Hampton PublishingReviews of hamptonpublishers.com

Be careful about Hampton

I signed a Publishing Services Agreement with Hampton Publishers on July 24, 2025, and paid $1,177 for publishing services for two books, one in English and one in Spanish. I hired Hampton Publishers because I was told they would provide professional publishing services, including editing, formatting, cover design, ISBN registration, printing, and distribution. I trusted the company with books that represented years of writing, recipe testing, translation, and personal effort. Unfortunately, my experience was very different from what I expected. Throughout the project, communication was inconsistent, and I was repeatedly reassigned to different representatives. The people I encountered included Joshua Harris, Natalie Willison, Sylvia Grant, Anna Jones, Tim Anderson, Christine Christopher, Moses Hopkins, Jacob Williams, David Marshall, Kenneth Johnson, and Roy Smith. I was told at various times that the person handling my project had been promoted or that someone else would now be responsible. This made it difficult to maintain continuity and receive consistent answers. I was also verbally told that printed copies of my books would be delivered to my home for my approval. At one point, I was told that I would receive 10 copies. When I later requested the copies, Hampton Publishers refused and told me that this was not part of my contract. Because I still needed to see the actual printed books, I ended up paying for one English copy and one Spanish copy to be delivered to me. When I received the Spanish book, I found that the spine was incorrect and that pages were missing. I returned the Spanish copy. The English copy also had missing pages. When files were provided for my review, I also found numerous formatting problems, spelling errors, and other issues that required repeated corrections. I spent many additional hours reviewing the books and identifying problems that I believed should have been corrected as part of the professional services I had purchased. While I was still trying to resolve these problems, I was also presented with additional services that would require more money, including copyright and marketing packages. I was later informed that additional fees would be required to republish my books through IngramSpark after publication problems had been identified. I declined to pay additional fees because I believed I should not have to pay to correct problems that I had already reported. On May 8, 2026, Hampton Publishers informed me that they were suspending further work on my project and referred the matter to their Legal and Compliance Department. I subsequently requested a full refund in accordance with the refund provisions of my contract, but I did not receive the resolution or refund I requested. I ultimately had to spend substantial additional time correcting problems and working to complete my publishing project independently. I also reported my experience to the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division and the Better Business Bureau. I am sharing my experience so that other authors can make an informed decision before entrusting their money and their work to this company. My advice is to carefully review the contract, understand exactly what is included in the price, ask about any potential additional fees, and document everything—including verbal promises and agreements. Furthermore, I strongly recommend keeping all communication in writing and requesting that important information, promises, and agreements be provided by email so that you have a clear record of everything. However, based on my experience, even having this documentation may not necessarily result in a resolution. Based on my experience, I would not hire Hampton Publishers again.

I wish I could give zero stars. I signed with Hampton Publishers in September 2025 for their Professional Publishing Package. Over the following months I was upsold additional services and ended up paying a total of $12,220. I worked with many different representatives: Adam Jamal, Sylvia Grant, Christine Christopher, Kenneth Johnson, Moses Hopkins, Leo Schneider, Michael Hayes, David Marshall, and others. The project moved through editing, formatting, and cover design. I was repeatedly told we were at the final publication stage. On Friday I spoke with Christine Christopher, who confirmed the book was ready. We agreed to finish the process the following Tuesday. That call never came. Since then, no one has responded to my calls, texts, or emails. All the phone numbers I was given are either disconnected, have no voicemail, or just ring endlessly. The people who answered the main company line would not identify the company and promised callbacks that never happened. I have been left with almost nothing: Only a print interior PDF and a basic cover image No proper print cover PDF with spine and bleeds No ebook file No ISBNs No copyright registration information or LCCN No access to the website they built for me (I can only view it as a visitor) No marketing services or website monitoring I recently discovered that the Wyoming business entity for Hampton Publishers is delinquent. The registered agent (Aaron Joshua Davidson) has no working voicemail. Multiple addresses and phone numbers listed by the company lead nowhere or to unrelated people. I have already filed a complaint with the FTC and am disputing the charges with Chase. This whole experience has been incredibly disappointing and stressful. I trusted this company with my book and my money. I thought I was investing in myself. Instead I feel completely scammed. Warning to other authors: Do your research before working with any hybrid publisher. Check the BBB, the state business registry where they claim to be located, and look for recent complaints. If a company is pushing constant upsells and then goes silent after taking your money, run. Many of the positive reviews on these sites appear to be solicited early in the process before problems start. I sincerely hope no one else goes through what I have.

