wants them to be. Amazon’s legalese is so hard to interpret at times that I think that school of thought may be misunderstanding what Amazon does say. I should do some more research on that. If they were against Amazon guidelines, they wouldn’t be available as much as they are. They are easy enough to find and it would be easy enough for Amazon to remove them if they were in violation.
Anyway, I think coloring ebooks are great because then I have the book forever and I can print out just what I want, when I want. and on what kind of paper I want. I can also print multiple copies of the same image for my own use. Sure some publishers and authors use it to try and get a lot of quick reviews, but if you are a savvy consumer, you will quickly learn how to spot those fake reviewers vs those reviewers who are there to give you an objective view.
There are a ton of great reviewers out there who will actually give you great information. One way that they are able to do that is by accepting a hard copy, ebook, or pdf of the book in exchange for their honest and unbiased review. Those same reviewers will also be alerting you to the scam books, reviewers do write negative reviews too.
I see ordering a coloring book in Kindle format as a great opportunity for both the artist and the coloring community. It gives us access to authors we might not normally buy books from, try new types of books (zentangle, gray scale, etc), and I feel has helped give the coloring community a big boost.
Offering your book in Kindle format is not just a way to make money quickly or gather a large number of reviews, though it can be. If you feel like they are just trying to get reviews, is it really any different than someone offering their loyal customers discount coupons on their web page, FB pages, and blogs? Is it any different than offering free preview copies for their followers in pdf format? What about having contests where they actually give away large quantities of books. I would think that if you avidly follow an author, you would feel more obliged to write a positive review than a stranger would.
Anyway, wonderful article and I plan on sharing it if you don’t mind. I also appreciate that your new book that is coming out is such a positive book! To be honest, I get tired of seeing all of the books full or cuss words. I would much rather color something positive than negative.
T. M. says
Thank you for the article! I had no idea about the kindle books. I thought they were legimate for people to get an idea of what the “innards” of a book might be (especially since I have pysical limitations that prevent from doing more difficult line work). Well, I certainly won’t make that mistake again! Why would Amazon even allow them to be published?! It’s absurd! Thank you so much again for all this valuable information, and consider it shared!
Sue Curry says
I was approached by a young man online who claimed to be a color book (author/artist). I never did get that clear, and he stated that he was a mutual friend of an artist that I admire. He asked me, if I would color some of his pictures and write a review for one of his new books. I offered to ‘check out ONE of this books’ and even specified which one. He sent me 4 books, claiming that he and his wife were the creators of the artwork.
I was surprised at the quality of the drawings and kept asking him, “Did you or your wife draw that picture?” He never gave me and answer, so I ask his wife who only sent me a smiley face as a response. I wrote glowing reviews for all of his books, which made him ever so happy with me.
Then, I found out the truth behind the books from another artist friend. This man was simply putting together images from Shuttercock and claiming this pictures are the ‘mutual artwork’ of himself and his wife.
I was furious!!! I contacted him immediately, demanding the truth. He would not answer me, when I asked, “Did you or your wife DRAW any of these pictures at all?” Then, I told him that he must respond; or “I will delete all of my reviews.” He sent me back a ‘thumbs up’.
I felt betrayed by this young man whom I had tried to encourage and promote as an artist. He had read my reviews and never made any attempt to correct my statements about his and his wife’s artist talent.
I deleted all of my online reviews of his books, which included several colored drawings. Then, I rewrote the Amazon reviews; but that was too late to stop some folks from buying these books which I had recommended. Now, I am wiser about ‘these fakes’.
Penny Farthing says
Sue,
This person is violating the Shutterstock license agreement which requires proper attribution somewhere in the book. On my books I place it on the back cover.
Debra Lejeune says
I bought several copies of “Secret Garden” from an online discount merchant for half price. When I got the books they were a quarter of the size of the real “Secret Garden” and so poorly put together that the pages were coming out. When I complained I was offered the option of a discount on future purchases or a refund if I returned the books at my own cost and with the original shipping deducted. It would have cost more to send the books back than I paid in the first place. And why would I want to make another purchase from these scammers? In the end, I just considered it as a lesson learned. I stick with buying books that are recommended by members of Adult Coloring Worldwide and ones that I can preview on Amazon. I also only buy the ones that I can return through Amazon at no cost. This was a very informative article.
JP Anke says
Brilliant article, Sue. So thorough and accurate. I’d so love to buy more indie artist coloring books that are published through CreateSpace, but the paper stock isn’t as high quality as the art – such a shame.
Sue says
Thanks for the nice comment. I don’t mind the paper quality of CS books, and I have heard it is improved from what it used to be. Personally, I either copy the pages from books that I want to color, or just get them as digital files so I can print on better paper. If there is an indie artist you like, consider buying their books as digital files you can print yourself if you want to support them. Most of the time the digital download book is cheaper and it still puts more money in the artist’s pocket. Thanks for your comment!
