The Newer Never-Ending PublishAmerica / America Star Books Thread

Gah! Don't give them ideas!

update i still havent heard anything, they did send a email stating that they chopped my book down to 19.95 and that i could get 75% off of shipping and oly pay50% off of each book. this weekend isnt this nice!

pink lily said:

With just the domain name, perhaps there is a slight risk, but not if the website proves to be a fraud warning about a publishing scam.

Click to expand...

And, even if they never do a thing about it, bringing more official attention to PA's activities while accomplishing the true goals of having fun and spreading the word could hardly be a bad thing. It would be another place for SE's to find, perhaps more appealing to some than a forum and if it included links to, feeds from and/or an archive of the various PA threads here, as well as links to other sites of interest, feeds from reliable publishing blogs, etc, it would be a very valuable tool indeed.

If I knew anything about making/maintaining websites, this would be an announcement of it's creation. Sadly, I don't, but if anyone decides to do it, i'd be happy to help out with whatever grunt-work I'm qualified to do or they wish to teach me to do. I'm trying to learn more about sites, social networking, etc anyway ;-).

RE: the Statement of Account clause

Am I reading that right? Does that say PA won't pay royalties unless the amount is a minimum of $49??? I've read it three times and that's how I'm interpreting it, but maybe I'm misinterpreting it.

Please, someone tell me I'm reading it wrong. I might give myself a concussion if I'm not and I headdesk it over someone actually signing a contract with that clause in it.

**goes back read it a 4th time, just to make sure**

No, you're reading that right, so spare your poor forehead

More discussion here.

Jersey Chick said:

RE: the Statement of Account clause

Am I reading that right? Does that say PA won't pay royalties unless the amount is a minimum of $49??? I've read it three times and that's how I'm interpreting it, but maybe I'm misinterpreting it.

Click to expand...

While not defending the clause, it seems to me that anyone who believes they are signing with a normal commercial print publisher (which would be most of PA's new authors, I think) would assume that reaching $49 in royalties wouldn't be a problem.

It's only later that they realize that's a clause with teeth.

My husband said the same thing - but I think it'd still give me pause before signing it.

**sigh** it's hard to think like that - I'm always convinced I'm never going to sell any copies of anything.

Jersey Chick said:

Am I reading that right? Does that say PA won't pay royalties unless the amount is a minimum of $49??? I've read it three times and that's how I'm interpreting it, but maybe I'm misinterpreting it.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you're reading it right. It means they don't pay royalties (to those with this clause) until the amount accumulates to $49. It's not setting a minimum of $49 for each statement period.

However, I daresay a majority of books never reach even the $49, and since many of the people PA attracts aren't all the hep to these things in the business world, if they don't ever cancel the contract and they never accumulate $49, they might never get paid. Bad bad bad.

For what it's worth, I retired from the insurance business back in '03 (ran my own agency for nearly twenty years), and every brokerage contract I signed had a "minimum commission" provision. This was usually on the order of "you won't be paid renewal commissions until they reach X dollars" (usually around twenty-five bucks or so).

For most of the companies I brokered with, that wasn't a problem, as I was placing enough business with them to be well past that theshold each month. But there were a couple of specialized firms where, once I made the intial commission, they didn't pay me another nickel until that dollar point was reached.

Terie said:

I'm not sure if you're reading it right. It means they don't pay royalties (to those with this clause) until the amount accumulates to $49. It's not setting a minimum of $49 for each statement period.

However, I daresay a majority of books never reach even the $49, and since many of the people PA attracts aren't all the hep to these things in the business world, if they don't ever cancel the contract and they never accumulate $49, they might never get paid. Bad bad bad.

Click to expand...

See, that's possible - but it's also wiggly enough for them to enforce every royalty period. It's doesn't not say it, either.

Even if it's just a one time thing - it's still something that'd stop and make me think.

I dont think its true, because they always send me 1.37 checks or either 1.40 check last month. so it seems to mean if you had to have 49.00 worth then they wouldnt send tiny checks, they would wait and send you a check for that or nothing at all until you reached 49.00. god i wish i could get out of that contract.

Wanda, the $49 limit is a new addition to the contract. Yours is over a year old, so it's not there. They have to send you your checks, but they don't have to send anyone who signs on now a check until they rack up $49.

