The New Never-Ending PublishAmerica Thread (NEPAT)

[SeanDSchaffer]

I'd like to ask my fellow PA'ers who might be lurking, a question:

We hear about PA knowing so much about the publishing industry. We hear so much about how traditional publishing is supposed to work, by the lips of PA's Infocenter. PA claims to know the business very well.

So my question:

Why does PA not follow the business model that they claim they follow?

Think about it for a moment before you answer this within yourselves. PA says they're not a POD, but they print a book only when it's ordered and paid for. They talk about getting books on brick-and-mortar bookstore shelves. But when we ask them why they're not on brick-and-mortar bookstore shelves, they say that Internet stores are the wave of the future.

PA says they are competitive, but are they? Why do they put sub-standard covers on their books and then price them at least five dollars higher than comparable books by other companies?

I used to believe what they were saying about themselves and the industry. But now, after over two years of dealing with them, I can see that they are not what they claim to be.

Now of course, you'll want to say, "But my book will be different." I don't think anyone has ever not done that. It's the way we human beings are. It's our nature. But when you do the math, and ask the common sense questions of PublishAmerica that will eventually come to you, how do you think they'll respond?

Speaking from experience, how I've seen it happen in the past, PA will most likely give you what we here at AW call a 'Tone Letter', and expect your apology while they ban you from the PAMB.

In my experience, PA does not want us to know what they really are like, nor what their business model is. They (PA) think we're all a bunch of losers who cannot understand when someone's giving us the shaft.

But in the same experience, I know that PA's authors are intelligent people, who, for the most part, want a publishing company that is not like PA is. We generally sign with them because of the promises they make, regardless of what our contract states. We came into this believing that PA was a Traditional Publisher in every sense of the word, and we got a POD company instead, that does not offer anything close to what a good commercial publisher offers for its authors or its books.

However, like many have pointed out here, there are several PA'ers who have gone to greater things. It's not because of anything PA did, but rather because of their continuing with their writing careers and sending their works off to legitimate companies.

If there is any advice I would give my fellow PA authors, it would be to continue writing, and continue sending your works to legitimate companies. Just because PA treated you and your books like so much human excrement, does not mean you can't make it in the business. It only means you've stumbled and possibly fallen. But those who succeed in life are those who stumble, fall, and then get right back up again and keep pressing toward their goal.

I hope this post--and this entire thread--is a help to you all, and I wish you all the very best. I'll talk to you later, Lord-willing, and I hope you have a good weekend.

[Bonnie Gibson]

What exactly has PA done for you other than print your book and offer you a 50% discount on all copies that you buy?

Oh I know, they gave you 2 copies for yourself.

Made it available online.

Set the price so high no one would want to order it, especially the ridiculous price for shipping.

Gave bookstores a 5% discount. (40% is standard)

Made it returnable? :roll:

Yeah right...What bookstore would order a book at a 5% discount even if it were returnable?

How can you keep supporting these people at PA? Get out a pen and paper and write down just what they HAVE done to help you. Then post it here because I really want to hear it.

Bonnie

[Ken Schneider]

Experiencing PA, is knowing PA.

Without experience, (just signed, book in process), one will hold PA in high regard.

It takes about a year to see who, and what they are, lurkers.

Some, as you can see, re- longtime posters who have hung on to the false dream longer than is intellgent, continue to sing the praises of PA, knowing what the company is all about.

Remember them when the PA nightmare is over, and asked them why they continue the ruse on PA's behalf.

1. Are they being paid by PA to keep you guessing?

2. They just never caught on to the scam?

3. They like seeing you fail like they have?

4. They really believe in PA, and think selling 10 books a year is good?

Has to be one of them.

Never, ever buy your own books.

You are a writer, not the Fullerbrush man or Avon lady.

You write, PA sells the book that you provided from your hard work and time. Without you, PA has no product to sell. They should be working for you, not you for them.

[James D. Macdonald]

http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=10997

POD books are gaining shelf space in trade bookstores because chain and independent bookstore buyers don’t have the time to distinguish their titles from those published by POD presses.

That shows the confusion (that PA willingly fosters) between digital printing (a technology) and Print On Demand (a business model).

Very, very few Print On Demand books are on bookstore shelves, regardless of how many books on those same shelves might have been printed digitally.

[Tilly]

http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=10468&start=0

Some writing-clique members try their best to tell perfectly happy PA authors that they’re actually unhappy and don’t know it. The pervasive attitude seems to be, I’m unhappy with my lack of success; therefore, I want you to be unhappy too.

That's quite a distortion. It's not that someone shouldn't be happy, it's that many PA authors don't know that they've been printed by a POD company whose policies mean that no matter how good a writer they are, no matter how hard they work at promotion or how much they invest financially, their book stands no chance. When PA said they were a traditional publisher, they believed them. Many will not be happy when they discover the truth, even if they are initially.

And as for any lack of success, writers who have left PA have achieved things that are impossible with PA. For example, commercial publication and real bookstore distribution.

Because of the negativity being spawned throughout the writing community, many exceptional writers, whom should have a book published by now with Publish America, have become psychologically biased against PA, and now must spend the rest of what remains of their writing lives counting rejection slips, and will never experience the joy of authorship--a sad commentary.

I'm glad writers are being warned against PA. If they're truly exceptional and persevere, then they have a very great chance of being published authors. It would have been a shame if they hadn't been warned and ended up with PA. Hopefully it would have only been a delay in their writing career, but it's not something I'd wish on anyone.

PA authors can participate in other writing boards under their current name or another board name, and I hope they will, and do their part to convey the PA message that there is hope for all writers, and hopefully raise the sagging morale of so many writers out there in cyberspace now struggling for recognition and validation.

The more discussion there is on uncensored message boards about PA and its practices, hopefully, the fewer people will believe PA when it says it's a traditional publisher.

[Canada James]

I've mentioned this subject before, but the habit of including an almost throwaway praise of PA in many of the posts never ceases to amaze me.

It's almost like a subtext declaring undying loyalty, in the hope of warding off an attack.

That's just human nature no different than when people here praise Jim or Jenna.

(Both of whom I have the utmost respect for. ;) )

Canada James

[Canada James]

about how authors get on the bestseller lists.

You can't buy your way onto a bestseller list, except amazon.


Well, that depends on the bestseller list. It's a statement that is wrong in some respects but still right in others.

Canada James

[Christine N.]

Ack. Yep, those PA Hatas, gotta love 'em. LOL.

Sorry, must be the lack of oxygen from being in the PA author fairy world.

Because of the negativity being spawned throughout the writing community, many exceptional writers, whom should have a book published by now with Publish America, have become psychologically biased against PA, and now must spend the rest of what remains of their writing lives counting rejection slips, and will never experience the joy of authorship--a sad commentary.

"The Joy of Authorship"? What IS that? Let me tell ya something, C.E., those people that 'should' have a book published by now with PA are (hopefully) busy learning this business - the REAL way the business works - and their craft. Some will continue to rack up rejection, it's true. Not everyone can write something other people want to read. That's the bare naked truth of writing - just like it is acting, or being a classical musician, or artist. Not everyone will reach a level of professionalism to be presented to the public. Doesn't mean that writing for yourself, or for a hobby is bad. Do what makes you happy. Just don't expect the world to fall at your feet for it.

But some, if they stay away from PA and keep at it, WILL have success. PA is a wrong turn on the road - not a roadblock, but certainly a big old detour.

PA preys on people - end of story. Just like the 'agents' that young girls meet when the step off the bus in Hollywood.

[DaveKuzminski]

I just noticed there's no page in Wikipedia for "traditional publisher". I fully believe that Larry and Willem ought to be given full credit for creating that term as Larry admitted in the Washington Post article, if I remember correctly. After all, the publishing world deserves to know that and how it's used to distinguish hybrid-pay-on-the-backside vanity publishers from pay-up-front vanity publishers. After all, Miranda's probably getting bored about now with nothing to edit. ;)

[Aconite]

Because of the negativity being spawned throughout the writing community, many exceptional writers, whom should have a book published by now with Publish America, have become psychologically biased against PA, and now must spend the rest of what remains of their writing lives counting rejection slips, and will never experience the joy of authorship--a sad commentary.
Absolutely. And I think that every single person who enters a race should get a blue ribbon, too, because it's so sad that some people don't win. So let's tell everybody in the race they've won first place! Everybody should experience the joy of winning, even if they didn't earn it!

Now that I think about it, I always wanted to be a doctor, too. Why shouldn't I be able to experience the joy of calling myself a doctor, even if I didn't go through medical school and a residency? That's just elitist! I know first aid. That's just like being a doctor, right?

[Nexusman]

I'm going to take a moment to note everyone that gets ripped off by PA. The list isn't inclusive just to the authors; it actually creates a "ripple effect" that doesn't include just monetary losses. Correct me if I'm wrong about any of this.

PA's Authors First and foremost. Nothing new to say about them.

Anyone that has ever purchased a book at a bookstore Since PA books aren't placed on bookstore shelves except by act of extreme perserverence(sp?) on the author's behalf, the few diamonds in the general mess of PA books will never be publicized, thus denying any reader a chance of a quality story.

Bookstore Staff These people expend way too much time and energy having to explain to PA authors exactly why they can't stock the book.

Arbitrators This may be counterintuitive, but hopefully there will be more arbitration cases against PA before there are fewer. However, if PA would actually live up to their contractual agreements, this wouldn't be the case.

Reputable Publishers PA is picking up quality books (usually just by accident) that Random House, Tor, et all would actually be able to do something productive with. By the same token, some reputable publishers may even have their reputations damaged simply by being miscategorized in the same group as PA.

Lulu, Vanity Publishers, "Subsidized" Publishers Yeah. Even them. They're losing out on money from a business standpoint. At least these guys are (mostly) upfront about what you're getting.

Professional Editors, Typesetters, Graphic Designers, Artists, Marketers because we certainly know PA doesn't hire any.

Legitimately Published Authors PA touts it as being easier to "make it into the elite club." By PA lowering its standards to everything, the accomplishment of being a published author can be undermined simply by being miscategorized in the same group as PA authors.

I think that's all for now.

-Nick

[Christine N.]

I totally agree with that last one, Nexus, but I don't limit that to PA authors. Seems like everyone's an author nowadays. And the public perception is skewed toward vanity, I think.
Talking with people about my book, first things out of many mouths (since my publisher isn't exactly a household name) is "self-published?" and "How much did you pay?"

Makes me want to slam my head against the table. Well, at least self-pubbed has some dignity to it, I think. PA authors play the game, of "I'm a published author" because PA tells them so. AND THAT'S THE MAIN THRUST OF THE SCAM. It's not the lack of distribution, or the high price, or the poor editing. Many of those things can be had at any vanity press. It's the "we're just like Random House" crap that makes PA a total and utter sham.

And I find this on the PAMB...
I am not sure what you are asking. If you send local newspaper addresses, PA will send a press release. I have found that my own press releases seems to be more effective in my area. I can't say why.


Bet I can.

[DaveKuzminski]

Conversely, the only folks PA actually helps are the watchdog sites as they give us something to warn writers about. So, just in case I haven't thanked them for that, thank you for being a scam, PA.

[ResearchGuy]

...many exceptional writers, whom should have a book published by now with Publish America...
Yes, well perhaps them should have, but them dodged the bullet. Hopefully, them will explore better options.
.
Sorry ... Nice-O-Matic(TM) is in the shop.

--Ken

[Tilly]

I posted earlier about POD titles making inroads into bookstores. I finally found the source of that information. It is an article by Rudy Shur, founder and publisher of Square One Publishers. He wrote in the "Soapbox" section of the January 16, 2006, edition of Publishers Weekly. Read it, if you have the chance.

Here is an interesting excerpt: "....At the same time, small and micro-publishers have reported to organizations like PMA, the Independent Book Publisher's Association, that chain and independent bookstores buyers don't have the time to distinguish their titles from those published by POD presses."

Another excerpt: "We independent publishers are getting squeezed from both sides. As the big publishers have grown larger, our books have been pushed to the margins in stores. Now, as self-published authors proliferate, we may lose even more display space."

The article is here:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6299382.html?pubdate=1%2F16%2F2006&display=current

The article specifically says that there is a problem for small, independent publishers competing for limited shelf space with POD books.
It also says this:
"But actually, POD is just the latest vehicle for vanity publishing, or self-publishing, by authors who are able to pay a fee to see their books in print. POD books may look and feel professionally produced, but that doesn't change the fact that they are not actually "published." Most do not receive anywhere near the level of attention that independent presses and the major houses invest in editing, designing, marketing, publicizing and distributing their books. In fact, when it comes to practical nonfiction, the information contained in POD books may be just as suspect as that found on some Internet sites." (Rudy Shur)

I don't know how far POD books are responsible for the problems outlined in this article, and how much might be down to other factors. If it's true, then it is a shame.
It's also a shame that the article itself wasn't linked to on the PA board.

[rekirts]

It's also a shame that the article itself wasn't linked to on the PA board.

Ah, but there's information in there that doesn't support the poster's view of "how publishing works and why PA is A-okay" so he doesn't want anyone else reading it.


In fact, when it comes to practical nonfiction, the information contained in POD books may be just as suspect as that found on some Internet sites. (Rudy Shur)



If the books are anything like Cancer Boy's book the information is pasted directly from internet sites.

[ResearchGuy]

...It's also a shame that the article itself wasn't linked to on the PA board.
Speaking of shame, that PAMB poster should be ashamed of himself for his flatly deceptive--dishonest--excerpting of the article and false gloss on what it said. The man is beneath contempt.

It might require a subscription to read the article. Is it part of the site's free content? (I subscribe to PW and am registered there, so I can see it all.)

--Ken

[Memphis Ed]

has anyone in here decided to write fulltime and make a living that way? I have been thinking about going over to writing fulltime depending on what i make in August. I have always wanted to be a fulltime wrtier. Any ideas, or comments



This from PAMB. Anyone here know how many of the 17,000 are writing fulltime with PA?

[NancyMehl]

This from PAMB. Anyone here know how many of the 17,000 are writing fulltime with PA?

Hmmmm. None?

(Do I win a prize for the correct answer????) http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smilehooray.gif

Nancy

[Tilly]

It might require a subscription to read the article. Is it part of the site's free content? (I subscribe to PW and am registered there, so I can see it all.)

--Ken

Yep, anyone can read the article.

[xhouseboy]

This from PAMB. Anyone here know how many of the 17,000 are writing fulltime with PA?


has anyone in here decided to write fulltime and make a living that way? I have been thinking about going over to writing fulltime depending on what i make in August. I have always wanted to be a fulltime wrtier. Any ideas, or comments



Yes, invent a time machine. If you go back back two or three hundred years, you might just scrape over the poverty line.

[James D. Macdonald]

But as POD titles have contributed to a 28% increase in the number of books published between 2000 and 2004 (from 140,000 to 180,000 titles), the public and some book retailers have begun to confuse them with books published by independent and niche houses. That hurts not only indie publishers, but also readers and the industry in general, by displacing independently published books from already limited retail display space, lowering readers' expectations of quality and introducing steeply discounted books into the marketplace, as POD houses offer incentives for buying their titles.

That doesn't mean that vanity-press books are now getting shelved. That means that legitimate small presses are hearing "You're just another darn self-publisher, aren't you? See that door? Go through it."

This hurts authors. It doesn't help them. It makes small presses less able to compete with the majors. Thanks, PA. You sure took on a goliath publishing industry, you betcha.

[Sassenach]

Being a fulltime wrtier are hard work, I am thinking.

[aruna]

The PAers appear to think that their existance as a published author is dependant upon being included in the PAMB group.

l?

This is one of the curiosities of the PA phenomenon. With commercial publishers, the authors as a rule have no contact unless they happen to meet at a publisher's party, a conference etc. They don't see themselves as a group; they don't interact with each other. Yes, of course you get warm fuzzy feelings when you think of your publisher, but you don't feel that warm fuzziness towards your co-authors with that publisher.

[xhouseboy]

Been taking some interest in the claims by several PA authors, that PA has, over the years, become more selective in regards to what they accept. A guy recently showed up on the boards to disclose when his new book would be published, and to inform others that extracts from the work could be viewed at his site. He received the usual feedback - great stuff, etc.

I'm not too sure if this was the finished version, and I obviously won't post any of the extracts, but with morbid fascination I just kept reading; it was an unputdownable piece.

There were next to no breaks in the text, including commas and full stops, and it seemed to plunge straight into different scenes within the same sentences. As an example (from memory), at a crime scene one character told the other to take certain evidence to the Coroner to get 'somebodies' opinion on it, or something like that. Next thing we know (within the same paragraph - well, there weren't really any paragraphs worth mentioning), the 'gopher' is listening to the Coroner's take on it. It was like - ' "go talk to the Coroner." The Coroner said what are you doing here....'

And by the way, how come you get quotations and I don't? More to the point, who the hell am I? I seem to have just sprung from nowhere. You're the Coroner, mate. Just tell me what I need to know, and quickly. No telling when I'm about to get whipped out of here . I've got some unfinished business in a previous scene that I'll probably be popping back up in soon.

More selective? Sleepwalking further into denial, more like.

[SC Harrison]

Even when I was posting regularly on the PAMB there were some common themes I just couldn't wrap my mind around and fully understand. One of them is the frequent claim that "All PA books are great." This kind of statement simply boggles the mind, and speaks volumes about the poster; yet, in most cases, this claim is left unchallenged.

I have doubts that the people who make this claim even believe it themselves, but that's beside the point. What is important (I think) is the culture of association that this represents. The perceived quality of one book has an impact on the other books, and the success and/or legitimacy of the publisher is critically important to the future hopes of the individual authors. This "team" mentality may represent more the desire to belong, as opposed to a desire to succeed in literary endeavors.

For the PA lurkers: regardless of what you would like to believe, you are on your own. As a writer, the only thing that matters is the quality of your work; having other (PA) writers review your work and give you accolades is more than just a waste of time and effort, it is another step down the road of self-deception. If you are really interested in becoming a successful author, remember this: there are no short-cuts. None that work, anyway.

[Tilly]

I've wondered whether, perhaps, some PA authors read other PA books in a different way to how they'd read a book they'd bought from a shop, just as you read your own work differently. Getting perspective on your own writing involves getting distance from it, and trying to read it from your reader mind rather than your writer mind. I think some PA authors read PA books with their writer's mind. They can't look at it objectively because they're emotionally too close, just as they are with their own work. And if they're still learning to find errors in their writing, they may not spot similar errors in the work of others.

PA has told them these books are publishable, and as soon as they stop believing that, they have to accept that being printed by PA doesn't mean their own work was of a high standard. That must be a tough thing to confront, and some of them might not be ready to do that.

Those who have realised PA publishes the slush pile aren't likely to say so on the relentlessly positive PA message board. Even if they don't yet realise their post will be deleted and they themselves banned, they must have picked up that they would be censured by other PA authors who seem threatened by any criticism of PA.

PA tells everyone their work is publishable. That's a cruel thing to do.

[ResearchGuy]

...PA tells everyone their work is publishable. That's a cruel thing to do.
Confusing matters, some of it IS very fine work. Maybe niche, maybe with a primarily local or regional audience, and maybe in some other fashion not suited to a commercial publisher, but still of high quality. All the same to PA. Wonderful. Awful. Here's a special deal on 50 copies of your own book. All the same.

:-/

--Ken

p.s. I am still (it has been most of a year now) working with the author of a superb memoir that PA nearly got its clutches on and would have ruined. In one way or another, it will reach print. Commercial publisher if possible, else a legitimate POD. In either event, y'all are going to want to read it when it appears. Shortly, I will pitch it again to an agent who has been very reluctant to take it on, and I have nearly finished some edits and format fixups to the manuscript. Either the agent recognizes that it is a great book with an audience (I have to omit details here, but I have done my homework, and have in hand the rave endorsement of a nationally prominent writer/scholar), or we go to Plan B. Or Plan C. I have volunteered countless hours because it is that good--and culturally and historically valuable in the bargain. But just being good--even superb--is not enough to sell it to agent or publisher. They have to be persuaded that it is right for them AND that it will be profitable (high bar for an agent, who lives on a percentage of advances and royalties).

