Port Town Publishing

To paraphraze:

"It's not subsidy publishing because you'll be sold on Amazon."

"We want serious authors, because serious authors don't expect their publisher to sell books for them."

"We sell less than 50 copies of each book."

Ah, the horror stories I could tell here, but I will refrain. Being one of Ms. Hackensmith's FORMER authors, I can state these facts:

My books DID fall apart,
The cover print quality for my copies was HORRIBLE (which, incidently makes them nigh on impossible to actually SELL at a book signing!),
and finally, she made it almost impossible to take her at her word.

Any author reading this who is still considering seeking her services, you have been warned.

Toni Sue, if you haven't already contacted Writer Beware, would you please write me with more details about your experience? I have a file on Port Town, and would like to add your story.

My email is [email protected]

Thanks.

- Victoria

I'll be happy to help in any way I can. I emailed you!

I guess Ms. Hackensmith has now filed for Bankruptcy. Up until that exact moment, she was still promising her current authors their royalties. One of said authors emailed me her court documents today Blah.

Exactly. The worst part is that she strung the authors faithful to her along until the very end promising royalty checks and such. Then *SMACK* they get get hit with the bankruptcy news.

Port Town Publishing's Jean Hackensmith - convicted felon

Jean Hackensmith "publisher" of Port Town Publishing is a convicted felon. A 10 year sentence for theft. Check out the Wisconsin criminal history website. The probation officer (a man I personally called) indicated she and her husband stole $50,000 from a church.

She and her husband/ and Port Town Publishing, recently filed bankruptcy in federal court in Wisconsin. IF YOU SEE HER WITH ANY PUBLISHING OR WRITING ENTITY, be warned. Please feel free to email me and I'll send you a copy of her criminal conviction.

Yup. From that same page...

Not only is Jean Hackensmith an author but she is also the owner and senior fiction editor at Port Town Publishing.

Click to expand...

Indeed. iPage shows this is an active title with one copy in stock. If this publisher is out of business, she did so without contacting Bowker to take all her titles out of print. Ouch.

I've confirmed the felony conviction on the Wisconsin court system website.

Now I'm trying to confirm the bankruptcy filing.

- Victoria

The Port Town Blues

My novel, The Crack in the Teacup, is still listed on Amazon (among other sites), but I doubt that it is still available. Ms Hackensmith did release all my rights back to me and last fall Cambridge Books accepted it. I retitled the book "Music" because by this time I'd planned a series and now have three Music books: Music, Evidence and Still Life with Music. The first has just come out in paperback. The others are available as ebooks and should be coming out in print soon.
I don't like to badmouth others, but overall my experience has been similar to that of so many: Books falling apart. My cover isn't bad; it's simply not really printed well. I suggested a boy in baseball costume with a bat and Ms Hackensmith came up with a pic of her son when he was little. That was great, but overall, the cover does look a bit amateurish.
Once I got word of the criminal problems and bankruptcy, I requested the return of my rights and she promptly complied, so overall, my only real loss has been time. For a long time I tried to believe that she, like most small publishers, was just having difficulties, but little by little I've come to realize that her problems go much deeper than that. But hey, there are many other publishers out there. Just keep writing! www.crimespace.ning.com

Carlene, is it listed as being available new? Or just available? Amazon lists books that are being sold used by third-party sellers, so a listing may not mean your book is still being produced for sale. In fact, a listing may not mean your book is available at all--third party sellers regularly list books they don't have, assuming that if someone places an order, they can then try and get hold of a copy.

- Victoria

It is also possible that Amazon has it listed but can't actually get hold of a copy to send to you. You might try ordering it to see if it actually can be ordered. You may think you've ordered it, but give it a few days. It's possible that you'll get an email asking to be patient Amazon is trying to get it. Then within a week or two you'll get an email from Amazon saying they can't get it. This is what happened with one of mine when the publisher went down.