If you enter a contract with Tom Bird Seminars/Sojourn Publishing, there will be no way to get your money back if you discover the services are not what you expected them to be; and if you enter a contract where you provide services to Tom Bird, he will likely not pay you correctly, or at all, and if he does, when he is done with you he will simply stop giving you work without explanation.
In these cases, Tom will threaten legal action to make you go away.
Tom uses the legal system as his personal playground. He will file a lawsuit, even though his contracts have a binding arbitration clause forfeiting his right AND your right to file suit. (Search Yavapai County court case lookup for Tom Bird and Sojourn Publishing)
Tom Bird Seminars lacks a public forum for reviews. There's no Google Business listing, the review option is not activated on his Tom Bird Method Facebook page, and his YouTube videos don't allow comments.
The testimonials he does share are recorded at the end of a three-day retreat.
During that write your book in a weekend retreat, a subliminal track that allegedly only contains messages to encourage writing, is continuously played. This track puts the attendees into a theta state of deep mental and physical relaxation in which they are highly susceptible and easily influenced.
It is in that state, when attendees decide if they are going to invest $6,000-10,000 to self-publish a book. There is a high percentage who pay and never publish.
Tom owes me several thousand dollars for services rendered and commissions earned. After I stopped providing services due to non-payment in January 2018, I connected with a half dozen former contractors (employees) who he also owes money to for services rendered.
For obvious reasons, I no longer wanted my name associated with him and I requested he remove videos featuring me that promoted his PublishNow program and he responded by filing an unsubstantiated lawsuit against me.
Thankfully, YouTube has a Privacy Complaint process to remove unauthorized content.
If you have the desire to write and self-publish a book, before you enter a contract, do plenty of research and get feedback from clients who have actually published their books to make an informed decision.
Be weary of anyone who promises you riches from self-publishing!
Entrepreneurial coaches will tell you that while being an author is great, it’s your program and services, not book sales, which lead to profit.
Thankfully, I was able to successfully defend myself and get my Motion to Dismiss based on Lack of Jurisdiction (arbitration agreement) granted over a year later. However, Tom still refuses arbitration as agreed upon and I haven't been able to collect the money he owes.
The emotional and psychological damage he has inflicted has been challeging, but I hope that by me writing and sharing (what Tom recommends), it will prevent others from being harmed.