[rekirts]

I went looking for the excerpt xhouseboy mentioned and ended up reading an excerpt from an entirely different PA author which wasn't half bad. I'm not sure the work is commercially publishable at the moment, but the writer definitely has potential. I hope PA doesn't permanently prevent him form realizing it.

[xhouseboy]

I went looking for the excerpt xhouseboy mentioned and ended up reading an excerpt from an entirely different PA author which wasn't half bad. I'm not sure the work is commercially publishable at the moment, but the writer definately has potential. I hope PA doesn't permanently prevent him form realizing it.

And that's exactly what's rotten throughout with PA, as Ken mentioned in a previous post. The good and the bad get lumped together, and all for the sake of hoping to lighten as many pockets as possible. A crook's a crook. And a target's a target. But on the up-side, out of 17,000 or so authors and growing, what's the odds that one day they select the wrong mark? Some no-nonsense kickback, or your garden variety sociopath to whom the recognised rules don't matter. Cue the Dr Chilton - Hannibal Lecter scenario, where Willem is forced to seek sanctuary in some obsolete corner of the planet.

[Memphis Ed]

And that's exactly what's rotten throughout with PA, as Ken mentioned in a previous post. The good and the bad get lumped together, and all for the sake of hoping to lighten as many pockets as possible. A crook's a crook. And a target's a target. But on the up-side, out of 17,000 or so authors and growing, what's the odds that one day they select the wrong mark? Some no-nonsense kickback, or your garden variety sociopath to whom the recognised rules don't matter. Cue the Dr Chilton - Hannibal Lecter scenario, where Willem is forced to seek sanctuary in some obsolete corner of the planet.

This is a compelling thought...

There are entire cities with fewer than 17,000 residents. Get one or two of them mad at you and you can get some real trouble brewing.

Sooner or later this is bound to happen.

Last week, here in Memphis, a noted medical doctor announced a book signing at his clinic. He was "published" twice...first with Authors House, and secondly with "traditional publisher" PA. I winced when I read the story. He was asked how many copies his book had sold and he danced around the answer.

He's got the bucks to strike if he desires. Xhouseboy is correct. The wrong mark is going to get zapped and pissed, and the fit will hit the shan.

What I want to see is less of the websites, authors boards and such and more walking up to the gates of Fredrick and a personal beat down of certain PA principals. Nothing too violent, just enough to cause them to rethink what they are doing and get into Amway or some other such business.

[mdin]

http://www.worldstadiums.com/stadium_pictures/north_america/united_states/massachusetts/amherst_mcguirk.jpg

That's Mcguirk stadium at Umass.

Capacity: 17,000.

[Tilly]

These posts may not last, but these authors are passing on what they know to the newbies. I suspect a lot more of that may go on than we see on the PA boards.

The very first thing to do, if you intend to write full time to make aliving at it, is to get a literary agent who can sell your work to big houses that will promote and market your book. Even then, there is no telling how good you will do, so don't be too quick to give up your day time job.

Shawn, I agree with Jenny and Pierrette and the cautionary post. Write for the enjoyment of writing. It is fine to dream - - - dreaming helps us establish goals for ourselves, but wait until you receive your first royality check before you leap into full-time writing - - - especially if you presently have a job. A few reality check comments follow. Major publishing companies reject about 97 percent of all inquiries. Of the 3 percent they ask for samples, chapters, or in some cases the manuscript, they will reject 90 percent or more of those after reading the samples. Of every 10 they decide to publish, they will either lose money or break even on costs surrounding the publication of 6 or 7. They make all of their profits on those 2 or 3 books that make it big time. Consider this also: Publish America is a great service to "would be" authors who have been rejected by major publishing companies. Publish America under "Facts and Figures" indicates that it serves 17,000 authors. Publish America recently announced, after six years of existence, it recently topped the $1 million in royalties to authors during that period of time - - - $1,000,000 divided by 17,000 authors = about $59 per author's book in royalties. The overwhelming number of us in here are not looking for great royalty returns - - - we just enjoy writing and sharing our work with family, children, grandchildren, and friends. If you continue to write with the above in mind, you will sleep better at night - - - and who knows - - - you may be the next author to break into the New York Times Top Ten. However, it is best to dream with the reality check above in mind. Best wishes Shawn, and thanks for your comments on my website.

What I'd disagree with is the idea that most authors there are not looking for substantial sales and royalties, i.e. readers. Most of the authors on the forum seem to genuinely believe that PA is a traditional publisher, by which they think it's a commercial publisher. And they still believe it because the royalty checks haven't been sent yet.

That's why they believe they might make a living from their PA books, and why they think they might have sold large numbers of books on an online bookshop.

[Glenda]

I search for a publisher summer of 2005. I seem to remember that when I went over the ad on the PA web site that they said they printed the first 2000 books for sale and after that it was a POD. Which made since to me. Did anybody else read that. Because that is one of the reasons I went with PA was that, and the fact I read on the testimonies site about an author who went to the ck out stand at a super market and there was her book for sale. Now does that not tell you they put them in the stores if you are a author looking for a publisher for your book. Here is what I read on the literture they sent when I signed the contract.
So, what's PublishAmerica Doing?
We announce your book to the industry, listing it with Bowker's Books-In-Print and with wolesalers like Baker & Taylor, Brodart Co., and Ingram, and we make it available through the PublishAmerica website and online bookstores such as Amazon.com, Borders.com, BN.com, Chapters.com, and (this is the catch) 15,000 bricks and martar stores. Your book will be available through all of these channels within six weeks from the time you receive your complimentary author copies.
I still have this and I'm sure everyone that signed up with PA has the same promise. I intend to do my share but I'm also expect PA to hold up their part. If they don't do what they have put in writing isn't that grounds to be able to pull out of the contract? Just wondering.
Since I couldn't find anything to back up what I think I read about the 2000 books being printing up front, I was wondering if anybody else read that too since there is so many PA authors here that were with them then and before summer 2005.
Another question I have is I am working on my third book and looking into other publishers. Now I've been seeing alot on LuLu and Capri. I would like anybody's input on these two publishers so I don't make the same mistake.
Also if there is anyone that knows of other publishers please inform me. I have many websites of Publishers, but I want to talk to authors that have been pulished with them and see how things go with them. I hope that is not asking too much, but I just feel like I have been burned like so many other and wanting my third book published and being cautious. Thanks, Glenda Wilson, author of Romance Novels @ www.glendawilsonnovels.com (http://www.glendawilsonnovels.com)

[James D. Macdonald]

Perhaps one day they'll give the next Unabomber's manifesto "the chance it deserves." Sooner or later, they will.

Meanwhile, they can appear to be growing more selective. Say they have the capacity to put out forty books a day. They therefore accept forty books a day. If they get 80 submissions that day, they reject everything that comes in after noon. 50% rejection rate! Say they get 120 submissions. They reject everything that comes in after 10:00 a.m. Instant 66% rejection rate. Have they become more selective? Not a bit.

Meanwhile, some percentage of the books they get must be ones that would have genuine wide popular appeal, had they been edited, had they been promoted, had they been distributed. Not every book they get is one that's been rejected by everyone from Ace to Zondervan, that's been going from slush pile to slush pile for the last thirty years. Some of them will be from first-timers who don't know any better.

[Saundra Julian]

As an example (from memory), at a crime scene one character told the other to take certain evidence to the Coroner to get 'somebodies' opinion on it, or something like that. Next thing we know (within the same paragraph - well, there weren't really any paragraphs worth mentioning), the 'gopher' is listening to the Coroner's take on it. It was like - ' "go talk to the Coroner." The Coroner said what are you doing here....'

And by the way, how come you get quotations and I don't? More to the point, who the hell am I? I seem to have just sprung from nowhere. You're the Coroner, mate. Just tell me what I need to know, and quickly. No telling when I'm about to get whipped out of here . I've got some unfinished business in a previous scene that I'll probably be popping back up in soon.

More selective? Sleepwalking further into denial, more like.


Xhouseboy, this is the funniest thing I have ever read!
Thanks for the laugh...:ROFL:
I can't stop laughing...
Saundra

[Tilly]

I've never come across any reference to PA having a policy of printing 2000 books offset as an initial print run. The vast majority of PA books sell in double or low triple figures, so I doubt this is the case.
Books being available in bookstores merely means someone can go into a store and order your book. It doesn't mean being shelved in bookstores.
I strongly recommend you read these threads:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26537
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10211
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20586

[James D. Macdonald]

Another question I have is I am working on my third book and looking into other publishers. Now I've been seeing alot on LuLu and Capri. I would like anybody's input on these two publishers so I don't make the same mistake.

I'm going to fold this into the NEPAT in just a bit, but before I do ...

Why are you even considering self-publishing? Go to a bookstore. See those books on the shelves? Find books similar to yours. Look on the copyright page to see who published them. Get those publishers' guidelines and follow the guidelines to the letter.

Lulu is a printer. The advantages of them over PA are a) lower price, and b) there isn't any 7-year contract.

I suggest you talk with a lawyer. If you have a case against PA, I suggest you look into arbitration.

[Arkie]

Glenda:


I don't remember reading anything about printing 2,000 copies and then becoming a POD. Print-On-Demand is a technology used to print all PA books.

As far as making the PA book available in brick and mortar stores, read carefully, and see if it doesn't say "through" brick and mortar stores, which means you can normally order through the store for home delivery, and of course PA does make the book available through on-line stores.

As far as the post about finding the book in a newsstand. I remember the post, and I think that "finding" was probably arranged by the author's family. The bookstand was near a shopping district frequented by the author and I believe her daughters arranged the "finding" with the bookstand owner. I can't substantiate that, but I believe that's what happened.

PA does an excellent job of subterfuge and misdirection, and there are a number of PA authors at royalty time that suddenly realize PA got the goldmine and they got the shaft.

Arkie

[Albedo of Zero]

Question:


How many books of yours has PA sold?


I checked out your website. It's very pink.

[Christine N.]

From the PAMB.... "Should I be concerned?"

I signed my contract last July. My manuscript (143,000 plus word count) and questionnaire were emailed on August 20, 2005. I selected the long edit by PA.

My contract ends in July, 2006.

I haven’t heard a word from PA about when my book will start into the edit process.

I've noticed that some of the books by other authors required 2 and a half months for cover design and two months there after, their book was released for printing. That's four and a half months, not counting editing and the additional work required by the author after editing.

I have five months before my contract ends.

Do I have any reason to worry, or is this about how things are supposed to go? I don't want to come up on July and then have PA discover that my book hasn't been edited yet and do a two hour edit and a quickie cover design just to fulfill their part of the bargain.

Just curious.

Best thing that could ever happen to him is if he keeps his mouth shut and lets the contract run out. 143,000 words ?!? How much do you think that 'lil gem will sell for? $35 ?

[Memphis Ed]

Our NBA arena in Memphis seats around 17,000. Average ticket is around $80. Add parking and a beer and burger, you get close to a hundred bucks.

The average PA authors has earned $59, according to their math ($1,000,000 paid in royalties to 17,000 "happy" authors.

If we have "PA at the Grizzlies Night" where all the PA authors bring their royalties to the game for tickets, it will be a sparse crowd.

Lurkers, pay attention. The AVERAGE author at PA earns $59 in royalties.

How can this be defended?

Here's the deal....I would quietly go away if the PA principals would simply add something like this to their website: "We operate a little differently than most small publishers. While we never charge an author to publish their books, we are best suited for the author who wants to see their first novel or memoir published for their friends, family, and small base of readers. Assuming a broader interest in your book, you retain the rights to your work and can take it to a more traditional publisher as you wish. We are a stepping stone for your potential publishing future."

BTW, where is Jamie Farr?

[AmandaPA]

Originally Posted by Memphis Ed
This from PAMB. Anyone here know how many of the 17,000 are writing fulltime with PA?


Hmmmm. None?

(Do I win a prize for the correct answer????) http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smilehooray.gif

Nancy


I write full time and have made my living by doing so for quite some time.

[Memphis Ed]

I write full time and have made my living by doing so for quite some time.


From your PA books? I don't think so.

[NancyMehl]

I write full time and have made my living by doing so for quite some time.

Amanda,

We were talking about authors who were making their living through their PA book(s). I think you misunderstood.

You stated this in an earlier post: "BTW, my first royalty check was for $3.00 even though I know that I sold around 40 books."

Unless you the most frugal person in the world, you aren't working full time through PA. http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif

It's neat that you are able to earn a living by writing through other avenues. That's something I'm striving for.

Nancy

[JimmyD1318]

Hello all,
I had just finished a short story that I had been working on for the last few years. After some of my freinds had read it, they asked me if I was going to try to get it published, as they have all said that it was quite good. I started checking around on line to look into trying to see how much it would cost me to get put into book form by a P.O.D company. That's when I ran across that one company that I see that you all love and respect, Publish America. I read their web site and thought that it was to good to be true! My story in a book store! And I could actually get paid for it?
I submited my text and hoped that it was good enough for 'their high standards' as they liked to put it. But then, I started thinking that if it's sounds to good to be true, then it probelly is to good to be true. So I did a yahoo search and that's when I found out about their shady ways and tactics. It also lead me to here, and I just want to say thank you for saving someone else from those hacks over there at PA. I will keep working on my short story and then try to find a agent that will like it enough to work with me to get it published by company that really is a publishing company.
If it never sees the light of day in a book store, I could live with that. But I couldn't live with the fact that it had been butchard and ruined by that awful company. I love my work to much for that, and I feel sorry for all those poor souls that have been used by PA to make a quick buck off of their dreams.

Yours Truly,
JimmyD1318


P.S.
Does anyone know if PA has taken anybody's work once they refused to sigh with them and still published it? Because if they do I will pursue legal action against them.

[Tilly]

:welcome:Welcome Jimmy.

There's a short story forum on this board as well that might be useful to you:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=15

I've never heard of PA publishing a manuscript that the author didn't sign a contract for. I don't think they'd do that because they'd have no author to sell it to, and that's where they get the bulk of their sales from.

[AmandaPA]

:ROFL: From my books with PA?? Oh, that's a good one. :ROFL:

[Memphis Ed]

:ROFL: From my books with PA?? Oh, that's a good one. :ROFL:

I love a good sense of humor....thanks, Amanda

[Berry]

...we make it available through [...] 15,000 bricks and martar stores. Your book will be available through all of these channels within six weeks from the time you receive your complimentary author copies.

If they don't do what they have put in writing isn't that grounds to be able to pull out of the contract?

Well, I'm no lawyer, but I think PA's contracts have a clause saying "this contract is the entire agreement", which basically means even if they promise you -- even in writing -- a print run and promotion on the order of Harry Potter, NYT Bestseller listing and a cardboard dump in the front of every Borders, if it's not in the contract itself, they don't have to do it. And they probably won't.

They are pretty good at making the contract SOUND like they'll do everything, but in fact it says they MIGHT. Guess which side of "might" they come down on.

[Sassenach]

I will keep working on my short story and then try to find a agent that will like it enough to work with me to get it published by company that really is a publishing company.



Jimmy, you might want to do more about educating yourself on the business of publishing. Nobody's going to get an agent with a short story.

[Sheryl Nantus]

head for the library or sit here and start reading and educate yourself about the publishing industry... lots of educated peeps here and plenty of info - including how to avoid the SCAM that is PublishAmerica.

:)

[JimmyD1318]

Jimmy, you might want to do more about educating yourself on the business of publishing. Nobody's going to get an agent with a short story.


You are right that I have a LOT to learn if I want to try my hand at being a writer. Guess that's why I'm here. I want to learn more about it. And anything that I can learn, I will take to heart.

[ResearchGuy]

... Some of them will be from first-timers who don't know any better.
And some are by able, experienced writers (albeit maybe not previously BOOK writers) who were taken in by PA's superficially persuasive line and its cultish cheerleaders. I have mentioned one such book here. Fine book of its type, thoroughly good reading. I believe that the author may be noodling around to see if he can arrange for alternative (non-PA) publishing for it now. (I wish him luck, even if it takes the notorious gag clause to do the trick.)

Bad book. Good book. Plagiarized book. All the same to PA.

--Ken

[Ilovepensandpaper]

Email one: From Publish America

From: Publish America Support
Subject: (my name): not feeling well
Ms. (my name),
Please re-read your contract, and this time read it carefully.

You, or any other PublishAmerica author, are not under any obligation or pressure whatsoever to purchase copies of your own book, for book signings or otherwise, at any time, under any circumstance. Nor are you under any special privilege to receive free copies beyond what your contract, signed and agreed to by you, dictates.

As for you talking to one fringe bookstore, this tells you nothing about all the other thousands of bookstores and/or their policies. The true fact is that PublishAmerica books are being ordered, stocked, and/or sold by hundreds of bookstores every day, lately once every two minutes, twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week. For you to insinuate otherwise, boggles the mind. Each day, bookstores schedule book signings for our authors, and they do the book ordering. So, if you choose to do book signings, and one bookstore balks, try the next!

Please show us where PublishAmerica claims or claimed that we "put authors' books in major bookstores". Publishers make no such claim, because they can't. Bookstores decide what they put on their shelves, publishers don't.

We are sorry that you are "burnt out and broke", quite obviously from causes beyond your publisher's control, and wish you a speedy recovery. Your healing process may be helped by the fact that you need to spend no more time on posting on our mesage board. Your access privileges have been revoked after you elected to advertise a fraudulent website that is aimed at undermining your book's sales chances.

Thank you,
Author Support Team
Support@PublishAmerica.com

Email 2:

Please read this and follow a successful author's advice:
http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/cookar...ukintdec00.html (http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/cookarama/readigukintdec00.html)

Channel your energy into doing something positive -- drink from a glass that's half-full and life may start to improve for you.

Name Witheld by me(ilovepensandpaper)

Email 3: Based on Email 2
Did you read the article about J K Rowling and learn nothing? Or did you just not read it? It took J K Rowling five years to outline the seven Potter novels before she wrote the first novel. Why are you looking for overnight success?

She received a grant for £8,000 to write the second novel. The first novel was good enough to attract the grant. Would your PA book be good enough?

If it is too much trouble to market your PA novel, then treat it as though it is still inside a drawer -- unpublished.

Do some research and find out how many authors became successful immediately after the publication of their first novel, and how many published several novels before they wrote a novel that achieved success.

Make better use of your time, write a novel that will be acceptable to a main-stream publisher.

J K Rowling has two unpublished novels sitting in a drawer; they haven't held her back. Learn from that.

Name Witheld by me (ilovepensandpaper)


Email on is just crude, mean, and unprofessional. I do not understand emails 2 and 3 period. My intention is not to become successful overnight but to voice my concerns with Publish America. I tried to look for the name of the person who wrote the last two emails, but he/she must be a lurker or something. I haven't found the name. Talk about missing the point.

[DaveKuzminski]

Gasp! I wonder what site that was that you advertised? And I'm surprised at you not drinking the whole glass of koolaid. ;)

Anyway, it looks like PA is back to using anonymous emails so no one knows who to blame.

[Ken Schneider]

To date:

1099 misc. for 2005 tax season re: royalties, from PA,= 19.31 cents from August 2004 up to today.

I supplied 80 names for them to send spam snail mail to. Of those 80, 10 bought books.

16.95 x 10 divided by 8% royalties = 13.50 PA, 156.00 dollars in the pocket.

The remiander of the balance, 5.81, was generated by my sending people to purchase the book online. So, PA had nothing, zilch, notta, to do with any sales of the book.

I purchased 150 copies at a cost of 1,574 bucks. Sold some, and lost about 500.00 dollars when I couldn't sell anymore because of price,and gave the rest away.

You've been had, just like me, current PA gang.

Enjoy your hamburger, or pack of cigarettes at royalty time, PA author, provider of the product that you sell, and PA makes all the money for doing little or nothing.

Enjoy your cruise, new car, trip to exotic points on the compass, PA hierarchy, provider of the formatting of books that LSI prints. People who do what you are doing go to hell when they die.

