Return of a Man Named PAMB and its Quotes

So, I should go ahead an continue my readings? Everything will be okay.

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Yes, everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.

Love how they avoided telling her that "available through Barnes & Noble" doesn't mean "shelved at Barnes & Noble stores".

Asshats.

And on the same thread, another author adds:

I don't know, but my sales via Amazon have dropped to nothing due to the extreme pricing of my book, used and new. Apparently book sellers are selling them for an extremely high price through Amazon, but why??? The book only is priced by PublishAmerica for $21.95, I don't get it. Why did this happen to us??? Maybe PublishAmerica can clear the air for us and anyone else in this boat, which is sinking.

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Anyone else remember several years ago when PA was referred to as a mighty pirate ship? (Especially by one of PA's most vocal cheerleaders who was subsequently left to "twist in the wind" after he faked his own death?)

Maybe they're priced high so no copies will sell through any outlet other than as a resale from the author who self-purchased his books directly from PA?

Amazon sellers can set any price they like.

I recently looked up an old out-of-print paperback which had used prices ranging from .01-188.00.

They set the price--don't mean anyone gonna buy. That dog don't hunt, that book don't sell.


Dear PA Lurkers, PA doesn't want your book selling to the public, just to YOU.

Why do you think all those PA titles show as being "out of print" or "out of stock". Ain't nobody gonna buy anything with that showing.

Short answer--you're hosed, and PA sold you that hose, and PA is gonna try selling you MORE hose.

The mind, she boggles:

A couple of things:
1: Can you make a living off of PA published books? Of course you can. If you sell enough books you can make a living writing no matter who your publisher is.

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Very wrong. Even if you got a modest loan to buy huge amount of books, you could never make a living off of PA books.

You wrote a book, ok, fine, now what? PA published the book for you. You now have a book.

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Correction. PA printed the book for you. Publishing is far more than simply physically creating a book.

Are you going to sell enough copies to make a living at writing books? There is a two-fold answer to this, one: If you, not PA, but YOU, have an advertising campaign in place, if YOU have a national platform for your book's exposure, and if YOU are willing to do all the work necessary to be successful, you will be successful.

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Let's do a base of comparison with PA's favourite name, Random House. PA has:

-no advertising campaign
-no distribution
-no marketing plan
-no one willing to do the work necessary

Random House has:

-marketing team
-sales team
-distribution channels
-PR (I'm guessing)

Knowing that, go up to strangers on the street and ask them if they've ever read a PublishAmerica book, know of anyone published with PA, or even heard of PA. Then ask those same questions about Random House. My guess is you'll find more people who've heard of RH than PA. Then take a minute and try and guess just why that might be.

Too many authors on this board seem to think that because they wrote a book, that someone else should do all the work for them to make them millionaires. It doesn't work that way.

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Well he was right about the millionaires part, I'll give him that. I guess all those commercial publishers are doing it wrong, doing all that work selling books to the public. Gosh who thought of that crazy idea?

2. In PA's defence, they will help you with press releases and book signings, but press releases and book signings do not make a successful author, all that's up to you.

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Got to give him credit, he's kind of right here too. However book signings don't make or break one's sales. People do them if they want, and those who don't seem to sell just fine. In other words it couldn't hurt, and other publishers, you know, actually make sure books arrive on time all the time.

It is mostly about exposure, no one will buy your books if they do not know your book exists.

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And the public at large will never know your book exists thanks to PA. Don't you think they'd be making an effort to give your book exposure if they actually cared about that?

Many writers just want to be writers, not marketers, not advertisers, not public figures, but the truth is, you have to be all those things if you want your writing to pay the bills.

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Did Stephen King ever have to market, advertise and become a public figure to live off his writing?

Okay unfair comparison, but still. Very few of us will actually be able to live purely off our own writings. But let me ask this of our own published authors here: are you guys complaining with regards to what you're making?

If not one of 40,000 PA authors has yet made a living from their PA books so far, I'd say odds are good that no one will.

PVish said:

And on the same thread, another author adds:

Anyone else remember several years ago when PA was referred to as a mighty pirate ship? (Especially by one of PA's most vocal cheerleaders who was subsequently left to "twist in the wind" after he faked his own death?)

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Ah, you must mean Shemp, PA's all-purpose combination one man shill puppet and goon squad. God, what a peckerhead.

