Archive of the NEPAT

[NancyMehl]

Glad this thread is back. I was doing way too much writing.....

Has anyone read Meiner's book? I hate to spend any money on PA, but it might be good to read and comment on it. If the name of the book will direct people to this thread during a search, it might help to point out some truth amid the trash.

Nancy

[Jean Marie]

I met Jason Fodeman and his parents at a signing for Neil Cavuto at B&N in Westport, CT. It had been several months since I'd signed my contract with PA when I had an eye-opening talk with them. 2 minutes into the discussion, my stomach took the express elevator to the basement. They had absolutely not one tiny nice thing to say about PA and that was last summer.

All his books were purchased through a bookstore owner friend of theirs which they re-sold from the trunk of their car. Jason was able to obtain a review from Congressman Shays for the back cover which helped him tremendously. Very nice kid, hard worker. Where is he now? Johns Hopkins, yup, he's gonna be a doctor!!

Today I received an email from someone who did their homework before signing on the PA dotted line. They read through the testimonial pages on PA's web page and found my name. They googled me and a few others to inquire about PA. I told them that if they wanted a book to share with friends and family and had no interest whatsoever in being an author, it was a good choice; otherwise, run!!! They emailed back and thanked me for my honesty and said they had received similar replies from other PA'ers. One saved!http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif

[saraht]

I'm so glad this is back! Never thought I'd miss anything this much but I did.

On the count of three everyone commence to smiling and waving to the folks over at PA.

Violet

[Sparhawk]

:) :hi: done.

Of course I don't think PA will be smiling back.

[Christine N.]

Whew, there goes all my free time. LOL. Ok, let's keep it on topic. What's new on the PA boards...

Nope, nothing, same old crap. OK, sorry UJ, I'll be good. I just wanted to chime in now that the thread's reopened.

[CaoPaux]

Yup, same old paranoia and misinformation. *sigh* http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=3290

[MacAllister]

In the conference, a group of fifty authors questioned a panel of literary agent representatives (elves who reject manuscripts). A question was asked. How many manuscripts does your agency review in a year? Answer: 7500 Second question: How many new authors do you represent each year. Answer: Maybe six or seven.

So there was less than .1% of a chance that anything that I produced would ever get a chance. Not good odds when you've worked a 1000 hours to prepare a novel. That's terrible math, of course. Even if new authors represented by any single agency amount to .1%, that statistic doesn't just transfer automatically to indicate the chances of a new author gaining representation. Even if it did, so what?

I heard so many times: "Just write a better book." Because it is such excellent advice. There aren't any shortcuts that get us past doing the actual work.

With the current traditional system, I wonder if Hemingway, Faulkner, or Steinbeck would bother to write. Of course they would. Writers write. Why on earth would any of us even START down this road, otherwise?

[Charlotte M. Leslie]

Monday June 20th a local library tried to order my "book." They were informed at Amazon.com,that the book was sold out. And, their sugestion to the library was to contact the publisher. Which of course is Publish America. So my book is sold out..Imagine that.

[James D. Macdonald]

Thanks for pointing to that thead, Cao.

A bit further down, we read:

In my phone book there are 5 listings for literary agents. I called them all. They did not want to know about me. Never even asked to read my book. What I want to know is, what are these lesser known literary agents selling? They cannot all have famous authors to deal with. And yet, they are reluctant to even review an unknown ms. Where does one begin. Lots of "agents" will take you on if you want to pay a wad. I do not think I should. Not if they are going to give me 2 percent royalties. The best offer I got was 4. I think I could do that kind of job for myself. Something is wrong with the book selling industry.

Could someone please get that author over to the Novel Writing board or the Ask the Agent board? There are just so many areas that need to be addressed.

Cold-calling an agent isn't really the way most writers get representation. You'll need to find their guidelines and follow them. Any agent who wants "a wad" is a scammer. And agents don't give you two or four percent royalties -- the publishers pay royalties, the agent who negotiated the deal takes a cut of that. (If a publisher is offering you 2-4%, well, you're in a specialized area that as a newbie you probably shouldn't be in. Most folks should be looking at 12-15% of cover price, dipping down to 8% for mass market.)

The trouble with the PA boards is that they don't seem to have anyone who knows the score to set the newbies right. Which is understandable since anyone who knows the score beforehand doesn't go to PA in the first place, and anyone who learns the score afterward is banned from posting.


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I'm not seeing any used copies of Meiners' book on the web yet. When they start showing up I might get one. I'd only buy it used.