Tammy says
I agree totally JP. I refuse to purchase createSpace books due to the paper quality and printing quality.
Honestly, I don’t know what to think about artists that can pay to put their own publishing name in lieu of the createSpace name. To me, that feels misleading and more than a little dishonest. I really wonder if some authors use that route because they know just how terrible a lot of people think createSpace is. This article seemed to suggest that Amazon had discontinued that, and I really hope that’s the case.
And Sue, how can you go about getting a digital download of a book? Thanks
Lee Hansen says
Excellent article! As a decades – long artist making art for grownups and an author who first wrote about adult coloring pages in 2007 I know more than I like about copyright violators and overseas image thieves. I haven’t yet published a coloring book but have been working on seversl. This info may alter my plans. Sigh.
Cynthia says
Thanks I got one of the books list here is didn’t notice the miss spelled word go figure. I love to color but now I have to be more carefully what I buy thanks again
Jess Perna says
Dear Sue,
Like you I am a real adult coloring book illustrator who is frustrated by all the scam artists. You are doing a great service for all us all. Thank you! I have reposted your article on every group I belong to. I think you should try and get it to the regular news perhaps the Huffington Post. People need to know. I hope this helps all of us sell more quality books. I spent 9 months drawing my book and thinking it could be ripped off is hard to take.
Jess Perna
PernaPublishing.com
Cynthia Kloeter says
Many new artists are still using Createspace as the Publisher simply due to cost. In time I think we will see more using their own name or studio.
Print quality: If resolution is not done correctly it also can result in poor picture quality. However sometimes it’s just the printer and they will take back books and issue new ones with better quality.
Paper quality: Unfortunately Createspace/Amazon books are still only available in 60# paper. Maybe if buyers complain directly to the company, artist will finally get to pick various papers to print on as well as binding. It’s up to buyers to make them aware of the issues.
Tammy says
Gosh, when you say “….I think we will see more using their own name or studio”, I hope you don’t mean using createSpace as the publisher but inserting a different name instead of createSpace. I think that’s really misleading to the consumer, if not outright dishonest. Many people just will not purchase createSpace published books (me included) because of the poor printing and paper quality. The poor printing and paper quality of createSpace books is an overwhelming theme in many reviews of these books. It seems that authors know this, and are misleading consumers to think a book is not published by createSpace.
Sure, I could copy the designs onto paper of my choosing, IF the printing quality was good, but I’ve never received a createSpace book that the printing didn’t look like a copy of a copy, of a copy, and so on, but why should I? I’ve paid for the book already, now I’ve the cost of further paper, printer ink, wear and tear, not to mention time. If I decide to knowingly purchase a createSpace book and take this on, fine. But to be mislead and purchase a createSpace book hidden under another name? I’d not be happy.
I can understand someone being proud of what they’ve created. But to knowingly mislead a purchaser is dishonest, and that shouldn’t happen. If you didn’t publish the book yourself, you shouldn’t claim you did! Perhaps a better practice would be to have something such as “Jo Blow works of art-published by createSpace”, or even “Jo Blow works of art/createSpace publishing”.
Liz says
Tammy, there is a difference between Publishing and Printing. When an Artist/Author lists themselves as the Publisher it means they did all of the pre-publication work and they filed the proper documents to obtain an ISBN (identification number) in the name of their publishing company. They then go hire a printer to print their books.
Createspace is actually a Printer that offers Publishing services if the author/artist/publisher desires to use them (which most people don’t – except for the use of a Createspace filed ISBN number).
There is nothing misleading or dishonest about an author/artist/publisher who prints through Createspace using his/her own name as the publisher because they ARE the publisher – just not the printer.
No author actually prints their own books, unless you are buying a 3-ring binder full of pages that they have mailed you personally. All book printing is outsourced to other companies who have the equipment to do it. Print on Demand publishers like Createspace make it possible for Publishers to print their work without having to invest thousands of dollars in print runs before the concept has ever been proven to sell and are the reason we are able to have so many new books being published. If ever artist had to print their books in advance and have them shipped to the Amazon or Ingram warehouses house prior to sale 99.9% of artists would not be publishing because that is an investment of thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars BEFORE they ever see a dime.
No one is misleading the purchasers. Perhaps there should be a better education process about the publishing process so consumers understand how it works and understand the differences between authors, artist, publishers, printers, and distributors, but after more than 20 years in the publishing business I know most consumers don’t have any desire whatsoever to understand it – for the most part they just want more books.
Hope this helps.
Cynthia says
Thank you LIz for explaining this further. Many artists have purchased their own ISBN which allows them to be shown as publisher, but the book is still printed on demand through Createspace and sold on Amazon. A publisher name has nothing to do with who prints the book.
