I'm a total doofus because in a small batch of publishers I queried to test the water I included Austin Macauley, who as a naive new writer I misguidedly thought seemed legitimate even though it wouldn't have taken much scratching of the surface to find out otherwise. Anyway as you can probably guess I've been offered a contract (requesting money from me to put towards the publishing process) which I categorically won't sign. Will the fact they've even seen my full manuscript potentially be offputting to any genuine publishers in the future? Is this compromising in any way? They've sent me some nice feedback (obvs, since they want my cash, but it definitely plays on a new writer's desire to have their work validated), but could I legitimately ever use this in a query? Unless they have a standard template of feedback but it does actually read like they've taken the time to read... Thanks guys. I will be diligently checking the reviews of every publisher/agent I ever submit to in future and of course will be giving this one a wide berth. I'm glad I learned the hard way before I signed the (quite frankly terrible even to my untrained eye) contract... Thank God for forums like this to help navigate the way
I don't think it's compromising that they've seen the manuscript. But I'm a bit confused by the "ever use this in a query" line. What would you think about using?
A golden rule of being an author. Money should move one way: towards you. If people ask for your money up front it's almost certainly a scam. There are a few exceptions of course - vanity publishing and professional manuscript editing spring to mind.
If you're asking whether you can productively quote a vanity publisher's praise in a query to an agent or another publisher--no. I think it would be strange to even use a legitimate publisher's praise, but certainly not a vanity publisher's.
The fact they "read" your full manuscript won't hurt you, but it won't help you either. Real publishers won't care about what paid-for publishers had to say because in the end they just want your business and agents definitely WILL have a good scoff if you put it in a query.
Thanks guys, I appreciate your input/feedback! Meant to add that Austin Macauley can be found here lol: https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/thumbs-down-publishers/
