The New Never-Ending PublishAmerica Thread (NEPAT)

James D. Macdonald · Feb 15, 2006

xhouseboy said:
...it also makes Publish America look as if they are not interested in helping their own authors to sell their books.

Click to expand...

Got it in one!

(The amount that PA spends per book, I believe, is on the close order of $300. It doesn't take many author purchases for them to recoup that amount and start showing a profit.)

DaveKuzminski · Feb 15, 2006

shelagh said:
I do not wear rose-tinted glasses. I see the world the way it is, and not the way I would like it to be. I also believe that the changes that are in the making at PA are despite forums like AW and not because of them.

Obviously, you don't see the world as it is. Sooner or later, you'll have to stoop down and clean the PA off your shoes.

TracySutterer & GaryRogers · Feb 15, 2006

AmandaPA,

Jim is absolutely right. There have been so many 'offers' over my time with PA that I can't remember them all.

I know there has usually been the one around Christmas time every year because PA wants you to buy your own books for Christmas presents.

Then there is the one from a while back offering you this 'great deal' ... They gave the 'wonderful discount' and promised to give you royalties as well, but they did not give the royalties to the authors that they promised to. There was quite a big deal about that on the PA board for a while. That is another example of how PA will try to cheat its authors. They really expected their authors not to notice the lack of royalties. That is how stupid PA thinks its authors are.

There was also another offer a while back saying that if you bought 100 or more of your own books, PA would make your book into a hard cover book. PA’s reasoning was that if they got 100 or more of your books ordered, then it would be worth their time to make it a hard cover book. I found this email to be very disturbing. I would love to have my books as hard covers, but let’s be real. Take 100 times 24.95 for one book and 100 times 21.95 for another one plus shipping and handling. It was an enormous amount of money that they wanted the authors to send to them. Needless to say, I said no to this ‘opportunity to buy’ my own books.

There have been many, many more ‘offers’ than these. I have some of the ‘offers’ still saved in my email folders.

Tracy

Lady of Prose · Feb 15, 2006

AmandaPA,

I'm so glad you are here and know you will find many new and helpful friends who are willing to help you in anyway they can to further your writing career.

AmandaPA said:
My friends and relatives have never been harrassed by Pa to buy my books. NEVER.

PA has changed many of its former practices since they have been outed over the past two years. However, I think the practice in question happened mostly to those authors who did not buy a large quantity of books and/or there was not a good response to the "family/friends list." Whether that can be called harassment, I don't know. I think it could be classified more with the annoying little junk mail reminders we all get in our mail reminding us of the good deals/specials we are missing.

AmandaPA said:
On my PA book that hasn't been released yet, I asked for no editing as I have my own editor and I'd heard all the stories about PA just using MS Word spell/grammer checker. My ms was returned with a whole page of red corrections from someone who had to have read the ms because these corrections were throughout the entire book and were not corrections from spell/grammer checker. They were from someone who knew what they were doing and had read my ms. (this was my experience, I'm not saying it happens to anyone else)

You are fortunate, indeed! My book was not given a line by line edit, as insinuated it would be, and contains errors that are not in the original MS submitted. And, when they ran it through spell check, whoever was doing the "edit" apparently made the change without verifying that the words were correct spelling for text content. Which resulted in some words that sound the same, but mean something else being used in the wrong context. I, unfortunately, did not catch those during the 48 hour review before print, and PA refused to make changes.

If you've had a good experience, and want to support PA, that is your right. Sadly, though, there are more unhappy than happy authors with PA. PA cares for no one but themselves, and the arbitrations, lawsuits, and other litigations coming up are proof of that.

I do wish you the very best while promoting your book, and that you prove to be the exception.

SeanDSchaffer · Feb 15, 2006

I'm glad you brought this up, Aconite....

Aconite said:
Let's stay on-topic and give PA authors and lurkers and general information-seekers the reasons why it's hard to sell PA books.

First, there's the cost. The cover prices of PA books run at least $5 more than books of similar length by other publishers, so the price is inflated to begin with. The casual buyer is not likely to pick up a $20 softcover by an unknown author when they can get the latest hardcover by their favorite author for the same price. That's not even taking the cost of shipping into account for books ordered online or through PA.

A good example of this is my own PA book. At 259 pages long, it retails for $21.95 in the Trade Paperback format. Not all that competitive, when you compare it to a hardbound book of similar length that costs less through a commercial publisher.

