The purpose of this article is to share my experience in joining Angela Lauria's "The Author Incubator" (TAI) program with all its colors, the bright and not so bright from my very own raw experience of them. This article may be especially useful if you happen to be someone like me and have little or no tolerance for marketing material that does not show you a clear picture of what you are signing up for and keeps pulling out delusional tricks from its sleeves as you move along. This would appeal to you if you value honesty, transparency and would like to be shown exactly what you will get and what you won't prior to signing up to work with anyone. And of course, it may appeal to you if you value basic human respect in all relationships be it coaching and client, author and audience and so on. Some of what I have shared in this article may be refuted by The Author Incubator, LLC, from changes (that I hope they've made) from feedback from folks who may have noticed what I have and relayed it to them more efficiently. The Author's Way (TAW)Team does have a striking quality of having an explanation for everything that is asked of them and stands out as contradictions to their claims. In my experience of them, they do work hard to fix external appearances to maintain a desirable public image. I do not disregard this in any way but I feel it comes from a need to preserve their image for "consumers" rather than to actually become a resource for those who buy into their display. With that being said, I would be happy if some of my claims here have already been addressed. It would be a great relief to know that they are no longer engaging in marketing practices that most entrepreneurs who value integrity and sincerity in their service to others may find repulsive. My relationship with the Author Incubator began in July of 2019. I was sold after watching Angela Lauria's facebook live. In that live, she shared about her program claiming that a few of her homeless or nearly homeless authors achieved great success from working with her. She claimed that they applied for additional credit cards to pay the upfront $15000 for her writing program and had recovered their money in a few months after writing their books. She said this with great confidence. At that time, I believed her, which could be attributed to my plain gullibility, or her excellent ability for pitching her product. With that claim, the stage that began to set up in my mind was that Angela's team knows the publishing aspect of their service and only picks select people who they know will see success in working with them. At the time, the only product that was pitched was a 9 week book writing program to write a book that makes a difference. The impression that I got from her Author success claims was that I would make an impact writing a book with her and also recover my initial investment if selected to work with her. Also, the recovery of investment was claimed to be the least of her and her team's concern when picking "select" candidates to join their writing program. They claimed to only pick candidates that they felt had an impactful message through a niche that would draw in the right audience for their book. They would easily recover their investment, which is what one may infer, from her example of the homeless author who paid off her credit card balance in a few months after writing her book with them. At the time, I was sold on their confidence about their work and claims to have put hundreds of authors who ALL had success working with them. And so, I signed a contract to write a book with them in a 9 week book writing program. I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the 9 week program as Angela does have a brilliant path to help unleash your inner author. To be clear, the 9 week program for $15000, at the time, included a hand holding program to walk you through a process, at the end of which, you would have a completed manuscript with editing, book cover design, and self e-book publishing on Amazon. At the end of the 9 week program, I was super- excited and looking forward to the journey my book would take to help impact the world and my own life as per Angela's initial marketing claims. While I remained in anticipation of these claims materializing for me, I was introduced to 2 paths that I could take to move forward with my mission to impact the world: 1. I could choose to go my own way, i.e publish my own book and do what I needed to do including a). market my book, b). finding book stores that would display my book, c). create and host my own book signings and d). create marketing material to promote my book and works in the world. I could do this on my own, or 2. I could choose to work with Angela Lauria and her team where they would take care of all of my publishing needs and even be my marketing/business agents representing my book. The package would include, 1. a contract with a publisher, 2. 