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Today I received an email from someone who did their homework before signing on the PA dotted line. They read through the testimonial pages on PA's web page and found my name. They googled me and a few others to inquire about PA. I told them that if they wanted a book to share with friends and family and had no interest whatsoever in being an author, it was a good choice; otherwise, run!!!Glad to hear another fish avoided that nasty hook!

That said--I would amend your statement slightly, to say, "If they want a book to share with friends and family, have no interest whatsoever in being an author, and don't mind losing publishing rights to that book for seven years, then OK." Sure, the first two copies of the book are monetarily free, but the author pays for those two copies with a seven-year contract. Much better, in my opinion, to go to Kinko's. Kinko's doesn't give you the two copies for free, but they charge a fair price for the printing and binding, and they don't try to control your book's future.

[DeePower]

You have been misinformed. On the PAMB you said:

"Talking to Borders... they told me that they have a policy not to have book signings, because they do not do well and it just wastes time."

That may have been what they told you (possibly because your book was published by PA?), or what you heard, but it is not their policy.

Last week I had two signings at Borders stores. It took a phone call to set up. That's it a phone call. The event was listed in their newsletter and on posters in the stores. The event was also mentioned in the newspaper. We got a good crowd both nights (two different stores). Books sold previous to the event. Books sold at the event. And the manager asked us to autograph a dozen copies so they could make a display and sell books after the event. We did not bring the books, the stores ordered the books.

We have another event at the Borders in Tucson end of July.

FYI our book wasn't the only event, there was at least a couple of book signing events every week for the month of June and I have no reason to think that June was unusual.

Just thought you'd want to know.

Dee

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Continuing in the series of Random Thoughts Of Potential Interest To PA Authors, I have a question.

Y'all folks what've signed contracts with PA. Do y'all find y'selves contacted by other Literary Scammers more often than the rest of us?

It has come up before in this thread that PA may be sharing its author contact list with third-party vendors, particularly the sort of "agent" or "publisher" that calls you up and says, "Heard about your book! I'd love to do something with it! Give me money and I'll make you a star!" Is this in fact the case? Do y'all find yourselves targeted by these sorts after signing with PA?

Anyway.

Here's something every author needs to know (IMnsHO): Legitimate agents/publishers do not seek you, the author, out. Legitimate agents/publishers receive enough unsolicited submissions from authors who seek them out that they reliably do not go surfing the web looking to solicit more.

If y'all what know better know of any exceptions to this rule, I'd be interested to hear about 'em. But from what I know, if a company you've never heard calls you up out of the blue, having, incredibly, discovered your book on their own somehow, scammer alarms need to be going off in your head right now. It is always possible that a friend of yours did in fact mention your book to them, but in that case, they should be able to tell you exactly what mutual friend they're talking about here so you can call up your friend and double-check that that, in fact, is what happened.

Be very careful, do your homework... and run at the first hint of a request for money. Even PAMB regulars know that. (Not sayin' that to disparage PA authors, now; just saying that it's the one piece of legitimate information PA relies on its marks knowing, what with their "you don't have to pay one thin dime, and that's how you know we're OK!" hype.)

This has been another Random Thought Of Potential Interest To PA Authors And Others. I'd say "stay tuned for the next Random Thought," only you never know exactly how long it'll be until one turns up, what with them being so random and all.

[CaoPaux]

Actually, I doubt PA has to bother selling their rolls. It's been demonstrated that scammers troll the Library of Congress listings for people who register their own copyright, and I expect they also glean info from the legion of "display" and "press release" sites.

[Gravity]

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I'm not seeing any used copies of Meiners' book on the web yet. When they start showing up I might get one. I'd only buy it used.

__________________________________________________ ______

Here's another weird thing. Go to the amazon site, and type in Willem Meiners. Up will pop all three of the Master's works, plus a Random House-published novel by a guy named Maisel. How in the world did poor Maisel end up on Willem's page?

I suspect space aliens... :hat:

John

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Actually, I doubt PA has to bother selling their rolls. It's been demonstrated that scammers troll the Library of Congress listings for people who register their own copyright, and I expect they also glean info from the legion of "display" and "press release" sites.A-hah! That's what I was remembering. PA pushes authors to register their own copyrights with the LoC, thus painting huge neon "spam me" signs on their own foreheads.

Forgive my sloppy memory--I recalled a discussion regarding PA signings leading to spam, but had forgotten the exact vector.

[Gravity]

Oh yeah, one other quick thing. I just checked amazon, clicked on Willie's newest book, and surprise, all four reviews (one by an obvious PA staffer, and three ripping PA a new one) are gone.

That seems to be the pattern with this book. The reviews last about a day, vanish, and then new ones are posted (most of them panning the thing).