Does anyone know if they're at least sending status reports to show the people involved how much - if any - they've earned? I wouldn't think they'd be able to forgo that step.

Jersey Chick said:

See, that's possible - but it's also wiggly enough for them to enforce every royalty period. It's doesn't not say it, either.

Click to expand...

No, on this point the contract isn't wiggly. It says:

Author agrees that Publisher shall withhold royalty payments until the amount or royalties payable has reached an aggregate of forty-nine dollars.

Click to expand...

Bolding mine. That means until the amount accumulates to $49. Not saying it's good, just clarifying what the contract stipulates.

This is where the wiggle room is for books that never accumulate to $49 in royalties:

Any amounts withheld shall be retained by Publisher until the end of the royalty period during which publication of the book is discontinues. At that time, the amount retained shall be paid to Author.

Click to expand...

As someone else said in the other thread, how exactly do they define 'discontinues' for a POD book? There's the wiggle room.

Gravity said:

For what it's worth, I retired from the insurance business back in '03 (ran my own agency for nearly twenty years), and every brokerage contract I signed had a "minimum commission" provision. This was usually on the order of "you won't be paid renewal commissions until they reach X dollars" (usually around twenty-five bucks or so).

Click to expand...

I don't think the clause is unreasonable in itself as such, although $49 is a bit high. It's a combination of bad things, like a) we know that once friends and relatives are tapped out, sales generally come to a standstill, and b) there's no Reversion of Rights clause that kicks in when sales fall below an agreed upon number within a specified time, say f.x. less that 200 copies sold in two consecutive royalty periods, or similar.

Overall, it just seems like insult added to injury in an already remarkably abusive contract.

all of the above is true, i hope many people will not sign them as a publisher. why did they stop giving the two author books?

wanda4545 said:

all of the above is true, i hope many people will not sign them as a publisher. why did they stop giving the two author books?

Click to expand...

Because it cost them money. Too many people who signed with PA did it because they only wanted to realize the dream of "holding their book in their hands". The free author copies allowed them to do that without ever giving PA a dime. Now, anyone who wants to hold their book is guaranteed money.

Cyia said:

Does anyone know if they're at least sending status reports to show the people involved how much - if any - they've earned? I wouldn't think they'd be able to forgo that step.

Click to expand...

Standard royalty statements, from real publishers, include that information.

PA, however, isn't a real publisher, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear they left off that detail.

The Vanity POD I've used for my niche projects withholds royalties until they accrue to $20, so I get a couple of checks per year.

HOWEVER, unlike PA, it emails monthly statements that list numbers of books sold for each of the previous three months and how much royalty has accrued. (Plus, it pays royalties for author purchases and offers free shipping for orders of 20 books or more.)

The clause is unreasonable in the amount and that's enough to give me pause before signing it. But again, I know what PA's about...

thats true because thats all I have is my copy, and my friend has the other and my bestfriend bought her one, and a couple of others that were sold on amazon. But, its so sad to work that hard on anything and then this happens.

Jersey Chick said:

The clause is unreasonable in the amount and that's enough to give me pause before signing it. But again, I know what PA's about...

Click to expand...

Many commercial publishers have a similar clause, and for a similar amount.

The reason PA's clause is bad is because of of PA itself--because they don't sell enough books to earn $49 in royalties for their authors.

Yeah we cant do anything with them at all. Except let them sit in the closet and collect dust.

wanda4545 said:

Yeah we cant do anything with them at all. Except let them sit in the closet and collect dust.

Click to expand...

There are tens of thousands of PA books collecting dust in closets and garages all over American, while the authors' credit cards continue to collect interest.

~brian~

Terie said:

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.

Click to expand...

Long term investing, 1% is a fools rate. Stocks yield 10-12% over the long run, and even if you play it conservatively you can still walk away with 8-9%. Seven years at that rate will get you 110,000 on a 146k principal.

I wish that I would have checked them out more, a regret i will have always, but you have to think if they are on tv with Dr.PHil he would check them out also to make sure that they are legal to begin with in case any of us out there would like to use use them. I remember that woman inviting people on tv to call them or write them, when she dropped that ladys contract on tv. She said " There are to many writers out there that would like to be published and they don't have to have someone sign anything with them, thats why I wrote. what a illusion that this was.