Beyond the inflated cover price, PA's tiny, unrealistic discount to bookstores--5%--means no bookstore will order and stock PA books. They can't afford to. The cost of shipping is greater than the 5% discount, so the book has already cost the store more than its own cover price when it arrives. This means the book is already a loss for the bookstore even without taking into account the costs of paying employees to unpack and shelve it, and the cost to the store of maintaining stock that doesn't sell on the shelves where more profitable books could be shelved instead. PA hopes this will force authors to buy quantities of their own books and take a loss in order to supply them to bookstores at an appropriate discount.

The discount has always been horrid. PA told me, when a bookstore wanted to find out their discount, that they had a standard industry discount of 20% off the cover price for bookstores--of course, this was roughly two years ago. Even at that, the bookstore owner explained that the minimum discount bookstores have come to expect is 40% off the cover price.

Then there are the physical aspects of the books. PA books are not professionally typeset. They're "set" in Times New Roman, left- and right-margin justified, by what seems to be MS Word. The difference is immediately apparent to even casual viewers, even if they don't understand what makes the books look different. PA book covers are not professionally designed by people who know what they're doing, who have access to professional-grade images, or who have more than 25 minutes to design a cover. They look it, too. Previously, the paper quality and cover stock as well as the spine glue were so poor that PA books looked cheap and performed miserably. People remember the $20 book that fell apart in their hands, and they shy from buying another.

Comparing a trade paperback (my book, again) from PA, to a trade paperback from Thomas Nelson (a gift book my mother gave me for Christmas a few years ago) the quality differences are astrononical. The cover of the Thomas Nelson book is in perfect shape after having been on my shelf for four or five years. My PA book cover is beginning to thin out.

Also, the paper in the Thomas Nelson book is a higher-quality, thicker paper than is the paper in the PA book.

The cover of the Thomas Nelson book was professionally designed. The cover for the PA book consists of a very unprofessionally made drawing, which I specifically told PA I did not want used as the actual cover.

The PA book costs $21.95. The Thomas Nelson book costs $10.99. Same format, almost the same page count.

To the reader, it's not a very good deal. To the writer, it's even worse.

SeanDSchaffer · Feb 15, 2006

Kevin Yarbrough said:
Snipped....

....and $20 royalty checks.

In the first year that my book was out through PA, I don't think I made that much money total on royalties.

I don't think I even hit the $10.00 mark in my first year.

PVish · Feb 15, 2006

Trademark?

Given the lawsuit by Hershey when Simon and Shuster, Inc., used a candy bar image on the Milton Hershey bio, I'm surprised that PA let this title be used:
http://www.publishamerica.com/shopping/shopdisplayproducts.asp?catalogid=12948

Well, at least PA didn't put the candy image itself on the cover. Anybody know if the name "Hershey Kiss" is a registered trademark?

Bonnie Gibson · Feb 15, 2006

The Truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

As many of you already know, I own a bookstore. Some of the new ones here may not know. I have posted this before but I feel that it's time to do it again as I see some newbies stating their opinions of PA and the way PA helped them.

Well Amanda,

I opened a bookstore and took hundreds of PA books in on consignment. I left them in my store for around 6 months. I sold 3. One lady bought a 56 page book and paid the $12.95. She told my neighbor that she took the book home and tried to read it. She then got up, walked to the trash can, and threw it in.

I sent most of the books back after 6 months. I left around 60 books in my store for a full year. I even put the prices down to $3.00 to try and get some of my money back. They didn't sell. I packed them up and now they are in my storage room.

Listen out! Even if you get your PA book into stores it doesn't mean it will sell.
There were too many mistakes in them. The prices were outrageous. They are printed not published. NO publisher would let a book, like some of these I have, out of their sight looking like this. But PA doesn't care. They make their money off the authors, not the public. Print it and get money from the authors.

PA may not MAKE you buy copies, but, they urge you to buy your own copies and they make you give a list of relatives to send a order slip to. (they ask for this in the beginning)

PA = PRINTER

Tirjasdyn · Feb 15, 2006

PVish said:
Given the lawsuit by Hershey when Simon and Shuster, Inc., used a candy bar image on the Milton Hershey bio, I'm surprised that PA let this title be used:
http://www.publishamerica.com/shopping/shopdisplayproducts.asp?catalogid=12948

Well, at least PA didn't put the candy image itself on the cover. Anybody know if the name "Hershey Kiss" is a registered trademark?