6 separate book launches including, e-book, hard cover book, audio book, and a book signing at a book store in about 12-18 months from signing the contract to work with them. 3. Online coaching support via Facebook group and daily 1 hour group zoom calls with a coach. To be clear, these were open coaching calls for anyone who wanted coaching. Usually there were anywhere between 5, 10, 20 participants on call at a time. 4. Opportunity to write a 2nd book with the Author Incubator. Below is an actual image of the contract and the services that are laid out. ADDENDUM 1 SCHEDULE OF SERVICES AUTHOR MANAGEMENT SERVICES • Publishing Services for your eBook, Print Book, and Audio Book, including editing, proofreading, and design. • Marketing Services and Support for your eBook Launch, Amazon Bestseller Campaign, announcing publishing deal and author copies, Audio Book Launch, Print Pre-order Campaign, Book store Signing and Print Launch Celebration. • WRITE YOUR NEXT BOOK. Admission to repeat The Author’s Way (TAW) and write a book as a reward for your one year anniversary in The Order of the Quill. (See addendum 2 for important information on how to take advantage of this benefit) ONGOING SUPPORT BONUSES • FB Group and Accountability Zoom with The Author Incubator Coaches • Live, In-Person Members-only Events ADDENDUM 2 TERMS TO WRITE A SECOND BOOK WITH THE QUILL To qualify to write your next book as a Quill member, the following criteria must be met: • Participant has had no outstanding payments for the program. • Participant has met their one year anniversary in the Quill and has applied to write a second book. When you apply to write your second book the following will be included: • A completed manuscript • Your book will be up for pre-order on Amazon • A developmental edit of your manuscript • The option to renew Quill membership for continued Author Management Services for your second book. Upon applying to write your second book, the following terms are agreed to: • Changing TAW cohorts is not permitted due to space allocations and limitations. • If you decide to join the TAW cohort you are assigned to for writing your second book, you agree to submit a draft manuscript on the due date, or to be charged the full participation fee as a penalty for not completing your manuscript. • I also understand I may sign up for my TAW cohort and cancel without penalty as long as I cancel nine weeks before my assigned TAW Cohort due date. All of these services would be provided for another $40,000 upfront, or 10 monthly payments of $5,000 per month, which would amount to $50,000 total. The proposal moving forward was to either work with Angela and TAW, or to go publish on my own. Working with another publisher of my own finding was not an option. Angela claimed that it was too late in the game to do so. After working with her team so far in putting the book together, according to her, we had to have already declared that in advance. To me, this was out of integrity as it wasn't even mentioned at the time of signing to write the book. At the moment, I did not make much of it as I was more focused on moving forward with my work. However, in retrospect, it does stand out as a huge red flag with regards to TAW's sincerity toward the author's success verses their own financial interest. Prior to signing the contract, I did go through a feeling of rage at the fact that these details were not communicated with me prior to the $15000 investment to work with them. I expressed this with Cheyenne, (a member of the TAW Team) to which she sweetly responded that the current decision was really about my empowered choice to work with them, or to not work with them. I would be loved either way. What a sweet sentiment to leave one with, I thought. Lol!. Acknowledging that $40K was an investment not readily available for an average person, in her sales pitch, Angela urged us to speak to our family members and friends who could help support financially so we could sign up for the program if we chose to do so. Her presentation again highlighted that her program delivered way more than the investment and had a 100% success result for those who were selected into the Author Incubator program. I must admit that she sounded very re-assuring. The display of the coaching and other marketing help that would be available if we chose to work with her looked no less than a grand author success support banquet! The next day, I spoke with my mother about the investment, to which she reluctantly agreed. Her reluctance stemmed from her gut instinct about the program being a sort of scam that she could not quite put a finger on. All she said, was that something about it, did not add up. Being a sweet mother, at the time, she still decided to support my decision to go with the program if I believed it was right for me. Prior to signing the contract and paying the 1st installment of $5000, I did some research about Angela's claims as I did not want to fall prey to a sales trick. All I came across at the time was a medium article by Jeremy D Pavleck called, "Congratulations, Angela has accepted you, plus the ACTUAL COST of her program. BREAKING NEWS!" . After having read this article, I found that most of it had a very high emotional charge and it appeared as though the author's intention was more to harm Angela's business reputation than to provide genuine guidance and fact checks to those looking for some verifications of her claims. I did question her right hand person, Cheyenne (at the time) about it and was told that the author of the article was an ex-boyfriend who was jealous of Angela's success and was acting out of resentment toward her. So I did not do any further fact checks on Angela and signed up in great trust with what she claimed in her, "sales pitches". I signed the contract and began working with Angela and her team. A few things that stood out for me in working side by side with her book publishing team was that I had a lot more work to do than I expected. Had I not checked and proof read my manuscript thoroughly, it would have been published with a zillion spelling and grammatical errors and a whole chapter title missing. I did not mind the extra work as it was rather pleasant for me to read my book in full for the 1st time after the e-book launch on