Yours truly,
One of the unhappy, 17,000.

[Glenda]

I didn't know how to quote everybody that I'm answering. I know each one will know my answers.

Thanks Tillie, I have been reading to where PA isn’t making it possible to buy out of stores even if someone orders your book. I am just agreeing that they are misleading because that is exactly what I thought when I read it, that my book would be available in stores.

James, thanks for your advice. I am a long way from getting my third book published and trying to collect all info before I do now that I am a little wiser in some areas. By the way, what so you mean fold into NEPA? Just wondering.



Arkie, I didn’t remember and that is why I asked. I realize it was not PA were I seen it at, but it sounds good and it stuck in my mind.

Albedo, my book’ release date is April 3rd even though it can be published off the internet. I’m afraid from other PA author’s experience I will not know that until Sept 1st. And then just what they tell me. Thanks for visiting my website, I like Pink.

Berry, Thanks for your advice. Unless my book sells, I have no money for a lawyer. And from reading the MBs my dream of that happening isn't going to happen. I agree that PA is misleading and it was a way out for authors that no longer want to do business with PA. .

[Canada James]

Email one: From Publish America
Please show us where PublishAmerica claims or claimed that we "put authors' books in major bookstores". Publishers make no such claim, because they can't. Bookstores decide what they put on their shelves, publishers don't.



My publisher makes that claim.

Canada James

[SeanDSchaffer]

Email one: From Publish America

From: Publish America Support
Subject: (my name): not feeling well
Ms. (my name),
Please re-read your contract, and this time read it carefully.

You, or any other PublishAmerica author, are not under any obligation or pressure whatsoever to purchase copies of your own book, for book signings or otherwise, at any time, under any circumstance. Nor are you under any special privilege to receive free copies beyond what your contract, signed and agreed to by you, dictates.

As for you talking to one fringe bookstore, this tells you nothing about all the other thousands of bookstores and/or their policies. The true fact is that PublishAmerica books are being ordered, stocked, and/or sold by hundreds of bookstores every day, lately once every two minutes, twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week. For you to insinuate otherwise, boggles the mind. Each day, bookstores schedule book signings for our authors, and they do the book ordering. So, if you choose to do book signings, and one bookstore balks, try the next!

Please show us where PublishAmerica claims or claimed that we "put authors' books in major bookstores". Publishers make no such claim, because they can't. Bookstores decide what they put on their shelves, publishers don't.

We are sorry that you are "burnt out and broke", quite obviously from causes beyond your publisher's control, and wish you a speedy recovery. Your healing process may be helped by the fact that you need to spend no more time on posting on our mesage board. Your access privileges have been revoked after you elected to advertise a fraudulent website that is aimed at undermining your book's sales chances.

Thank you,
Author Support Team
Support@PublishAmerica.com



That sounds like something PA would say, but for them to send a personalized email like that, you must have hit them pretty hard. I don't know what you did, but my wager is that you're causing them some concern.


Email 2:

Please read this and follow a successful author's advice:
http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/cookar...ukintdec00.html (http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/cookarama/readigukintdec00.html)

Channel your energy into doing something positive -- drink from a glass that's half-full and life may start to improve for you.

Name Witheld by me(ilovepensandpaper)


That email bothers me. It sounds like something PA might say, also, but they usually don't sign the email with a name. Very interesting.



Email 3: Based on Email 2
Did you read the article about J K Rowling and learn nothing? Or did you just not read it? It took J K Rowling five years to outline the seven Potter novels before she wrote the first novel. Why are you looking for overnight success?

She received a grant for £8,000 to write the second novel. The first novel was good enough to attract the grant. Would your PA book be good enough?

If it is too much trouble to market your PA novel, then treat it as though it is still inside a drawer -- unpublished.

Do some research and find out how many authors became successful immediately after the publication of their first novel, and how many published several novels before they wrote a novel that achieved success.

Make better use of your time, write a novel that will be acceptable to a main-stream publisher.

J K Rowling has two unpublished novels sitting in a drawer; they haven't held her back. Learn from that.

Name Witheld by me (ilovepensandpaper)


Email on is just crude, mean, and unprofessional. I do not understand emails 2 and 3 period. My intention is not to become successful overnight but to voice my concerns with Publish America. I tried to look for the name of the person who wrote the last two emails, but he/she must be a lurker or something. I haven't found the name. Talk about missing the point.

Ten to one the name on the last two emails was faked....as I'd imagine was, if they gave one, their email address.

I've seen this kind of junk before, from a gentleman calling himself Larry. He was, to my estimation, a sicko who just wanted to torment those who had been ripped off by PA.

I'd keep the emails for evidence's sake--preferably, you should print them out so you have a hard copy in case your computer ever goes down. Then get a folder and put it away so that you'll be able to access it easily enough if this ever comes down to arbitration.

And I would agree with the first email to this one and only point: study your contract, carefully. Ask a publishing lawyer to study it too. If you and your lawyer know your contract, you'll have a better chance of standing up to the scam that is PublishAmerica.

The people over at PA are still people, and still quite capable of human mistakes. If you have a good publishing lawyer study the contract you have, you might be able to find a weakness within it, and exploit it to the fullest.

[Gabriele]

That sounds like something PA would say, but for them to send a personalized email like that, you must have hit them pretty hard. I don't know what you did, but my wager is that you're causing them some concern.

What our dear, evil Ilovepenandpaper did? That: http://www.geocities.com/complexitypoet/ :D :tongue

[SeanDSchaffer]

What our dear, evil Ilovepenandpaper did? That: http://www.geocities.com/complexitypoet/ http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/tongue.gif



Ilovepensandpaper,

I can see why PA's ticked off. There are plenty of cold, hard facts on your site about PA, and PA doesn't like that too much.


All I can say is, good job, Ilovepensandpaper. The more that writers know about PublishAmerica, the more likely they'll be to steer clear of them. That's something that could be considered good about being a PublishAmerica author: we know first-hand how badly they treat us, and can therefore speak with authority when it comes to their poor attitude toward their authors.

Again, good job.

[Ilovepensandpaper]

That sounds like something PA would say, but for them to send a personalized email like that, you must have hit them pretty hard. I don't know what you did, but my wager is that you're causing them some concern.



That email bothers me. It sounds like something PA might say, also, but they usually don't sign the email with a name. Very interesting.




Ten to one the name on the last two emails was faked....as I'd imagine was, if they gave one, their email address.

I've seen this kind of junk before, from a gentleman calling himself Larry. He was, to my estimation, a sicko who just wanted to torment those who had been ripped off by PA.

I'd keep the emails for evidence's sake--preferably, you should print them out so you have a hard copy in case your computer ever goes down. Then get a folder and put it away so that you'll be able to access it easily enough if this ever comes down to arbitration.

And I would agree with the first email to this one and only point: study your contract, carefully. Ask a publishing lawyer to study it too. If you and your lawyer know your contract, you'll have a better chance of standing up to the scam that is PublishAmerica.

The people over at PA are still people, and still quite capable of human mistakes. If you have a good publishing lawyer study the contract you have, you might be able to find a weakness within it, and exploit it to the fullest.
Sean,
Yeah I am looking into the publisher lawyer looking over the contract. I looked for one where I stay, but didn't find one. I emailed a guy in NY though. I guess I will see what happens this week...
Awwww, I was picking up where Lucia left off. Seeing her website inspired me to make mine. Give her some kudos too.

[SeanDSchaffer]

Sean,
Yeah I am looking into the publisher lawyer looking over the contract. I looked for one where I stay, but didn't find one. I emailed a guy in NY though. I guess I will see what happens this week...
Awwww, I was picking up where Lucia left off. Seeing her website inspired me to make mine. Give her some kudos too.


Yeah, Lucia's a cool lady. I like the site she's done; I believe she has my story on it, along with a lot of others.

A good place to find out about publishing lawyers is Starving Artists' Law. I used to have their URL, but when my computer crashed a few weeks ago, I lost it. Still, they're pretty good, and should be able to get you in touch with a lawyer closer to your area. If you google them, you should be able to find their site pretty easily.

I wish you the best of success in getting the information you're looking for. Good luck.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif

[mdin]

The true fact is that PublishAmerica books are being ordered, stocked, and/or sold by hundreds of bookstores every day, lately once every two minutes, twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week.

Ohhhh, math time. I know we've done this one a hundred times before, but I think it's new for NEPAT Jr.

A book is ordered every two minutes, 24 hours a day.

Right now there are 13,033 PA books on Amazon.

There are 525,600 minutes in a year. Every two minutes means @263,000 books sold last year. Divide that by 13,000 click click click...

That averages 20 books a year.

So now let's fix PA's quote.

The true fact is that the average PublishAmerica book can expect to sell about twenty books a year. That's 1.67 books a month!

[xhouseboy]

Email 3: Based on Email 2
Did you read the article about J K Rowling and learn nothing? Or did you just not read it? It took J K Rowling five years to outline the seven Potter novels before she wrote the first novel. Why are you looking for overnight success?

She received a grant for £8,000 to write the second novel. The first novel was good enough to attract the grant. Would your PA book be good enough?





Name Witheld by me (ilovepensandpaper)


Email on is just crude, mean, and unprofessional. I do not understand emails 2 and 3 period. My intention is not to become successful overnight but to voice my concerns with Publish America. I tried to look for the name of the person who wrote the last two emails, but he/she must be a lurker or something. I haven't found the name. Talk about missing the point.

One article I read on JK (a Scottish newspaper), she stated that after her first manuscript was accepted by the agent, a few months later she then received a call from said agent. She mentioned that she had to sit down, as he had received an offer of £90,000 advance for the novel. She also mentioned that her world changed from that point onwards. No more surviving on welfare benefits while struggling as a single mother. She immediately decided to move from her one room bedsit in Edinburgh, etc.

If that's so, I hardly think she would then apply for an £8000 grant for the second novel. In subsequent interviews she stated that she was having trouble with the plots of the follow-up books, couldn't decide who was to live or die in them.

So if your lurker is still lurking, perhaps he/she might care to name the source. I realise that not all info is accurate, especially in the press, but one of the sources is wrong.

As for a grant? Sounds like he/she might be from the UK, as there are certain grants available for second-time novelists, but I'm equally sure JK wasn't a recipient of one.

[James D. Macdonald]

Like that of her own character, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling's life has the luster of a fairy tale. Divorced, living on public assistance in a tiny Edinburgh flat with her infant daughter, it was Harry Potter that rescued her. First, the Scottish Arts Council gave Rowling a grant to finish the book. After its sale to Bloomsbury (UK) and Scholastic Books, the accolades began to pile up.

http://www.jkrowling.info

Over on her official site, jkrowling.com, Ms. Rowling tells us that the second agent she queried accepted her, and that he only needed a year to place the book.

Which is all rather far afield from PA except: Suppose Ms. Rowling had submitted her book to PublishBritannica (as it was called). Would they have accepted it? Of course they would, straight off. How many copies would she have sold? Perhaps seventy ... depending on how many friends she had and how many she could buy herself. Would she have been happy to hold a bound copy of her book in her hands? Again, of course!

Would anyone else have ever heard of Harry Potter?

Nope.

[Christine N.]

Yep, and she did recieve a grant, but it was to finish the first book. Then she won the Smarties Prize.

Just to prove that, once again, PA gets it wrong. All those "true facts" they have over there. As opposed to "fake facts". Idiots.

[Aconite]

A good place to find out about publishing lawyers is Starving Artists' Law. I used to have their URL, but when my computer crashed a few weeks ago, I lost it.
Here you go, Sean: http://www.starvingartistslaw.com/

[JimmyD1318]

The whole thing is just werid.........and their own message board is full of people that all talk like cult members. Like I said thank you guys for saving me the heart ache of getting involed with that bogus company.:snoopy:

[James D. Macdonald]

Once again, if any PA author finds a Slimer message posted on his or her guestbook, find the IP number of the slimer and put it here.

If the slimer is an AW member ... he or she will be banned on the spot.

[Tilly]

The whole thing is just werid.........and their own message board is full of people that all talk like cult members.
If they don't, they get banned. It makes the board a very weird read.

Like I said thank you guys for saving me the heart ache of getting involed with that bogus company.
I'm very glad you found this information first.:hooray:

This thread is one of the best resources I've found on the craft of writing either on or off line, and although it's primarily aimed at novel writing, I think it would be useful for short story writing as well:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6710
The same thread condensed:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7987
And an index to the thread:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8754

This blog entry is wonderful in so many ways:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004641.html

And this thread is on publishing:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20586

[LloydBrown]

I don’t know if this is significant, but Publish America is not a member of the Frederick Chamber of Commerce. I looked at their member list and PA is absent. On the FCC website is the following:

It's not significant. Local CoCs vary in the utility that they provide businesses. They're primarily networking tools and they're only as good as the local director plus the number of Chamber members. The CoC is not a regulatory of quality-control body.

[Stan Jozwiak]

CONFITEOR Deo omnipotenti; forgive me Father for I have indeed sinned. It is years since my last confession, and in that time I have committed the dreadful sin of pride, and it has cost me dearly.

I wrote a book called The Newness of New and I submitted my manuscript to Publish America LLLP, of Frederick, in Maryland. I did not know when I sent my material in that nobody at PA would actually read my book. It would have been extremely difficult for the PA representative named Jessica, who was one of my contacts, to understand what I had written. Her e-mails to me seemed to indicate that she had not acquired a reading ability that was superior to that of an eight-year-old child, and that she was essentially functionally illiterate.

Instead of reading my ms, the PA representative simply subjected it to the spell and grammar checks of the Microsoft, or similar Word program tools, and formatted it into an hundred and ninety page book by using the formatting function of the word processor program. I believe that PA then copied the work onto either a floppy disc or a CD for easy storage.

As well as submitting my book, I was stupid enough, and vain enough to send PA a requested list of the names and addresses of twenty of my friends and fourteen members of my blood relatives.

It did not dawn on me that PA relied on my egoism to make a profit. PA relentlessly pestered my friends and relatives, cajoling them into buying my horrible book. My friends and relatives bought my book only out of coerced obligation, and not because my book had any merit whatsoever. And now when I meet or visit any of them, there is an air of forced awkwardness in the air. There is no longer the warmth and ease that any of us had before my despicable vanity drove me to believe that I was a writer.

It is futile to blame Publish America LLLP for its role in this matter. I was the vain prancing fraud who gleefully sold my integrity – not so that I could gain the world, but for the pittance of the emptiness of proclaiming myself to be an author.

Stan Jozwiak

[T.L. Newberry]

An unsavory man, Juiles Newberry, wants to take her home for what her father owes the bank and force her to marry him as part of the deal. Her only escape is to marry the captivating, compelling Jared Pendleton.

That creeped me out. I never thought anyone would THINK of using the same last name as mine!

[Tilly]

Stan, that was brilliant. But I don't think it's a sin to take pride in our work and hope for publication. I don't think it's vain to regard ourselves as writers.

*looks down at her signature, ponders this years rejections*

We have to have some ego to balance the crippling self-doubt. PA relies on, and uses, both.

[JimmyD1318]

If they don't, they get banned. It makes the board a very weird read.


I'm very glad you found this information first.:hooray:

This thread is one of the best resources I've found on the craft of writing either on or off line, and although it's primarily aimed at novel writing, I think it would be useful for short story writing as well:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6710
The same thread condensed:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7987
And an index to the thread:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8754

This blog entry is wonderful in so many ways:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004641.html

And this thread is on publishing:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20586


Thank you. I have been reading as much as I can given the time that I have. I won't give up on my story.

[Liam Jackson]

Stan, I admire your moxie, and obvious sense of responsibility. I do, however, suggest that you cease with the self-administered beatings at this point, and go write another book. Apply lessons-learned to your next project and move forward. Many authors have found "life after PA," and you can, too.

May your next book knock the socks off friends and relatives, alike!

[Banned-Aide]

I loved your post Stan. I think Liam and Tilly have given you excellent advice. Move onward and upward.

BA

[SeanDSchaffer]

Don't beat yourself up.

What happened to your book is PA's fault, and no one else's. They mislead you, not the other way around. You're not the criminal here; they are.

Now, I admire your willingness to say you were wrong in submitting to them, but that does not change the fact that they are the ones who treated you and your book with such contempt. My advice to you as a fellow PA'er is pretty much the same as other posters have already given: write another, better book. Submit your new book to legitimate companies. Give yourself the chance that PA tried to take away from you.

Above all, keep on keeping on. Don't let PA get you down. They're not worth it.


One more thing: you wrote a book. That's not exactly the easiest thing in the world to do. Please, honor that accomplishment by writing another one and showing the b*st*rds at PA what you're made of.

You can do it, Stan, but you need to stop beating yourself up.

[endless rewrite]

Behold the guidelines given on the PAMB today to a new author. I had to snip quite a lot as my eyes started to bleed. This is from the man who hasn't had his book printed yet by PA but who still knows what it takes...





You will want to be able to have 20 or 30 copies of your book as back-up in addition to the 10 or 20 that hopefully the store will order to stock for the event. Remember PA titles are returnable now.


On planet PA books are always returnable and book stores are always keen to buy in copies.


It is also a great idea to be able to leave a cople of copies with the manager and ask him to recommend an employee to read the book before your signing. A romanace novel should be read by someone other than say a 20 yr. old guy into sci/fi so you'll want the manager to make sure the book gets in the right hands. and don't hesitate to request that the book be returned to you after all you have to pay for them.


Surely they can use one of the books they ordered.


Then make sure to find out where in the store you will be and if the store will supply a table and chair, say coffee and cookies, or even take out any kind of advertisement for you.

Earth calling...and I would like cherries on top of my cookies, please.


Enthisiastic friends and family that walk through the store or mall chatting up your book can be very beneficial.


Reminds me of that show, Trigger Happy TV where the guy wandered around shouting into an outsize phone - HELLO I'M AT A BOOK SIGNING - NO IT's CRAP



Dress nicely, this isn't a nightclub or a backyard picnic so make sure you look professional a little artsie is fine for fiction even a very nice sweat suit for fitness or an apron for a cook book but jeans and a tanktop for a business chronicle sends the wrong message.


Shudders at what the soft porn/erotica PA writers will wear, and if cancer boy will be wearing his dress up doctors outfit or just walking on water in his author prop paddling pool.


Be prepared to ralk about your book. Have answers ready at hand for the common questions like: What's it about, why did you write it etc.


Why oh why?


Be sure to find out where the section in the bookstore is for books related to your topic so when someone walks over there you can say hey if you like that kind of book you'll love mine.

and then look forward to being escorted from the building clutching your homemade cookies/apron/bookmarks/vase of flowers/lucky troll/'good' pen

Engage the customers if they don't approach you. Say hello to them and invite them to read an excerpt. I am having a audio made of my book which I will also have to sell for people who have difficulty seeing or finding the time to read and I plan on having it playing softly at my signings,

Why not just flash up subliminal messages on the back wall and drug the cookies? This is so wrong I would actually go to the book signing just to see and hear it in action.


as well as a drawing for a gift certificate at the store requesting e-mail addresses to add to my contact list.( If that store doesn't offer gift certificates try something else or maybe a gift basket of cosmetics if it's a woman's novel.


or a fluffy kitten, oven gloves or a packet of Tampax.


Tickets to the movies if its for kids. anything to get people to stop a second and allow me to say hello please look at my book. They may not buy my book that day but at least I may spark an interest and then invite them to visit my website to alert them to other signings or a new book when it comes out.
Alert! Alert! mass exodus from book store area.


You must know what to expect so you come off professional in front of the customers.

missing and point springs to mind.

Practice how you plan to sign the book and make sure you have a very good pen. Black ink is best, no silly colors like gold or pink. What makes a signed book special is being able to read the signature in the far off future. You've already written a book so a short greeting and your name is all you need to write otherwise your hand will cramp.

Surely the risk of one hand cramp is more likely to come from over indulgence in the wank-a-thon that is the PAMB


Suggest extra copies as gifts for friends or family and be sure and offer a book mark or card with your web address to everone you speak to. HAVE A GOOD TIME! The answer to the question "How is the signing going" is always GREAT! People rarely make pity purchases

That's the PA market gone then.


be very upbeat and enthusiastic even if there are no buyers because you never know who you'll meet. Anybody who mentions they know an author get the info, networking is the name of the game.


