I did a quickie check and found an indie film mentioned with the writer playing an extra in it.
A low budget indie is NOT Hollywood A-list. Or even D-List.
I've had "film deals," only it is called an "option." That's when someone puts a bit of money down to secure the right to option your book for a movie. There is always an expiration date. It gives them a window of opportunity to sell the idea to a production company or anyone else with real money to make a film.
The most I've gotten on a 1-year option was 50.00, the least was 1.00. Nothing came of any of them, so I kept writing.
PA's Up In Lights page is appallingly convincing. Write a book and Queen Elizabeth will send you a note! Maybe the writer sent a copy of the book to her and one of her staff members sent back a thank you note for it. It's only being polite, but doesn't mean the queen actually
read it!
And this was just silly:
"New York Times Requests PA Book for Review."
Dear PA lurkers, the
Times should not *have* to request any book for review, nor should other major reviewing venues.
Your publisher is supposed to send them copies of your work as a matter of course.
It should also NOT be big news worthy of special announcement on any legit publishing site. Sending a book the the
Times for review is just part of the normal publishing process.
Also appalling is the "PA writers who got Published," which is a strange title for a page. None of my publishers have a "St. Martin's writers or Penguins writers who got Published" up on their sites. One can assume that if you sold them a book that it was indeed published.
So the other interpretation is PA writers who went on to sell books to real commercial publishing houses.
But no. It's about PA writers that PA put into print.
*sigh*
Also annoying is the repetitive mention of PA in every single announcement. Contrast that with the opening page for
Penguin Publishing.
They don't bother with that kind of self-promotion. They're too busy promoting the books themselves, not themselves as publisher.
One heart breaker is the writer with this quote, "[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]When I tried to find an agent over the summer and received my first 8 rejections shortly thereafter, I sincerely thought that my writing sucked,"
Okay, darlin', a mere 8 rejections is just getting warmed up.
Try 25 rejections over a 2-year period. And my writing DID suck. When the book came back I re-wrote it, got feedback, and re-wrote again until it got to the point where a commercial publisher wanted to pay me real money for them. That's what writers DO.
Try the now legendary
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, rejected 121 times and still the
rejection record holder for a bestseller.
Had PA been around back then, and had the writer gone to them in the mistaken belief that they're a legit commercial publisher, we'd have NEVER have heard of that book.
Ugh. I should never read this stuff before coffee. [/FONT]
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