Young Writers Society

Liver Bird Press offers a wide range of literary services including representation, publishing, distribution, self-publishing options, proofing and consultations. We also offer a workshop series based in Liverpool The first workshop will be set around playwriting and theatre production.

Please contact our website to express your interest... www.liverbirdpress.webs.com

Looks a bit dodgy to me. Here's a list of things I found that turn on the warning light (in the order in which I found them):

1. They offer proofing services yet the description of that very service contains a typo.
2. The website is hosted on a free server so their domain name is accompanied by '.webs.com'. Wouldn't you find it a bit strange that they can afford to take the gamble and publish your book while they can't afford their own domain name.
3. A lot of their services are charged on a case-by-case basis with no listed starting fee, or at least a cost per so-many-words guideline. For all you know, their standing rate could be $500 per 1000 words.
4. "Liver Bird Press understand that finding literary representation can be difficult for even the most talented author." This statement is not quite true and is an obvious 'we'll make all your dreams come true because others can't' ploy. If you are a talented author and your writing is good enough, you WILL eventually find a good agent and/or publisher.
5. When looking at their self-publishing options, they take the same percentage in commiseration for both e-books and hard copies. The norm is to take less for e-books (I could be wrong on this).
6. For both, their commission is 30% when the standard traditional publisher and agent commission is around 15%. Half of what they're taking.
7. They give a reason as to why their commission is higher, but this reason is based on false knowledge. It is usually part of the standard to deal to have the publisher send out the book to most of their contacts. This means more books are sold, therefore meaning they get more money. In traditional publishing. you do have to take some initiative for marketing and advertisement, but the load isn't enough to warrant the doubling of the commission, especially for the very little amount of things they do offer for the high commission.
8. They state that e-book publishing gives the author more money, but at current times, the publishing giants and a few tricky laws have made the payments equal to and in a lot of cases, less profitable than physical books.
9. Self-publishing with other places such as lulu.com or smashwords.com, or even with Amazon is much cheaper than going with these guys. I'm 98% certain that the royalties that smashwords takes is set at 0%. You do have to plug a bit of money into advertising, but if you do the math, it will most likely work out cheaper not to self-publish with these guys.
10. The site currently lacks any legal or contract information, especially concerning rights. For all you know, just submitting your manuscript to them so they can think about taking you up could transfer all rights and ownership to them, letting them publish your story without having to pay one single cent to you.

Either these people are scammers, or are newbies who are very naive about the ways of publishing and literary agents.
They may have good intentions and may even follow through and actually give you a reasonable amount of money for your book, but I wouldn't take the chances with them. There are just too many warning signs on the website alone. You can go ahead and take the chances if you want, but be aware that you have been warned.

Hahahahahaha oh wow.

I saw the holes and lapses, even on their written contents. Their about page which is basically a "must see" page is not even filled. Hmmmm....-sniffs- Smell it?