New, from a published or soon-to-be published author on the Publish America chat board:
Message:I was laying in bed tonight thinking about those that bash PA. You know what I'm not going t let you people rain on my parade.
No one is here to rain on your parade, Ann. We are here speaking out about the realities of the publishing business because the company that printed your books has fed you a world of lies. See below.
You say that PA will publish anything, well I know for a fact that that's not true. Because I sent them a ms before I double checked it and guess what they didn't take it.
There can be several reasons for this. Most likely they simply reached their limit of manuscripts for that day and rejected everything else out of hand. They only have the capacity to run so many manuscripts through the spellchecker in one day.
I went back over it and redid the work. I sent the same ms to another company and guess what for a lot of money they were willing to take the ms.
At least the second vanity house that you approached was upfront about the costs. PA, on the other hand, charged you at the back-end by inflating the price of your book by @$5 over the cost of similar books on the market. Tell us, how many of your own books are you going to buy?
PA didn't ask and hasn't asked for any money as a matter of fact they gave me a doolar advance.
You do realize that even with a regular small press the advances run in the
thousands of dollars, don't you? That dollar PA gave you was no favour, trust me. They are making it back by inflating the cost of your book and selling it back to you and your family and your friends -- because without placement in a bookstore, who else is going to know about it?
Which maybe to you that doesn't seem like a lot of money but to me that was showing that they have faith in my work.
No Ann. I'm sorry. It simply indicates that you've fallen for PA's scam like so many others.
Also I have read where the PA bashers talk about how sentences aren't always right or words aren't speeled right, guess what I'm reading a book by a well known author and not all of his things are done right and he paid someone to look his work over.
Are you sure he paid someone? Because if he was published by a reputable publishing house, no matter how small, he did not have to pay a dime. Editing (and not just spellchecking) is something that professional publishing houses do for their authors, Ann, because those houses make their money selling books to a discerning public, not just the authors family and friends.
This thought that authors
have to pay for editing is just one of the many misconceptions floating around the PA boards that PA does nothing to refute.
So before you say stuff about the authors that write for PA and how PA isn't any good check with other books and see how they compare.
Recently one of my favourite authors produced a terrible book. It was not just terrible in terms of story (which is often in the eye of the beholder) but the book contained numerous spelling errors, grammatical misuses and repeated phrasings. It was disappointing to see such a weak editorial effort from a major publisher. The reviews for that book were terrible. The current book from the same author is, by contrast, tight as a drum and obviously well-edited.
You can bet that somewhere in that major publishing house, Ann, heads rolled.
So sure, sometimes the major houses produce sub-standard work, but they are still the standard on which everyone is judged. You cannot have read much work from your fellow authors if you can honestly claim that PAs product compares at all to what is published professionally.
No one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes but I don't feel that I made a mistake using PA.
You are correct, no one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes. I hope in six months, when you've run out of friends and family to sell your book to, and your first royalty check comes in, that you still feel you did not make a mistake. I suspect if you do, you will be in the minority.
Maybe I could have gone through another company but I'm glad that they gave a chance to see what I can do.
They gave you nothing really, Ann. What they did is spend very little money to print up a few copies of your work in order to entice you to open your pocketbook and buy more. Have you?
Please come to AW and talk to us. You will be welcomed here and we will discuss the realities of the publishing world. We do not bite (much) and if nothing else you will have had the satisfaction of defending your publisher to the very people who "bash" it, in your view.
That is something very few of your fellow authors can claim to have done.
Best Wishes,
Jeff
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This post has been sanitized by the Nice-O-Matic system. Any comments that might be construed as not politically correct or which might in some manner ever bruise the feelings of any reader in any manner for any reason are unintentional and the author cannot be held responsible for said bruising. This is a feature, not a bug. No authors were maimed, mutilated, killed or made to wear a nightie in public in the production of this post. Please read responsibly. Do not read and drive. Your milage may vary. Read the prospectus before investing, past gain is not an indicator of future earnings. Ed, come back. If you've read this far don't blame me, that's what editors are for. Thanks Ken.