Does Wille control that too? Garsh...

John

[Christine N.]

Actually, every writer owns their own copyright. Publishers purchase the right to publish, that's all. BUT the diffrence is that PA makes authors PAY for their own.

I imagine most publishers send their paperwork in bulk with one big check, whereas PA's come from their authors in individual envelopes.

[astonwest]

You have been misinformed. On the PAMB you said:

"Talking to Borders... they told me that they have a policy not to have book signings, because they do not do well and it just wastes time."

I was told by a Borders manager (shortly before he "left the company") that corporate was enacting a lot of changes in regard to local author procedures. Basically the gist was that they were going to be much more stringent on what the local stores (i.e., local managers) would be able to do regarding book ordering, book signings and whatnot.

So, I imagine what they meant to say was that they have a policy not to have book signings for books which don't come to the store with standard discounts and returnability...

[Christine N.]

LOL Aston.... that's probably true. I'll test the theory out in a couple of months when I start calling them to set up my signings. I'll tell you this though... I just asked about who at my local B&N I should talk with about doing a signing, (actually it will probably be my book's launch) and they just about fell all over themselves to help me.

So....

[maestrowork]

In the conference, a group of fifty authors questioned a panel of literary agent representatives (elves who reject manuscripts). A question was asked. How many manuscripts does your agency review in a year? Answer: 7500 Second question: How many new authors do you represent each year. Answer: Maybe six or seven.

So there was less than .1% of a chance that anything that I produced would ever get a chance. Not good odds when you've worked a 1000 hours to prepare a novel.

This fuzzy math is going to make GWB proud.

First of all, 7500 is total submission -- I doubt it's the number of complete, full ms. Second, 95% of that is going to be slush. I sure hope you write better books than slush material. So that leaves, what, 375 mss. they actually read. 7 new authors out of 375 submissions (some of the are NOT new authors, but just assume they all are)... it's about 2%. I'd say, it's not that great, but it's not that bad either, given most agencies already have a full list of clients.

[priceless1]

I was told by a Borders manager (shortly before he "left the company") that corporate was enacting a lot of changes in regard to local author procedures. Basically the gist was that they were going to be much more stringent on what the local stores (i.e., local managers) would be able to do regarding book ordering, book signings and whatnot.

So, I imagine what they meant to say was that they have a policy not to have book signings for books which don't come to the store with standard discounts and returnability...

Yes, Todd, the discounts and return policy is about the first thing out of their mouths. Once that basic issue is established, we've been seeing that store managers still basically do what they want to do. If they love a book, they'll do just about anything they want to have the signing. Even though corporate tells them to order from Ingram, they invariably will order from wherever will get them the better discount.

A number of the bookstores ask for a review copy before committing to a signing. We call this their "kick the tires bit" and they simply want to insure the writing and printing quaility is there.

I can't say I blame the stores at all for this policy. It takes time to advertise and set up for a signing. Stores in some of the higher end areas request a list of names from the author as well. They simply want to weed out the chaff and host what they feel will be a successful signing.

But above all else, we're seeing them do exactly what they want to do and only seem to fall back on the "corporate policy dictates..." when they want to say "no."

[astonwest]

But above all else, we're seeing them do exactly what they want to do and only seem to fall back on the "corporate policy dictates..." when they want to say "no."

Actually, I imagine store managers are going to rely on corporate policy (stocking copies, and holding signings) in most cases when the books *don't have standard discounts or returnability* (which was my main point in my earlier post. If they choose to violate corporate policy and lose money on it (which is bound to happen when those things aren't in place), I'm certain they'll be asked to....errrrr...they'll "leave the company."

[Aconite]

In the conference, a group of fifty authors questioned a panel of literary agent representatives (elves who reject manuscripts). A question was asked. How many manuscripts does your agency review in a year? Answer: 7500 Second question: How many new authors do you represent each year. Answer: Maybe six or seven.

So there was less than .1% of a chance that anything that I produced would ever get a chance. Not good odds when you've worked a 1000 hours to prepare a novel.

Here's the error in that reasoning: It assumes all manuscripts have an equal chance of being published. They don't. Quoting TNH in Slushkiller http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004641.html#40616: "Aspiring writers are forever asking what the odds are that they’ll wind up in category #14 (i.e., published). That’s the wrong question. If you’ve written a book that surprises, amuses, and delights the readers, and gives them a strong incentive to read all the pages in order, your chances are very good indeed. If not, your chances are poor."

[James D. Macdonald]

Your local bookstore manager may have the ability to over-rule corporate policy for a local writer.

That does you no good whatever at the 14,999 bookstores where you aren't local.