Good Luck and congratualtions on being a published author.

Hells bells!

[Gravity]

My God. That's one of the saddest things I've ever read. You can almost hear the hope coming through the writing, maybe this'll work, please God let this work, please...

What PA does to these folks is plain evil.

John

[SeanDSchaffer]

Behold the guidelines given on the PAMB today to a new author. I had to snip quite a lot as my eyes started to bleed. This is from the man who hasn't had his book printed yet by PA but who still knows what it takes...

....Snipped for Content and Length.


My Emphasis.


I've never done a booksigning, and I already can say that most of what the gentleman you quoted says, is not true.

The worst part about it is, when he does come to the knowledge of the truth, he won't be able to delete his post over there. He'll look bad as long as that board is still up.

I feel mighty bad for the dude.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Christine N.]

Well, I have to say that the getting up and talking to customers isn't a bad way to go. You have to be willing to talk about your book... no one wants to buy a book from a lump on a log. But the dressing thing is a bit over the top, and the audio book? That makes my skin crawl for some reason. And the thing about the table and chair is right on, but you should bring your own cookies and treat the staff.

And I've heard its prudent to bring a few extra copies on the off chance you sell out. I would. But the "Remember, PA books are returnable now" thing is just so...sad.

[PVish]

From the bad book signing advice—er, bad advice for a book-signing—or maybe advice for signing a bad book—oh, you know:

Engage the customers if they don't approach you. Say hello to them and invite them to read an excerpt. I am having a audio made of my book which I will also have to sell for people who have difficulty seeing or finding the time to read and I plan on having it playing softly at my signings

Yeah, book stores are full of folks who don't see well. I wonder why he didn't suggest bringing some dog biscuits for their seeing-eye dogs.

And the bookstores will be so thrilled that he's bringing his own audio versions to sell. But, why will he have it played "softly"? What about all those hard-of-hearing potential buyers? Maybe he could rent a sound system with humongous speakers and blast it through the whole mall. That'd bring the buyers in!

Sheesh!

[xhouseboy]

Practice how you plan to sign the book and make sure you have a very good pen.



In front of a mirror, preferably. You looking at me... You wanting a book. Mohican haircut, Army surplus jacket, pen shooting out from concealment beneath sleeve.

[Liam Jackson]

I guess I've been in a coma. When did PA initiate a returns policy?

[Aconite]

I guess I've been in a coma. When did PA initiate a returns policy?
It started with a handful of books in October 2005, but it's not a returns policy as anyone else defines the term. Nearly all books are "returnable" now, but since the discount on all books has been reduced to 5%, bookstores aren't going to order them in the first place. Between the pitiful discount and the shipping, they'd lose money on every PA book they ordered.

[Memphis Ed]

Between the pitiful discount and the shipping, they'd lose money on every PA book they ordered.

PA's answer would be that they'll make it up on volume.

[James D. Macdonald]

Have answers ready at hand for the common questions like: What's it about, why did you write it etc.

A word of advice from someone who's actually done booksignings, if you don't mind?

Have answers ready to the most commonly asked questions: Where are the restrooms? Where's [name of some other store that's in the mall]? Where's [name of some other store that isn't in the mall]?

And the biggie: How much did you pay to get published?

Be honest, PA author. Counting the copies you bought yourself, and the tickets to the movies you're giving away, and the audio tapes, and the cookies and candy, and the bookmarks and cards, and the basket of cosmetics, and the gift certificates, and the electric guitar (ooops! flashback!), and the copyright, and your travel time and gas and food and lodging ... how much did you pay to get published?

Wouldn't it have been faster, cheaper, easier and have gotten more books into the hands of more readers, to have just left a pile by the mall door with a five dollar bill stuck in each one, and a sign that said "Free books! Take one!"?

Well, blue-sky theorizing is all very nice. I look forward to that author's report a year after his book is published.

[Christine N.]

And the number one most asked question...

"Do you work here?" Honestly. I haven't done a signing in a bookstore yet (next month, if all goes well) only at the library, but working in marketing and being an instore rep, that's the thing that people ask me more than anything.

And don't forget the gas to get to the signing, nowandays that's getting to be a bigger expense.

Yep, be prepared...

[AmandaPA]

{A word of advice from someone who's actually done booksignings, if you don't mind?

Have answers ready to the most commonly asked questions: Where are the restrooms? Where's [name of some other store that's in the mall]? Where's [name of some other store that isn't in the mall]?

And the biggie: How much did you pay to get published?}


I've never had anyone ask me those questions at a signing. I have had them ask, (When is your next book coming out? What is it about? How long have you been writing and do you write anything else?) And then there are the endless questions about the plot and characters from previous books that the reader has read. I've also never had any less than two tables and a chair offered. I bring my own refreshments for both readers and staff. The only time I approach someone is if they have asked to speak with me. I've had people wait until after the signing to speak with me just to ask questions about what it takes to be a writer. And whether they have bought my book or not I always take the time to speak with them. It's just common courtesy. I have to agree that the idea of playing an adio of your book is way over the top and not sure if the manager of a book store or even a library would allow such a thing.

[Christine N.]

Sad....
Tim,

I spoke to PA today about this very topic and they advised they will send copies of books to sources providing a review of a book. They don't however, send review copies to bookstores since they receive such a huge discount. I inquired because Border's requests 2 sample copies of my book for consideration in being added to their BINC system. Border's does not automatically add books to their system like Barnes and Noble.

This from the "review copies" thread. One poster says that the author has to supply review copies to newspapers, other say PA will do it. OP contacts PA... how long will that paper wait before giving up. Then Infomonster will come along and say "no, you're wrong, they never contacted us."

Oh, and for the record, I got my BINC number... today. Well, I found it today in the Borders' database. I had to do... nothing. My publisher sent in the requisite copies and filled out all the paperwork. (go to www.bordersstores.com to see the listing, book is in my sig) So there's PA, putting books in stores from "sea to shining sea" all across... the Internet's fruited plain. Because Borders (and B&N) won't consider POD books anyway.

And here's the kicker... B&N adds books automatically, but ONLY to the online database. Some stores will order if it's in there, some will only order if the book is in their "instore" database, whatever that is. Depending on the regional manager, books not in the instore database will never see the inside of a B&N.

Amanda, most people ask me about being a writer, and all the other questions you listed at signings too. :) Jim's been at this much longer than we, and I'm sure he's heard every question under the sun.

[Sheryl Nantus]

*rolls eyes*

PA lurkers - look in your Sunday paper. That one, there - under your coffee table. Go flip to the section with the book reviews.

NOT ONE of those reviewers had to write the publisher and request the book for review. Really. See, publishers WANT to get reviews so they'll send out copies to anyone and everyone irregardless of if it's requested or not - the NYT probably gets literally hundreds of books a day headed for their reviewers who then have to decide what to write about.

If you tell the book reviewer that THEY have to write a nice little email or some such drek to PA to request a copy, it's not going to happen. Why? Well, they don't have to - usually there's another book right there on the desk waiting to be reviewed and probably a much better read than what they'll get after a few months waiting for PA to send out a copy.

which, of course, is why PA would like YOU the author to send out your OWN copies and buy more BOOKS... after all, PA doesn't target the public for their sales... just the authors.

[Berry]

I've never done a booksigning, and I already can say that most of what the gentleman you quoted says, is not true.

I've done a booksigning at a trade conference, and I agree, everything he says is [DELETED BY NICE-O-MATIC]. My publisher -- Prentice-Hall -- arranged everything, books, table, publicity, the whole remoulade (I'd say enchilada but it was in New Orleans). My editor even took me out to an expensive (and very fine) dinner.

It's so sad that so many of the people duped by PA not only have very little clue, many are actively resistant to clue-implantation.

[Jean Marie]

Here's the thing: as for the fruited plain comment-PA, please, you need to consume way more prunes. The bs is so old, well, let's just leave it at that.

The review section you're referring to, Sheryl, most present PA'ers still believe that PA actually had the NYT review books. Again, I'd suggest prunes... It was an ad that was purchased by PA and the NYT had to send them to collections which is why it didn't run the full 3 months. Oh, gosh, more BS by Prune America.

And you're correct on obtaining the BINC #. As an ex PA'er I can speak to that as well. Borders won't put your book on the shelf w/o one. And don't listen to the BS infosnot tells you, it's the truth. Infosnot wouldn't know the truth if it bit him/her in the butt. They'd just think it was willie kicking them again...sorry, I digress. I contacted my local Borders, where the new version of my book will soon be (after I get a new BINC) and once I had a BINC #, voila, I was on the shelf. W/ absolutely no help from PA-no shock there. I'd say what author support stands for, but Mac might object...

Prunes America is full of sh!t But don't believe us/me. No. Wait until your measly royalty check arrives. It won't even cover the phone call to your doctor to call in a prescription for you.

[Sheryl Nantus]

titles have been edited as to not identify the PA author...

"Had a terrible time with my book signing. the store manager ordered 10 (of her PA book) which I had advertised on the radio for this book signing and she said she only got 2. Well we didn't have enough to sell any more than that, so she had a few (copies of another PA book she had written) in the store so we sold those. she said she has trouble ordering PA books. This has happened to her before. I remember last year when I was there for (another) book signing and her order never came in at all, but I had some books of my own, so we went on with the book signing. She says she orders from Ingrams, so I don't know what the problem is. When I order from PA I get my books in less than two weeks."

here you go right from another PA author's mouth - they don't WANT to ship to the stores, they want YOU, the author to buy the books upfront and cut out the bookstore altogether.

can you say embarassment? I knew you could...

*shakes head*

[Jean Marie]

And Sheryl, why doesn't PA want the bookstores to buy the books????

Because PA does not get as much money as they do when the authors buy them.

Of course I know you knew the answer, Sheryl. Just didn't know if the lurkers knew. You know what I mean http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif

Commercial publishers don't inflict this kind of pain upon their authors. But then PA is not a publisher, they're a printer.

[Canada James]

I've done a book signing at a trade conference, and I agree, everything he says is [DELETED BY NICE-O-MATIC]. My publisher -- Prentice-Hall -- arranged everything, books, table, publicity, the whole remoulade (I'd say enchilada but it was in New Orleans). My editor even took me out to an expensive (and very fine) dinner.

It's so sad that so many of the people duped by PA not only have very little clue, many are actively resistant to clue-implantation.

This really depends on the size of your publisher. I'm with a small publisher and I have to do most (all) of the work involved if I want to do book signings. (My editor has never taken me out to dinner, BTW.)

However, what I don't have to do is order my books or bring my own. Bookstores already have a relationship with the distributor (not the same as the publisher) and have no qualms about ordering "event stock" because they know they can return any unsold books.

And, having worked in the bookstore end of things and seen how book signings work, the most successful ones are either (1) authors like Jim who have a name therefore a built-in fan base or (b) unknowns unafraid of approaching the public. Nothing is sadder than watching an unknown sit at a table and get ignored except *being* that unknown sitting at the table.

I also have to point out that book signings go far beyond just selling books at the actual book signings. There's the books on display leading up to the book signing, the book sellers you can chat up (we talk between stores, too, and we often are the ones writing reviews for those magazines authors covet reviews from), and you get the bonus of creating a local reputation to help you get school visits (where you can make quite a bit of money.

Perhaps this means nothing to authors who earn enough from royalties to pay their mortgage, but for the other 99% of us we shouldn't be dismissing these events so quickly. Chances are if I told you all what I do at book signings, you'd think it was over the top and ineffective as well.

Canada James

[endless rewrite]

Canada James, if you have a band, free grub and a mad man on a tuba at your signings I would think that was overdoing it, but a lot of fun.

For once, Mr Baxter made me smile.

(PAMB - book signing thread)

At the Polish festival, they placed eight authors, at long tables downwind from where they cooked sauerkraut and sausages. A polka band played way too loud in the background. The guy on the tuba never seemed to be in the right key, or the right song for that matter SNIP SNIP I sat there for four hours (I left early), sold one book, traded one, and had a college history professor indicate an interest in buying one out of college funds for his history department.

Now that is a good excuse, I just don't seem to carry college funds with me...

I tried to stay the alloted time, which was six hours, but was overcome eventually by the fumes from the kraut and sausages. My eyes watered for three days, and I have never been able to look a Polish Sausage in the face again, and as far as polka music, I never could stand Lawrence Welk.

Six hours, that is punishment enough for a man. Note handy tip for unwanted guests - smoke them out!

[PVish]

Sad....
This from the "review copies" thread. One poster says that the author has to supply review copies to newspapers, other say PA will do it. OP contacts PA... how long will that paper wait before giving up. Then Infomonster will come along and say "no, you're wrong, they never contacted us."


I actually requested a PA book to review once (It was Sher2's book) because I wanted to read the book and didn't want to pay PA for it. I emailed PA that I reviewed regional books for a regional publication (well, now it's defunct, but it existed then) and gave them the URL of the publication's website where some of my reviews appeared, so they would know I was a real reviewer.

I never heard a word from PA whether they were or were not sending the book. Then, SIX WEEKS after I'd made the request, the book arrived in the mail. No cover letter, no press release—just a book with a faded cover designed by someone who had no idea what the Blue Ridge Mountains actually look like. (No, I didn't submit a review—but I enjoyed counting PA's typos for a while.)

Now, if a newspaper reviewer should actually request a copy of a PA book, wouldn't the 6-week time lapse make the reviewer lose interest? Wouldn't the new book be sort of old by then?

When the publication I used to write for existed, I would sometimes tell the editor I'd like to review a particular book that interested me and that fit the readership. She'd reply something on the order of, "Fine. Send me 600 words by (insert actual date here) so it'll be in the (insert particular month here) issue."

[Sher2]

I actually requested a PA book to review once (It was Sher2's book) because I wanted to read the book and didn't want to pay PA for it. I emailed PA that I reviewed regional books for a regional publication (well, now it's defunct, but it existed then) and gave them the URL of the publication's website where some of my reviews appeared, so they would know I was a real reviewer.

I never heard a word from PA whether they were or were not sending the book. Then, SIX WEEKS after I'd made the request, the book arrived in the mail. No cover letter, no press release—just a book with a faded cover designed by someone who had no idea what the Blue Ridge Mountains actually look like. (No, I didn't submit a review—but I enjoyed counting PA's typos for a while.)
That's just PAr for the Frederick course, Cousin Peev. You gotta admit, though, it was an interesting experiment. They notified me, by the way, shortly after they received your request that they were "approving" it. Since when do publishers "approve" requests for review copies? Just one more piece of evidence that PA's not really a publisher, no?

[Ilovepensandpaper]

I found the website for Starving Artists' Law. Thanks, Sean!

[Ilovepensandpaper]

Once again, if any PA author finds a Slimer message posted on his or her guestbook, find the IP number of the slimer and put it here.

If the slimer is an AW member ... he or she will be banned on the spot.
James,
Ok, I have never heard of a Slimer Message. What is a Slimer Message?

[James D. Macdonald]

The Guestbook Slimer is a person or persons who pops up on PA authors' guestbooks, often signing the name and email address of Meiners or Clopper or Prather, to taunt or lambaste the PA author in his/her own living room for being a chump. A related character is the Amazon Slammer, a person or persons who write(s) reviews, obviously without reading the book, for the purpose of hurting the author's feelings, just because the author went with PA.

[aruna]

Yep, and she did recieve a grant, but it was to finish the first book. Then she won the Smarties Prize.

.

This doesn't sound right to me. Writers do get grants in the UK, but they have to be published or have a contract FIRST. I think it would be extremely difficult for an unpublished author to get a grant to finish a first book; though it's theoretically possible, and I may not know of this particular grant-giver, the logistics of it boggle the mind. Think of all the applications they'd receive, how much reading they would have to do in order to establish quality!
So a grant for her second novel sounds far more likely.
Sorry if this is OT!

[Christine N.]

Hey, Aruna, I just wrote what was on the back of the HP dustjacket. We do have a couple of grants like that in the US - I know the SCBWI gives out a few a year.

Hold on, I'll look again, just to make sure....ok. Actually, it says she recieved "an unprecedented award from the Scottish Arts Council to finish the book". this is on the back of the Sorcerer's Stone. - the first book. So there ya go - you're right Aruna, it's not likely, and they said so. :)

Ok, that OT for this thread. But PA still got the rest wrong anyway. Any comparison they make to anyone who has actually published a real book in the real world is probably wrong. They weasel word everything to make it seem like they're right.

JM had to get her own BINC, and she did it, which is why PA dumped her. So maybe the way to get out of your PA contract is to send all your paperwork to Borders and actually get that number. If you can get a Borders to stock your book on a regular basis, PA wants nothing to do with you.

[postshy]

Actually you have all the snow, so would you please keep it that way:). To get back to PA, when my book first came out, Chapters (our equivalent of B&N) told me that my book could not be shelved, or included in their data base because of my publisher - the infamous PubliSHAMerica. Quite a shock to this then naive and hopeful author! However, two local branches of Chapters agreed to accept it, after reading it, on a consignment basis for a period of three months. I had to supply the books and they would take all of the profit.

A year or so later, I happened to see a PA book for sale on their on-line bookstore. I was furious and wrote Chapters to complain. By auto-reply, I was told they would list a PA book if my publisher got in touch with them (as if that would happen). Then I noticed the real kicker - the book was listed as "UNAVAILABLE". PA hopefuls from Canada take note. All the effort had probably been made by that author to no avail.

Arbitration and negative publicity have my complete support!

postshy/Roberta.

[spike]

I wouldnt work too hard to get your book in a bookstore or even in a bookclub of somekind. The reason is it is just not economical for you to do so. If your book retails for $24.95 for instance and the book club receives a 50% discount from PA that would mean your book would be purchased at a price of $12.48. The book club might be able to offer it for around $15.00 or so and make some money.

Your royalty would be paid on the $12.48 which is the selling price of the book. (the selling price is what the bookstore/bookclub purchases the book for) which would mean you would receive $1.00 per book royalty. That just does not seem worth it to me to do all that work for so little amount of money. You would have to sell well over a 1000 copies just to break even on the cost that you would be out for promotion etc.

You are better off to purchase the books at your discount and put the profits in your pocket and then reinvest. You come out ahead that way and if you are on a fixed income that is the best way to go as you just cannot afford to take a loss.



PA doesn't make you purchase your own books. They just make that the only acceptable choice.

[Tilly]

Many of the authors seem to have grasped bits of how PA functions, like grasping bits of an elephant.

[PVish]

Many of the authors seem to have grasped bits of how PA functions, like grasping bits of an elephant.

This poster on the PAMB seems to have a pretty big chunk of the elephant. I doubt this post will last long:
I am very concerned about the goings on at PA. I have had several interviews in the past few weeks where the interviewer has requested review copies of my book from PA. In at least two of those cases I know that the review copies were never sent out. In one case I was interviewed for a TV talk show and the interviewer had to say on TV that he had not had a chance to read the book because he had never received it. I am concerned because not only does this make me look bad, it also makes Publish America look as if they are not interested in helping their own authors to sell their books. Can anyone advise me on this matter?


I'll advise: PA is indeed not interested in helping authors sell their books. it is only interested in selling books to authors.

[Christine N.]

Ack, PVish, you beat me too it. I was going to say... and here's the other side of the "rah rah, PA will send review copies if the reviewer asks" thread.

It'll be gone in a bit. Either that, or Infomonster will be along to brow beat the poster into submission. "No, you're wrong. Wrong, wrong wrong!" (Sorry Maestro, I almost wrote "Wong!" - which just wouldn't do at all :) )

[Tilly]

Robert, why would you expect PA to send free copies of any book to every interviewer, radio station, newspaper, etc., etc.???? I never expected PA to send free copies for a newspaper editor or interviewer to read. I provided my own copies to them and to the two local libraries.
Glenn Ross Johnson

I'm pretty sure PA says that it will send copies to reviewers. Clearly it doesn't, or doesn't with any efficiency.

