PAMB and its quotes

zizban · Mar 9, 2007

Ouch.

Vipersniper · Mar 9, 2007

Good joke.

I am still amazed at the number of people who still send their books to PA. I try my best to discourage anyone around here to not do that. I must agree though that it takes awhile to edit your book and you still miss something.

ResearchGuy · Mar 9, 2007

Christine N. said:
Clue for the day- no one just 'distributes' books to bookstores. . . .

Makes this Google search kinda puzzling, eh?

But then, the phrase is "distributed to the trade," not "distributed to bookstores."

--Ken

Christine N. · Mar 9, 2007

LOL. Yes. What I mean is, you don't just box up books, pick a random B&N out of the phone book and ship.

PVish · Mar 9, 2007

Vipersniper said:
I am still amazed at the number of people who still send their books to PA. I try my best to discourage anyone around here to not do that. I must agree though that it takes awhile to edit your book and you still miss something.

From the PAMB http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=19940:

When My book was released I didn't have much money to work with, so I had to use all the free stuff online. I was seeing progress, but not like I wanted. I finally realized that I needed a .com website. So many of the search engines will not work with a free website. I, now, have my new site up and running, but I am still having to surf for credits. I'm willing to pay for traffic as soon as I find the right service. Right now I am using trafficg.com and clicksnmore.com for traffic credits. With these I have had 26,000 hits on my free website in the last 8 months. I have had 500 in a week on my new site. I am still trying to get either Oprah, Ellen, or Dr. Phil to give me a plug.

. . . and from the above poster's website:
*

I have had 15 poems published by The International Society of Poets in various anthologies and collections. I have, also, had* 5 that were put on cd.

So, if someone believes the International Library of Poetry (aka The International Society of Poets) is legit, one will believe PA is legit, and that it's worth it to pay to get traffic to one's website, etc. And of course, Oprah is gonna call any minute now. . . . Just the sort of person PA is looking for!

It is amazing what some will believe. (Sigh)

brianm · Mar 9, 2007

PVish said:
From the PAMB http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=19940:

. . . and from the above poster's website:
*

So, if someone believes the International Library of Poetry (aka The International Society of Poets) is legit, one will believe PA is legit, and that it's worth it to pay to get traffic to one's website, etc. And of course, Oprah is gonna call any minute now. . . . Just the sort of person PA is looking for!

It is amazing what some will believe. (Sigh)

It's their 15 minutes of fame. Unfortunately, they are wasting it on PA.

CatSlave · Mar 9, 2007

PVish said:
So, if someone believes the International Library of Poetry (aka The International Society of Poets) is legit, one will believe PA is legit, and that it's worth it to pay to get traffic to one's website, etc. It is amazing what some will believe. (Sigh)

http://windpub.com/literary.scams/D-Barry.htm
Funny Dave Barry article on the poetry scam.
I wish he would do one on the PA scam too.

PVish · Mar 10, 2007

CatSlave said:
http://windpub.com/literary.scams/D-Barry.htm
Funny Dave Barry article on the poetry scam.
I wish he would do one on the PA scam too.

A while after that Barry's column of Barry's ws published, he did another about the ILP. He encouraged his readers to use the name "Freemont" (either as a first or last name) submit a poem which had the last line: "The dog ate mother's toes." Poeple still do that. Every so often, poetry.com purges them, but the Freemonts return.

Maybe the time is right for a number of Freemonts to write books about said dog and said mother and submit them to PA. Maybe all on the same day? And maybe tell Dave Barry what an inspiration he was?

Just a thought. . . .

Christine N. · Mar 10, 2007

Phew. I had a freewebsite, then I bought my domain name. I still use the free people as the webserver, but no ads anymore. I only pay for the domain name, about $17/per year (actually I should be up for renewal soon...) and I have never had to pay for traffic. But if you google me or my book title, you'll find me. Actually I get lots of people with the same name as me, who are Googling themselves. At least two have signed my guestbook.

She says 26,000 hits. I don't think so. That's what her counter says, and most of the free sites only allow you to use the counter. I can see actual stats on my site, and what the counter says and the stats say are vastly different- the counter counts different things, like if someone navigates from the main page and then back to the home page - 2 hits. And are they unique hits?

Webcounters are practically useless as a guide to how many actual visitors you get.

Arkie · Mar 10, 2007

ResearchGuy said:
Makes this Google search kinda puzzling, eh?

But then, the phrase is "distributed to the trade," not "distributed to bookstores."

--Ken

You wanna talk puzzled. I'm just back from my local Barnes and Noble that opened September 2006, and as we all know (or thought we did), B&N does not carry POD books. I had my PA rights returned by letter dated 9-11-06. I'm looking for Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. They don't have it in the store, nor any books by McCarthy. On a whim, I asked them to type in the name of my book and low and behold they had a copy in the store.

