PAMB and its quotes

brianm · Mar 14, 2007

Title of thread: Book Galleys and Pre Production

OP: Do PA produce galleys?

1st response: I don't think PA produces them but an author can do it himself

2nd response: What's a book galley?

3rd response: My guess is that it is what your manuscript is after it is proofed and before it goes to print.

If you are going to get into a profession, why would you not learn as much about that profession as you possibly can?

Would you open a restaurant not knowing anything about suppliers, linen service, health codes, etc.?

Not researching and learning as much as they could about the profession of writing, is what got these people into PA’s scam.

PA lurkers, here’s what a galley is: http://www.publishingcentral.com/articles/20030409-1-0a1c.html

spike · Mar 15, 2007

http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=19964&start=15

From the gentleman who believes that bookstores are the worst place to sell your books:

pamb said:
If I am not mistaken I think the number should be 100 but I am not sure. I do know that many authors do not purchase their own books and this is sad.

If the author cannot invest in his or her own book then why should PA. Most people say they cannot afford to purchase copies of their book becuase they are on a fixed income.

PA lurkers: What is described above is a vanity press.

LloydBrown · Mar 15, 2007

Okay, I've been quiet long enough. This has been in my head for a while.

If you just want to sell books, then go buy some used books from eBay or a closing bookstore, or garage sales, and sell them to your friends. It'll be cheaper than buying high-priced books from Publish America at a poor discount. Instead of getting 40% gross profit margins, you can easily get 60-90% margins.

If you "just want people to read your book", the put it online for free. No cost to you, no contract, and it gets just as much promotion as a PA book, if not more.

If you want to be a writer, write a book. Sell it to a publisher that has stayed in business for 50+ years by selling books. Even if you fail and only sell two or three thousand, that's far better than PA's average of 30 (average of 75 sold/author, minus the copies sold TO the author).

Regardless of your goal, PA doesn't get you there.

DeadlyAccurate · Mar 15, 2007

I think they use the "just want people to read it" line to make themselves feel better when they realize they're never going to make any actual money through PA. If they truly just wanted people to read it, they wouldn't have gone with a company that tries to make them think they're published, and they wouldn't care if the term "published author" applied to them or not.

Rolling Thunder · Mar 15, 2007

DeadlyAccurate said:
I think they use the "just want people to read it" line to make themselves feel better when they realize they're never going to make any actual money through PA. If they truly just wanted people to read it, they wouldn't have gone with a company that tries to make them think they're published, and they wouldn't care if the term "published author" applied to them or not.

Sure does scream 'vanity press', doesn't it?

Caro · Mar 15, 2007

DeadlyAccurate said:
I think they use the "just want people to read it" line to make themselves feel better when they realize they're never going to make any actual money through PA. If they truly just wanted people to read it, they wouldn't have gone with a company that tries to make them think they're published, and they wouldn't care if the term "published author" applied to them or not.

I think that's spot on -- I remember a woman in a writer's group about seven or eight years ago who got very angry when she was informed that because her book was published by a vanity press (not PA), the group wasn't going to list her among their "published members" on the website. She kept saying that "she just wanted people to read it" and "just wanted to realize her dream of seeing her book in print" and didn't understand why the group wasn't bending over backward to promote her work. Btw, she did have access to information about what a writer should and should not expect with a publisher. I think she was just blinded by the idea that she could skip a bunch of the pain of rejection this way and didn't think beyond the acceptance.

James D. Macdonald · Mar 15, 2007

Perhaps folks do "just want people to read it." But the plain fact is that people aren't reading their books.

CatSlave · Mar 15, 2007

why I despise PA

Originally Posted by pamb
If I am not mistaken I think the number should be 100 but I am not sure. I do know that many authors do not purchase their own books and this is sad.