[PVish]

Tilly beat me to it. Infomonster must be busy. A fellow author had to fill in to do the browbeating.

Why expect PA to send out review copies? You expect a "traditional" publisher to send out review copies. Heck, even the POD that did a couple of my books has sent out complimentary copies to contests, etc.

[Christine N.]

Hmm, yep, no, can't imagine why anyone would think PA would send free copies to every newspaper or reviewer. That's what real publishers do, and we all know PA isn't one of those.

I never had to provide a copy to a reviewer, even independent ones. ARC's and one author copy, not one of which came out of my pocket.

Strange what people think.

[Tilly]

A similar conversation is going on here:

http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=10739&start=0

It seems that instead of the publisher sending out review copies, because, well, they want to sell books, the reviewer has to contact PA. Because PA isn't interested in selling books to anyone except the authors.

I think the confusion as to whether they will or not might come from this little helpful tip off the PA website:


B. Does PublishAmerica provide promotional materials?

I'm sorry to disappoint you, folks, but the answer is: No. PublishAmerica does not provide promotional materials. We publish the book, and work to ensure that book's availability. By that point, PublishAmerica has already assumed an immense financial burden on behalf of the book and its author. Therefore, the author must provide their own promotional materials and the opportunities to use them.

http://www.publishamerica.com/MarketingInfo/promomaterial.htm

So someone reading that might assume no review copies.
That section seems to basically be informing PA authors of different ways they can spend their money. Once they've bought their books.

[NancyMehl]

As a book reviewer for a major newspaper, I received several requests for reviews of PA books. When the author told me he/she would ask PA to send me a copy of their book, I informed them that they shouldn't count on it. More than once, no book arrived.

It doesn't matter anymore, I no longer review PA books.

Nancy

[PVish]

Infomonster finally speaks on the PAMB:Robert: hm, well, let's see:
4/21/05: we told you about our review copy policy and how to have one requested.
5/2/05: we responded to a review copy request by letting a Denise Pickles know that the book hadn't been released yet, but we could send her the PDF for review.
6/14/05: we denied a review copy request by an Ann Cooper of a New Zealand outlet.
6/17/05: we answered you that the New Zealand request had been denied for other-end-of-the-world reasons.
7/6/05: we requested that a Natasha Alverez provide us with her address in order to consider her review copy request.
7/20/05: we let you know that we were sending a review copy to Judith W. Colombo.
9/29/05: we sent you a list of those that we had sent review copies to: Angel L. Soto, John Weidlich of Minds Eye Information Service, Judith W. Colombo of Scribe & Quill, Natasha Alvarez, and Shelley Patterson of Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library.
We have not received any further requests.
Anything else you're very concerned about?

If PA keeps such detailed records of reviewers requesting copies, why can't they keep accurate records of, say, royalties?

[CaoPaux]

5/2/05: we responded to a review copy request by letting a Denise Pickles know that the book hadn't been released yet, but we could send her the PDF for review
.
.
6/17/05: we answered you that the New Zealand request had been denied for other-end-of-the-world reasons. They couldn't send a PDF to New Zealand???

[Tilly]

You know how PA adversaries are fond of saying PA authors are not published, well I have word from the prestigious James Jones Literary Society, that we are.

I e-mailed the society about entering a work-in-progress in their contest, open only to unpublished authors. I wrote that I had a novel by POD publisher, Publish America, and that many in the writing community insisted PA authors are unpublished, and wanted to know if I qualified for their contest. Here is the e-mail reply just received:

Dear C. E. Baxter:

Sorry, but we have for 13 years not allowed manuscripts from writers who have published a novel, no matter who publishes it. Writers who self-publish can and often do receive exposure and sales income. We are attempting to encourage those who have not yet done any publishing.

Good Luck,

XXXXXX, finalist judge

But he's referring to self-published authors. That's, presumably, how he's classifying PA books.
And as far as the publishing industry is concerned, being printed by PA is not regarded as publication.

[DaveKuzminski]

They couldn't send a PDF to New Zealand???

Well, they're just facing reality that there's no way for you to drive your car to NZ in order to sell your books out of the trunk. ;)

[LloydBrown]

But he's referring to self-published authors. That's, presumably, how he's classifying PA books. And as far as the publishing industry is concerned, being printed by PA is not regarded as publication.

It's amazing how Baxter can take a pointed statement that the organization considers PA a self-publication route and hold it up as evidence of PA's legitimacy.

[Tilly]

Anything else you're very concerned about?

I wish that author would say 'don't take that tone with me.'
What PA did over the review copies must have been horribly embarrassing and disappointing for him. He deserved an apology from PA, not a snarky response.

[James D. Macdonald]

AP story: "He said that [...] PublishAmerica plans to start a full-time marketing department."

PublishAmerica already has a marketing department that contacts authors' local media, assists in setting up book signings, and sends thousands of review copies at no charge to reviewers. What the reporter meant to say was that we are adding a public relations department. We had planned to add this department to gain national attention, but fortunately our detractors made this happen before we had a chance to do so. We still plan to add our PR department, however, anyway, to benefit our authors. It will be in contact with media all day, every day.




-- PublishAmerica Reacts to Associated Press Article (http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:g8vQzI9jugQJ:www.publishamerica.com/NationalNews/APStoryResponse.htm+site:publishamerica.com+%22rev iew+copies%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=firefox-a)

[James D. Macdonald]

infocenter
Administrator
10/25/2003
17:57:09http://www.publishamerica.com/images/link-logosm.gif

http://www.publishamerica.com/messageboard/icons/document.gif RE: www.beer.com denied copy of beer drinker's guide?


Message:
Jeff,
As you know, PublishAmerica sends out review copies, gratis, within reason, and at our descretion.

Also, as you know, if your request was denied, it means that many review copies were already sent to reviewers, probably without positive results.

Funny you didn't mention that part of the story.

=================

PAMB (http://www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/main/7984.htm)

[Ken Schneider]

It's amazing how Baxter can take a pointed statement that the organization considers PA a self-publication route and hold it up as evidence of PA's legitimacy.

He is trying to convince himself of the fact. He spends an inordinate amount of time trying to legitimize PA, rather than face the truth.

Researching PA all the time in itself shows one has doubts.

Lurkers, There are many grand writing formums here at AW that will help you to write better, and learn how to write professional queries, answer questions.

Your publishing, writing questions aren't answered on the PA board because no one knows the answer. I mean, look at the writing board.

Here are your first 11 topics on a the writing discussions board. ???????

Ordering Information (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=11111)

1Amazon Search Inside? (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=10847)

9http://bb.publishamerica.com/templates/subSilver/images/folder_hot.gifpress release template (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=2979)
[ http://bb.publishamerica.com/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gifGoto page: 1 (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=2979&start=0), 2 (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=2979&start=15) ] 25http://bb.publishamerica.com/templates/subSilver/images/folder.gifScience Fiction Writers (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=10920)
[ http://bb.publishamerica.com/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gifGoto page: 1 (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=10920&start=0), 2 (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=10920&start=15) ] 15http://bb.publishamerica.com/templates/subSilver/images/folder.gifGreetings! (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=11102)
1http://bb.publishamerica.com/templates/subSilver/images/folder.gifGraphic Software? (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=11098)
1http://bb.publishamerica.com/templates/subSilver/images/folder.gifPLEASE HELP... ITS ABOUT PERMISSIONS! (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=11058)
9http://bb.publishamerica.com/templates/subSilver/images/folder.gifMerchandising your book through items to sell (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=11095)
0http://bb.publishamerica.com/templates/subSilver/images/folder.gifSubmit Your Bookcovers for Free Advertisement (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=11029)
13
http://bb.publishamerica.com/templates/subSilver/images/folder.gifReview copies (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=10739)
[ http://bb.publishamerica.com/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gifGoto page: 1 (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=10739&start=0), 2 (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=10739&start=15) ] 16http://bb.publishamerica.com/templates/subSilver/images/folder.gifAwesome News (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=11030)

[LloydBrown]

Here are your first 11 topics on a the writing discussions board.
I actually categorized the first 200 threads by topic once. Most were on the topic of selling your book: book signing, bookmarks (I almost gave that one a category by itself because there were so many), getting into bookstores, etc. A large number were self-promotion. 10% or so were "Thanks PA" or some such variant.

Less than 15% discussed the mechanics of writing or improving writing skill. These threads were short. They were filled with misinformation. Many posters claim how unimportant grammar and/or spelling are. In total, I doubt any of them actually helped any writers (unlike Jenna's NF thread or Uncle Jim's novel thread here).

[Bonnie Gibson]

In fact, we had told the reporter that 99% of all books published never see a nationwide bookstore shelf. For bookstores to stock each newly released title out of the 150,000 books published last year alone, they would need to add 17 feet of extra shelf space, each day, Saturdays and Sundays included, and that's if they'd only order one copy per new title. That's just not happening.



Didn't I see on several occasions that PA bragged that each and every new day thousands of bookstores across the fruited plain buy and stock PA books?

In emails to it's authors PA, in fact, brags this when confronted by authors that their books are not selling.

They say Ingrams is their # one buyer.

Now which one is it? :rant:

(As if I didn't know)

[DeePower]

From the PublishAmerica rebuttal to the AP story

AP story: Dee Power, unhappy with how PublishAmerica had handled her novel, "Overtime," submitted a "new" book that consisted of the first 50 pages of "Overtime" and the last 10 pages, repeated over and over. The manuscript was accepted. (Power declined to have it published). PublishAmerica also accepted a novel by Kevin Yarbrough, even though the first 30 pages were repeated six times. (Yarbrough revealed his trick on an Internet site.)

Dee Power has troubled history of harrassing numerous PublishAmerica authors, by leaving derogatory messages in their website guestbooks or review pages. Here she admits an act of fraud. Yarbrough meekly apologized for the same activity after law enforcement took an interest.

This is an out and out lie. PUblishAmerica libeled me by putting this statement on their website. I do not have any such history. I have not harrassed PA authors. I do not leave derogatory messages.

Is this how a legitimate publisher treats one of their authors?

PA's rebuttal:
It is a failed tactic. With regard to the fraudulent submissions, the "flaws" were discovered long before publication in both cases, the acceptances were withdrawn, and the local police of one of the perpetrators quickly took an interest in the fraud.

The tactic was successful. PA offered a contract on the bogus manuscript in September. When I did not respond, they followed up with another offer in December. I declined their contract in January. The "flaws" weren't discovered until I mentioned the name of the bogus manuscript on a discussion board. Submitting a bad manuscript is NOT fraud. The local police did NOT take an interest. And neither Kevin nor I are perpetrators.
Was Power unhappy with how we handled her book "Overtime"? Judge for yourself:

>>"From: "Dee Power" <>
>>Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 7:42 PM
>>Subject: Please, please make this change
>>
>>...
>>
>>I know you already explained to Brian [her co-author] that it was too
>>late to make the change for Overtime on page 56, "You and Kelley and
>>Mark..." Mark should be Mike. It's very important. Our pitch for
>>"Overtime" is "A letter travels thousands of miles and twenty years to
>>throw the lives of four friends into overtime" And the wrong name is in
>>the letter! Of course it was our fault for not catching it, not yours.
>>We are willing to pay Publish America to make the change, not out
>>of our royalities but upfront. Tell me how much it will cost.
>>It's that important."
Of course we rejected her offer to pay. No author has ever paid us for any service, ever. Though the book was already in print, we made the correction on an error not caused by PublishAmerica.

Notice that PA initially refused to make the change. (BTW any reasonable copy editor would have caught this error.) At this point I was beginning to have some serious doubts about Publish America. They refused to answer my email about why there was no library of congress catalog description in the book. They refused to give a release date. They refused to tell me the retail price. There is a clause in the PA contract which addresses corrections demanded by the author and that the author will have to pay for them. It is a LIE that the book was already in print. On June 17, we didn't even have a firm release date yet.

If you are even slightly considering PublishAmerica, really think about if you want to be treated this way.

Dee

[Christine N.]

Ugh, they make my head hurt. I told you Infomonster would be along, didn't I? What kind of "traditional" publisher doesn't honor review copy requests from legitimate media outlets? For that matter, who talks to people like this, especially people they are supposed to have a business relationship with and some ounce of respect?

Only publishers that have no desire to sell to anyone besides the author. Sigh.

Oh, yeah C.E., people who have books printed up with an ISBN and sell on Lulu wouldn't be able to enter that contest either. They, at least, understand that they are self-published.

Now, go to NYC, walk into three different publishing or agent offices. Or, call 'em up if you want. Ask them if having a PA book is a real publishing credit. Two will say "Who?" and the third will try hard not to laugh while telling you 'no.'

Yep, submitting a bad book is in no way fraud. Or else thousands of people who've submitted to hundreds of publishers and agents would be in jail. Even accepting a bad book isn't fraud - we all know we've read some stinkers in our time.

But the crime lays in telling people that they're work has been 'carefully considered' when it's really just made it in before the daily quota was filled.

[Tilly]

The post about the review copies, along with infocenter's response, has gone.
So presumably the next person to have the same problem won't notice a pattern of review copies not sent or sent late.

[xhouseboy]

It is a failed tactic. With regard to the fraudulent submissions, the "flaws" were discovered long before publication in both cases, the acceptances were withdrawn, and the local police of one of the perpetrators quickly took an interest in the fraud.






The acceptances were withdrawn? Begs the question as to why they were accepted for publication in the first place.


Don't you vet the quality of the work, PA? Didn't you read the work in its entirety? Or were these manuscripts initially accepted to fulfill a quota, to further perpetuate the scam, and without even being read?


PA authors - if I were you, far from being satisfied with this response, I'd be asking the right questions.

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

For that matter, who talks to people like this, especially people they are supposed to have a business relationship with and some ounce of respect?I have noticed that rudeness in dealing with customers or in conducting business relationships is the hallmark of the scammer. They don't care about their reputation; they don't care about repeat business from you since there's "one born every minute," and most scammers are too short sighted to care about who you tell about their rudeness. Most of them change their names or cloak their identities anyway. And sometimes they are successful in bullying new contacts into becoming victims.

My husband and I have a vacation ownership with Starwood. This purchase put us squarely on the list of scammers who call offering to sell or rent your time share/vacation ownership for you, like a property manager or real estate agent. The phone call usually goes something like this:

Them: Hello, may I speak with Mrs. Little?
Me: It's LeBoeuf-Little. People who aren't telephone solicitors know that. What are you selling?
Them: This isn't a sales call. I am calling in regards to your Starwood vacation property.
Me: Are you affiliated with Starwood in any way?
Them: No, ma'am, we--
Me: Then you are selling something. Get off my phone and don't call me again. [Hangs up]

Rude, yes, but after one call to a Starwood rep asking "Where do they get my number?" and being told, "Public records. It's inevitable. Just don't ever give them money; they're mostly scammers," I've felt no obligation to be polite.

However, if they rep'd legit businesses, these cold-callers, they would have an obligation to be polite to me, right?

They wouldn't call me back to berate me for hanging up, would they? This, they have done.

They wouldn't talk over me in a relentless attempt to get out their spiel in as condescending a tone as possible, would they? This, too, they have done.

And it's not just faux property agents. What about those people who send you postcards telling you Quick! Emergency! Call right away and have your VIN number ready! And you do, and ask to talk to the manager, and he's rude as all get-out, and when you say, "Why would you be this rude to a potential customer?" he says, "Well, obviously, from what you're saying, you're not a potential customer." ["Thus I can treat you like dirt with impunity," is the implication.]

That's if you don't get hung up on when you ask to speak to the manager.

So. PA lurkers, take heed: The only business entity that feels entitled to treat its customers/business contacts with hobnailed boots and breathtaking rudeness is the one that's running a scam. Usually with PA, by the time you've gotten your first "tone" letter or Infocenter smack-down, you've already signed; but these clues ought to alert you that it's time to stop defending the company.

[Gravity]

Every day I become more convinced that one day the odds are going to catch up with PA. And soon methinks. They're going to fart around and accept a manuscript from a conspiracy nut, a Mafia chieftan's son, or pehaps just a mean, psychopathic SOB. And from that day forth, all bets will be off.

(I kinda like the Mafia-son scenario):

"Sir. Please excuse this call. I'll be brief. My son Vito has written a book about his grandfather's life in the old country, a book which your company is publishing. It's a wonderful book. Some concerns with this book came up, concerns which he tried to address with you. Vito told me has a received a letter from your company, a letter which disturbs me greatly. Something about him not "taking that tone." You were very disrepectful to him. Vito, my son, has brought this unfortunate situation to my attention. Be assured, this will be corrected. You may expect a visit from two of my associates, at a day and time of my choosing. Good day."

[astonwest]

Sorry...long weekend...

When Amazon says, "Hurry, we have only one more copy left," it is poetic license, a gimmick.
Much the same as when PA says, "Hurry, this order ends soon! Call now!"

[SC Harrison]

Ugh, they make my head hurt. I told you Infomonster would be along, didn't I? What kind of "traditional" publisher doesn't honor review copy requests from legitimate media outlets? For that matter, who talks to people like this, especially people they are supposed to have a business relationship with and some ounce of respect?



I thought it was especially unprofessional to plaster the names of all the people who had requested review copies on a public forum, whether they "qualified" or not.

I can't believe so many new people weren't aware that PA would (supposedly) send review copies gratis to legitimate entities. I also can't believe Infocenter didn't pipe up and say "yes we will". There are two other threads going now where people are advising each other about this, with no help from you know who.

[xhouseboy]

Originally posted by Gravity.

(I kinda like the Mafia-son scenario):




So do I - big time.



I wish that author would say 'don't take that tone with me.'


I wish that author was a Mafia Don's son.

[Nexusman]

I wish that author was a Mafia Don's son.

Or, even better, the crazy old man from "Saw." Clopper, Prather and Meiners all chained in a room having to kill each other... yeah, I'd pay to watch that movie.

-Nick

[NancyMehl]

"Sir. Please excuse this call. I'll be brief. My son Vito has written a book about his grandfather's life in the old country, a book which your company is publishing. It's a wonderful book. Some concerns with this book came up, concerns which he tried to address with you. Vito told me has a received a letter from your company, a letter which disturbs me greatly. Something about him not "taking that tone." You were very disrepectful to him. Vito, my son, has brought this unfortunate situation to my attention. Be assured, this will be corrected. You may expect a visit from two of my associates, at a day and time of my choosing. Good day."

This possibility must have occurred to PA's top dogs. If I remember right, at their first convention, they had to have armed protection!

Nancy

[mreddin]

From the PublishAmerica rebuttal to the AP story

Dee Power has troubled history of harrassing numerous PublishAmerica authors, by leaving derogatory messages in their website guestbooks or review pages. Here she admits an act of fraud. Yarbrough meekly apologized for the same activity after law enforcement took an interest.

This is an out and out lie. PUblishAmerica libeled me by putting this statement on their website. I do not have any such history. I have not harrassed PA authors. I do not leave derogatory messages.




Isn't this textbook libel? Couldn't you sue PA for damages to reputation based on intentionally false claims?

Couldn't Yarbrough also get sworn testimony from the police officer in question and level similar harrassement charges at PA? I suspect InfoCenter is simply gambling neither of you have the time or money to pursue legal channels. I hope at least one of you get a chance to make them regret it. (Aside from simply being successful in writing.) Public defamation of character should not be allowed by a commercial entity.


Mike

[Kevin Yarbrough]

Couldn't Yarbrough also get sworn testimony from the police officer in question and level similar harrassement charges at PA?

Italked to a lawyer about this and he said I could try but there would be know way of knowing if I would win or not. Right now I don't have the money to waste trying to battle PA in court unless it is something I know is a clear cut case I can win.

PA shouldn't even have gotten the police invloved. This was a civil suit between me and them and for PA, and their attorney, to involve the police was unethical. Victor knew this but I guess he just didn't care. Giving false information to a third party goes against the attorney code of ethics and him claiming what I did was fruad to the police, and to me, was exactly that, or so my take on it is. I have contacted the Maryland Grievance Board about Vic but I guess either I didn't state my case as well as I should have or they are as leinent as everything else is in Maryland.