Lauren Es posito says
Great article, Sue! As someone fairly new to adult coloring, I wasn’t aware of many of the red flags you discussed, such as shrink wrapped books, which I have seen.
Shirley Wright says
Thanks for all the great tips. One group I will never purchase from again is Two Hoots. The work is pirated and of poor grade. The paper is hideous. I know I won’t buy from them again.
Stephanie says
Such a great article! I get so bummed out when I see bad coloring books being sold and/or images being ripped off. A lot of work goes into creating a legitimate coloring book and to have that work abused is wrong. I love the tips you have here and I hope this article will educate many people and put a serious dent in the bad coloring book phenomenon that is currently in progress.
Wretha says
Here’s another huge red flag, look at the reviews, if it’s filled with glowing reviews from people who got a copy free in exchange for a review, if you receive something for free or a discount for review on Amazon, you are required to disclose that fact in your review.
Many coloring book farms (places/publishers who churn out book after book of poorly copied stock images) reach out to colorists with the carrot of getting free PDF copies of their coloring books if you will agree to review them on Amazon.
It’s loads of fun at first, getting several free coloring books each week, (ask me how I know)… The people getting the free coloring books feel a sense of obligation to give good reviews because, after all you are getting all of these free coloring books… So the reviews will be filled with lots and lots of vaguely written but glowing 4 and 5 star reviews, there is an unspoken fear that if you give a poor review, somehow you might be cut off from getting all these free coloring books…
Just read the reviews, especially if there are lots of them for a nondescript, sometimes hat generic adult coloring book, ie not an artist you have ever heard of, if there are loads of reviews stating they received the book for free in exchange for a review, then it just might be one of the scummy books mentioned above.
Mirhanda says
This is an excellent point. I will never purchase a product of any kind that buys reviews by paying off reviewers with merchandise. Good coloring books, good products of *any kind* will garner good reviews on their own merit without having to resort to payola!
JP Anke says
I agree, although as a reviewer I sometimes will provide a review (on Amazon and my blog) for a coloring book that has been given to me free in return for my honest opinion (I will not accept any compensation other than a free product). But believe me, I am thorough! Suggestion: If the Amazon review is not a Verified Purchase, do make sure it has some “meat” to it, is thorough, grammatically correct and does have at least a few images..I find these are the most credible.
Cynthia says
Unfortunately, some artist have also taken to buying their own books through friends and family to get verified reviews and stellar 5 star ratings. The only real well to tell if a book is good is to use the Look Inside feature and make your own judgement. Purchasing books without looking through is never a good idea. I’ve taken to adding thumbnails of all images in books so people can see exactly what they are buying.
Lynn Marie White says
I certainly agree with you that there are bad reviewers out there, but as a top reviewer myself, I get discouraged when I see all reviewers lumped together. I have never felt obligated to give a product a positive review because it was given to me for free or at a discount. It doesn’t matter if it is a $500 high-end electronics unit for my vehicle or a $5 coloring book. All rankings are earned by the product itself and nothing I do is ever promised or guaranteed a certain rating.
I am a reviewer to help other consumers find quality products. No one likes ending up with a piece of junk and everyone loves to know about the really great products that are out there. I am under no obligation to the business. This is a job, people shouldn’t compromise their integrity for a pair of free tweezers or a free set of gel pens.
The time I put into evaluating a coloring book or even things I color with is far above what the value of the product is. A good review for even a simple product takes a lot of time. Look for reviews that have real content, some ‘meat’ to them as JP mentioned above. Videos, images, some pages that were actually colored, a well-written text review…, those are the things you should base your decision on.
Every consumer should do their own due diligence and learn to filter what reviews say just as they need to filter unrealistic promises in product descriptions. It is a huge trend right now to be negative about reviewers, but there are some really great ones out there. Just please don’t lump us all together 🙂
Krystal says
I get quite a few “free” or “discounted” items on Amazon for review purchases and would say I only give 5 stars on an item maybe 50% of the time.
Karma Lewis says
I would just like to point out that Amazon has changed the rules on giving away products for free or at a discount in exchange for an honest review. Sellers are allowed to continue giving away their products for free or a discounted price, but they cannot require a review in exchange. Books are the one exception to that rule. They can still require or request reviews in exchange for the discount. Still, when I receive a product for free or at a discount, I NEVER give a high rating unless it is deserving of that rating. To do so would be to mislead other consumers and if that were to happen to me, I would be quite angry. There are a lot of legitimate reviewers out there. If a company or product has not earned a 4 or 5-star rating, they will not get it from me. I depend on those ratings to help me make purchasing decisions. I go through and read the lowest and the highest ratings and then make my decision from there. I also try to post images with my reviews as it makes it easier for others to see exactly what they will be purchasing. Coloring books are especially important. I like to color at least one image to post with my review. I don’t usually have time to post each image with my review, but I do like that idea.
