Rose colored glasses said:
jean marie - Can you explain this? I'm getting from your posts that you sold several hundred books and yet your contract was cancelled for lack of sales? Maybe I'm confusing you with someone else.
Just curious because it appears that PA randomly cancels contracts even when books are selling, but then refuses to cancel for people who request it.
Deborah-
This might help...the last thing PA wants is a book that sells a few copies each month. That is too much work for to little profit. They want the newbie to order 50-60 books and then go away. If they could figure a way to get large single orders of one book, they'd love that, but that doesn't happen. They love it when the Frank Weaver's of the world order a couple of hundred per order, but the onesie/twosie orders hurt them, so they invoke the clause that can put them our of their misery.
Remember, after the initial order of books, most of the PA authors literally don't sell any more. They love the idea of books signings, when authors will buy a pile of books at one time. Jean Marie wasn't doing that...she was waiting on Borders to order her books. With the discount and small orders, PA said "that's enough....breaks over" and canceller her utilizing their "out" in the contract.
Authors like Changling are of no intersted to PA because he isn't goning to buy any books from them (his is a good book, btw). Newbies are of tremendous interest as they are going to buy books for gifts, signings, reviews, family, etc on one intial order. Once they get their royalty checks, gone like Changling. New set of authors, such as ones waiting over at the PAMB come, old ones go. Strictly their business model.
Remember how they work...they don't print a word. They are brokers....you order, they pull file and contact printer, book is printed, they pay printer. They nor the printer want to run one or two copies at a time.
Hope this helps you and anyone interested in PA. They want the initial order, maybe one more, and then want you out. This helps understand that with "14,000 happy authors", only about 100 (if that many) post at PAMB and the majority of those are new.