And when his usefulness to them came to an an end, they threw him off the back end of the mighty pirate ship like a pellegra-ridden stowaway.

Too many authors on this board seem to think that because they wrote a book, that someone else should do all the work for them to make them millionaires. It doesn't work that way.

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No, it does not.

The only way I'll become a millionaire is if a LOT of people buy my books--as in several times more than the thousands who have already done so.

Considering that in 10 years PA has sold--at a generous estimate--only 5000 copies to the public (not the writers), that ain't gonna happen to any PA writer however much promotion he or she does.

Dear PA Lurkers, my most recent title sold just under 5000 copies in the first six MONTHS of its release. One book. Six months. I expect it has surpassed that decade's worth of PA sales by now.

Overall in my career, my collective titles have sold more copies than PA--including those bought by its 40,000 (happy, dammit!) writers.

I'm just one mid-list writer. Multiply me by all the other mid-listers you see in the bookstores, and then consider whether or not you still think PA is a good career move.

No, I am not a millionaire, though I have hopes.

The only millionaires made at PA are the Stooges.

They promote-promote-promote--PA. Constantly. Annoyingly.

And how many "buy now" promotion notices have you gotten in the mail from them this month?

None of my publishers do that. They're too busy getting books into stores.

PA is too busy getting your cash into their account.

Meiners used to live here so he could have fun with his "hellocopter." Congratulate yourself, dear PA writer, it was your money that got him into the community.

Yeah but . . .

If I write 100 books and pub them with PA, and the average book sells 75 copies, and I get 8% royalties, then I will get $15K.

Now, it I do this every quarter, that's $60K per year. Not too shabby. I just need to do 400 books per year.

Sorry, I hope I had the sarcasm light on, I wouldn't want anyone to think I am serious. PA would love that, because you would just have to want to have a few (dozen) copies on hand. Just for emergencies.

So get busy folks!

Heh-heh. Yup-- you hit just the right note of insane optimism.

I'd rather write one book, get a 15K advance, and live on that while I write another book, and live on that while...

If I write 4 books a year, I get 60,000.00. No need to worry about promotion, my publishers can deal with that.

For a cool million I need only write about 67 books.

Less, if my advances go up.

I better log off and get crackin'!

The ultra-high prices are usually international stores that have an agreement with Ingrams or Baker and Taylor. They take the price of the book, and take the cost of have Ingrams ship it to their country, add in their profit and overhead, and list it in their store. Every book in the Ingrams catalog is available this way, assuming you're willing to pay the high fees. It doesn't mean they have the book, or even that they can actually get the book from Ingrams.

Now the normal high prices--that's probably just so PA can sell to the author at a discount and maintain the illusion that the author can make money reselling his books at the cover price.

Heck, some of us have always had a very realistic view of their chances of becoming a millionaire through writing, and instead bought a bunch of Apple stock at $10.83 per share. Since heck, the chances of writing a book that will let you retire to the north shore of Kauai at the age of 28 are vanishingly slim.

So whatever else is said about my experience with a commercial publisher, nobody can accuse me of expecting them to make me rich. I am far more practical.

(Apologies for semi-seriousness; it's past 2 AM here)

Queen of Swords said:

This author previously posted about how her latest order of hardcover books arrived in terrible condition - pages glued together, covers broken, etc. The post was sent cornfield-ward.

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I am so ashamed of the poor quality that I will end up throwing them out.

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Why? Why why why why why? I've been thinking - haven't there been enough badly bound and glued PA books to seed a whole artistic movement?

(I'm so deeply sorry about this. I tend to get this sort of weird ideas after reading stuff about William Gibson's Agrippa every now and then.)

Perhaps the betrayed PA authors should band together to create something monumental already. They should look at their works not just as literature, but as artist's books. These books are no longer merely literature as we know it. At the hands of their monstrous printing house, they've also become decaying objects, a focus of curiosity on their own due to their origins. Each such failure to produce a reasonably robust volume is a chapter in an ongoing tale, a tale full of hopes and dreams and betrayal and defeat... and hopefully of realisation and new resolution.

(Like I said, it's past 2 o'clock in the night and I'm not very coherent mood. I think that explosion I just heard was my pretentiousness meter. It's in the closet, buried under the carcass of my 166MHz Pentium machine, last I remember. Moving on...)

What can these badly glued books tell us when we consider their origins? What kind of craftsmen allow such books to be packed off and sent to their awaiting customers? What goes in the minds of the people who run the machines? What worries, what supressed rage, what indifference allows these things to come to fruition? How can this kind of process possibly exist?

