Return of a Man Named PAMB and its Quotes

Surely someone could be now sued for gross negligence or something. Can we get some screen-shots of Ms Gibbs' name on all these books?

The name isn't likely on the books themselves. It was on the file submitted to the WorldCat database. These kinds of database problems happen a lot; it's how quickly the company fixes them that separates the wheat from the chaff.

When a friend of mine's new children's book was first listed with the online booksellers, another book title got appended to hers....a how-to sex book title! Her publisher fixed their file (which was where the error occurred) immediately, and the online sellers fixed their listings immediately, too, instead of waiting a few days until the new file came through and updated the databases.

PA fixing this 'immediately'? I wouldn't put money on it!

(Oh, and yeah, we got a screen capture of the Amazon listing before it was fixed because the concatenation of the two titles was screamingly funny. Unfortunately, the capture is on a hard drive that's up in the attic so I can't pull it up to remind myself exactly what it was.)

ETA: Oh! I found the concatenated title in a listserv archives: "Play, Laugh & Learn, Celebrate the Seasons: Take Sex and Sexuality to New Heights"

Karen S. Gibbs is only on 1 book in the PA store that I could find. The worldcat list does say she's the author of MANY, MANY books (I'm not counting), but there are no available covers. It's something a publisher should be able to get corrected without much trouble, I'd think.

Surely one could make a case for steering moonstruck authors away from their clutches by pointing out PA's sheer incompetence. "Sure, they accepted your wonderful, wonderful book. But they'll do a terrible job with it. Are you sure you want that?"

Sarashay said:

Surely one could make a case for steering moonstruck authors away from their clutches by pointing out PA's sheer incompetence. "Sure, they accepted your wonderful, wonderful book. But they'll do a terrible job with it. Are you sure you want that?"

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The operative word is "moonstruck." It's hard to get through to someone in that state.

They don't want to listen. It's taken them this long for a publisher to accept them, so they've Made It and won't let anything rain on their parade. Even if they have the tiniest inkling in the back of their mind something's wrong, it won't matter: they're a Published Author. It especially won't help if you're still struggling to get published yourself.

.

All things being equal, that goes for women, too. My dirty little vices sometime include watching an episode of Bridzillas, and even allowing for most of it being staged, I do wonder how such horrible women ever get a guy wanting to be in the same room, much less married to them.

My mind does wander to the speculation of whether any of them are able to suck the chrome off the fender of a '57 Chevy, but, nah, that can't be it!



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BenPanced said:

It especially won't help if you're still struggling to get published yourself.

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Yeah, but if you have one you're just a snob who doesn't want any competition.

Oh, you guys!

DreamWeaver said:

I think we've officially hit surreal at this point.

Surreal apologies cost more, of course .

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But, for a limited time only, if you order 10 of our Custom, Personalized Apologies, we'll ship an additional 60 to your choice of recipient:

Oprah
Stephen King
J.K. Rowling
His Majesty, the Sultan of Brunei
Her Majesty, the Queen of England
Your workplace
Your ex-spouse's workplace
Inner -and- Outer Mongolia
Or.....

The tombs of John Lennon, Vladimir Lenin, General Grant, Elvis or Michael
Jackson!!!! Hurry!!!! Offer ends soon!!!

Despite the humility and thankfulness, this posting to Infocenter probably won't last:

I realize you probably get allot of excited new authors wondering where their books are and I am one of them.
My official release date was April 26th. (title & ISBN redacted) I placed two separate orders for books a while ago and was told at that time it could take up to six weeks for delivery. (I understand this and realize that it hasn’t been quite six weeks sense my release date.) But however does it also take that much time for the authors copy as well? I have not received my authors copy or book orders. I was just hoping you had some advice or answers.
I did also send a quick e-mail to the PA support team, but I do realize that these things can take time to get a response. I just figured I would check with the message board as well.
I do want to thank you for making my dream come true. May God bless you and thank you for your time.

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Not getting books=a dream come true???

