Gary Richardson

Writers Apex & Kelly White

I’ve written before about potential scam and spam authors can expect to receive after publishing a book. I’ve written about it so much that there are multiple blogs and pages on my website committed to them. Feel free to check them out from the links below:

Today’s blog is probably more inline with the previous post An Odd Encounter. In that blog, I talked about a specific individual from a specific company who reached out to sell me a spot in their booth at a book show. After contacting the book show, I learned that the company trying to sell me a spot in their booth was not a registered vendor at the event. 

While Cyrus tried to sell me something at a show his group wasn’t registered to attend, my many contacts with Kelly White at Writers Apex has been a bit less specific. 

To date, I have had no less than 10, yes 10, different contacts made by Kelly White in ill-fated efforts to sell me marketing services for my book. Below is a summary of those contacts. For the full contact details, check out the Writers Apex section in my Scam/Spam Contacts By Company page.

  • Contact #1: Some time in late 2020/early 2021 I had a phone call with Kelly about her services. She said they wanted to republish my book to reduce costs but could never explain how republishing would achieve the savings she promoted.
  • Contact #2: Kelly emailed me on 8/1/2021 with the same sales pitch that had initiated the previous phone call. I replied to her email indicating that I’d need her to explain in detail how she could solve the issue or the result of that conversation would be the same as our first.
  • Contact #3: Kelly emailed me on 3/30/2021 with the same sales pitch as before but this time for my second book in The Ascension Legacy series that had just been released. I replied, again, with a similar response as before.
  • Contact #4: Kelly emailed me on 9/7/2021 with another copy of the same email as before.
  • Contact #5: Kelly emailed me on 3/19/2022 with the same email again. I replied with a request to be removed from their email list and to cease all communications.
  • Contact #6: Kelly emailed me again on 4/5/2022 with the same email as before. Again, I replied with a direct request for Kelly and Writers Apex to cease all contact with me.
  • Contact #7: Kelly emailed me again on 7/29/2022 with the same spiel as always. Not only did I reply with another request to be removed from their email list but I also left a review on the BBB website regarding their continued harassment and refusal to respect my requests for them to cease communications.
  • Contact #8: Yet another email from Kelly on 8/21/2022 and another request from me for Kelly to cease any communication with me.
  • Contact #9: On 9/25/2022 I got the same email from Kelly that I have replied to numerous times asking to stop. As before, I replied but much less politely than before with the same demand that Kelly stop contacting me.
  • Contact #10: Kelly sent me another email on 11/23/2022. Either she can’t read or she flat out refuses to respect my requests. This time I both replied very bluntly (some might say rudely) and filed a complaint with the BBB.

I have made repeated requests and demands to Kelly directly that she stop emailing me. I have made it bluntly clear that I am not now or ever willing to do business with her or Writers Apex. However, I hold no illusions that I have heard the last from Kelly White or Writers Apex. I am currently considering having a lawyer write up and send them a certified cease and desist letter though I’m not sure what good that will do either.

This type of repeated refusal to respect my requests seem only to only cement my view of this group as being one of disrepute. I won’t go as far as to say that Writers Apex is not a legitimate group but it certainly seems clear that Kelly White chooses to operate in a less than respectable manner. When someone represents a company in such a negative way it can’t help but portray that group in the same negative light. 

All I want is for Kelly White and Writers Apex to leave me alone. If for some reason I lose my mind and decide down the road that I want to do business with this group, I have their information. I can reach out to them. And while that is VERY unlikely, it should go a long ways if they would just respect my requests for privacy and go away. I will forever continue to refuse to do business with someone who can’t respect me as a prospective client because I have no reason to believe that they will respect me as an actual client.

And while I haven’t run across (yet) any stories regarding Writers Apex and Kelly White like what I’ve documented with New Reader Magazine, I can’t help but believe that it is only a matter of time if this is how they choose to conduct themselves.

8 comments

Gary Richardson

To all of the commenters who have already paid Writers Apex only to be left disappointed, you have my endless sympathies. Its stories like yours that compelled me to write about my encounters with these individuals. I was lucky and opted for one reason or another not to do business with the multitude of groups that contacted me before finding story after story from other authors about their negative experiences. I’m hesitant to use the word scam but by many accounts I’ve seen that is probably the most fitting term for how these groups seem to operate.

Carol, they may be connected to iUniverse, I can’t say. I do know that if you had a press release issued for your book that these groups will watch for those releases and scrub your information from there for their systems. I’ve been contacted by groups for books without press releases too. I suspect they’re monitoring services like Amazon for new releases and looking at data available there too. I’ve even been contacted at an email address not associated with my author profiles on social media, my website, my press releases, or anything. How some of them find these email addresses and phone numbers is something of an unknown but I do not press releases often contain contact details that they use. Of course, you could opt not to put that information on a press release but to me that’s cutting off future potential contacts for valued services out of fear of being scammed. Just be diligent in your research and you can filter the good from the bad.

If you continue to receive contacts from a group after telling them to stop, try filing a complaint with the BBB if the company has a profile there. That’s helped me in some cases. For Kelly White and Writers’ Apex specifically, my mail provider did a good job of automatically filtering Kelly’s emails to my Spam box from the start. I replied to Kelly out of professional courtesy initially but then it became a matter of who would blink first. I had nothing lose by being rude to her after a while and eventually I guess she got the message because I haven’t heard from her in a long time. Persistence is the key I suppose.

Vee Jay

I was scammed by Kelly white as well for over $3K Please spread the word on apex.

Carol

Thanks Gary, for debunking scams like Apex. I suspect they may be connected to iUniverse, as that is the only way they could have gotten some of my private information about my book. That is another scam publishing house you may want to debunk, always trying to sell products without ever producing a single service. Thanks for keeping everyone safe.

Ron Mayberry

I have paid to have my book “Successful Coaching lessons by an old School Coach” to be published. I was dealing with Kelly White but I have e-mailed and texted her without hearing back anything. She is always returned my messages before but now, nothing. Can u tell me what is going on?

Cooper Hendrix

I have been hounded non stop by Kelly White from Writers Apex. I am very ill and in and out of the hospital and I am still being called, first thing on the morning, and late. I have told her no yet keeps I tell her my possibly terminal medical status and she will not stop. Thank You fir letting me know I am not alone.

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