The Newer Never-Ending PublishAmerica / America Star Books Thread

Steam said:

Technically not, though. Section 4 of the contract indicates that I hold the copyright (and it's taken out in my name). More importantly, in the preamble it states that I am the proprietor of the work.

The only right that is given to PA, specifically stated in the contract, is surrounding publication rights. Nothing about transfer of ownership or property.

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That's good. I am not familiar with the details of PA contracts. I'm glad I'm mistaken.

While I believe it would be a simple matter for PA to send you a copy of the .pdf file, I don't believe they are required to do so, since they did send you the .pdf file four years ago. As far as their contract goes, they fulfilled the requirement of sending you the .pdf file to review. What happens to it once they have sent it to you wouldn't be their responsibility; however, it would be the decent thing for PA to do (and not for a fee!).

Steam said:

Since they're a digital printer, they have an InDesign or a Quark file, or whichever software they use for layout. . . . .

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Betcha it is nothing but a .pdf made from a Word file. There is no reason to use heavy artillery for their purposes.

--Ken

James D. Macdonald said:

Even if you do get your book into bookstores....

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Wow! Talk about judging a book by its cover!

--Ken

From a PA Author: The Latest Buy Your Own Book Scam. What a way to treat our veterans

Got this little come-on in my inbox today. Since I woke up about their nefarious business practices (a little too late in my case, sadly), I've deleted most of these (including the Your Book in Hollywood and Your Book in Walmart ones, which were ridiculous in their own right). Check out this latest: I think the sleaze speaks for itself, but it's especially icky in that it "puts our veterans in harm's way" so to speak:

Dear Author:

PublishAmerica will donate your book to U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq!
​

Let's send a unique Christmas present to our men and women in uniform who are in harm's way in Afghanistan and Iraq: YOUR BOOK! Currently there are some 200,000 military serving in the Middle East. There's not a single soldier out there who will not miss being home for the holidays, and healthy downtime is vital.


PublishAmerica will send your book to our troops overseas. We will send five copies of your book to the military, for distribution among the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, so that as many soldiers as possible get a chance to read your story.
If you want, you can even pick the service you prefer your books to be sent to: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, or Coast Guard.


We're not waiting for the government to ask us to help brighten Christmas for our troops. We're donating your book, on your behalf. And we will let your local newspaper, radio, or TV know that you, their local author, are having your book shipped to our troops for Christmas.

Here's how we do it:

If you want to have books on hand, order now, and we will donate five copies to U.S. troops who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. And you receive a 40 pct discount!

We ship the books for the military the same week we ship your books to you.


Go to www.publishamerica.net, find your book, click on it, then add to cart, indicate quantity, and use this coupon: Soldier40. Then click Recalculate and finish the transaction. Minimum volume is 12 copies.

Want your book to go to Army soldiers in particular? Use this coupon instead: Army40. For any of the other services, use one of these coupons: Air40, Navy40, Marine40, or Coast40.


In the Ordering Instructions field, just write: "Media Yes". Our PR department will automatically contact you for names and addresses of your local news media.
Again, we will ship your books to the troops the same week we ship your
order to you. By using the coupon you are authorizing us to donate the books to the U.S. Military, for those who currently serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.
You may also request that we ship the five FREE books to you instead.


Full-color and hardcovers excluded. To ensure timely delivery, offer expires in three days, on Thursday night.


Thank you,
PublishAmerica Author Support Team

If any PA books do get sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, it might actually work to dissuade some of them from becoming PA authors once they see the quality of PA's books.

Of course, we should get ready for PA's January sales email. Will we see PA claiming that five of their books stopped a bullet?

Let's see . . . they can't deliver US orders that were placed in October, but they are going to get all these donated books to these culture-starved soldiers in time for Christmas??

But wait . . . you can have the five free books delivered to you instead . . . thank you PA!

I only thought I was depressed today . . .

DaveKuzminski said:

If any PA books do get sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, it might actually work to dissuade some of them from becoming PA authors once they see the quality of PA's books.

Of course, we should get ready for PA's January sales email. Will we see PA claiming that five of their books stopped a bullet?

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I'd rather see a mention of who pays the overseas shipping.

Cyia said:

I'd rather see a mention of who pays the overseas shipping.