I asked the lady how it got there. She didn't know, except no books are placed without directions of the home office. I said I thought B&N didn't place POD books on the shelf. She asked if that was my book. I said it was, that's my picture on the back. I am still a bit in shock, for every time you think you known something about this publishing business, you find something to the contrary.

TwentyFour · Mar 10, 2007

Look at Stephen King. He has a B.A. in English, was an English teacher before a known author and his first two books bombed. Now look at him. He is one the greatest authors of our time. (Not to mention, a new movie of his is coming soon to theaters.)

http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=19969

Becoming famous

King's homeDuring this period, King began a number of novels. One of his first ideas was of a young girl with psychic powers. However, he grew discouraged, and threw it into the trash. Tabitha later rescued it and encouraged him to finish it.[3] After completing the novel, he titled it Carrie, sent it to Doubleday, and more or less forgot about it. Later, he received an offer to buy it with a $2,500 advance (not a large advance for a novel, even at that time). Shortly after, the value of Carrie was realized with the paperback rights being sold for $400,000 (with $200,000 of it going to the publisher).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_King

Carrie was published in the spring of 1974. That same fall, the Kings left Maine for Boulder, Colorado. They lived there for a little less than a year, during which Stephen wrote The Shining, set in Colorado.

http://www.stephenking.com/biography.php

Forgive me for being a King fan, but as far as I recall....Carrie and The Shining are both bestsellers and made him a fortune.

Christine N. · Mar 10, 2007

Yeah, but before that he used to sell shorts to porn mags. Maybe that's what they were talking about?

zizban · Mar 10, 2007

Unfortunately the time when having a press run of several thousand meant all or most would sell is now past. There are several reasons for this, among them the flooding of the market in recent years. Amazon lists more than 8 million books for sale. Print On Demand, the proliferation of vanity press companies and those that charge nothing other than the cost of the book itself are making it increasingly difficult for all but the biggest names or those with a built in audience (Jenna Bush, for example) to make sales. Twenty years ago the comglomerates began buying publishing companies in the belief that doing so would increase their profits. Having found out otherwise, they are dumping them right and left today. Some of the big publishers are growing increasingly leery of having a large intial press run, prefering a very small one and then going to POD if there proves to be much of a demand.
While it seems that it should be otherwise, all this has made it easier for a writer to have a first book published by a mainline firm. The majority, however, find that having a second book published is more difficult than it was in the past. So many mid-list and bootom-list writers are being dropped by publishers that a few new firms have popped up to cater to those mid-listers. But then they acquire a mid-list of their own, of course, and have to start cutting writers. It isn't an easy time for anyone other than the truly big names in the field and some have become a big name merely through luck and timing rather than skill.

Ummmm ya....

James D. Macdonald · Mar 10, 2007

Christine N. said:
Yeah, but before that he used to sell shorts to porn mags. Maybe that's what they were talking about?

At one time "Men's" magazines were decent markets for short fiction. They had general-interest articles (mostly cars and sports), fiction (moslty action and horror), and soft-core T&A pictorials.

Most (if not all) of King's earlier short stories have been anthologized since.

King's first two published novels were Carrie and Salem's Lot. Neither one bombed.

ResearchGuy · Mar 10, 2007

Christine N. said:
. . . She says 26,000 hits. I don't think so. . . .

Might also be that the home page is larded with geegaws, each of which counts as a hit when the page is loaded. That plus double and triple and quadruple counting back-and-forths within the site (maybe more geegaws on the other pages, too) could mean that real visits have numbered in the dozens, if that, including her own.

--Ken

Mags · Mar 10, 2007

Ohmygod. Talk about doing it bass-ackwards. To get people to visit your site, give them something they want--information, entertainment, but related to your book.

Numbers themselves mean nothing. Why are these people coming to that site? To win a free iPod? Or because they Googled something to do with your book? Because if they are there for the free iPod, you can be fairly certain that they aren't going to buy your book, unless it's a book about iPods of course.

And the search engines certainly index free sites. You have to get their attention by having something worth indexing.

ETA: There's "hits" and there's "visits." If people are reloading the page, each reload is a hit--but it's only one visit.

James D. Macdonald · Mar 11, 2007

The major search engines do indeed index the various "free" webpages. Try this Google search for example: truth about publishamerica

Or, to see how you can get to the top of the search engines without any of the bull-pucky "drive traffic to your webpage" surf-to-earn credits nonsense, look at the top links on these searches:

jump kits

science fiction bookstores

What's the trick? Put up content that people want to read.

Yes, your own book will be the top hit when you search on your title plus your name ... but who's going to search on those terms? Your mom?