According to the bag on my desk it is.

Aconite · Feb 15, 2006

PVish said:
Given the lawsuit by Hershey when Simon and Shuster, Inc., used a candy bar image on the Milton Hershey bio, I'm surprised that PA let this title be used:
http://www.publishamerica.com/shopping/shopdisplayproducts.asp?catalogid=12948

Well, at least PA didn't put the candy image itself on the cover. Anybody know if the name "Hershey Kiss" is a registered trademark?

I'm sure Hershey's lawyers would like a look.

Gabriele · Feb 15, 2006

Lady of Prose said:
AmandaPA,

PA has changed many of its former practices since they have been outed over the past two years. However, I think the practice in question happened mostly to those authors who did not buy a large quantity of books and/or there was not a good response to the "family/friends list." Whether that can be called harassment, I don't know. I think it could be classified more with the annoying little junk mail reminders we all get in our mail reminding us of the good deals/specials we are missing.

Someone had put me on a PA friends list, someone who didn't want to listen to the warnings I gave him, and I didn't take it too kindly in the context. But I don't blame PA, nor do I consider it harassment. I just kicked them into the spam folder where they can keep company with that Nigerian guy and the Viagra/Rolex sellers. :tongue

xhouseboy · Feb 15, 2006

AmandaPA said:
You also claim that no one from this board is the guestbook slimer or fake reviewer on Amazon. I would bet that it is someone from this board. And it's a very nasty, childish and illegal thing to be doing. I will report to all appropriate legal orgs and ISPs if it ever happens to me. I will continue to report and file complaints until the person is stopped.

Click to expand...

I would agree that it's nasty and childish. But illegal? Where do you get that from?

I don't find it amusing to read the sniggering comments made about the poor PA authors who can't write and aren't real authors and have only been printed by a printer and not a publisher. Very unprofessional and childish.

Click to expand...

Maybe harsh, but unfortunately true. Some authors, TV writers, etc, put up with much harsher criticism, and in a much broader and more public forum than this. What's 'unprofessional' is to respond to the criticism. If PA authors have written a book for the masses, then it's out there. Period. No taking it back. Wasn't that what they aspired to? Life isn't a novel, or a film, or a TV show. If the work's good, it will stand on merit. If not, it will be slaughtered. Opinions will differ. The problem with PA isn't that all the writing is poor - some of it is very good - the problem is that several PA authors try to manipulate the system when their book doesn't receive the accolades they think it deserves. What you're referring to isn't just sniping for sniping's sake - it's life. The main difference between this board and the one at PA, is that here one can view a broad spectrum of opinions, whereas over at PA you either toe the party line or you're out.

I don't find that at all amusing. It's very unprofessional and childish, not to mention undemocratic.

Now you may all jump on me like a pack of wild dogs the way I've seen you do others with differing opinions from your own.

Click to expand...

But your post won't disappear into the ether. And the only 'dogs' in this fight are the ones over at PA, you know who I mean, those who deem it acceptable to curtail free speech, to stamp all over those whose opinions differ from theirs. You'll recognise them when you see them, or hear them- they've got loadsa money and they can't stop laughing.

DaveKuzminski · Feb 15, 2006

Aconite said:
I'm sure Hershey's lawyers would like a look.

Consider them contacted.

Larry, Willem, Miranda, no need to thank me. Just helping your underachiever attorney get in some more practice. Who knows? Someday, he might actually become good enough to be a real lawyer.

Hey, Victor, did you know if you give enough money to the Republican Party, you can go bird hunting with the VP? That should give you something to shoot for.

James D. Macdonald · Feb 15, 2006

xhouseboy said:
I would agree that it's nasty and childish. But illegal? Where do you get that from?

Signing someone else's name or email address to such things may be illegal. I don't know. I do know that I sought legal advice when someone was signing the "Travis Tea" name to a bunch of slam "reviews" over at Amazon.

xhouseboy · Feb 15, 2006

James D. Macdonald said:
Signing someone else's name or email address to such things may be illegal. I don't know. I do know that I sought legal advice when someone was signing the "Travis Tea" name to a bunch of slam "reviews" over at Amazon.