[xhouseboy]

Italked to a lawyer about this and he said I could try but there would be know way of knowing if I would win or not. Right now I don't have the money to waste trying to battle PA in court unless it is something I know is a clear cut case I can win.



Sadly, that is not a stance eclusive to PA, Kevin. Many corporates rely on the wronged party's reluctance (mainly stemming from financial constraints) to take action. It can often be a game of bluff, where they settle on the court steps. A habit of a certain company I had a long-running dispute with.

[Kevin Yarbrough]

Yeah, I know, but at the time it wasn't a bluff I was willing to take, or could afford too. I had no money for a lawyer and I still don't. I should see about taking them to arbitration though, maybe I can find a pro bono lawyer that will help me out.

[JimmyD1318]

I got four e-mails from PA yesterday.

1. They had accepted my submission.

2. Sent that lousy thing they call a contract!

3. Two hours later.....They had rejected it!
(Hey! I beat 'Alanta Night's' Record! :D)

4. They sent me another rejection letter!
(Boy they really don't want me around!;))

I guess they must have found out somehow that I had heard wind of their wicked ways from all of you. Oh, well........I wasn't going to sign that death warrent anyway!

[Gravity]

[QUOTE=JimmyD1318]I got four e-mails from PA yesterday.

1. They had accepted my submission.

2. Sent that lousy thing they call a contract!

3. Two hours later.....They had rejected it!
(Hey! I beat 'Alanta Night's' Record! :D)

4. They sent me another rejection letter!


That's our PA, God bless their pointed heads. Or, to put it another way, (pretentious deep bass voce): "That is the cluster-foxtrot known as...PublishAmerica."

[Gravity]

Another thought: it might be a glitch in their system, especially if it came in right at the end of the day's quota. Try 'em first thing tomorrow morning; they'll take it then.

[James D. Macdonald]

3. Two hours later.....They had rejected it!
(Hey! I beat 'Alanta Night's' Record! :D)


Atlanta Nights didn't set any kind of record. It sat at their office for over a month and a half, a contract offer hanging over it. They didn't rescind their offer until after we revealed it was a hoax.

[Gabriele]

"Sir. Please excuse this call. I'll be brief. My son Vito has written a book about his grandfather's life in the old country, a book which your company is publishing. It's a wonderful book. Some concerns with this book came up, concerns which he tried to address with you. Vito told me has a received a letter from your company, a letter which disturbs me greatly. Something about him not "taking that tone." You were very disrepectful to him. Vito, my son, has brought this unfortunate situation to my attention. Be assured, this will be corrected. You may expect a visit from two of my associates, at a day and time of my choosing. Good day."

Hehe, dear PA, you may get along screwing some authors, but don't you ever piss of their parents. :guns: :box: :D

[Nexusman]

Atlanta Nights didn't set any kind of record. It sat at their office for over a month and a half, a contract offer hanging over it. They didn't rescind their offer until after we revealed it was a hoax.

Forgive me for asking a stupid question, but...

What about Clopper's claim that PA knew AN was a hoax all along?

-Nick

[Martin J Ross]

Forgive me for asking a stupid question, but...

What about Clopper's claim that PA knew AN was a hoax all along?

-Nick

Do you remember when you were a kid, and there was that one kid that when you played games that involved "shooting" he would always say you missed, well that is the same as the "we knew it all along" .

[Sarashay]

Forgive me for asking a stupid question, but...

What about Clopper's claim that PA knew AN was a hoax all along?

-Nick

If he knew it was a hoax all along, why did they send an acceptance and a contract?

[DeePower]

Just they 'knew' Purple Pony was a hoax and Final Days was a hoax. Both of those bogus manuscripts were accepted and contracts offered.

I bet we could submit another ridiculous bogus manuscript in the morning and PA would accept it.

Dee

[LloydBrown]

I bet we could submit another ridiculous bogus manuscript in the morning and PA would accept it.

We should do that every day. Set up an automatic e-mail.

[James D. Macdonald]

Forgive me for asking a stupid question, but...

What about Clopper's claim that PA knew AN was a hoax all along?

-Nick

He's lying.

[PVish]

Just they 'knew' Purple Pony was a hoax and Final Days was a hoax. Both of those bogus manuscripts were accepted and contracts offered.

I bet we could submit another ridiculous bogus manuscript in the morning and PA would accept it.
Dee

My elderly dog, who recently received his Editor's Choice Award from the International Library of Poetry, has four chapters of his novel done so far. He should have it done by next summer. Of course, if he wanted to write more poetry, he might have a book sooner.

That reminds me, I've got to go out to the kennel and hold a pencil to his paw so he can initial his approval for his poem to be set to music and recorded on a 3-CD set (only $49.95!) I'll ask him if he wants to growl a few more chapters to me.

[JimmyD1318]

Atlanta Nights didn't set any kind of record. It sat at their office for over a month and a half, a contract offer hanging over it. They didn't rescind their offer until after we revealed it was a hoax.



Sorry, I ment that I got an offer and a rejection all in the same day from them. By the why....were you one of the writers of 'Alanta Nights'? If you were....that was sheer genius! I laughed like crazy when I read about that.:ROFL:

[HapiSofi]

Sorry, I ment that I got an offer and a rejection all in the same day from them. By the why....were you one of the writers of 'Alanta Nights'? If you were....that was sheer genius! I laughed like crazy when I read about that.:ROFL:Jim Macdonald's the guy who came up with and organized the whole Atlanta Nights sting operation.

[A. J. Luxton]

Stan, I come lately, but from your confessional missive I can say that I indubitably like your style, and I'll look for whatever you publish through "safe, sane and consensual" avenues in the future, be it no-nonsense PODs like Lulu or actual honest publishing houses.

[Jean Marie]

My elderly dog, who recently received his Editor's Choice Award from the International Library of Poetry, has four chapters of his novel done so far. He should have it done by next summer. Of course, if he wanted to write more poetry, he might have a book sooner.

That reminds me, I've got to go out to the kennel and hold a pencil to his paw so he can initial his approval for his poem to be set to music and recorded on a 3-CD set (only $49.95!) I'll ask him if he wants to growl a few more chapters to me.
Whoa! Kola Bear has first rights, I believe. *ahem* My Life Chasing Squirrels

He's not entirely sure about the sequence, but, The Early Years, Catching 2

I don't know about it being a CD set. Probably not. But I'm sure willie would love it! It's got drama, humor-yup. There's a scene where a squirrel goes up a bald man's pants leg, it's hysterical...willie would roll on the floor w/ laughter. Really. It would be #1 in sales w/ PA. Kola's great w/ marketing too. He could pass out biscuits and other kinds of treats. Squeaky toys too.

[astonwest]

We should do that every day. Set up an automatic e-mail.And use an auto-generated template for the whole book...

[ResearchGuy]

Just they 'knew' Purple Pony was a hoax and Final Days was a hoax. Both of those bogus manuscripts were accepted and contracts offered.

I bet we could submit another ridiculous bogus manuscript in the morning and PA would accept it.

Dee
Don't overlook that they accepted AND 'published' a plagiarized pastiche called Prevent Cancer Today. Who needs fake bogus when the real bogus is on the record?

Oh ... and recall the book that was pictured in their own brochure, a book that had a simple word in the title misspelled right on the cover! Amoung the Ravening Sharks. I kid you not. Featured in their own PR. Then there was the deleted by Nice-O-Matic(TM) intervention.

--Ken

[Ilovepensandpaper]

I am on a few yahoo groups that have to deal with writing, so I decided to leave a message of warning about Publish America. Wouldn' t you know that today when the message came through, there were two other messages connected too. The first was about a lady who has just had her book published and is very excited. She is published on....Publish America. The second was just congratulating her. I found out that she was on PA by going to her site. She also has a book signing coming up:

I will be attending my first book signing in the near future. It is a group signing for PA Authors. It will be a large event, and we plan on having alot of fun!!!http://images.freewebs.com/Images/Smilies/Round/cool.gifThe event is scheduled for March 18 & 19, 2006, Saturday from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm, and Sunday 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm.

Oh Lawd! I feel bad for these authors. I hope their books arrive. I wonder if PA put this signing together, or did the authors just get together themselves. I hope she read my post...okay, read my post, went to the site, and started putting two and two together!

[mdin]

Poor guy (http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=11093).

The answer to his question is $29.95.

Ouch.

[Aconite]

]The event is scheduled for March 18 & 19, 2006, Saturday from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm, and Sunday 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm.An eight-hour booksigning session, followed by a six-hour signing?! Oh, that poor kid. She's in for a painful shock.

[JimmyD1318]

What PA does in theroy is a good idea. Giving unknown writers a chance to get their work out in print. But it's all of the other crap they do that makes it so horrorible. The price of the books alone is enough to keep me away from them. I would never ask any of my friends or family to pay those kind of prices for any kind of book I would write. :crazy:

[AmandaPA]

Okay, I've been spending some time reading this thread and the old NEPAT. At first I thought this thread was a good thing, doing what it could to warn people of a bad publisher. After reading and doing some research, I've changed my mind. There is much truth stated here about PA and there is also much garbage.

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

In two years, PA has sent me exactly 2 emails giving me the opportunity to buy my own books at an increased discount. TWO

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)

I knew when I went with Pa that they do no promotions. They told me so upfront. I did not know that my books would not be in bookstores or that most bookstores won't even carry them. A thumbs down for PA.

When they introduced the returns policy, they also reduced the discount on books from Ingrams to 5%. Another thumbs down for PA.

My new book will carry a retail of $19.95, about 3 or 4 dollars higher than a normal trade paperback of the same size. Thumbs down again for PA

My first royalty check was so small as to be ludicrous. Thumbs down.

The above is the absolute truth about my dealings with PA and is what I tell anyone interested enough to ask.

I will not slam other PA authors (good or bad). You do that here on a regular basis, even though you say it's against the rules. (you can deny it, but I've been reading the thread for a couple of weeks and you will be lying)

I had no trouble promoting my first PA book and even had it in several bookstores. I have had people buy it from all around the globe. That is until recently when this site and others like it has become know and the rumors have spread. Now it's hard to promote at all. You are not hurting PA, you are hurting other authors (some very good authors with very good books)

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.

I have moved on from PA, but will do my best to promote my new book as I worked very hard on it and when asked directly about PA, I will tell the truth, the truth without exaggeration.

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.

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.

[DaveKuzminski]

Amanda, some of the things you say are untrue because they didn't happen to your or your friends and relatives are not untrue for that reason. If they happened to only some writers, then they're still true. It just means you didn't get caught by those and it's not at all implausible that you got missed since PA is notoriously inefficient. PA even relies upon this board to regularly find the postings in their own forum that are embarrassing to them.

As to attacks on authors, there have been some. No one has denied that. The point is that it is generally not condoned. Only in a few egregious instances has it been permitted. Cancer boy is one such. HB is another. There were likely others whose identities don't come to mind at the moment and there will surely be a few more. Furthermore, some individuals discovered slamming guest books were banned from AW. Beyond that, there's little that AW can do to those individuals. I think that goes a long way toward demonstrating the overall integrity and sense of justice and fair play that characterizes AW and its members.

[Aconite]

My friends and relatives have never been harrassed by Pa to buy my books. NEVER.PA changed their behavior on that issue precisely because of the bad publicity it got through places like AW. If your friends and family were never harrassed by PA to buy, you can thank the people who generated the negative publicity about that policy.

I will not slam other PA authors (good or bad). You do that here on a regular basis, even though you say it's against the rules. (you can deny it, but I've been reading the thread for a couple of weeks and you will be lying)Amanda, I hope you're not confusing criticising someone's attitude or their work with criticising the person, and I hope you're not confusing criticising with slamming or bashing.

Have people on AW made personal attacks against PA authors? Yes, and in nearly all cases, the AW community expressed displeasure at that. What you as someone coming in late and getting only part of the picture don't see are the temporary and permanent bannings, the negative rep comments, and the PMs that happen as a result of someone stepping over the line.

I had no trouble promoting my first PA book and even had it in several bookstores. I have had people buy it from all around the globe. That is until recently when this site and others like it has become know and the rumors have spread. Now it's hard to promote at all. You are not hurting PA, you are hurting other authors (some very good authors with very good books)Friend, it would have happened with or without AW. PA's policies are not geared towards bookstore sales. As more and more stores have dealt with them, they've become better known, and their reputation is not good.

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.
By all means, report such actions to appropriate authorities. I agree, it's stupid, childish, and sleazy. If you continue reading the backthread, you'll see that two members of AW were discovered to have been posting such messages, and they were immediately and permanently banned. Any member of AW found to be slamming or sliming PA authors will be treated the same way. I can assure you that the moderators are comparing the IPs of AW members with the IPs of the Slammer/Slimer, and if there are matches, there will be bannings. That's Jenna's ruling, and it's taken very seriously.

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.If you're saying that PA books are published, I must disagree with you. I consider them printed, because the supposed publisher does not create, support, market, distribute, or promote its books in a way that consitutes "publishing."

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.Excuse me. I take offense at that statement, madam. If you're going to make such a statement, accusing everyone here of such behavior, then I challenge you to provide examples of it. Be sure to show how we're attacking someone for a different opinion, instead of, say, universally criticising someone's rude behavior. I await your proof.

[rekirts]

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.
I'd be interested in someone who actually knows something about law commenting on this. Exactly what is illegal?

There are all kinds of fake reviews on Amazon, good and bad. If that were illegal the entire site would have been shut down long ago for blatant criminal activity.

I'm not condoning fake reviews or sliming, just thinking there might be a bit of an overreaction here.

[Susan Gable]

From the PAMB: I agree I think our books are worth $25.00. What can you get for that these days?

<sigh> I can get a brand new, just released hardcover from a big name author for that kind of money. Although I don't. I'm just as "frugal" with my book-buying funds as the next guy. (The next guy who's not paying PA's over-inflated prices, that is.) I might buy a hardcover on the remainder rack. In which case I can get at least 4, if not 5, hardcover books for the price of this one PA book. Or I could buy 3-4 new paperback novels with $25.

I could buy app. 10 gallons of gasoline these days.

I could buy 8 of the "small" (I can't keep their weird sizing words straight) Starbuck's creme frappachinos with $25.00.

$25.00 will pay for my husband and I to see a movie at a matinee, and pay for an order of popcorn and a soda. (Your milage on that one may vary, depending on your theatres.)

I could buy a new DVD of a movie and still have some money left over to buy soda and microwave popcorn to go with it at home.

In other words, folks, people can do a LOT of other things with their $25 of discretionary spending money rather than spending on an over-priced book. (And with fuel prices these days, discretionary money for spending on entertainment may be down in a lot of households.)

Who will not flinch at spending $25 for your PA book? Mom. Aunt Ruth. Uncle Sal. Your new boyfriend, who's trying to get laid. Your husband, who's trying to get laid. :) And even some of them may flinch - just not where you can see it.

Susan G.

[SC Harrison]

Okay, I've been spending some time reading this thread and the old NEPAT. At first I thought this thread was a good thing, doing what it could to warn people of a bad publisher. After reading and doing some research, I've changed my mind. There is much truth stated here about PA and there is also much garbage.



Amanda, this is why Uncle Jim and the other mods are so adamant about staying on topic in this thread. There are a lot of former PA authors here (myself included) that have shared their experiences in an effort to educate people of some of the negative aspects of choosing PA as a printer.

Many of the problems others have faced did not happen to me, but they could have. There is some occasional misinformation posted here, but it's usually straightened out by somebody. You want to see some real misinformation? Go spend some time on the PA message board. About 90% of the advice that's given is from authors whose books aren't even out yet. If you're looking for a perfect source for information, you're in the wrong place. That being said, AW is a quantum leap above all others.

Oh, and by the way—blaming AW for the failure of your book is a classic form of transference. You say you're over PA and have moved on, but I don't think so. I think you're still in denial, and still clinging to the idea that PA "chose" your work because of its quality. Until you face the fact that you were just a number to them, you will continue to live in confusion.

[DaveKuzminski]

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.

Amanda, you better look around. It isn't just AW that's pointing out the problems with PA. The point is you stepped in PA and the smell is finally reaching your nose. All we're saying is wipe your shoes off and try not to do that again.

[Christine N.]

If you're talkikng about who I think you're talking about Amanda,(and there have been several people over the course of the old thread who came over here to defend PA)... what you see as "attacking like a pack of wild dogs" really isn't. There have been a couple of people who came here, guns blazing, ready to take us head on. We show the facts, they pick on our grammar. We ask questions, they avoided them.

Out and our harassment is not tolerated on this board from anyone. Anyway, you got lucky. You never recieved a 'tone' letter, you were never treated like something someone scrapes off their shoe by a company that was supposed to be helping your career. I'm sure there are many stories like yours - but the fact is that PA does use these tactics to keep the boat-rockers quiet. You've seen the e-mails, you've read the Infomonster posts on the message board.

When we say PA authors aren't really published, it's because the industry at large says so - not us. Many, MANY agents and publishers have stated publicly that they do not consider a PA book as a publishing credit. Does that mean you aren't a good writer? No, of course not. If you query an agent with your next book, it has to stand on its own, and you (universal 'you') are looked at as a new, unpublished writer. Which is probably to your advantage. If an agent looked at the sales of PA books as a marker of how you sell, you probably wouldn't have much of a chance. Notice I said sales, not quality.

Anyone can go to Lulu.com and have a book printed up and sell it. Doesn't mean that anyone gave their work 'the chance it deserves', just means they have words on a page. Lack of a true gatekeeping process is what keeps PA from being a real publisher. Well, that and a bunch of other stuff, like not being able to get into bookstores and having cover prices that are too high. (Notice the cover price is NOT on the back of your PA book. Find me another commercial publisher that does that.)

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

[DeePower]

A poster on the PAMB said:
I have been told that the big local chains will be carrying my book, and a few other little consignments.

NONE of the big chains carry, as in stock on the shelves, PublishAmerica books. There is documentation to the contrary. Barnes and Noble corporate policy is to not stock POD, including PA books.

The same poster continues:
I think that some compaines or managers see that money is thrown away every day, highlighting a higher price book, but as a local author, brings people to want to know more and fortunatly buy. I have had nobody claim the price was to high, nor the shipping costs as well.

When merchandise is priced above the acceptable consumer price point, the consumer just doesn't buy. The consumer doesn't inform the author of the reason for not buying.

Dee

[Jaws]

I'd be interested in someone who actually knows something about law commenting on this. Exactly what is illegal?

There are all kinds of fake reviews on Amazon, good and bad. If that were illegal the entire site would have been shut down long ago for blatant criminal activity.

I'm not condoning fake reviews or sliming, just thinking there might be a bit of an overreaction here.
At most, this might constitute an unfair trade practice—unfair competition, trademark disparagement or dilution, or DAP (deceptive acts and practices)… but probably only if the "slimer" is reasonably construed as a competitor of the target books. Even then, it's a looooooooooooong stretch to construe the practice in general of "sliming reviews" as unlawful.

Of course, it is also possible for particular comments made in reviews to create other problems; a claim in a review that the author of the book is a mass murderer and pedophile would certainly raise libel as a potential issue!

[Aconite]

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.

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.

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.

There's PA's reputation. PA's been the subject of several negative articles by respected journalists. Also, bookstore owners who've been burned by PA (or the bad--sometimes illegal--behavior of some PA authors) in the past know what to expect now. And there are plenty of sites all over the 'Net with all the information on PA anyone could ever need--and the majority of it is seriously negative.

Who wants to take it from here?

[Berry]

An eight-hour booksigning session, followed by a six-hour signing?! Oh, that poor kid. She's in for a painful shock.

That's not a book-signing, it's a PA-author convention. If they look at it that way everyone will have a good time.

[Tilly]

PA authors who have asked legitimate questions have been sent appalling letters in an attempt to make them shut up. You can see an example on this page:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4397

PA have deleted posts and then banned members of their message board, again for asking legitimate questions, but ones that highlight that when PA tells authors it's not a POD or a vanity press, it's lying.

