Kirk Fraser:
If you do find an agent who offers an advance, $299 isn't too much to pay to get free of PA.
Agents don't offer the advance. It's commercial publishers who offer an advance and the agent takes commission from the amount paid.
If you want to pay $299 to get your book back then that's up to you. The problem though is that even if you get the rights back you have lost first publishing rights in your book. That therefore means that it is going to be very difficult to find a commercial publisher who would be willing to publish it. In those rare situations where previously self published books have been picked up by commercial publishers (e.g. THE SHACK, ERAGON) it's because the self published sales figures have been sufficiently high for the commercial publisher to decide that it's worth the commercial risk as there's a market for it.
Kirk Fraser:
Publish America is better than CreateSpace for the low income writer. CreateSpace wants $700 up front then will sell you copies at $3 each. A better price per copy but that $700 can be a lot more than one has. Unfamiliar with Lulu.
Except that PA keeps all your publishing rights for 7 years (including audio, translation, subsidiary and electronic book rights) and takes 90% of the total for every book sold on their site, leaving you with having to buy books and sell on at a profit to make any money. At least with Lulu you can decide what you're going to do with the book, set the price yourself and keep 80% of the monies earned per copy sold.
Kirk Fraser:
Unfounded opinion.
It's an unfounded opinion that people who order books expect to receive them quickly? Okay then ...
Kirk Fraser:
Your insult indicates your opinion isn't well thought through or you lack experience in dealing with the truth which many always reject.
You sent your book to over 100 publishers and got rejections from all of them. That could be for a number of reasons:
1. you didn't research the publishers with sufficient thoroughness and so were submitting to some who did not take Christian material of the type you are writing.
2. you did not comply with the submission requirements.
3. your query letter was not sufficiently enticing to make it through the first round of review.
4. your opening chapters were not tightly enough written to make it through the first round of review.
5. the publishers had bought similar work to yours for their forthcoming slots and so did not have space for your work.
6. your book is not good enough to be published.
7. your book is currently something that the market isn't ready for, but may be in future.
Now, it might not be nice to hear any of that (and it's certainly easier to think that your book is great and it's that people aren't ready to hear your message) but any or all of those reasons could apply.
Regardless of the reason though, the fact that you have published it through PA means that your first publishing rights have gone and the chances of you being able to do anything with it other than self-publishing are very low.
You can accept that or not but snarling at people for telling you something you're not ready for face doesn't make the situation go away.
Kirk Fraser:
For example you probably are unaware of the fact that 25% of women lie about rape as proven by DNA tests which can be wrong 20% of the time and 90% of the nation's prisoners are there with no physical evidence against them. If injustice happens in courts, it can certainly happen with publishers, making PA's open door policy refreshing.
Well done. Equating PA with a falsely accused rapist is always going to win you friends and influence thinking. What I will say about this frankly ridiculous and offensive statement is that your conclusion that 25% of women lie about rape because 90% of the US's prisoners have no physical evidence against them shows wooly thinking and flawed logic. The fact that a man has been imprisoned without physical evidence may suggest that he did not commit the crime, but it does not automatically lead to the conclusion that no crime was committed.
Back to the subject though, if you find PA's open door policy so "refreshing" then by all means stay with them and good luck with it.
However, the fact that you seem to be convincing yourself that it's best to stay with PA does not mean that there is any "injustice" in the comments made here and elsewhere about the company's existence as a vanity publisher that does little for its authors other than make money from them.
MM