Oh, I would agree with that, Jim.

I thought we were referring to those that flit around guest books posting not too nice things about the work. Wrong in principal, but not technically breaking any laws.

Lady of Prose · Feb 15, 2006

DaveKuzminski said:
Hey, Victor, did you know if you give enough money to the Republican Party, you can go bird hunting with the VP? That should give you something to shoot for.

A little OT, would ya say?

AmandaPA · Feb 15, 2006

{Part of the problem as I see it is that Amanda doesn't want to blame PA because PA gave her a chance. Therefore, since PA wants her to succeed, they couldn't possibly be at fault. Since she's presumably been doing everything within her ability to get her book known, it also can't be her fault. Since any published book has to be good in order to be published, it also can't be the fault of her book.

Ipso facto, therefore the fault must lie elsewhere. Since it can't possibly be attributed to readers since that would mean that she wrote an unpopular book, the lack of sales has to be attributed to some nefarious outside influence.

Aha! It must be AW because they are outside and against PA and therefore nefarious.}

I've been gone all day and just returned to read your comments. As I have to leave again for a little while, I'll only address the one above for now.

Where in my post did I claim not to have readers? Where in my post did I say I did not blame PA for a lot of the problems I'm having? In fact I outlined the things with PA that I'm not happy about. And where did you get the mistaken idea that I needed PA to give me a chance? I've been published before with commercial publishers who pay nice advances? (not huge but nice, 3-10,000 range) I have been writing for a very long time. I was out of the game for awhile and just came back two years ago and I made a bad choice when looking for a new publisher. I admit it freely. I also never mentioned a lack of sales. I said promoting Pa books was harder now because of the rumors about the company. This is true because I was told so by certain bookstores and reviewers. I even had one bookstore manager quote from this site about PA being a vanity publisher and wanted to know how much I paid to be published. I still have readers from years ago who write to me on a regular basis asking for information about any new books I may have coming. Your post was insulting and full of assumptions about me and how I feel or who I may blame. You don't know me or anything about me.

I will address the other comments when I return.

Aconite · Feb 15, 2006

AmandaPA--and anyone else who's having trouble with this--you can quote text by clicking the "Quote" button in the lower right of the post you're replying to. That saves cutting and pasting, and makes it clear what's quoted text and who it's written by.

LloydBrown · Feb 15, 2006

AmandaPA said:
Your post was insulting and full of assumptions about me and how I feel or who I may blame. You don't know me or anything about me.

You know, you're welcome to TELL us who you are and what you've done. It always lends more weight to your comments. It'll also prevent people from thinking you're anything like thousands of other PA writers. You have to expect people to assume you're not familiar with publishing, since PA offers no advantages at all, vs. either self-publication or "normal" publishing through a publisher of any size.

Christine N. · Feb 15, 2006

How long would you say a $25 book from PA is? Around 300 pages? Ok, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Nice round number. 300 pages, $24.95.

I just got word from the editor of a book I have a story in. I did it for fun - the project was interesting. Not for money, not for fame, merely for the joy of writing it. This man is his own publishing company. Books will be printed through Lulu.

Somehow he's managed to get the book to debut at the London Book Fair. (Well, we don't have confirmation yet, but everything's been turned in and on time) The people who will be showing the book are from Foreword Mag. Possibly it will also be reviewed by them as well. London Book Fair, then it's off to Bologne.

Ok, 'nuff chest-thumping - I just got that news and am more than a little psyched. My point is that this man, all by himself, is getting more publicity for this little book than PA does for any one of theirs. He WANTS to sell to the public.

The price for this book? Looks like it will be around $25. Before you balk: Page count - 658. Number of authors - 8 Not a photoshopped pic in the bunch. The illustrator does lovely work.

Not bad for a big old book about kids who go to wizard schools. (If you really wanna see the book, take a peek at my website, the PR is there)

DeePower · Feb 15, 2006

AmandaPA

In one of your earlier posts you said:

"I have readers all across the country and out of this country who have sent me emails stating that they were unable to get bookstores to order my book for them since this new discount was implemented."

Phil Dolan won in arbitration against PublishAmerica. He had documentation that his book was not available to order in bookstores. If you can get documentation, ie., sworn statements by someone who has tried to order your book, or confirmation in writing or by email, by the bookstores that your PA book is not available, you may be able to get the PA contract rescinded.