PA has a reversion contract which includes a gagging order as an attempt to deflect the effect of PA authors talking honestly about their experiences. That gagging order was meant to bind people other than the author signing it, and included a massive fine.

PA treats its authors with utter contempt.

[rekirts]

Also, bookstore owners who've been burned by PA (or the bad--sometimes illegal--behavior of some PA authors) in the past know what to expect now. And that is why PA authors can't get their books in bookstores. Not because of anything anyone on AW has said. Do you think if bookstores could make a profit on PA books they'd give a hoot about what anyone here says? I think not. I'd be surprised if most bookstore owners have even heard of AW.

PA's policies make it hard to deal with. Some PA authors are also hard to deal with. Hence bookstores don't want to deal with them.

[RockmanJay]

... this isn't exactly the thread for introductions, but, hey, my story has something to do with Publish America, at least.

I heard of PA through a friend of mine, now a member of this forum, who was excited about the prospect of a publishing company accepting his book. Being an aspiring author myself, I thought to take a gander at it for myself. I waited until I had free time at a movie theatre to do so, however, and being in the "OMG I AM GOIN 2 SEE TEH AWESOMESET MOVEE!" mindset, forgot the correct name of the company. I had thought he'd told me it was American Publishing, or some such variant, and went to a few different variations of that particular name. It wasn't until I did a search for "Publish +America" that I found how silly my mistake was... And how grave an error my friend might be making. I told myself that I would inform him as soon as I saw him again that Publish America was a bad idea.

Fast forward to the next time we actually ran into each other. Having an easily distracted mind, I had temporarily forgotten about the negative publicity Publish America had recieved via the internet, and, as a result, forgot to bring up said publicity. Shortly, however, he informed me that he knew of the travesty (And the Travis Tea) of Publish America. He weaved a tale of a story known as Atlanta Nights, a story written by a band of authors who sought to expose the true nature of the publishing company, and the resulting madness that ensued.

Since then, I have been informed that my friend and fellow aspiring author has found another publishing company that takes unagented work, one that actually sells in the store that we work at. I know his work has a lot of potential, and I hope that it gets made and he gets paid. I also hope that I can finish a story or two of my own, in, at the very least, a novella format.

So, I come to you today with thanks for this post, informing authors-to-be of Publish America's (if former) bad reputation, and hope that all of those here on this board that wish to become authors succeed.

- RMJ

[Tilly]

:welcome:

I'm glad your friend has found a publisher. :hooray:He's one of many PA authors who have done so.

[shelagh]

Hi Amanda,

Good luck with your book, I hope you enjoy a great deal of success and your hard work is rewarded. You seem to have a down-to-earth approach to how the publishing world works and have not set yourself high expectations.

Today I went from a high to a low within a few minutes -- the time it took me to work out the truth.

This morning, my husband answered the phone and spoke to an old friend. He said that he will be going to Australia in a couple of weeks and he will be taking two of my books with him.

When I heard the news, I was really excited. I responded by saying that I already knew this friend wanted a signed copy. My husband confirmed this by saying that he wants a number of copies signing. My mind raced because this friend is a schoolteacher and I jumped to the conclusion that maybe some of the pupils at his school had bought copies of the book.

After my husband left this morning, I had a reality check and realised that I was expected to answer the phone and not my husband, who was expected to be at work. Then it hit me that there were no books to be signed. The phone call had been made to drop a hint that I might send two signed copies that would be taken to Australia for relatives.

I'm not disappointed or upset; it's the way most people respond. It has nothing to do with the price of the books or the publisher. Close friends want to be able to show/give as presents books by someone they know who has written a book. Any book: good, bad or indifferent.

Please don't all shout at once, I know that I would have complimentary copies to give away if I had succeeded in signing with a different publisher. I did not succeed, and I made a choice to sign with PA that I stand by, even if it would not be a choice made by anyone else.

This morning only confirms that my royalties will be small, but not because my book is too expensive or isn't in bookstores. Without the kind of publicity that only the biggest publishing houses can afford, my book is not going to be a financial success for me but, in the scheme of things, I am helping my publisher to become successful and better able to help more authors like me.

The vast majority of PA authors would not succeed in signing with a mainstream publisher, but they can, and do, realise their dream of seeing their books published.

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.

Shelagh

[Sher2]

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.

Who wants to take it from here?

And let us not forget that PA books are presented to the public on an unedited, "as is" basis. With this new "fast-tracking" PA has in place which, if I'm understanding it correctly, means the manuscripts aren't even subjected to a spell-check, the quality is going to be even poorer than in the past.

[Tilly]

This morning only confirms that my royalties will be small, but not because my book is too expensive or isn't in bookstores. Without the kind of publicity that only the biggest publishing houses can afford, my book is not going to be a financial success for me but, in the scheme of things, I am helping my publisher to become successful and better able to help more authors like me.

PA is a POD company (though it lies about that). It doesn't deserve your support. It's hurt many, many writers.
PA could have created a real returns policy, it could market to retailers, it could become a real publisher.
Or it could be honest about what it really is.
It doesn't behave this way through a lack of money. It's not interested in selling books to the public. It makes plenty of money off people like you, your friends, and your family.


The vast majority of PA authors would not succeed in signing with a mainstream publisher, but they can, and do, realise their dream of seeing their books published.


Many would have done. Perhaps not with the book they sent to PA, perhaps with a later book. But some, having been lied to and ridiculed by a printer, don't write again.
There are PA authors on this forum who have gone on to be published. PA will accept a very good book as quickly as it accepted Atlanta Nights.

[rekirts]

And let us not forget that PA books are presented to the public on an unedited, "as is" basis. With this new "fast-tracking" PA has in place which, if I'm understanding it correctly, means the manuscripts aren't even subjected to a spell-check, the quality is going to be even poorer than in the past.

In other words, PA is printing the slush pile--the gems along with the...er...other stuff. It can't be said often enough.

[ResearchGuy]

...It's not interested in selling books to the public....
I know too many people who have been financially successful with books published by small (even micro) presses (including pure self-publishing) to think that only big publishers can make money in the business. It is not how large the operation is, it is how it operates (competent, focused on the market, working through appropriate trade channels, providing a quality product suited to the market, targeting the market). Interest in selling books to the public (or to understood, targeted segment or segments of the market) is indeed the key. PA does not have that key.

--Ken

[aka eraser]

In other words, PA is printing the slush pile--the gems along with the...er...other stuff. It can't be said often enough.

Yep. PA is a recycler. They collect slush and recycle it into slush-with-a-cover. Then they sell it back to the person who provided the slush. Good gig for Larry, Willem and Miranda.

[ResearchGuy]

...First, there's the cost. The ... prices of PA books run at least $5 more than books of similar length by other publishers...
It can be much worse. Trade paperback kids' books of, say, 200-300 pages, typically are priced at $5.99 to $8.99. (Carl Hiassen's Hoot, for example, is priced at $8.99.) There are many award-winning (Newbery, Caldecott) books in that price range. A PA volume of roughly comparable length will be priced at $19.95, never even be considered for an award, let alone win one, and not be on store shelves where it can be browsed first anyway. Why pay twenty bucks for one pedestrian (or worse) kids' book when you can buy two, three, or even four incomparably better books for the same twenty bucks, total?

--Ken

[DeePower]

Once again you're wrong.

You said:
Without the kind of publicity that only the biggest publishing houses can afford, my book is not going to be a financial success for me

Even with major publicity efforts a PublishAmerica book will not be any kind of success. I know first hand. I hired a PR firm. I spent thousands of dollars in what turned out to be a vain attempt at increasing the visibility of my PA book. I sent out nearly 60 review copies on my own dime.

The results were sales of about 250 copies. I wasn't paid royalties on 84 of those copies.

The PA book was not stocked in bookstores, not even in my own city, after contacting the stores personally. The PA book was only reviewed in one newspaper, one. A booksigning at a major chain bookstore was cancelled the day before the event when the manager found out it was a PA book. I was even bringing my own copies to sell.

My commercially published books are in bookstores, period. I didn't do anything. They are selling a hundredfold what the PA book sold and I have not put one minute of effort in getting the titles to be stocked by bookstores. That is the publisher's responsibility.

Why do you want other writers to get published by PublishAmerica? Other writers that have the talent should be published by commercial publishers. Why do you want them to go with PA? What chance to they have with PA that they wouldn't have otherwise?

Dee

[LloydBrown]

This morning only confirms that my royalties will be small, but not because my book is too expensive or isn't in bookstores. Without the kind of publicity that only the biggest publishing houses can afford, my book is not going to be a financial success for me

I wholeheartedly agree with everyone's right to have an opinion.

Mistaken conclusions are different.

Promotion (what you're calling publicity) only sells products that are available through a sales channel.

PA's sales policies of high-prices, low discount, faux returnability, poor editing, clip art covers and POD publishing all combine to create an inefficient sales channel. If PA books readily available through retailers, your own efforts to sell them would increase sales manifold.

Here's a litmus test: go to a bookstore. For how many of those books on those shelves have you seen huge publicity pushes? Fewer than a dozen? How do you think the bookstore sells the other 100,000 titles it carries? It places them on the shelf. The book itself does the rest. The publishers' promotion efforts are designed to get the bookstore to carry those titles because everybody in the publishing industry knows that bookstores sell books. That's the only reason they're still in business. They sell books.

It's not a one-sided thing. If you have promotion and an inefficient sales channel, you have no sales. If you have an efficient sales channel and no promotion, you have no sales. Both elements have to be there, and PA offers neither.

PA doesn't "fix" its sales channel because it fills it purpose: it encourages writers to buy their own books. PA doesn't advertise to bookstores because the up-front investment of filling those orders would wreck their cash-flow.

in the scheme of things, I am helping my publisher to become successful and better able to help more authors like me.
You're absolutely right. The money you gave them for your own book helps them advertise to other writers unfamiliar with the publishing process. That would be exactly our point. Your money doesn't help them sell books to readers, because that's not what they're trying to do.

[TracySutterer & GaryRogers]

Shelagh,

I still have friends on the PA board who periodically send me posts from the private and public boards at PA. After reading your post and thread from the private board, I do not understand why you are here. I will not quote you from that post, but it truly makes no sense to me why you continually come here. You have made it quite clear on AW and your new posting on the other board that you find this board to be a complete waste of your time.

Are you trying to get kudos from PA? Believe me that won't happen. They could care less about you and your book.

In all the years that I was a PA cheerleader, how many book of the months did I get? none... How many thank you's did I receive from PA? none....

Also, contrary to the PA line, bad publicity is not good. That train of thought will also not do anything positive to sell your book.

If you really feel that AW and forums like this one do not offer you anything, why do you come here? I am thoroughly confused by your motives.

Tracy

[DeePower]

Consider getting a letter like the one below I received from PA.

“Again, the tone of your letter is way out of place. Soon we will sell our one millionth book! Neither your fax nor your registered letter reached the intended recipient. Future paper letters from you will be discarded unread.

“If, after reading our bulleted refutations below, you still wish to end your contract, please renew your request, using support@publishamerica.com as your sole point of contact.

“None of it what we say is nonsense, and all of it is exactly, completely accurate. What is nonsense is your tone, your drama, and your whole escapade. There is no drama, no problem, no attorneys in New York, and no issues at all. What there appears to be is a simple request for contract termination.

We will deal with that request without any special consideration at all.

“You do not need baseless jabs, drama, or a lawyer to request termination of your contract. We will consider your request at our next review meeting, to be held at our leisure, probably within the next month or so. Our decision on your contract will be made with disregard for your tone and ridiculous and baseless accusations. Your communications with us will not be made known to the committee making the decision, and your untrue statements will not be considered.

“Your statements are so naive, so false, and so totally baseless that it is difficult to even respond to them, but we'll make a brief attempt.”
*********************


There was, and is, an attorney in New York. I am no longer under contract with PublishAmerica.

Dee

[Christine N.]

I have to say this, Shelagh... you're loyal. Good quality to have, but they don't deserve you.

I know you've never gotten a 'tone' letter, but how can you defend them when you know they behave the way they do? Much like Amanda, you've been very, very lucky. I hate to see nice people treated the way PA treats them. Whether or not their books are good, whether or not they expected to sell 20 or 2000, no one deserves it.

It's like me saying drunk driving isn't bad, just because I've never known anyone killed by a drunk driver. Yes, it is. (Not that I'm trying to take anything away from the horrors of drunk driving, I'm making a comparison based on the reasoning, not the act.)

'cept maybe HB. Nah, not even him.

Writers don't have a union. We have to protect each other. PA authors have just as much right as anyone to get a fair shake. PA does not give them one.

Hey, yeah, they get their work in print when it might otherwise not have. Ok, fine. But many of them really believe that it's because they have what it takes, that they beat out someone else's work. When it's just not true. (not the first part, some of them indeed do have excellent work, or even have potential. They just didn't beat out anyone to get there.)

Small press books do make money, some even do really well, some not as well. The thing they have over PA is that they WANT to sell books to people who are not the authors. Period. They use whatever resources they have to do it. PA's pitiful "we don't do promotion because we've already taken a huge financial risk publishing the book" is a load of horse droppings. They run the spell check, slap a cover on it and send the file to Lightening Source. They've paid for a grunt's few hours of time and two author's copies. No huge financial risk.

It's the sweet lies they tell that are so enticing.

[Tilly]

What's shocking about the letter that was sent to Dee is that it's pretty much the same as other authors have recieved.

It's a form letter to bully authors into silence.

[AnneMarble]

It can be much worse. Trade paperback kids' books of, say, 200-300 pages, typically are priced at $5.99 to $8.99. (Carl Hiassen's Hoot, for example, is priced at $8.99.) There are many award-winning (Newbery, Caldecott) books in that price range.
And the award-winning books are often priced even less as part of publisher promotions. I've seen award-winning children's and YA books reissued with prices as low as $2.99, for books I know are good because I still remember them from blankety-blank years ago. I have also seen a few recent kids' books priced as low as $2.99, even for the large format paperbacks -- generally the first book of the series. (For example, the first book in the Children of the Lamp series.) Do you think publishers do this because they don't like those books, or more likely, because they want to "lure" people into becoming fans of the series?

Yet I've seen people on the PA board say that when books are priced lower, it gives people the idea that they are somehow inferior. How can a book be inferior if it has been in print since the 1960s, won at least one major children's fiction award, and is still remembered by people who read it once countless years ago? How can a book be inferior if the publisher releases the sequels (in hardback), even if the writer most likely hasn't bought any copies of their book? I often wonder if they really believe that price doesn't make a difference, or if they just tell themselves that. Maybe they simply don't go to bookstores very often and haven't seen the range of pricing, the wide wide range of books available from many different publishers (big and small), buying and browsing habits, etc. If that's the case, that's sad.

:e2Order: If you want to become a writer, you should first be a reader, and a buyer of books (or at least a browser). Otherwise, you will be too susceptible to any lies that PA (or any similar printer) tells you.

[MacAllister]

Scr*w it. Shelagh--you've created more than enough division, here, and certainly we've spent more than enough time debating and rebutting every little thing you care to nit-pick.

You twist everyone's words, and stir up crap just for the fun of talking trash about us elsewhere.

No more.

I've banned you for six months. After August 15th, you're welcome to try it again--you can come back and tell us if everything still looks the same from your side of the discussion.

Bye-bye, for now.

[James D. Macdonald]

In two years, PA has sent me exactly 2 emails giving me the opportunity to buy my own books at an increased discount. TWO


I'm certain that you only remember two, Amanda, but far more than two such letters were sent -- and have been posted and discussed in these threads -- in that time. The most recent of them was in January of this year.


What you refer to as "an opportunity to buy" I call a "high-pressure sales pitch." Hurry, hurry, hurry, limited time only, have your credit card ready and call....

[xhouseboy]

This was posted on PAMB under the heading - 'I can't find my post'.

I think the main body of this text has already been posted here, but the guy's now posting again and taking them to task over his vanishing post. Such innocence.

He soon won't find this one, either. It'll have wandered off looking for its twin.


Hi,
I posted a question a few days ago and it seems to have vanished. I also emailed the question to author support and have yet to get an answer...

Mike,

I am very concerned about the goings on at PA. I have had several interviews in the past few weeks where the interviewer has requested review copies of my book from your office. In at least two of those cases I know that the review copies were never sent out. In one case I was interviewed for a TV talk show and the interviewer had to say on TV that he had not had a chance to read the book because he had never received it. I am concerned because not only does this make me look bad, it also makes Publish America look as if they are not interested in helping their own authors to sell their books. Can you please advise me on this matter? I know you told me some time ago that you would look into this matter but I never heard back from you.

[Tilly]

Infocenter repeated its snarky response as well.

[Kevin Yarbrough]

I am helping my publisher to become successful and better able to help more authors like me.

Translated: I am helping my publisher make millions while their authors sit in obscurity with no bookstore placement, small discounts and return policy, and $20 royalty checks.

[James D. Macdonald]

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

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]

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]

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]

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.






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.



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]

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]

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.http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

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

[PVish]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

[QUOTE]
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.


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.


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.


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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

{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]

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]

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.]

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]

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]

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/ (http://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]

[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]

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]

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.

[DeePower]

AmandaPA actually said in a prior post that she didn't know her PA book would not be stocked in bookstores. It was like her second or third post.

I did not know that my books would not be in bookstores or that most bookstores won't even carry them. A thumbs down for PA.


Dee

[CaoPaux]

As for the definition of publisher and author.
publisher: Someone who has books printed for sale
author: A person who writes booksActually, those would be better defined as:

Publisher: One who makes books available to the public.
Author: A writer who has been published.

My point being that PA is nothing but a printer that makes only the most superficial attempt to make books available to the public (via Amazon, etc.). They are not a "traditional" publisher by any industry definition.

Out of curiosity (and so that others may understand how even experienced writers can be snookered), since you'd been commercially published, why did you consider PA a viable choice?

[Aconite]

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.I was the one who asked that, and I don't agree that you've been attacked for your post. People have said things you didn't like, and they've disagreed with you. That's not attacking.

This is getting OT for this thread, ladies and gentlemen. I suggest that if it continues, we voluntarily move it to Overflow (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26568) so some long-suffering mod doesn't have to move the posts later.

[Kevin Yarbrough]

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.

I can tell from your post you're not saying PA is ok but in defense of the board members here I will say that some of the people that may or may not have been called "idiot" probably were. Cancer boy was an idiot. His whole book was plagerized. He took articles from different sites from the net and put them in book form and sent it in. HB is an idiot. I'm not even going to go into the reasons why. C.E. is telling everybody lies there and that is very wrong, his writing is probably good but he is doing a big diservice to his fellow authors.

As for the spies? Shelagh was a spy, or at least acted like one. She came here and we gave her the respect she wanted. She ran back to the private PA board and bashed us. What would you call that?

I agree with you by the way. There are a lot of good writers at PA and I hope they learn the truth about what PA is sooner rather than later. Take care.

[Ken Schneider]

I stand humbly corrected, Dee, Amanda.

But, for the heck of it. From 6-3-05 to 1-24-06

I am not including, The NYT offer, or, the buy your own books and receive royalties from Aug 2004. The third in this series is meant to, "Pump your up, and make you think that you can do this too.

Here are six months worth of send us money e-mails.


Dear author,

We have another milestone in our crosshairs: PublishAmerica is about to cross the "One Million Dollars Paid In Royalties" line.

Stop and imagine it for a moment: one million dollars that are finding their way to authors because others have decided to buy and read their books.

How rewarding this is. It truly underscores what we have been saying all along: PublishAmerica is treating its authors the old-fashioned way -- we pay them, thanks to your legions of book buying readers. We do not charge our authors a penny, ever. Instead, we pay them. A million dollars collectively! That's what good old traditional publishing is all about. PublishAmerica is a young company, we have barely entered our seventh year. And already our royalties paid over our young lifetime are amounting to this!

Book sales have been going through the roof lately, possibly in part as a result of our decision last year to make our titles returnable. Bookstore orders have doubled in the past few months, even in the famously slow first half of January, with bookstores ordering a PublishAmerica book every three minutes, day and night, seven days a week.