Amazon. At the time, I regularly availed the facebook and live zoom coaching support that was part of the program. The zoom calls were for 1 hour, Monday - Friday and usually had between 5- 25 members at a time. I remember, the 1st thing that was mentioned to me on the coaching call was to "forget about the book I wrote". To toss it out and focus on building a business around it as THAT would help recover my investment and more while making the impact I set out to make. All of a sudden the talks now changed and examples were given about how people spend $15000 on a cruise ship and make nothing of it. All of a sudden, the conversation changed and she began sharing about people writing books for different reasons which may or may not include monetary success. While I found all of this quite strange and was still recovering from the shock I felt at how things were changing from their initial presentation, I decided to keep my focus on my intention to build my business. I diligently attended the coaching calls and participated in the facebook group when I needed help outside of zoom coaching hours. I did begin to see some shifts in the level of my outreach with regards to my work. I had several folks that I knew and some that were complete strangers reach out to me after reading my book either on Amazon or as a free downloadable copy from me. i admit, I did have over 700+ orders and pre-orders of my book on Amazon in the first 3 months or so, ALL without making as much as $10 from the online book sales! One of the 1st lessons in Angela's coaching program was to give the book away for free and not expect to make any money from book sales. This struck me rather hard when I recalled how I was sold on the homeless author who recovered her money from book sales in a few months after working with her. If such things are brought up either within the TAW community, the usual attitude of most members is to just go with the flow and not dwell on the past. The thing to do at the moment is to focus on your work to solve the problem of money in your life and keep making those $5k payments every month. If there is a question raised about this, you are either falling into the trap of your own negative mind or moving away from what needs to be your focus. At once there were a million manifestation guides at your service offering advise if you questioned Angela and her ways. This aspect of the circle of Authors that surrounds her, seems rather cultish to me and overall unhealthy. The positivity in the group seems toxic as it isn't really based on truth but creating what you want to be your truth. It gives me the appearance of building one's castle on sand. Anyways, I did not spend much time thinking about the past as I had enough to focus on work- wise. I was holding events and I did meet a few new clients with the work that I was doing. The number of clients and the income did not increase very much from what I was already doing prior to working with Angela and TAW. The model to build revenue and the sales training that was provided by Angela did not work well for me at all and actually drove a past client away. I was able to communicate more effectively when I decided to just be myself and throw out the sales scripts from my mind all together. I felt that the coaching and training provided by Angela and her coaches is great for those whose industry is heavily sales based. The coaching that was provided seemed very general rather than fine tuned to my needs and my specific work. At the calls, everyone was coached to use the same approach or formula and therefore a group call was justified. It felt like a 1 size fits all type of coaching. As I went about experimenting with different marketing tools to expand my outreach and create more awareness around my work, we hit the Covid19 period. As many of us may have experienced, the covid 19 lockdown and quarantine period left many businesses changing direction and some even shutting down due to the economic slow down that quarantine and lockdown brought with it. My mother who depended on rental income to support my $5k payments to TAW found herself unable to make them during the initial months. After having skipped a month or so of payments, I received an e-mail from Angela's accountant, Paul, asking for payment. I shared with him that due to the covid19 lockdown, income stream from my family, whom I had declared already as my financial support for the program, were stalled like so many others in the world during this pandemic. To this he responded by proposing that my family and I apply for forgivable loan programs and "he wouldn't release the hounds on me yet". I found this wording very insensitive at a crises that I had no control over. I had earlier sent e-mails to TAW accounting department and received no response with regards to my concern of non-payment. Helplessly, I sent Angela a private message as I did not know what the course of action was to be for me in this pandemic situation. She completely blew me off saying that she had a million things to do and this was not her problem. I then expressed my frustration on the facebook page which is usually not the page that accounting matters were discussed at. To Paul's comment about releasing the hounds, Angela gave me a rather non-chalant attitude that I too should have an accounts payable department that takes care of regular client payments. She claimed that her company had to continue making payments to vendors and could be sued if not made. The other coaches began offering coaching advise as to how I could make more money during the pandemic times and that I was