Public records obtained by Business Insider reveal a Federal Trade Commission investigation into Publishing.com, a company that sells courses on creating AI-generated books.
The company, which was reported to have made nearly $50 million in 2022, charges $2,000 to teach customers how to generate books and e-books with help from ghostwriters and artificial-intelligence software. It’s drawn scrutiny for its role in flooding Amazon with AI-generated content and has been the subject of numerous customer complaints alleging high-pressure sales tactics and difficulties getting refunds.
Investigations by the FTC often target companies suspected of duping consumers through deceptive marketing, hidden fees, or unfair refund policies. The agency can negotiate settlements and obtain fines and court orders that force businesses to change their practices or return money to customers.
Business Insider learned about the investigation through a public-contracts database that revealed the name of Publishing.com and showed the FTC had hired an expert witness. When BI contacted the FTC, it removed the company’s name. A partially redacted scope-of-work statement confirmed the contract was for an investigation, though it offered no details about the investigation itself.
The FTC declined to comment.
When briefed on BI’s reporting, two former FTC officials said that it was unusual for the FTC to budget tens of thousands of dollars for an expert witness unless the investigation was seen as viable. “They have to have a pretty good idea of what they want and what they want to establish,” one former official said.
In 62 complaints to the agency obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, Publishing.com customers — including some who said they spent over $7,000 on courses and other materials — said the company sold them on the program during high-pressure sales calls, while obscuring how much money it would cost to make money from self-publishing books.
“They constantly say to use credit cards, borrow money, put yourself in debt in order to afford this program,” one customer wrote in a complaint. Others said that refunds were difficult or impossible to obtain.
Publishing.com was founded in 2019 by the twin brothers Christian and Rasmus Mikkelsen. The company and its products have also gone by the names Publishing Life, Audiobook Income Academy, and AI Publishing Academy.
On social media and in news coverage, the 29-year-old Mikkelsens have described themselves as millionaire digital nomads who have cracked the secret to a hidden income stream.
On its website, the company shares positive social-media reviews and interviews with successful students, some of whom claim to have made more than six figures from self-publishing. In a disclaimer, the company says the average income of 1,119 students in a January 2024 survey was $1,801 a month — or $21,612 a year — in gross royalties.
After initially acknowledging BI’s request for an interview, Publishing.com’s chief operating officer, Michael Ohayon, did not respond to follow-up messages. The Mikkelsens did not respond to emails.
Vox wrote last year that the twins had helped drive an economy of low-value online slop. In 2018, Amazon briefly limited the twins’ ability to sell on its platform after it learned they were running books through Google Translate and repackaging them for sale, Inc. magazine reported in a 2023 feature on the Mikkelsen twins. The story said Publishing.com was one of the fastest-growing companies in America.
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