More than anything else, this is your success. You and your fellow PublishAmerica authors have written these books that others have purchased for their education or entertainment. It is the quality of your writing, above all else, that has caused our royalty payments to add up to this astonishing amount.

In the last week of next month we will be putting new royalty statements and checks in the mail. To celebrate the million-dollar milestone, we are making a rare exception by presenting an unusual offer to those who, under Pars. 5 and 10 of their contract, volunteer to order copies of their own book in the last week of January.

Do not buy any books that you don't need or want. PublishAmerica authors are under no obligation whatsoever to buy their own books, in any way, at any time. However, some of you prefer to keep copies of their own book on hand, and though we rarely if ever pay royalties on author purchases, this celebratory offer is for those promotional tigers among you who fall under that category.

So here goes:

On all orders of 60 or more copies placed by the author, we will allow a 45 pct discount, plus we will pay royalties on those books! These royalties will be included in February's check!


Dear author,

Consider the company you keep.

Today we are congratulating your fellow author Benjamin Frazier, who is well on his way to becoming a Hollywood celebrity! His PublishAmerica book "Shelly's Diary" is currently being filmed on location in North Carolina, starring Stella Parton (Dolly's sister) and Traci Dinwiddie (Dawson's Creek, The Notebook). The big-screen release is certain to create a buzz, and you may expect the film to show in a theatre near you! Seeing your book turned into a movie is every author's dream, so here's to Ben Frazier, with pride!

This has been a stellar year for PublishAmerica and its authors, with larger growth numbers than ever before. More than 30,000 new authors have submitted their work for our review this year alone, and we have signed a contract to 6,000 of them, for a whopping total of 16,000 authors currently under contract. For an indication of the impact that numbers like this have on book consumers, and on the economy, consider this:

*PublishAmerica books have reached more than a million homes, or more than one percent of all U.S. households. People who until recently had never heard of any of our talented authors, are now reading their works: a tremendous contribution to both literature and literacy.

*PublishAmerica is now capable of releasing a book within less than 30 days after we have received a manuscript's final draft. Books become available to a worldwide market faster than ever before.

*Until PublishAmerica was established, many authors such as yourself who were denied access to mainstream publishing houses, felt pressured to join a pay-to-publish vanity publisher as a last resort. At an average $1400 fee per vanity published book, PublishAmerica's 16,000 authors, who are never charged any fees at all, have been able to keep more than $22 million in their own pockets!

*Every ninety seconds, every business hour of the day, every business day of the week, somewhere in the country a bookstore needs and orders a PublishAmerica book. Barnes and Noble continues to be our number one retail vendor!

With the holiday season now upon us, this is the time to thank those bookstores. Therefore we are offering them a special discount that we are also making available to any individual, our own authors included, who consider this the ultimate book buying (and giving!) season:

25-50 copies of any book title: 40 pct discount;
51-100 copies: 45 pct discount;
101 or more copies: 50 pct discount.

To ensure delivery in time before the holidays, this offer expires December 8. Phone orders only at 301 695 1707. Full-color books are excluded.

Thank you for helping change an industry, and Happy Holidays!

PublishAmerica Author Support

Dear author,

With the new year now firmly in place, we have more happy news to share with you.

Today we are welcoming as a new PublishAmerica author Pulitzer Prize winner William Coughlin. He served as a World War II fighter pilot, taught journalism as a professor, wrote for the Los Angeles Times and United Press International, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1990 as a newspaper editor. Mr. Coughlin wrote us a very kind letter asking to join your ranks as a PublishAmerica author, and we are happy to welcome him, and his book "Beyond the Seas", on board.

We also celebrate the recent appearance of our author Hedda Nussbaum on the Larry King Live show. Hedda has previously been employed and published by Random House, and she joined PublishAmerica's ranks more than a year ago. Ms. Nussbaum, a well-known author who writes about domestic abuse, has enjoyed much media attention lately for her book "Surviving Intimate Terrorism". Congratulations!

Also, exciting things continue to be happening for PublishAmerica authors in and around Hollywood. After we announced the upcoming big-screen success of our author Benjamin Frazier a few weeks ago, we can now also inform you that author Lisa Croll Di Dio has seen her book "Sherwood Forest" optioned by a Los Angeles production company, represented by the Beverly Hills-based Michael Eisner law firm. Another PublishAmerica book, "Absolution: The Ted Roth Story" by author Edmund Hulton, has been made into a screenplay by award winning New York screen writer Doug Klozzner and is currently being shopped around in Hollywood.

That is all fantastic news, and it comes on the heels of a continued steady barrage of positive news stories about many other PublishAmerica authors. The Georgia News-Daily and the Fayetteville, Georgia, Citizen are writing enthusiastically about an author's second book with PublishAmerica. The Winchester, Virginia, Star calls an author's work "poetry in motion" and prominently pictures him signing copies of his book. The Clovis, California, Independent discloses to its readers that a local body-shop manager is actually a gifted novelist.

The Hoboken, New Jersey, Reporter highlights an author whose book portrays the town as it was during World War II. The venerable Arizona Republic reveals that another PublishAmerica author gave Ronald Reagan his tuxedo trousers to wear during a formal dinner in the Philippines. And this is just a small sample from the roughly sixty press clippings that we have seen last week, on top of PublishAmerica and its authors being trumpeted in big-circulation papers such as the Houston Chronicle and the Christian Science Monitor.

It is no wonder that PublishAmerica book sales have soared to an all-time high over the holiday season. Congratulations to all of you!

On behalf of the entire PublishAmerica team, we wish you Happy and Prosperous New Year!

PublishAmerica Author Support



Dear Author,
Every hour of every business day, bookstores nationwide order and stock a new PublishAmerica title. The store manager has decided to stock it because he believes that the book will sell. As a result, thousands of PublishAmerica books are sitting proudly on bookstore shelves all across the fruited plain.

And they do sell. They sell regardless of whether the bookstore can return unsold copies.

A bookstore's decision to stock a book is generally made by the manager. A bookstore typically stocks just one percent of the 190,000 new books that are published each year. For bookstores to stock all books published would mean adding 20 feet of new shelf space every day, seven days per week. Therefore bookstore managers must be selective on what books they choose.

Sometimes they base the decision on whether the book is returnable. If the book is not returnable, they sometimes choose not to stock it.

Many of our titles are already returnable. We have been running an experiment with an increasing number of our titles. It appears that once a bookstore has established a book's selling potential, and stocked the book, the store manager's decision is proven right: PublishAmerica books are competitive, high quality, reliably selling books.

Therefore, as of next month, we are making all of our books returnable!

Although many of our titles are currently stocked in stores, you may soon find even more bookstore managers inclined to order and stock your book now that there is zero risk involved for them.

Please bear with us as we must do this gradually, in order to enable our wholesaler Ingram to accurately activate the new status on roughly eleven thousand books that are currently in print, starting with the titles that are selling more than 40 copies in September (libraries and individuals who order more than 40 copies this month are receiving a 40 pct discount; phone orders only at 301 695 1707).
Also, there will be a few exceptions initially, such as full-color picture books, and for the time being this revolutionary experiment will be limited to U.S. bookstores only. We will review the results after a few months and see what, if any, adjustments must be made.

Congratulations on being part of this exciting and revolutionary adventure.

--PublishAmerica Author Support

Dear author,

You are changing an entire industry.

The last time we sent you an announcement was when our ranks had surpassed ten thousand authors. Today we can inform you that three thousand more authors have become your PublishAmerica peers. Each day, more than 130 new authors who have heard or read about your successes, want us to review their manuscripts. Because they saw what you have achieved, and they want it, too.

A force of almost 13,000 strong, you are changing an industry that was once dominated by an elite. What PublishAmerica's authors are accomplishing has never been seen in the history of publishing. To say that this has not gone unnoticed, is an understatement.

Therefore we proudly announce to you the upcoming release of How to Upset a Goliath Book Biz, subtitled PublishAmerica, the Inside Story of an Underdog with a Bite.

Written by PublishAmerica CEO Willem Meiners, with an introduction by company president Larry Clopper, the book

*gives you a unique behind-the-scenes look at PublishAmerica,
*is illustrated with photos of our office and staff,
*exposes the fading role of bookstores,
*explains why PublishAmerica's success was inevitable and unstoppable,
*shares numerous anecdotes about, and quotes from, PublishAmerica authors.

You may now order your own copy of the PublishAmerica inside story, at the special pre-release discount price of $9.95 (retail price: $24.95), here: http://www.publishamerica.com/inside_story (http://www.publishamerica.com/inside_story).

But there is more! To celebrate your successes, we are offering bookstores a special discount deal that we also extend to any individual who needs books on hand: This offer covers all of our titles except full-color picture books:

*between 25-50 books: 40 pct discount
*between 51-100 books: 45 pct discount + a copy of How to Upset a Goliath Book Biz for free!
*between 101-200 books: 50 pct discount + a copy of How to Upset a Goliath Book Biz for free!
*201 or more books: 55 pct discount + a copy of How to Upset a Goliath Book Biz for free!

The offer expires June 10. Orders by phone only, at 301-695-1707.

Thank you, and have a great Summer!

PublishAmerica,
Author Support Team

[SeanDSchaffer]

Snipped....

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.

Amanda,

You're right. Not all PA books are bad. In fact, the majority of PA books I've read, were quite good.

It's just that PA treats the books and their authors so poorly that bothers me.

When I first signed with PA, I was of the understanding that my book would be a hard-bound book in its first printing, just like I see in the local bookstores. I also understood my book would be competitively priced and have an attractive cover. None of these things were done for my book, or for most PA authors' books.

I don't think most AW members have bad feelings for PA authors; we do have bad feelings for what PA itself does to those authors. It's just plain wrong how PA treats those authors who sign with them. It's as if they don't care whether they succeed as a company or not--just as long as they can give as many writers the shaft as they possibly can.

[Christine N.]

Why, Tilly? Because in order to be put into the Borders database (and you can go to www.bordersstores.com (http://www.bordersstores.com/) to see if any book is available through their store or for order for in-store pickup) the publisher (or the author, as JM did) has to send a copy (or is it two?) plus media kit, plus paperwork, including a marketing plan, to the main offices of Borders, I think in NYC. Buyers look over the book, decide if it will sell and make a decision whether or not to carry the book. Takes about two months - sometimes less.

If it's yes, the book is given a BINC - some kind of Borders internal number - and put in the database for all brick and mortars to order from. They may order it to stock, they may leave it as an 'order-only' book.

PA does none of this for any of their books. That's why. PA author walks into Borders store and asks if they can do a signing. Manager looks up ISBN in database and sees that the book is not in their special Borders system. No go.

Yes, Borders uses Amazon for its online store. So any book in Amazon can also be found at www.borders.com (http://www.borders.com/). You want the real deal, look at the link I posted above - www.bordersstores.com (http://www.bordersstores.com/) .

[AnneMarble]

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.
Just to confirm what Dee said... yes, this is true. I heard about PA (in a negative light) long before I joined AW, and probably before there was a NEPAT thread.

I think I first took notice of PA when PA authors started joining my mailing list to promote their books, often without regard to the rules and without joining in the discussion. (The guidelines ask authors to give us the courtesy of participating in the list, not just spamming it.) But I first took a really negative notice of PA when I learned that some PA authors were calling bookstores under assumed names, ordering their books, and then never showing up to buy them, just so that the bookstores would get stuck with the books. This is one of the behaviors that damaged the reputation of PA among bookstores, and this happened long before the NEPAT thread became as long as it did, and long before the Washington Post article, etc. Also, it's worth noting that this scam (there's no other word for it) was mentioned on PA's original message board, and the posts about it were never taken down. In other words, PA condoned this behavior. So it's no wonder PA has a bad reputation with booksellers. And it's too bad that it smears the authors who were caught by them.

By the way, I think that at this time, Googling PublishAmerica brought up the PA website and very few negative threads about PA.

[Tilly]

Thanks Christine:). I'd be surprised, then, if PA hasn't known for a long time that its books need a BINC and don't have one.

[Ken Schneider]

http://www.bordersstores.com/search/title_detail.jsp?id=54602028&srchTerms=1413734421&mediaType=1&srchType=ISBN


I'm in, but have no idea how it was listed. Wish it wasn't, it just puts more money in PA's greedy pockets.

[Nexusman]

Looks like PA's updated its splash page again. Seems they like hyphens and italics now instead of unnecessary commas.

-Nick

[LloydBrown]

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.

Can you show us what message that was in? I don't see it.

[Bonnie Gibson]

Dear Author,
Every hour of every business day, bookstores nationwide order and stock a new PublishAmerica title. The store manager has decided to stock it because he believes that the book will sell. As a result, thousands of PublishAmerica books are sitting proudly on bookstore shelves all across the fruited plain.

And they do sell. They sell regardless of whether the bookstore can return unsold copies.

Another comment from PA

In fact, we had told the reporter that 99% of all books published never see a nationwide bookstore shelf. For bookstores to stock each newly released title out of the 150,000 books published last year alone, they would need to add 17 feet of extra shelf space, each day, Saturdays and Sundays included, and that's if they'd only order one copy per new title. That's just not happening.


:Shrug: You figure it out.

[James D. Macdonald]

I see on PA's main page, in the Up In Lights section, that two books have been nominated for the Library of Virginia poetry awards.

This nomination may not be as great a coup as might otherwise be thought: the author can type in a nomination himself.

http://www.lva.lib.va.us/whatwedo/awards/entries.htm

[AmandaPA]

Out of curiosity (and so that others may understand how even experienced writers can be snookered), since you'd been commercially published, why did you consider PA a viable choice?


As I stated before I have been absent from writing for a few years and recently started again (two years ago). I went with PA originally to publish a book of poetry knowing from past experience that most commercial publishers wouldn't touch it. Once I'd finished a couple of novels based on my past genre (suspense) I sent a submission to one of my old publishers. I won't give the name here because I will quote part of his response to me.

"....although we have enjoyed working with you in the past, it has been several years since we have seen any work from you. We now feel that you are past the age that the readers at large can identify with."

He went on to say that he was very sorry to have to return my ms without reading it. Very big of him. I only wish he had put that in a letter instead of a phone conversation. I might have gotten him on age discrimination, but I don't think it's illegal to not offer a contract because of age or any other reason. And in case anyone is curious, I'm 47. I think I may have been insane for a little while and sent my novel to PA. I had been happy with the way they handled my poetry and I as I said before I didn't know a lot about them at the time and assumed that my book was treated as it was because it was poetry. I believed what was posted on their site about bookstores.

As I said before, what made me realize they weren't doing right was when they lowered the book's discount to 5%.

I think I have been away from the business too long and might as well forget it. I guess what you all say is true, if PA accepted my book, it must be bad. You win.

Good luck to all of you in your writng and publishing endeavors. I'm just too tired to try and defend every word I say on here.

[LloydBrown]

I think I have been away from the business too long and might as well forget it. I guess what you all say is true, if PA accepted my book, it must be bad. You win.

Uh, nobody has stated or even implied that if PA accepts your book it must be bad. That statement isn't even related to the given facts, much less any sort of rational conclusion.

Can I ask you this: did you research PA at all--by talking to bookstores, your favorite search engine, asking other writers with books on shelves, a literary agent. Anything?

[Ken Schneider]

Right Bonnie.

Just like the, "Bookstores manager aren't the one who order bvooks for stores, it's the hierarchy." Then said.

Bookstores managers are the one who decide.

If you could see PA speaking their doubletalk, it would look like a crappy Chinese Karate movie, where the mouths and words don't come out at the same time.

[James D. Macdonald]

I guess what you all say is true, if PA accepted my book, it must be bad.

No one's said any such thing. PA takes good books just as fast as it takes bad books. They'll offer a contract to any book at all. They don't bother to read submissions.

Poetry is, indeed, a hard sell. Many poets self-publish. Using PA as a printer might not be a bad thing, except for two matters: as a printer they're very expensive, and they take the rights for seven years. It would be cheaper for you to take your book to a local printshop.

I don't know what to say about your experience with the publisher who said you were too old. That hasn't been my experience, and I'm way over 47. I know of authors who published their first books when they were older than that. So keep looking -- that doesn't sound like company you want to keep.

[Aconite]

"....although we have enjoyed working with you in the past, it has been several years since we have seen any work from you. We now feel that you are past the age that the readers at large can identify with."I second what Tilly said. That's a bizarre response.

I guess what you all say is true, if PA accepted my book, it must be bad. You win.No one here has said that. What we've said is that being printed by PA is not an indication of quality, because PA doesn't screen for quality. Your book could be brilliant. Your book could stink. Yor book could be somewhere in between. You can't tell which it is simply by its being printed by PA. PA will take a good book just as soon as they'll take a bad one, and they'll treat them just the same.

[Bonnie Gibson]

Right Bonnie.

Just like the, "Bookstores manager aren't the one who order bvooks for stores, it's the hierarchy." Then said.

Bookstores managers are the one who decide.

If you could see PA speaking their doubletalk, it would look like a crappy Chinese Karate movie, where the mouths and words don't come out at the same time.

You got that right Ken. If only everyone could see that.

[CaoPaux]

As I stated before I have been absent from writing for a few years and recently started again (two years ago). I went with PA originally to publish a book of poetry knowing from past experience that most commercial publishers wouldn't touch it. Once I'd finished a couple of novels based on my past genre (suspense) I sent a submission to one of my old publishers. I won't give the name here because I will quote part of his response to me....Oof. Yeah, "the readers have forgotten you" is a real threat to writers who take a break, and I can see how that'd put a person in a state of mind to think PA was a good deal for novels, too. (FWIW, there's a Career Recovery section here: http://sfwa.org/writing/) Anyway, please don't allow PA to affect your progress. There's enough networking and resources on this board alone to get you read by commercial publishers again.

[SC Harrison]

And in case anyone is curious, I'm 47. I think I may have been insane for a little while and sent my novel to PA.

Join the club. I kind of smelled something funny before I signed the contract, but I chose to only pay attention to the things I wanted to see/feel, and not the warning flags.

As far as people here saying hurtful things about (some) PA authors, this has happened in the past and it probably will happen more in the future. But, that's not what this thread is about, and the other posters (and mods) here won't put up with it for too long before stepping in. This kind of behavior (usually) stems from frustration at not being able to permanently "fix" the PA situation. Combine that with the seemingly endless parade of new authors heading towards financial loss and heartache, and you often get anger. Anger that is not always directed where it should be.

Stick around and help us figure this thing out, okay?

[MMo]

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 International Trademark Association as of 2004,
http://www.inta.org/tmcklst3.htm#H
the trademark is for Hershey’s Kisses.

Mo

[PVish]

Looks like PA's updated its splash page again. Seems they like hyphens and italics now instead of unnecessary commas.
-Nick

And on that page, they mention two PA books that were nominated for 2006 Library of Virginia Literary Awards. ANYONE can nominate a book by a Virginia author! My self-pubbed book was nominated in 2001 and I (the publisher) sent in the 4 copies. In 2004, my POD book was nominated, and my POD publisher sent in the four copies. Of course I didn't win, but I got a really nice poster each year with all the names of the nominees.

Does anyone REALLY think PA sent the 4 copies required for the two authors who VA Book Award info they have posted? Raise your hands if you think the authors sent the copies themselves.

OK (counting hands here). . . one . . . six . . . twenty . . . two hundred fourteen. . .uh, oh—can't see all those hands in the back. . . .

(You can see a list of finalists and winners from past years here: http://www.lva.lib.va.us/whatwedo/awards/winners.htm )

[astonwest]

In two years, PA has sent me exactly 2 emails giving me the opportunity to buy my own books at an increased discount. TWO
You may want to update the e-mail address they have for you.
Since February of 2004 (2 years), I've received a total of 16 e-mails from their "marketing department" (only the mass mailings).
Of these, 9 were attempting to sell me something.
7 were offers to buy my own book for a discount (1 was in conjunction with the release of the PA-tell-all).
2 were offers for me to pay an exorbinant amount of money to travel to Key West (which was cancelled for weather in the end...wonder if everyone got their money back?)