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Presumably they are going to military addresses (APO/FPO) that simply require regular U.S. postage. (That is, if they are sent at all, of course.)

--Ken

Sleazy. If the troops were getting anything out of it, okay. I mean, if a group says something like 'donate $10 to us and the troops get $5 worth of baked goods' or whatever, fine. They're actually getting something they'll enjoy.

But, in this case, they've used the name of those protecting us and only PA gets anything good out of it.

OK, so they've done Oprah, and Hollywood, and the bookstores, and Wal-Mart, and the military... what's next?

Your church/mosque/synagogue/temple?
The local homeless shelter? "Brighten the lives of destitute people this Christmas with a FREE copy of your book"?
The White House? Or hey, why not the United Nations?

Personally, I still favor PA invoking NASA. "The first thing aliens will see as they enter our solar system is a copy of your FREE book!"

Queen of Swords said:

OK, so they've done Oprah, and Hollywood, and the bookstores, and Wal-Mart, and the military... what's next?
...
Personally, I still favor PA invoking NASA. "The first thing aliens will see as they enter our solar system is a copy of your FREE book!"

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What? Are you trying to provoke an interstellar war?

Using soldiers in need of real aid to separate people from their money is really not okay, especially given the bad track record of quality printing PA has. If I'm going to send a soldier a book, it's going to be a nicely printed, well bound, durable book. And since PA is notorious for saying one thing and doing another entirely, this reeks of manipulating people's real concern and compassion for those risking their lives in a war to get them to buy more of their own books. It's just wrong.

I hope some of that made sense, it's hard to type through my horrific disbelief.

Personally, I still favor PA invoking NASA. "The first thing aliens will see as they enter our solar system is a copy of your FREE book!"

Queen - I am absolutely howling! Thanks for making a not-so-funny subject funny!

Ken

Only one minor problem with getting those books to troops for Christmas. The deadline for mailing packages to APO/FPO 093 (Iraq/Afghanistan) for Christmas delivery was December 4.

Oops.

I have participated in programs that send books and gift boxes to soldiers.

They have to be specifically addressed by name to the soldier. You can't just send something over to "any" soldier. You have to have a NAME or it is treated like a bomb.

PA--this is the most shameful thing you've ever done, and you have already won the Powerball Lotto for shame--using our troops to make money.

What's next? The homeless? Kids in cancer wards?

I better stop. I'm only giving them ideas.

Miranda-- you'll be relieved to know I have no words. There is nothing foul enough to cover this.

One thing I'd like to point out is that soldiers like pocket books best because those will actually fit in a pocket and travel well. Trade paperbacks and hardcovers are usually at a disadvantage in that scenario.

Words fail me.

I was just wondering - why do I not think the US Coast Guard is anywhere near Iraq or Afghanistan?

Or am I totally off base on that?

Jersey Chick said:

I was just wondering - why do I not think the US Coast Guard is anywhere near Iraq or Afghanistan?

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I thought that as well - until I found this.

Coast Guard personnel can be called upon to serve overseas during time of national emergency or on routine deployments of cutters overseas. In fact, Coast Guard personnel have served in every major conflict including Desert Storm and the Iraq war.

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Yeah, that's...awful. Just awful. Using our Armed Forces to line their own pockets like that is a new low; I mean, who doesn't give stuff to the military if they can, when the opportunity arises? It's like those stores (a coffee shop near us did it this summer) where you can buy extra items and they donate them for you. Except those places actually DO what they say they're going to do, and make sure the items in question reach the military.

As Gilhoughly pointed out, you have to send things to an actual soldier with a name and address; you used to be able to mail care packages to "Any soldier/sailor/airman/Marine" but not for years. I used to know a girl whose brother was in the army, and several times a year sent him HUGE boxes of magazines, baby wipes, sunblock, and lip balm on the understanding that he'd share them with the others in his unit (if anyone is thinking of doing care packages for soldiers, btw, the above items are always in demand). (Her brother, happily, finished his Tour and came safely home.)

There are some charity groups, I believe, who will find a serviceman for you--like, they sign up with the charity, and you give the items and they box them or they give you the info--if you don't know any and still want to send things, but you can't just ship stuff to the military.

This has totally put me off my dinner.