focusing on negativity rather than solving a problem. I had plenty of backlash from fellow authors who also expressed how filled with financial insecurity I was. I had one particular author point out that I was looking to pose Angela in the wrong by trying to be right. She asked me why I had not addressed this in private message with her rather than pose it inappropriately on the facebook page. When I expressed that I had already made several attempts with the accounting department and also sent Angela a private message, she apologized claiming that her intention was only to point to the fact that I had not mentioned that I attempted to resolve this privately before posting it on the group. Another coach said that Paul's comment was insensitive and she was guilty of something similar earlier in the week. This entire episode left me with a sour taste in my mouth about the TAW community in general. Paul did declare later on that he was only joking and apologized for the confusion it caused. I felt this was an expression of utter disrespect and lack of basic human courtesy during a time that so much of the world was shaken in a myriad number of ways. I did not feel the same level of enthusiasm staying with the program and decided to leave. I read my contract and was able to enforce a clause "Force Majuer" that nullified our agreement to work together during a pandemic or other situation that was outside of human control. Shortly after this episode, I received private messages from a few others who were part of the program. Some of the authors were with TAW way longer than me and were behind on their payments and expressed how the program was not really working for them. I met at least, 1 author who had received her 1st royalty check from book sales after almost 18 months. Excited, I asked her how much she received in royalty. She said she received a couple hundred dollars and was very grateful. I was approached by another Author who was quite successful with her work and was writing her 2nd book with TAW. She said that her success in her work had little to do with TAW. What she had established was pretty much on her own as TAW coaching did not really work for her. She shared with me about a few women she knew that were kicked out of the TAW program for non-payment of fees and just never spoken to again. She expressed her own frustration with Angela and TAW as she too noticed a lack of integrity in the way that their services are marketed and how they maintain their success rate at 100%. She disclosed that many of the people she knew who had paid for the program without their own money eventually found themselves unable to make the payments as their income generation did not match the expense of living and $5000 monthly payments to TAW. They were dropped from the program and thus never became part of the stats when calculating success rate. With that being said, it would be unfair to state that no one ever really makes money from working with Angela. There are several authors who have made money and the program has worked for them wonderfully. Most of the people that I've gotten to know from the TAW community who are happy with the program are ones who've already had an established business that generates way more than $40K annually, have other sources of income and are not solely dependent on what they make from their work with Angela, or are simply grateful human beings. Overall, I do not think the program had no value at all. What I came out learning about it is that it is a program to establish a business around a book that you would write with them. The book writing program is just a bait to hook you into a much longer investment that is out of sight till you finish the 9 week program. The heart of the program that can help you generate income is business building. So for you, the meat is really in business coaching rather than book writing. Overall, it is a book writing scheme to sell you a business coaching program. As an investment, it may make more sense to invest $5k a month in VIP coaching that is catered specifically to your needs and the nuances of your industry while establishing a healthy coach-client dynamic without a cultish element that can come about in a large group with a charismatic leader. A couple questions that I am left with after my experience with Angela and TAW are: 1. If my return on investment (ROI) is mainly from building a business and not from book sales, then why did I invest over $ 35k in just book services? 2. What was the need to publish the book with a publisher and incure additional publishing costs if the purpose of the book was mainly to give it away for free to establish an expertise in my field of work? Self publishing on Amazon could have been done for free and I would still have a book to share with the purpose of establishing expertise fulfilled. All in all, I now realize that I was sold into a $65,000 program for basic coaching services. I personally don't mind paying that much for effective coaching. I know a few authors who chose to work on their own were very happy with private coaching for under 2k per month. I have also come across some excellent coaching teams who charge $5k and provide results based coaching and have a specialist for mindset, another for brand building, another for sales skills. Overall, business building and coaching-wise, I felt that I had paid the price for a 1st class air fare only to be shown to an economy class seat. Had I know then what I have learnt now, I would not have gone with The Author Incubator (Angela Lauria). My diagnosis of her program is that it is a borderline scam.