If the author cannot invest in his or her own book then why should PA. Most people say they cannot afford to purchase copies of their book becuase they are on a fixed income.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just one of the reasons.
PA makes me sick.

zizban · Mar 15, 2007

CatSlave said:
Originally Posted by pamb
If I am not mistaken I think the number should be 100 but I am not sure. I do know that many authors do not purchase their own books and this is sad.

If the author cannot invest in his or her own book then why should PA. Most people say they cannot afford to purchase copies of their book becuase they are on a fixed income.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just one of the reasons.
PA makes me sick.

Disgusting indeed.

Sparhawk · Mar 15, 2007

CatSlave said:
Originally Posted by pamb
If I am not mistaken I think the number should be 100 but I am not sure. I do know that many authors do not purchase their own books and this is sad.

If the author cannot invest in his or her own book then why should PA. Most people say they cannot afford to purchase copies of their book becuase they are on a fixed income.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just one of the reasons.
PA makes me sick.

....And this, my dear friends, is why there will always be PA. And yes, it is grotesque. How dare you not have the money to buy your own books and help your publisher recoup their loss! How dare you make PA assume any risk. What a crock !!!!

Ken Schneider · Mar 15, 2007

DeadlyAccurate said:
If they truly just wanted people to read it, they wouldn't have gone with a company that tries to make them think they're published, and they wouldn't care if the term "published author" applied to them or not.

First time, green writers, that are caught in a scam don't realize they aren't getting the real deal. What PA lives for.

Your statement places a lot of faith in the fact that everyone is informed to the hilt about PA.

DaveKuzminski · Mar 15, 2007

Again, if you want to put serious pressure on PA, write an informative article about publishing scams and PA. Then submit it to your local newspaper. Submit it to your local church for their newsletter. Submit it to the AARP for their newsletter. Submit it to any publication you read, even if it's a hobby magazine. Sooner or later, some hobbiest will have a book ready. You might be saving him from PA especially if you point out how this applies to hobbiests as well as other writers.

Just remember, you have the power to alert your local community even if the national media networks doesn't see a story in this. Yet. Just think, if enough of AW's members do this in their local community at the same time, it could create a national phenomena that might gain news attention from the national media. Aim for May, but you have to submit soon. Give PA and the other scammers, such as Bouncin' Bobby, a May Day they'll never forget.

Tina · Mar 16, 2007

I tried...

DaveKuzminski said:
Again, if you want to put serious pressure on PA, write an informative article about publishing scams and PA. Then submit it to your local newspaper. Submit it to your local church for their newsletter. Submit it to the AARP for their newsletter. Submit it to any publication you read, even if it's a hobby magazine. Sooner or later, some hobbiest will have a book ready. You might be saving him from PA especially if you point out how this applies to hobbiests as well as other writers.

Just remember, you have the power to alert your local community even if the national media networks doesn't see a story in this. Yet. Just think, if enough of AW's members do this in their local community at the same time, it could create a national phenomena that might gain news attention from the national media. Aim for May, but you have to submit soon. Give PA and the other scammers, such as Bouncin' Bobby, a May Day they'll never forget.

When I first started learning about PA, my first superhero-type thought was that I'd write just the article you are describing.

The problem...I contacted some PA writers north of the 49th parallel (Canada) and no one was interested in going on the record. Honestly, neither would I be if I was in their shoes.

Also, a lot of pubications might fear legal ramifications unless they had their own in-house teams of lawyers to vet.

Dave, Uncle Jim, Christine - have you ever considered doing something like this?

Sassenach · Mar 16, 2007

Despite what some people think, PA isn't the biggest story in town. It's just another scam, and there's nothing about the story that's especially newsworthy or interesting to the big TV investigative shows. Now if someone went postal in the PA office, perhaps...

Tina · Mar 16, 2007

A PAMB quote in response to Alien's thread

Of the many snarls at Publish America, the one that is most ridiculous is the one where they say but Publish America "prints" your book and does not "publish" it.

This sounds accurate. An awful lot of people, including media from regional to national, seem to agree.