PVish said:

Despite the humility and thankfulness, this posting to Infocenter probably won't last:

Not getting books=a dream come true???

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No, he or she is probably just so grateful for being "believed in" by PA. I'd engage in some serious eye-rolling, but I feel too badly for people like this. I want to get them a cup of cocoa, knit them a nice pair of socks and give them a sympathetic ear. PA's actions make me weep.

Ex-PA loyalist starts own "Writer Beware" site.

And warns people about PA... though gets a couple of things wrong.

It is time, I suppose, to talk about the last days of a major thorn in the side of the publishing industry.

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PA has never been a thorn in the side of the publishing industry, any more than an online diploma mill has been a serious problem for the Ivy League.

PA is a vanity press. Vanity presses operate within a different market from the publishing industry.

...I knew exactly what I was doing when I signed up. My book was a nonfiction about a murder and I was certain no other publisher would take it on for fear of being sued. I knew going in that Publish America makes their money off their authors, they would set the list price too high, about distribution problems and I knew I would be doing all the promotion.

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But you could have self-published and had more control over both distribution and price - plus, you would still be doing all the promotion that way.

"I knew exactly what I was doing", in this context, translates to "I knew I would be in for sales so poor and distribution so nonexistent that at the end of seven years I would be happy to cut and run, without the royalties owed to me. Knowing all this, I couldn't sign that contract fast enough!"

Publish America might have gone on forever except -- they neglected to pay royalties for the last six months of 2009. They say the distributor, whom they are suing and who is suing them back, did not pay (some $700,000.00) and therefore they are not going to pay us. Since the record of sales are not made available to authors, I have no idea how much they owe me. (If you would like a copy of these law suits, contact me.)

The giveaway that Publish America is going under is in their multiple, almost daily now, "sales" offers sent via email to their authors with outrageous discounted prices. "Buy ten books, get 60 free." Of course they are charging shipping fees per book instead of the bulk shipping rate and probably making a profit doing it. But it means they are cash poor.

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What's interesting is that she provided a link for this site on the PAMB. I'm wondering if that's headed for the cornfield.

May God bless you and thank you for your time.

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Yes, someone should bless them. Their shrieks as their skin crackled and burned would provide us all with a much needed five minutes of entertainment.

TheTinCat said:

Their shrieks as their skin crackled and burned would provide us all with a much needed five minutes of entertainment.

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Or, well, not.

You might want to consider that wishing horrible deaths on people (even people we don't like) isn't exactly admirable or the sort of thing most of us would want to have associated with AW.

Terie said:

Or, well, not.

You might want to consider that wishing horrible deaths on people (even people we don't like) isn't exactly admirable or the sort of thing most of us would want to have associated with AW.

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I wasn't actually wishing death on anyone. I was picturing someone throwing holy water on them, causing some sort of slight burn on the parts that were hit, as per many a vampire movie.

I think "death by blessing" has yet to appear in any coronary report.

ETA: And no, just to be super-duper clear, I wouldn't actually find it funny if they really had parts of their skin burnt by someone throwing something on them. Moving on.

Book prices went up:

I looked at my book on here and the price went up. Does anyone know why the price went up and has anyone else's book price gone up?

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Her book was $16.95, now $19.95—for 73 pages.

I'm guessing others went up, too.

Ugh. Every time I see that cover, I want to smack someone.

Queen of Swords said:

...PA has never been a thorn in the side of the publishing industry, any more than an online diploma mill has been a serious problem for the Ivy League.
... .

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Kudos for a very fine analogy:

PA is to Publishing Industry as Diploma Mill is to Established Higher Education. Embarrassment, not threat.

--Ken

PVish said:

Book prices went up:

Her book was $16.95, now $19.95—for 73 pages.

I'm guessing others went up, too.

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Sssssssssssh! No one's supposed to know!

Off to the cornfield it has gone.

Hmm, still up as of this posting. Infocenter must be sleeping. Does anyone else suspect a ban might be coming? If PA didn't like the question the first time, I can't see them being too happy about it being asked again.