Try Borders and Waldenbooks first, I've heard that there are a number of PA titles that are not in their own system, making them not available to order. According to a PA author on another discussion group, when he called PA about it the PA person argued at first and said that of course PA books are available through Borders, see the titles are on the Borders's website. BUT Border's uses amazon as their online store. Just because the book is available on amazon doesn't mean it is in the Border's in store system. According to this PA author, the PA employee was shocked.

You can see the post here.

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/georgiegirl/vpost?id=909072

Oh, one other thing. PA has the reputation it has with booksellers, book reviewers and the publishing industry because of PA's own actions and policies. PublishAmerica has the reputation it has earned. The posts at AW just make some of those policies and actions visible to writers.

Dee

xhouseboy · Feb 15, 2006

This new guy isn't at all happy. And he's caught on real quick. I detect a growing caustic undertone already.

Oh, such wonderful advice and handy information..thank you all...My response is that i did not know that all of this stuff nowadays is so reliant on the knowledge of the internet and the useage of a computer...The only way i find good books is by a visit to the local bookstore, not the internet...besides, i have never read an entire book in my life...seriously! Everyone keeps telling me that creating a website is easy..just follow the directions. Okay, so I tried that, and if you go to www.publishedauthors.net/ you can see where following the directions got me..(by exactly following the directions)..so...skip that....Now, even if I do manage to create bookmarks with bios, synopsis, and prices, Pubamerica charges 14.95 retail, and I see at the Barnes and Noble website it sells for 19.95 retail, so then how much do I charge them? This is why getting a book published was not such a reward for me..I did not know that I would have to create my own press releases in order to sell my book..Perhaps once i figure this all out, my next book would be on how to write good press release. Whats next?..Thank you all for trying to help, but my limited abilities far outweigh my inspiration to do so.

AmandaPA · Feb 15, 2006

[I hope you stick around, Amanda. It's always good to have other people's PA experience to compare to.]

Thank you Christine, I'm not going anywhere. I don't run that easily. By the way. I appreciate the rest of your post, it was polite without making assumptions. I'm here for legitimate information, so that I don't make the same mistake twice. I think from reading some of the comments about my post that some of you are mistakenly thinking that I'm defending PA. I'm not. I'm defending the authors who have books through PA. They are not all bad nor are they all riddled with errors. Mine aren't because I have a professional editor as do many with PA.

As for the definition of publisher and author.
publisher: Someone who has books printed for sale
author: A person who writes books

Someone asked me to supply proof that people are attacked here. I just was for my post. Also I have heard people called "idiot" and "spy for PA" if those aren't personal attacks, then I don't know what would be.

Tilly · Feb 15, 2006

That author is saying that, having spoken to Borders, there are PA books that cannot be ordered at all in a Borders store as it's not in their system. Does anyone know why this might have happened?

Tilly · Feb 15, 2006

Amanda, a POD book is not considered a publishing credit. A publisher does not just print books and sell them to the authors. That's a vanity press. PA, instead of charging you money up front, adds the vanity fee to each book. Once an author has bought a relatively low number of books, PA has its vanity fee.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this. We don't have a Never-ending Lulu thread. But PA targets those who want to be published with a commercial publisher, who want a writing career, by misleading its authors. It says it's not a POD or vanity press, that it's a traditional publisher.

It doesn't have to target those writers, it could just target people who want to go down the POD path. It chooses to do this.

The New Never-Ending PublishAmerica Thread (NEPAT)

James D. Macdonald

Your Genial Uncle

DaveKuzminski

Preditors & Editors

TracySutterer & GaryRogers

Coffee Fanatics

Lady of Prose

Member - the "Sting Gang."

SeanDSchaffer

SeanDSchaffer

PVish

Cat hair collector

Bonnie Gibson

Tirjasdyn

Outline Maven

Aconite

Gabriele

xhouseboy

In the Yellow Woods

DaveKuzminski

Preditors & Editors

James D. Macdonald

Your Genial Uncle

xhouseboy

In the Yellow Woods

Lady of Prose

Member - the "Sting Gang."

AmandaPA

Aconite

LloydBrown

Christine N.

haz a shiny new book cover

DeePower

xhouseboy

In the Yellow Woods

AmandaPA

Tilly

Tilly