That is the idiocy of idiots. Place your books next to others. Yours looks like a book, reads like a book, and, aaah, I guess it's a book just like any other.

Unfortunately not. It hasn't been assessed/vetted (chosen from thousands of other submissions because of quality/marketability - the latter to the reading public) appropriately edited or promoted by the publishers marketing dept.

Your book will not likely be given reviews in any newspapers that are not local, or unless you pay.

Your book will not be recognized by any of the national/North American writers unions and as such, neither will your status as "traditionally published author."

The PA covers aren't very good, either. They certainly don't look like the ones you'll see in the stores...if you go to those incredibly lucrative and beloved retail outlets in the first place.

Christine N. · Mar 16, 2007

By his standards, anyone who writes anything and puts in places for people to read are 'published'.

They guy handing out flyers in the supermarket parking lot, and anything on the web is published! I could upload a book to Lulu and be 'published' (well, okay, self-published, then)

It's the connotative meaning of 'published' and not the literal one, that most people are interested in.

James D. Macdonald · Mar 16, 2007

Printing is not publishing. Publishing includes the entire panoply of production, distribution, marketing, and publicity. The mere existence of the book is necessary but not sufficient for a work to be published.

PA books are "published" under the very minimum definition of the word. They look like books, they read like books, they just don't sell like books.

ResearchGuy · Mar 16, 2007

Christine N. said:
By his standards, anyone who writes anything and puts in places for people to read are 'published'. . .

The relevant dictionary definition of the verb "to publish" is "To prepare and issue (printed material) for public distribution or sale." (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

--Ken

Christine N. · Mar 16, 2007

Um, that's what I meant, Ken

You just said it in a lot more words than I did. :tongue

We all know there's published, and there's "published". There's all kinds of qualifiers- self, vanity, etc..

I suppose perhaps we should all be more careful when we say we're published, to make sure everyone knows what we mean.

stormie · Mar 16, 2007

James D. Macdonald said:
PA books are "published" under the very minimum definition of the word. They look like books, they read like books, they just don't sell like books.

I dunno. I've seen too many PA books that don't read like books. More like ramblings with poor grammar and spelling mixed in.

DaveKuzminski · Mar 16, 2007

Anything can be published, even poorly written work.

The real crux of the matter occurs when it comes to marketing and distribution. This is what makes PA a scam and a wannabe. They don't have the support framework in place that the authors expect a publisher to have. That lack is what makes PA a printer and not even actually a printer since they haven't actually printed anything, at least not yet. We'll have to wait for them to plug in that printer they bought and produce some books. Then they'll actually be a printer.

In the meantime, PA is nothing more than an intermediary company skimming off as much gravy as they can while accepting work from writers and having a third party actually do the printing.

Meanwhile, even when PA gets that printer operating, they still won't be a real publisher, not in the "traditional" sense. The only thing traditional about PA is its ability to conduct a scam.

PVish · Mar 16, 2007

DaveKuzminski said:
Again, if you want to put serious pressure on PA, write an informative article about publishing scams and PA. Then submit it to your local newspaper. Submit it to your local church for their newsletter. Submit it to the AARP for their newsletter. Submit it to any publication you read, even if it's a hobby magazine. Sooner or later, some hobbiest will have a book ready. You might be saving him from PA especially if you point out how this applies to hobbiests as well as other writers.

Just remember, you have the power to alert your local community even if the national media networks doesn't see a story in this. Yet. Just think, if enough of AW's members do this in their local community at the same time, it could create a national phenomena that might gain news attention from the national media. Aim for May, but you have to submit soon. Give PA and the other scammers, such as Bouncin' Bobby, a May Day they'll never forget.

This past week, I've spoken to several high school creative writing classes, newspaper classes, and English classes. Each time, I told the story of my dog's Editor's Choice Award from the ILP and his offer of a contract from PA. Having his award in hand, along with all the ILP offers, PA emails, and the contract added credibility to the story. (FWIW, none of the kids could figure out who signed the PA contract.) A couple kids in each group had been scammed by poetry.com; now at least they won't fall for PA.

