A few weeks ago I mentioned that Bowker & Bowker (the ISBN monster) had unleashed its latest money-sucking trap for People Who Would Be Writers (PWWBWs): Bowker Manuscript Submissions (.com). The idea is that authors submit their proposals to Bowker’s giant pile of hard drives, where publishers looking to score the next great bestseller would come dig around and unearth wonders.

Except for the fact that it’s a completely stupid idea that nobody in their right mind would use, it sounded pretty good. And even though the self-publishing and large-scale writing community blogs were up in arms warning people not to submit, I (and presumably Bowker) figured there’d be hundreds of wannabe authors duped into spending the $99 for six months of having their proposal out on the Internetwebs.

Since membership is free for publishers, I signed up. After the service had been active for a week, I went and checked the numbers, expecting to skim through the hundreds of poor souls who’d wasted their money contributing utter crap manuscripts. But I was pleasantly shocked to find that it wasn’t full of utter crap.

Because it wasn’t full of anything. Read more »

Oh, yikes. Read this press release from Bowker.

Then take a look at the website, especially the part that follows “for only” in the little blurb next to the twenty-something, Caucasian, goateed writer guy’s head.

Discuss.