Merry Christmas to PA

[CoffeeCat]

Hello,

Merry Christmas.

[Gravity]

How long did you work there? We've heard the turnover is terrific, and most PA employees have about the same lifespan as a second lieutenant on Omaha Beach.

[Bubastes]

Interesting. That might explain why PA no longer allows author support questions through e-mail.

[thothguard51]

They will re-emerge under their other name...

[CoffeeCat]

Happy Holidays

[RedRajah]

They will re-emerge under their other name...

Hastur? :evil

[Gillhoughly]

Loving this news.

Any way of correcting the grammar of this thread's title? ;)

[LindaJeanne]

Hastur? :evil
Wait, what? Say that again?

Still didn't hear you? :evil

[Gillhoughly]

It's got to be brown britches time for Miranda. If they ditch her or she quits, where will she find another job where she can behave like that toward other employees?

Yeah, I know, there's always going to be jobs for bullying, lying, unscrupulous paranoid con artists with no social skills, but I expect she won't do well in a normal business environment.

Her English skills suck, so she'd better not apply to any real publisher. They demand a level of professionalism and quality of work she's not reached. Any prospective employer will do a Google search on Ms. Prather and get an eyeful on what she's done in the last dozen years, including that terribly inconvenient Wiki article. Ouch.

I wouldn't hire her to take burger orders.

Maybe her parents will give her a job.

Think I'm being mean, Miranda? Remember the thousands of writers you sent that "we'll give your book the chance it deserves" mail to and try to put yourself in their place when they woke up and smelled the coffee. Betrayal, anger, shame, embarrassment that they'd been had--that's all on you. Ten plus years you've worked with the other stooges, feeding lies to writers, you participated in cheating them, abused them and the people in the office and taken their money--so no, I'm not being mean.

Payback's a bitch.

You might lay off some of that bad karma: collect all the mails that have come in from writers wanting their rights reverted. Release them for free and delete their books and names from all the company computers. Larry and Willie have their heads too far up their asses--they won't notice.

Then you walk out of that tar pit of losers and start fresh. Scrub their poison out of your brain and start fresh somewhere else. Somewhere that you feel good about yourself when you walk in the door, some place where you can smile.

I heard you're good with horses. Go for it.

[RedRajah]

Is there a reason why the first post was edited?

[Alessandra Kelley]

Yeah, it, um, looks like some relevant information has gone away. Kind of sorry I didn't spot this threar before.

[Gillhoughly]

My guess is Vic's been busy sending love letters to all ex-employees, reminding them they can be sued of they don't shut up.

[Queen of Swords]

My thoughts too, Gill. Must have been a lot of letters to send.

[James D. Macdonald]

The Internet never forgets....

[PorterStarrByrd]

Might as well delete this whole thread ...

To those of us who don't what started it, it makes no sense.

For those of you busy bashing someone who deserves to be bashed it's just the continuation of an inside joke/private conversation. Title looks interesting enough to draw us in to what?

kind of like a PA ad :)

[LindaJeanne]

To those of us who don't what started it, it makes no sense.

OP said (s)he was a recently-let-go employee of PA. (S)He made some claims of what had been going on there (which did not paint PA in a flattering light), and offered to answer other questions.

[Gillhoughly]

PA lurks here, keeping an eye on us and often IDing former writers and sometimes employees.

PA's standard operating procedure is to have their slime bag attorney send C&D letters telling them to shut up or get sued. Others have posted excerpts of the letters which are full of misinformation, lies, and rife with abuse intended to get the recipient upset. They're not at all professional, but usually get the job done.

While it is not likely PA would sue anyone--it's expensive--they can make enough legal problems to shut people up. Most can't afford to hire an attorney.

I do look forward to the day when PA picks on the wrong person. It would be so lovely if the person threatened is a close relative to the Maryland Attorney General. :)

[twm]

Besides, what CoffeeCat posted is already posted elsewhere on the Internet.

[DreamWeaver]

I have to remember to quote the whole post when I think it might go bye-bye. D'oh!

[twm]

Want me to repost it? I have it saved.

[Gillhoughly]

Here's one of them:

PA hates giving refunds and will only do so under the most strangest of circumstances. One author paid for an E-Book twice the same exact thing and they would not refund his money for one of them. I don't think he realized he had done that but I did. PA just bombards their authors with these promotions, many are senior citizens and many authors are not all there, so they would buy everything that came in their e-mail because they thought they had to in order for their book to receive any promotion. They really were just scamming these poor people out of their money, we all wondered how these people had so much money to throw out the window, most of them didn't. We talked to plenty of authors that had sold large ticket items such as their cars and borrowed money from friends and family, just so they could have enough money to participate in these crazy ass promotions. These authors really felt like they had no choice but to participate in these promotions, it was sad and I tried my best to discourage them when I could.

They hate giving refunds but they have to deal with plenty of charge backs. The accountant hates it but oh well, it is the easiest way to get your money back.

[twm]

Here is his original post:
Hello,
I am a former PA employee who has just recently been laid-off due to reduction in work force. PA has laid-off at least 11 full-time employees, cut the work week down to 30 hours and downsized the author support team. Author support only has two people working it. They have been struggling financially for the last year, authors just are not sending their manuscripts like they used to and the current authors are not buying as many books as they once were.
I will be happy answer any questions or concerns and fill you in on some details that you may not know, but reading these threads you seem to have a good handle on how PA operates.
If you think they treat their authors bad, you should hear how they treat their employees, not good.
Anyway let me know what you would like to know and I will do my best to answer your questions.

[James D. Macdonald]

Essentially: Nothing much has changed there in the past five years. See http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/008505.html#164708 for an earlier example.

[CoffeeCat]

LOL