PAMB and its quotes

ARRGH! It's not great!

After a post where the 5% discount and 10% restocking fee (meaning that the bookstore LOSES money on every return to Ingram) is mentioned.

"I wouldn’t worry about it to much because not all books ordered will sell and the store have to restock their inventory. Returning books is just a part of the business. There are far more books from other authors that are returned than a PA book. We are in a great position."

Great? 5% discount on books that are already twice the usual price is not great. Returnable books that bookstores will not order because they have to pay a restocking fee that is bigger than the discount they get from the publisher is not great.

It's great at discouraging sales through the normal channels, which must make the publisher's life easier. It must be a horrible bother to Tor and Harlequin to have to track all those thousands of books through all those bookstores.

NancyMehl said:

Here's another interesting discussion:

http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=16677

Nancy

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Frankly, I'm surprised PA has allowed it to stay up as long as it has been, considering it points out the facts (complete with firsthand accounts from a bookstore) of the returnability scam.

Like most other "traditional publishers", the PAMB's now feature a "Marketing Tips" forum so authors can discuss how to sell their books (since PA won't do it for them).

Yeah, I saw that this morning, and it kind of made me sick. I mean, my publisher's forum has a PR forum too, but mostly it's just to ask the PR/marketing person questions, not bounce silly ideas around.

It'll make the participants feel warm and fuzzy toward PA, and make it seem as if they are doing something. It's easy to lie or misrepresent on the PAMB. Even the most outlandish claims are rarely challenged. [e.g., the guy who claimed to encounter 10 [!] people carrying copies of his poetry book and seeking autographs, while he and his co-workers were meeting at a local restaurant.

Hey, this won't last long: the new folder allows for guest log-in and posting.

This may be a bit OT, but can someone explain to me why PA writers always list the ISBN below or next to the book title? What's the big deal? True published authors don't seem to do that, ever.

MeowGirl said:

This may be a bit OT, but can someone explain to me why PA writers always list the ISBN below or next to the book title?

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So that you can order their book. It's a desperate hope that somewhere, somebody will buy it.

Actually, the PR person from my publisher told me to always put the ISBN next to the title in any piece of promotional material I send out. Like e-mails to places I want to make an appearance, bookmarks, business cards, PR's, that sort of thing. She put it next to the title in the media packets too, in several locations, because that's how most book shops, libraries and schools order books.

I don't put it in my signature on forums or in correspondence type e-mail, because I put my website link there, and that will give the ISBN. The average joe looks up books by title and/or author name.

Christine N. said:

Actually, the PR person from my publisher told me to always put the ISBN next to the title in any piece of promotional material I send out. Like e-mails to places I want to make an appearance, bookmarks, business cards, PR's, that sort of thing. I don't put it in my signature on forums or in correspondence type e-mail, because I put my website link there, and that will give the ISBN.

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Thanks for the clarification.

The Fleecing of the PA Lambs

Goooooooood Moooooorning PublishAmerica Lambkin! This is your wake-up call! You're being shorn by the publisher you chose.

Of course they were willing to wait. You are part of their cash flow, and you are their best customer for your book.

This is vanity press, on the installment plan. Instead of taking a chunk of cash up front from the wannabe author, PA takes it from a bit at a time, with every book sale. That's the real magic of POD for PA: the cost of running a vanity press has never been lower ... low enough that they can accept thousands of authors, ask no up-front fees, and still make a couple hundred bucks profit per author.

Real publishers make money selling books to people the authors don't know and will never meet ... and real publishers sell thousands of books. PublishAmerica makes money selling a few dozens of books to the author, the author's friends and family, and seldom makes sales to people outside the author's immediate sphere of influence.



If all you want is a book in your hands, and a few copies for friends and family ... lulu.com can deliver it better and cheaper than PA. LuLu won't tie the book into a seven year contract and LuLu won't tell you to shape up or ship out if you criticize them. To my knowledge, no one has ever been banned from the LuLu forums for what they said about LuLu. Odd that ... a vanity press named for a comic book character is more tolerant of dissent than the wrapped-in-the-flag vanity press named for a major country.

If you have dreams of being a nationally known author, with books on shelves in libraries and bookstores all over the USA, it's not going to happen. The harsh reality is that PA has stacked the deck agains you ever selling more than a few dozen books. The prices PA sets are way too high for the market, the discounts they allow are way too low to make them stockable, and their astoundingly low acceptance standards means that the few good writers are lost in a pile of slush.


Sigh .... makes me want to write a book just for PA ... maybe Mobile Midnights? Tucson Twilights?

Wonderful ideas. Collective marketing would be so much more beneficial for everyone concerned than anything we can do on our own. I kind of think PA would have to take the lead on it, and it would be as difficult as organizing a labor union, but it would work.
The "traditional" publishers have a strangle hold on marketing, and they stiff arm us at every traditional avenue, except through internet book stores. PA has a large collection of published authors, who collectively could make an end run around traditional marketing. I suspect that 90-something percent of people don't have any idea there is an alturnative source of books. If PA, the online book stores that support us and the majority of authors whithin the fold could band together for collective and mutually supportive advertizing efforts, this could be very big.

