The Newer Never-Ending PublishAmerica / America Star Books Thread
- Thread starter James D. Macdonald
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ResearchGuy, 146K is not a "few" thousand to me.
That's a hunk of cash in my part of the country.
That's a paid-off mortgage, a new car, and me quitting my day job to write full time. Hell, I might even lose weight since I'd have more time to exercise in my new swimming pool, which is tastefully accessorized with a tanned, buff, and cheerful cabana boy who also cooks and cleans.
However low the interest rate might be for PA, I'm sure the PA writers would rather have their small checks than no checks at all.
That's a hunk of cash in my part of the country.
That's a paid-off mortgage, a new car, and me quitting my day job to write full time. Hell, I might even lose weight since I'd have more time to exercise in my new swimming pool, which is tastefully accessorized with a tanned, buff, and cheerful cabana boy who also cooks and cleans.
However low the interest rate might be for PA, I'm sure the PA writers would rather have their small checks than no checks at all.
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But that was the principal. At today's interest rates of around 1%, in seven years (if they held that low) the cummulative interest would be less than $6,000. I'm not rich, but that qualifies as 'a few thousand' in my book.
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PA has THAT much in accumulated, unpaid royalties? Really? How do you know that?
--Ken
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3,000 authors over the past year, earning $49 in royalties over their books' lives, comes to around $146K.
I did it !!!!!!!!!!!! i ask them to get out of my contract due to the fact that its not selling online and the bookstores will not stock and if i had 30 books in my hand they still wouldnt give me a booksigning and they didnt pay me for what i had seen sold online from amazon in the last 6 months. What do ya'll think. was that stupid are smart, so we can all see what they say to this, lets see what they tell me, 300.00 like they did Don. I am just ticked off and thought we should see since they moved to a new building, what they are saying now. dont wory, I sent a copy of the email that i sent them to my bestfriend as evidence.
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Ok, but since royalties are usually not paid on author purchases, which account for most sales, and royalties over that amount ($49) would (supposedly) be paid, reducing the average that is on hold, the actual amount sitting on hold is probably much smaller than any $146,000, I'd think. What is the average royalties, the real one, a few dollars per title?
Over time, the total would add up, I grant you. But I doubt that the money sits in the bank long.
--Ken
I was thinking about this while ago, and this is a reasonable commonsense answer somewhat proving that they know they are a scam. I sent in two new and different pieces of material a few months ago, to Pa just to se what they would do. They rejected both and said send it somewhere else, so why would a scam artist that takes everything good or bad, and adds their own mistakes to it and then charges for everything now, turn it down. Because the author is not making them money on the book they already have by buying it themselfves. they already know this is the only way they are going to make money and they know that we know it too. is this a fair reason to say they know they scam people.
It's PA's way of saying... "You aren't falling for our sales pitches and we see you haven't personally bought any copies of your own book, therefore you are not a good risk for us to print more titles. If in the future you decide to purchase at least 50 copies of your unedited book that we graciously added more errors to, and gave a steep price tag (plus shipping), we MAY consider printing your next work. Thank you and have a good day!"
yep I would pretty say thats true. wonder if they will let me out of contract after writing that one. would you like me to email you a copy of what i wrote them.
You can send it to me if you would like to. I would think that you will be hearing a snarky reply from PA instead of a contract release letter though. They don't tend to give in on the first request. (or the next, or the next, etc.) Make sure you keep every email you receive from PA too.
check ypur email now T, it should be there. i had to forward what i sent them to you. see if you think its nice enough for them to consider. i have copies of it dont wory about that. you and a friend will also see their replies.
they tick me off pretty good that they will not accept something and they are going to mess it up.
do you know how you read on the amazon site your book cover front and back, well they added all kinds of words to that and mis spelled them on top of that thats not on my book that i have at home. what can you do about it?
Request to terminate PA contract
You will most likely get an email that says PA cannot possibly afford to let you out of the contract because they would lose money, and that they need those 7 long years to turn a profit on your book, or at least recoup their investment. (Hardy-har-har!) However, out of the goodness of their hearts, they will give your request favorable consideration if you buy something like 50 copies of your book, plus shipping of course.
Personally, I would not give those liars and cheats the satisfaction of getting even a dime of my money. In addition, it doesn't make economic sense. You would spend a lot of money, with no assurance of ever making any money off of that book after the rights are returned.
My advice: just move on--after you give them written notice that you do not want the contract to automatically renew for another 7 years. Keep a copy of that written notice, and demand a response from PA so that you can prove that they received it. (Keep PA's response, too.)
You will most likely get an email that says PA cannot possibly afford to let you out of the contract because they would lose money, and that they need those 7 long years to turn a profit on your book, or at least recoup their investment. (Hardy-har-har!) However, out of the goodness of their hearts, they will give your request favorable consideration if you buy something like 50 copies of your book, plus shipping of course.
Personally, I would not give those liars and cheats the satisfaction of getting even a dime of my money. In addition, it doesn't make economic sense. You would spend a lot of money, with no assurance of ever making any money off of that book after the rights are returned.
My advice: just move on--after you give them written notice that you do not want the contract to automatically renew for another 7 years. Keep a copy of that written notice, and demand a response from PA so that you can prove that they received it. (Keep PA's response, too.)
that must where the 300.00 comes in? i am not giving them anything at all, i just want to see what they say really. Probably will not even get a email from Miranda or larry or whoever. cant those prior PA employees tel us how to break it? Just asking.
So here is a thought I had today.
Does PA have its stocks public? Because if it has public stocks, I'm sure all of us could buy a few and then we would own PA and could make it shut down. Or go legit. Either one.
Does PA have its stocks public? Because if it has public stocks, I'm sure all of us could buy a few and then we would own PA and could make it shut down. Or go legit. Either one.
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It is privately held. And even if it were public, with stock traded on an exchange, unless you own a very large part of the company, you have no influence.
--Ken
If you want to see what I got, go to "The Truth About PublishAmerica" page of my web site and check out PA's 2nd email of May 28, 2008. I suspect you will get something similar, because most of their emails are canned. (You can see examples of their canned emails on that web site page, too.)
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And for the next step, they'll start retaining all owed royalties in the event the contract is cancelled at the author's request. That way they'll avoid the admin costs associated with cutting a check, even for a small amount. Plus they'll get the added glow of feeling that even though they lost a contract, they managed to stick it to the author one last time.