In one small group, we looked at various sites on the Internet (starting with PA) and discussed why they were scammy. Some of the kids picked out suspicious thingsthat I hadn't noticed. We also looked at some reputable publishers' sites and compared/contrasted.

ResearchGuy · Mar 16, 2007

DaveKuzminski said:
. . . an intermediary company skimming off as much gravy as they can while accepting work from writers and having a third party actually do the printing. . . . .

Which is pretty much the definition of commercial publishers. They contract out printing and unless dealing with an experienced author or agent and a manuscript they are really anxious to have, lowball the royalties (see p. 125 of Michael Larsen's How to Get a Literary Agent for an amusing take on that). Authors are simply raw-materials suppliers in a manufacturing business whose product is books.

Let's not get all misty-eyed about commercial publishing, especially these days when a half-dozen corporate behemoths control much of the industry and the rest are in dog-eat-dog competition.

No, obviously that does not justify a sleazy scam like PA or make its crappy methods and abysmal (sub)standards look any better. But commercial publishing is not exactly a charitable institution. They are in the business to make money. If you condemn profit motive and grasping methods, that has to go across the board. The problem with PA is that it is mercenary AND does rotten work while engaging in deliberate deception. Mercenary and good work (normal commercial publishing) is fine.

All IMHO, FWIW, YMMV.

--Ken

spike · Mar 17, 2007

ResearchGuy said:
Which is pretty much the definition of commercial publishers. They contract out printing and unless dealing with an experienced author or agent and a manuscript they are really anxious to have, lowball the royalties (see p. 125 of Michael Larsen's How to Get a Literary Agent for an amusing take on that). Authors are simply raw-materials suppliers in a manufacturing business whose product is books.

Let's not get all misty-eyed about commercial publishing, especially these days when a half-dozen corporate behemoths control much of the industry and the rest are in dog-eat-dog competition.

No, obviously that does not justify a sleazy scam like PA or make its crappy methods and abysmal (sub)standards look any better. But commercial publishing is not exactly a charitable institution. They are in the business to make money. If you condemn profit motive and grasping methods, that has to go across the board. The problem with PA is that it is mercenary AND does rotten work while engaging in deliberate deception. Mercenary and good work (normal commercial publishing) is fine.

All IMHO, FWIW, YMMV.

--Ken

Ken,

While you are correct, I think you may have simplified the situation.

The difference is that commercial publishers put their own money at risk to produce the book. While authors may cry that their publisher does not do enough, commercial publishers pay for everything that takes the book from the manuscript form until it is in the bookstore.

People may call that profit-mongering. I call it a return on investment.

The difference with PA is that they claim they are not vanity, they do not put out the bucks that commercial publishers do. And I think that is the most insidious part of PA. They do not do the work of a commercial publisher, but they claim the profits of one.

zizban · Mar 17, 2007

I have approached bookstores in my area but they wont touch PA books or any other POD books either - -and my daughter even worked in one of those stores. They said the books were overpriced and that the returns system was too expensive. I have contacted the local newspapers and they were not interested either. The only small success i have had is that two libraries now have it on their shelves - -courtesy of me giving them free copies.

To which someone adds:

I hate to say this, but the book stores that you've been trying to place your books in are being a bit arrogant.

I'll agree that the PA prices are too high.

I wonder how long that thread will last?

PAMB and its quotes

Brian Boru

Mostly Ignored

Absolutely Fazed

Your Genial Uncle

Mah tale iz draggin.

Jenna's Cabana Boy

Absolute sagebrush

Preditors & Editors

5 W's & an H

haz a shiny new book cover

Your Genial Uncle

Resident Curmudgeon

haz a shiny new book cover

storm central

Preditors & Editors

Cat hair collector

Resident Curmudgeon

Mostly Ignored