Sue, is there any way to get a list started somewhere of the known scammers and their websites and/or facebook pages? It would be a great reference source for those of us who try so hard to avoid making a bad purchase and instead, support our favorite artists, like you!
Sue says
Creating a list like that could potentially be dangerous to whoever was the keeper of the list.
Chris says
What is a hat generic adult coloring book?
Faunia Smith says
Thank you Sue for such a well written and refreshing article. Had to comment because this is exactly what I have been looking at. I am a Naturopath and Artist and I am releasing my first colouring art therapy book within weeks now. I looked at the research and tried to listen to what colourists wanted and also looked what is the best type of drawings to calm and decrease stress and anxiety. Also for people who are tired,or disabled or ill. Although overall colouring is very individual. The finished result was meant to come out in January but all my modifications to make it the best I could do has been my undoing! I went through professional book publishing services and followed the guidelines. Now due to these modifications Amazon and bookstores are out, the price is more than what I anticipated and it looks like I will just sell it from my website. This means of course more cost to the overseas buyer. I am not happy about this.I am looking at other means and working on social media presence and have joined many colourists groups (I still have lots more to learn) The book is called Colour Serene and involves mainly larger spaced drawings for adding,blending and extra creativity. It has thick lines with a border for reducing eye squinting. It is abstract, surreal and nature themed. It is printed landscape, one sided on thick almost card -like paper and has perforations for easy removal and framing. It is a little larger than most. The drawing are definitely my originals which I tried to keep in mind it is the colourist that finishes it therefore it is only the bones of the picture. I sincerely hope colourists enjoy and receive benefits from it. There will be a flip through trailer on You tube soon (with copyrighted background music) so everyone can see before they purchase. All the best to you Sue and keep up the good work.
Becky says
Thank You so much for this article. The only coloring books I’ve purchased are online but I always read reviewsBecky. My hinky meter would definitely go off if I saw an
Enchanted Forest cellophane wrapped at the Dollar Store.
Ilene-Rachel says
Excellent article! I was one who got scammed via Groupon on the Secret Garden coloring book. I have to say that the pictures, etc., shown in their ad showed the real book, and even had the correct number of pages listed. But the product that arrived was only about 24 pages (I think the real one is something like 96 pages), was smaller in dimensions, too. So sometimes it’s hard to know what you’re actually getting when you can’t physically check things and buy at the same time. To be fair, Groupon was wonderful about fixing the problem. They refunded my money and didn’t even want me to return the book! Still, it was disappointing to not have the actual book.
Teresa Soley says
I bought a couple off ebay. Secret Garden was one. I was new to coloring and had no idea that they were fake until I got it. I kept looking at it thinking thats not how it’s supposed to look. So I started comparing and realized mine were fake. As a newbie I learned the hard way. If I buy a coloring book online now I search the reviews or go to the author’s page.
I wish I would have had this article few months ago when I started.
Angela Romani says
excellent output of information. I do not buy coloring books online. I found very books showed you the actual illustrations inside the book, so I wouldn’t buy unless I could scan a few of the pages.
thanks again.
Thiago says
Congrats Sue! Brilliant article. Shared.
Kim A. Flodin says
Fantastic article, Sue and thanks so much for writing it. In my opinion, it’s a must read for anyone interested in the adult coloring trend, both colorists and artists alike. I’m sharing it everywhere!
Michele says
Hallelujah! I often try to warn my followers at The Coloring Club about the ‘sketchy’ books that are available at Amazon. Literally, hundreds are published daily. I, too, appreciate CreateSpace because it allows some to fulfill the dream of publishing a coloring book with an easy -to-use system. But too many take advantage of colorists by compiling terrible stock images and a slapdash manner and calling it a coloring book. Most are images that were never drawn to be colored. And many of the ‘greyscale’ books are simply color photographs manipulated in Photoshop. Ugg.
That said, I’m a huge coloring book addict and wanted to try my own hand at creating one. Since I’m not an artist, I bought some quality stock images, changed them around, added and deleted, tweaked and manipulated until I was happy that I had a quality product. And many others have done much the same. As you’ve suggested, do use the ‘Look Inside’ feature before you buy online. It’s there for a reason. And if there are no sample pages to view? Don’t buy. Ever.
Whew! Just like any other book genre (I’m a romance writer, so I see this a lot in romance books) there are always the creeps who try to take advantage of others by copying, stealing, and plagiarizing. The digital format makes it so easy to do. Let the buyer beware.
Cristin says
Brilliant! Thank you for writing this. You had me giggling at some of your comments like the erotica mandala!