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ParaDon Books Publishing / Amazon Book Clubs

Giant Baby

Oh, the humanity.
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Can we sit on the pool edge and dangle our toes in the water?

That'll require at least an assistant professorship. Please submit your resume to IW and await his reply.

I'm doomed. I can't swim.

You could have, you know. It's your publisher's ugly website that's robbed you of the ability to swim. I certainly hope you've learned your lesson now, you published author, you.

But it's fun in here! *sulks*

This thread is not about fun, this thread is about... things that are not fun. Please go insert 5 grammatical errors to each and every page of your WIP as penance. Thank you.
 

LindaJeanne

On a small world west of wonder
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According to post #51, we must all be married, female English professors who eschew the use of caps. Everybody else, out of the pool!

Aw, phooey.

I have a computer science degree, a library science degree, and a boyfriend. Does that count?

PS -- and I'm in favor of the Oxford comma!
 
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CobraMisfit

I want to be Comic Sans.
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For those of you playing along at home - IntelligentWriter is indeed posting from exactly the same IP that the person purporting to represent ParaDon was emailing me from, earlier today.

Quelle surprise!


What?! No WAY!

*clutches pearls. collapses into lounge chair*
 

benbradley

It's a doggy dog world
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I knew I should have invested in corn...
:popcorn:

And far be it from me to second-guess The Owner of This Site, but I'd change that user subtitle title to "Sock Puppet, Tar And Feather At Will."
 

Unimportant

No COVID yet. Still masking.
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Please excuse my newbie question :eek: but I'm intrigued. Not many of the AW'ers here seem particularly surprised by this... childish comment of a supposedly professional firm. (It's so surreal that at first I thought it had to be a joke.) Now I've read quite a bit of the PA threads, but is this sort of behaviour so common in publishing that pretty much none of you bat an eyelid?

The recent, similar response from Alleviate Publications was actually more childish, more unprofessional, and more entertaining.
 

Calla Lily

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Anyone NOT in favor of the Oxford comma must open a new thread and write in it 1000 times, "I promise to learn, grow, and punctuate more better." No copy-paste allowed! The Evil Nun Ruler hovers over your vulnerable knuckles like the Sword of Damocles.

:D

ETA: Must go offline for awhile. I expect to read much hilarity and hijinks upon my return!
 
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Gravity

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I just realized Our Esteemed Yet Grammatically-Challenged Visitor didn't hang around to collect his lovely parting gifts.

"Tell him what he won, Johnny!"

"It's ... a BRAND NEW CAR!!" (cue the crowd screams) :evil
 

Anaquana

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Anyone NOT in favor of the Oxford comma must open a new thread and write in it 1000 times, "I promise to learn, grow, and punctuate more better." No copy-paste allowed! The Evil Nun Ruler hovers over your vulnerable knuckles like the Sword of Damocles.

:D

Oooh... you're evil! :evil
 

CobraMisfit

I want to be Comic Sans.
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I KNEW you were a pearls man, Cobra!

BTW, do you have a resume? You need a resume to get into the thread. Quick, write one.


A resume? Oh carp.

Um, I think I finished the Internet today.

Oh, and I carried an English book in college. Wrote the number for a cute girl in it too. Then promptly misplaced the book. Took it as a sign and majored in math-heavy stuff instead.

That work?
 

Gillhoughly

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Sheesh, I go away for a couple of hours and miss the whole pie fight. Not fair!

IntelligentWriter, you've been busted by the head honcho of AW. We know you're no more Preston Browne than I'm Halle Berry, so move past that.

The flounce lacked professionalism, but we can let that go.

The main point is no one from ParaDon replied to any of the questions posed in my first post on the company.

Lashing out on the Internet about how awful AW is won't do you any good. It will only show a continued lack of professionalism and chase off potential customers.

Yours is not a "new" thing in publishing. Yours a remarkably old thing that is often attempted by failed writers. When they can't interest a legacy publisher in their work they bitch about the unfairness of it all and complain that agents won't give them a chance--anything but admit that their writing might need more work.

So they open their own house. Larry Clopper of PublishAmerica (look up that rat hole on Google) did the same thing, bad grammar and all.

You're inviting writers to send you 25.00 to read their stories. I'm sure there will be a few just dumb enough to do that. AW's job is to let the rest know it's a bad choice.

Unless the questions are addressed--who are your editing staff and their qualifications, who are your cover artists, show samples of their work, what are your distribution channels, etc.--then we've little choice but to conclude you've indulged in rather a lot of exaggeration to make the company seem more than it is.

But that reading fee and the poor grammar were the red flags that tipped off everyone.

For what it's worth, self-publishing, thanks to free venues like Kindle and RARE success stories like Amanda Hocking, is losing its bad rep. Yes, it's still a haven for slush pile rejections, but others have made it work and turned a profit.

I expect you've put considerable work into your website--with the exception of proofreading and grammar checks--and are spamming as many resource sites as you can find on Google.

But the fact stands: you're an amateur with no real resume and expect others with even less experience to pay you 25.00 to read their work.

Quit now and get a real job. You want to learn about publishing? Work for a publisher.

But polish up those grammar skills. More than once it's been noted that English is apparently a second language for you. Fix that. Plenty of others have.
 

cryaegm

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So, this is what happens when I play Batman: AC.:Wha: I miss all the fun stuff.

Damn it. *Goes back to page one to read it all.*

ETA: Now, I wonder what else I've been missing these couple of days. All because I wanted to play Batman: AC. D:
 
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Anninyn

Stealing your twiglets.
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I was busy in Skyrim and all this happens while I'm trying to murder my way out of prison. Typical.

Sadly, I cannot comment in this thread as I only have an A level in English Literature.
 

mscelina

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you
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You know what's really disturbing? I'm too busy working in legitimate publishing these days to get in on a good scammer thrashing.

Life as I know it is over.

*sniff*

*disclaimer--the Celina who created this post is in no way, shape or form the same Celina mentioned amidst all the grammatical errors on the ParaDon website. No way, no how.*
 
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triceretops

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Confession is good for the artistic soul, IW. You would be surprised how many publishers have been welcomed back here, and under new light and friendship.

I once stood in a line of applicants for a job. My turn at the desk, the interviewer asked if I had any licenses or certificates. I told him I was a certified pre-delivery service technician . He wrote it down.

When I turned to leave, a stunning female (Helen of Troy face--body by Michelangelo) put her hand on my shoulder and said, "How sweet that you deliver babies."

I saw a profound wonderment and admiration in her eyes. I would have carried on and fibbed like a kid after snitching pudding, believing that this guise was worth at least a lunch date, but I snapped out it 'cause my soul was in dire need of an overhaul. I confessed, "I'm sorry, but I worked for Toyota, where I prepped new cars before they were sold."

Her eyes crossed (beat), then she patted my shoulder. With a generous grin she said, "Then you bring little baby cars into the world. That's wonderful!"

She forgave me. And I knew I would have been damned to forbidden zone if I hadn't told the truth about my real vocation.

Confession is good for the soul.
 
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