Rolling Thunder · Mar 11, 2007

You all know him; you all ...well...might like him. He's a legend in his own mind and he should be back soon to 'put us all in our place'.

How do you want to be remembered when it comes to your writings, books, etc.?

I don't think my books, stories, or articles will ever be appreciated in my lifetime. I honestly believe that as wine ages with time, so will my memory. I've got a plan for all of my writings. People have asked me to explain this mysterious plan, but I won't. I don't feel the need to tell the world what the idea is or there would be everyone and their brother doing it. The timing isn't right for now.

I have been mocked, ridiculed, and made fun of just because I published with Publish America. If I had been published with Tor or Baen would people still try to smear me? Probably not, but people can be stupid so they may have. I've been studying the records and the creations of those who jumped on the wagon of ridicule. Trust me when I say, that I have outsold some of them.

Don't let the jabronies get to you. They are just green. It could be green of ignorance or green of envy. Either way, I'll leave you with the thought of them being green.

Always the enigma.....

LloydBrown · Mar 11, 2007

I've been studying the records and the creations of those who jumped on the wagon of ridicule. Trust me when I say, that I have outsold some of them.

Typical PA-style misleading. He might have sold more books than the unpublished. I know for a fact he hasn't outsold me or anybody else who went with a real publisher.

I'll compare numbers with him any day of the week.

Rolling Thunder · Mar 11, 2007

LloydBrown said:
He might have sold more books than the unpublished.

First words to jump into my mind when I read his post. It's one of those ambiguous statements:

I have ten toes; some people have less. Therefore, I have more toes than some people.

zizban · Mar 11, 2007

Who is this? the pipe smoking guy?

brianm · Mar 11, 2007

No, the OP in that PAMB thread is Alien Enigma, an AW member who staunchly supports the Enron of the publishing world, Publish America.

James D. Macdonald · Mar 11, 2007

I'll bet right here and now that Travis Tea has sold more copies than Alien Enigma has sold.

zizban · Mar 11, 2007

Most libraries have a copy of Editor & Publisher that lists all newspapers. You aren't likely to have much luck with them, though, aside from the ones in your immediate area. Newspapers are flooded with press releases and pay them little heed.
If I were you, Jose, I'd set up a website on Freewebs. It might do you more good.

Ya because nothing says 'buy my book' like an ad riddled page with annoying talking animations.

brianm · Mar 11, 2007

You may remember this person from last week when he posted copyrighted material to SYW. Naturally, he fails to state that he posted into a forum entitled, "Share YOUR Work". This thread should have some interesting replies before it gets deleted from PAMB.

http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=20114

I GOT BANNED FROM ABSOLUTEWRITE

They never liked me over at the forums on www.absolutewrite.com

They also hate publishamerica which they are always criticizing.

On their forum they have a place where writers can have their work criticized by other writers.

I posted a link to some of my work and got some really stupid useless criticism.

So I played a joke on them. I started a thread called "How about this" and copied passages from a book, Give Us a Kiss: A country Noir by Daniel Woodrell. He's an award winning writer, and I think his stuff is just teriffic. Well, guess what? It got panned with some stupid useless criticism.

I never claimed it was my work, but of course, they assumed it was. I revealed the gag, and one of the moderators pulled the post claiming it was plagiarism.

It's not plagiarism to copy a short passage for a review, and this could've been considered a review.

Up to this point they didn't ban me.

A few days later, however, I posted a thread in which I called the moderator who pulled my post, an anal jerk.

Now, I have been banned.

Anyway, this is what I was going to post there today.

New Millenium Magazine no longer accepts unsolicited submissions. To be considered for publication to their magazine, a writer has to enter a contest and pay a $17 fee with their submission--a price I'm not willing to pay.

Thank You,

It should be noted that in addition to doing this in SYW, he also has a fake critique of his book on his website. He wrote the critique himself, which he disclosed while he was a member of AW. In that critique, he compares himself to a modern day Mark Twain.

BTW, that review comparing me to Mark Twain is totally fake. I wrote that myself to aggravate some people I was debating with on a political message board. The All-Mart Wars is a very early novellette I wrote. My writing's improved a lot since I wrote that. If I wasn't so busy I'd edit it and revise part of it. It needs it. Dealing with my webmaster is a pain and when the contract is up I'm going to switch over to authorsden.

PAMB and its quotes

Resident Curmudgeon

haz a shiny new book cover

Cat hair collector

Brian Boru

Mah tale iz draggin.

Cat hair collector

haz a shiny new book cover

a reader's ear and a writer's heart

practical experience, FTW

haz a shiny new book cover

Your Genial Uncle

Resident Curmudgeon

hanging out in near-permanent lurkdom

Your Genial Uncle

Brian Boru

Your Genial Uncle

Brian Boru