This has been an awful journey with Hampton Publishers. I paid them $399 to help me format my manuscript, but beware. They will try to sell you on many other services, and it is a hard, pushy sales pitch you will need to endure. I did endure. Then they weren't getting my book manuscript completed, so I stepped in and started creating my own section dividers because they were so slow and the design quality was poor. Then they stopped and said I needed to pay another $300 to continue, which I did because I was desperate to get my book published. All they needed to do was format it. Then, their designer working on my project quit. Needless to say, they finally got my book up on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but it is still not up on the other platforms they promised. So I excitedly ordered a copy and received it today. It is a disaster. The book is not formatted properly. Chapters are mixed, starting on both left and right readers, as well as the section dividers. The formatting is off, so exclamation marks show up as boxes. The Gill Sans Bold font they used does not render well. It is a disaster. So I called them, and they did their pitch again and said I would need to pay more money to get the formatting done correctly. I lost it. They cannot even do the job right and will not take responsibility for their work. It is all about more money. Run from these people. It is a racket. If you need more information, I am attaching photos, and you can reach out to me at Walkenhorst Media Group. I can give you some advice and tips on what to avoid and where to go.

When interviewing publishing companies, I felt most comfortable after speaking with the Hampton team. They were patient with my very extensive list of questions, were very affordable, and the team was always responsive. It took about 6 months to get my work published due to requested revisions and delays on my end, but overall I felt supported every step of the way! I would definitely recommend them to anyone looking for a strong team of editors that can handle your project with the care and attention it deserves.

First of all, I hate writing reviews like this because I always want to give hard working people their flowers. But this is not that moment and I must apologize to the people that did what they had to do and did it well. I want to say thank you. Thank you Christine Christopher for hanging in there with me when I was extremely frustrated with this company. You are such an amazing person! Now on to why I’m writing this review. When I first started off on this journey I was super excited, even though it took a few months and some research I was happy about choosing Hampton Publishers. Michael Haynes was my customer service rep and he was awesome. Lots of conversations about why this was a great company to use and how his team was fantastic. I had no doubts when I finally made my decision to handover my baby (1st manuscript) in December 2025. I understood that it would take time with the holidays coming up and that it would be published by Valentine's Day! Which we discussed and agreed upon. Wonderful my love story coming out on the perfect day. Anyway, weeks went by after the holidays with little to no word from them and when someone did reach out it was like a revolving door. I probably spoke to four or five different people, everyone on the team then not on the team. I got so frustrated I was about to ask for my money back when they must have sensed it and that’s when I met Anna Jones. She definitely came in at the right time. Working with her brought calm to the chaos and I finally started to see action being taken. Sylvia Grant who was over the project came in and out to make sure things were going well and they had greatly improved. But because of the lack of efficiency from the very beginning I missed my publish date and then another one. I had to micromanage this company in order to make sure that work was getting done. This was my final straw. After being so frustrated with them, my book was published on March 3 and I had to push for that because I was dealing with a deadline from the copyright office. Anyway, I told them from the beginning that I did not need them to give me a cover because I had my own. A few days before publishing we agreed on the cover design. When I finally got a copy of my book that I purchased, the design didn’t look like what I approved. There is a long gray strip around it that looks tacky. I complain and go in myself and change it. Because they said that after it was approved they can't change it unless I pay them more money. Which I was never going to do. Then I find out while doing that, that the ISBNs that I purchased and gave them are not on my books in Barnes & Noble. Two of them are set up using B&N free ISBNs. I complained about it and was only told that they were sorry. Changes were eventually made. Then with further reviewing of my B&N and KDP platforms I find out that the categories of my book are under self help, erotica and dark romance which my book is none of these. I am so pissed off. Imagine how many people looked up my book and were turned off because of this. I am so mad I could spit nails. Now, they don't have a problem finding ways to ask you for more money. So why do I have to do their job, the one I paid them to do. I spent $300 on their services to be treated horribly and that’s not fair. I don’t wish this kind of treatment on anyone else. I would never recommend their services to anyone. To think I was actually going to give them a better rating until I found out all of this other information. My rating now is a 2 and that's only because of the ladies I mentioned earlier. Take my advice, do it yourself or search for another company. Putting the finishing touches on my second book and I’m definitely not returning. Don’t look away from the bad reviews, trust them.

I could have never done this on my own. Being sick and in disability made it so hard to finish this project. The team at Hampton couldn’t have been more patient and understanding with me due to my chronic pain. Thank you David, and everyone who had a part of this gentle book.

All my experiences with Hampton Publishers were smooth and enjoyable from start to finish. Their team listened carefully to my ideas and created a book trailer that truly reflected my story. I'm very grateful for their work. I highly recommend it.