Oh, oh, can I add more tonight?!
This just in on the PA boards in response to a saddened author...
Book publishing is business, and PublishAmerica is in it to make a profit.
Nooooo really?!
In a free market economy, an enterprise has two tools. One is the quality of its product; the other is pricing. We never receive complaints about anything we do from authors who run, or have run, their own business. They understand exactly what we do, and why we do it. Like all enterprises, PublishAmerica has its detractors. None of them have ever run a business.
Maybe because those who run businesses are smart enough not to go with PA?
Our eye is on the end consumer: can they buy our product at a price that they are willing to pay. We don't consider the competition. People don't buy a book because it's cheaper than another book. They buy a book because its content is worth more to them than the amount in cash that they are willing to pay in exchange.
Actually, my wallet is more important nowadays. Oh and you forgot the question mark on your first sentence.
As everyone can see PublishAmerica is re-aligning its pricing options. That's a business decision. We now make it possible to have our titles on the market for undiscounted prices as low as $9.95. If the consumer can choose to buy one and the same book, brand new, for $9.95 instead of $29.95, he will always choose $9.95.
Then you explain why you're keeping the higher priced books. Oh wait, that's coming up, sorry.
It costs us to sell our books for less; a child can see that. We are unwilling to bear the entire cost of making less money from a future sale. So we nudge the other party who has an obvious interest in the potential of increased sales, the author, in the right direction. That's why you see these "activate your low-priced print version" emails lately. There's nothing personal about it; it's business. Business that is well understood by anyone who ever ran one.
Ohhh, I get it! These emails are "nudges." Right. Gotcha.
We first nudged the segment of authors who have displayed the most elasticity in what they are willing to invest. We confronted them with a simple and straightforward proposal, and many understood the benefit and acted promptly, as we knew they would.
You mean the authors who had a few last dimes to spare and who were unfortunate enough not to realize you were going to offer a better deal a couple days later?
What you are seeing now is that we are nudging the next segment, authors who are more reluctant, each for reasons of their own. We're nudging them by making the price of *not* making the consumer happier higher, a little more painful if you want. That's how market economy works: each day you decide what the thing that you really want is worth to you. And more often than not you decide that, at this time, you can't have what you want. Nothing wrong with that -- your book is still being published at absolutely no cost to you, and it's available for everybody else to buy and read. Maybe, as a result, PublishAmerica sells fewer books. But they sell at a higher price, and we're satisfied with that.
Oh yeah, I forgot that it was the authors' job to ensure the publisher offers books at an affordable price. Silly me.
The misunderstanding here is that some assume that being published for absolutely free should never come at any pain for the author. That's unrealistic. There's always choices to make, and every choice in life comes with a price tag. Doesn't mean that you are in any way obligated to fold or conform, not at all. At PublishAmerica, nobody pays to be published, ever. Period. But it's like flying with a low-cost airline: you pay for extra luggage, for sodas instead of water, for better seats. But it's still low-cost, or in our case, no-cost!
Hey, you never mentioned pain on your website! Wait... isn't Lulu less painful and less expensive? Sorry, did I say a bad word?
Thousands of PA books are now available at a very low cost. It's a win-win for everyone involved: PublishAmerica, the author, and the consumer.
Did you just say "win-win"? You're kidding me, right?
It's really not very difficult to follow the logic.
ROFL! It certainly isn't!
Is that anything like a real book wannabe?
