Don't get fooled! Strathmore's Who's Who... Schmucks!

This evening I got an email from Strathmore's Who's Who - I'm sure some of my esteemed readers and friends have ALREADY been subject to the honour of this email. Let me know if you have!

In short the email notified me that I had been selected for inclusion in a Who's Who publication because of my outstanding achievements. Seriously... Would you believe that you've been selected for a book of remarkable achievements when the first thing they get you to do when you've been nominated is give them the information that they supposedly selected you from...

I was immediately suspicious (mainly because I don't have any truly noteworthy achievements!) - but also because I have had people from all over the world contacting me over the years to ask me if they can award me degrees, republish my papers, publish my Masters and Doctoral Theses, or have me contribute to various books....

The scheme is pretty much the same in each instance... They play on one's vanity. You think something along the lines of 'wow! These folks must see something in me (or my work) that I don't see in myself... Perhaps this is the breakthrough that I need!'

But, at the end of the day what they do is EITHER get you to sign up on their server giving them all sorts of information that they can sell or use (such as demographic and contact information at best, or credit card and identity information at worst), OR they do publish your paper / thesis / article / biographical information in a book... Yup, that's right, they ACTUALLY publish it! (anybody can publish a book! Trust me!) along with many other arbitrary persons or articles (like having a recipe from someone in Canada next to a high school essay from a young man in Sweden, and your theological essay from Africa, just before a photo study of kittens from a granny in Australia....) It's quite a good business model!

The way they make their money is NOT by selling the books, rather it is by charging you a much greater fee than the cost of publishing the book (in the case of Who's Who mentioned above it is US$600) - for this they may even send you a physical copy of the book! You're pleased that you got published, but you wonder how you ended up in a Who's Who book with average achievers at best, and underachievers at worst!

So do the Maths... Let's say they include 1000 'notable' ;-) Who's Who's at US$600 each - they make US$600 000 from the 1000 persons who pay to get published in the book! Let's assume that the cost of printing this book is US$10 (which is fairly high for 1000 copies), and it costs them another US$10 to post it to each person in the book, then they've made US$580 000... Not bad money if you ask me!

At least you'll have your biography / essay / thesis / book or other material published, and all that for only $600!

So, please be careful of these schemes! For more on Strathmore's Who's Who please see this blog post.

As I suggested last week, the reality is that there are NO shortcuts to success! You can see the video, and read the post, or download the podcast about NOT cheating at life here.

My advice, rather work harder than your peers, study more, care more, or do something remarkable to distinguish yourself! If you're not willing to do that then drop me a line... You're the kind of person I'd like to charge $500 to get into a Who's Who book (see, that's $100 cheaper than those other snobs!)...

What other schemes, scams, or clever internet money making schemes have you heard of or come across? These things fascinate me!