What do these badly glued books tell of the printer's relationship with the employer - just following orders, or complicit in shattering hearts? More importantly, what do these books tell of the printer's relationship with the author?

Oh boy oh boy, this is starting to sound like fertile ground for artistic discourse. Let's move on to even bigger questions: What do the badly glued books tell of us? What kind of society allows badly glued books to exist? What kind—

osts the message quickly and hides in the bed, pretending to be asleep as the white-coat people check what's going on in here:

I once got a batch of (!!!FREE!!!) author copies for my fifth book.

Half of them ended on p. 158, the next page being 47, running to 88, then starting at some other page number.

Clearly a major binding error had happened.

I called my editor. She called the printer. Someone got a big can of whup-ass opened and dumped on them. (If know my editor and I do!)

A few days later bookstores across the country got a recall on that bad batch, all copies replaced with new ones ASAP. In less than a week it was all sorted out.

I got a written apology from the manager of the book printing company. He was sending me a new batch of copies, and I thanked him for taking care of things so quickly.

Note all that and learn, Dear PA writer.

Your publisher is supposed to do that kind of thing. If PA is a real publisher--and you know they are not--you don't have to worry about crappy copies arriving late.

Real publishers do business in the grownup world and take responsibility for their mistakes. PA tries to make you think it's your fault.

Are you mad yet? You should be.

Real printers will correct misspellings of the author's name and book title, too.

Ripped (or cut and pasted) from the headlines

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gfTd3pEM9hG-YDpOTRJDBFEIppAAD9F585080

These silly people need to talk to PublishAmerica. Readers don't mind errors in books! /sarcasm

Cookbook pulped over 'ground black people' typo
(AP) – 4 days ago
SYDNEY — An Australian publisher is reprinting 7,000 cookbooks over a recipe for pasta with "salt and freshly ground black people."
Penguin Group Australia's head of publishing, Bob Sessions, acknowledged the proofreader for the Pasta Bible should have picked up the error, but called it nothing more than a "silly mistake."
The "Pasta Bible" recipe for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto was supposed to call for black pepper.
"We're mortified that this has become an issue of any kind and why anyone would be offended, we don't know," he told The Sydney Morning Herald for a story printed Saturday.
"We've said to bookstores that if anyone is small-minded enough to complain about this ... silly mistake, we will happily replace (the book) for them."
The reprint will cost Penguin 20,000 Australian dollars ($18,500), but books already in stores will not be recalled because doing so would be "extremely hard," Sessions said.
There was no answer at Penguin's offices Sunday

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Oh dear ... this won't last long.

Just curious has anyone seen their books on Amazon or Barnes and noble, Mine was released in Jan2010 still has not made amazon as of yet? I asked author support but got no reply? My book thru LuLu was released in February 2010 it was on amazon by end of March? Is ther a riff between Amazon and PA or something?

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Headed toward 5 MONTHS without a new book being available on Amazon. 5 MONTHS after publication. Most commercial books are listed PRIOR to the release date.

Cyia said:

. . . Most commercial books are listed PRIOR to the release date.

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Even my modest efforts via Lulu (four books with ISBNs) showed up promptly on Amazon, B&N, etc.

--Ken

PA and Borders

"My" Borders experience was pretty much the same. We didn't get as far as my supplying the books. They view PA as a p.o.d., and I'm guessing they're right, although I've had a book published by a p.o.d. and their service and prices were light-years ahead of PA.

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Which is pretty much what we tell people too.

I would suggest contacting a library and setting up your signing through them. Or your local church perhaps. Or a senior center.

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Still not going to solve the problem of where the books for the signing come from. The senior center seems unlikely to order them, which means the author will have to shell out.

The posts were deleted. The original post remains.

ResearchGuy said:

Even my modest efforts via Lulu (four books with ISBNs) showed up promptly on Amazon, B&N, etc.

--Ken

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Heck, my "Be a Sex-Writing Strumpet" book, which Uncle Jim so kindly put up on Lulu for me, doesn't even have an ISBN and is listed on my Author page at Goodreads. I have no idea how they found it, but it's there!

Unimportant said:

Stacia, Jim mentioned the book on Absolute Write, so I'd guess many thousands of people know about your book.

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I wasn't trying to plug it or anything, I didn't mean it that way...