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As my old Granny always used to say when confronted with something beyond her comprehension... Oh dearie, dearie me, what's the world coming to...

Sigh.

Collective marketing would be so much more beneficial for everyone concerned than anything we can do on our own. I kind of think PA would have to take the lead on it, and it would be as difficult as organizing a labor union, but it would work.
The "traditional" publishers have a strangle hold on marketing, and they stiff arm us at every traditional avenue, except through internet book stores. PA has a large collection of published authors, who collectively could make an end run around traditional marketing. I suspect that 90-something percent of people don't have any idea there is an alturnative source of books. If PA, the online book stores that support us and the majority of authors whithin the fold could band together for collective and mutually supportive advertizing efforts, this could be very big.

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Bolding mine. A) PA would never do such a thing, because if they wanted to, they would already be doing it, B)the "traditional" publishers have something PA doesn't have - a tried and true vetting system for submissions and real editors/cover artists/marketing people, C)90% of the people don't read, so that statistic doesn't matter and again, PA wouldn't support you, because if they wanted to sell books to the public at large, they would already be doing it.

another idiotic statement from the PAMB:

"PA books are only returnable if ordered through Ingrams and if they are returned by the bookstore Ingrams charges a 10% restocking fee, which of course is charged back to the Publisher and if the publisher has paid royalties on that amount, the royalties plus the restocking fee are charged to the authors account. Hardly worth the effort I would say.
Besides that, having your book in their store is not doing you any favors at all. When my first book came out I had a friend who managed a borders where I lived. He ordered five copies of my book, I was excited to say the least. Basically here is what it boiled down too.
My book retailed for$17.95 which means he bought it for 10.77 each. When it was all said and done my royality was a whopping .87 cents per book. That is not worth my time. The only ones who came out ahead in the process was the bookstore and PA. I decide right there that I could market the book myself and put the money that the bookstore made into my pocket instead of the cash register of the store.
Besides that only 25% of all books sold in the United States are sold in bookstores. I now have centered my marketing to the other 75%."

first, your stats are wrong - but you know that, right?
second, what sort of idiot refuses shelf space in a bookstore so that you can personally beg people to buy your book? Your audience should be the people you *don't* know...

I swear, it's hard to read some of these posts without wondering if they live in the same reality as the rest of us.

and don't get me started on the WOW boards...

*shakes head*

When my first book came out I had a friend who managed a borders where I lived. He ordered five copies of my book, I was excited to say the least. Basically here is what it boiled down too.
My book retailed for$17.95 which means he bought it for 10.77 each. When it was all said and done my royality was a whopping .87 cents per book. That is not worth my time.

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That's why real publishers put them on 2,000 bookstore shelves. How about $21,540--is that worth your time?

LloydBrown said:

That's why real publishers put them on 2,000 bookstore shelves. How about $21,540--is that worth your time?

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I should get so lucky.

On the PAMB someone's crowing about receiving a letter from Mrs Jeb Bush [Fla First Lady]. Someone suggested taking this to their local paper--how it's worth a front-page story.

Don't these guys know that anyone who writes or sends something to a public official will receive a "nice" response? I used to write to everyone when I was a kid, and got photos and responses from the president--even Queen Elizabeth. Obviously, they were prepared by a secretary, but it's cool when you're 10.

I just read that post by the PA author who received a letter from Mrs.Jeb Bush. "Thank you so much, PA. You are the best publishing company there is. I love PA."

Does anyone here feel as I do, that you just wish you could post on the PA Message Boards with facts (and also w/out getting deleted)? Not to burst their happy bubble over there, but to maybe help them to understand being pubbed by PA doesn't mean you're a "professional now" as a guy on those message boards said.

In response to a request for PA to have a marketing department:

PAMB said:

With thousands of books being published by PA, it would be difficult for them to give equal marketing attention to every book published. PA would have to be very selective as to which books get that kind of attention. Needless to say, it would cause much agitation for those authors who don't get their books pushed.

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Am I confused, or is this guy saying that PA is not selective about the books they publish print?

Sassenach said:

On the PAMB someone's crowing about receiving a letter from Mrs Jeb Bush [Fla First Lady]. Someone suggested taking this to their local paper--how it's worth a front-page story.

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Mrs George Bush must be under the impression that PA's the most successful publisher in America. I've lost count of the number of PA authors who send her their books. She's probably got them marked down as a distinct possibilty for George's memoirs when his time in office is up. Wonder if they'll try to negotiate on the dollar advance.

My guess is that it'll be posted to the Up in Lights section, and the author in question will then draw many more of his/her author friends into the clutches of PA...based on everything PA has done for them...

From what I read, she's thinking of sending her book now to George and his wife, now that she has an "in" with Jeb.

http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=16766
Under the heading, "Is this a good idea," a poster suggests:

Why don't we all become shareholders in Publish America!
As owners we could promote our books for a nominal fee (cheaply)
because of sheer numbers we could get it done.

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Another poster answers:

I believe PA is a privately owned company and therefore not a public company that offers shares. Of course you can always start your own publishing house.

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Uh. . . .