PAMB and its quotes

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Joanna_S

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In a discussion about sales, a PA booster says that new authors sell, on average "500 books" a year. Someone posits that the number must be for other publishers, and not PA authors. (My own thought is, 500 books? 5,000 books, maybe, and that's for a small publisher)

This is the answer from the PA booster, emphasis mine:

I tend to agree with you that the number is actually lower, but I also belive that PA depends on what the author orders to help them make their money.

Many authors do not want to order copies of their own books, and that is sad.
The book is an extenstion of yourself, and hopefully you will think enough of yourself and what you have written to promote the work.

Some people believe that everyone will run to the bookstore in mas and purchase their book, and this is not reality. We are unknowns in an oversaturated market, why do we think that someone, unless they know us will buy a book from an unknown author.

The same old nonsense "I know how publishing works" answers with the surprising bit of reality that PA depends on them buying their own books. If only he could wake up and understand his own words. But then, one would have to understand how publishing really works to see why there's something so very wrong in PAland.

-- Joanna
 

triceretops

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FROM THE PAMB:


With the book of literary agents having at least ten-thousand entries, I do not have the time, patience or funding to try to find my perfect match. With Publish America, while I don't have an agent, I sure am having a fantastic time going through the process of getting a book published and in my mind, I certainly think that is the better way to go.

AND THIS ONE:

It appears to me that all of the better agents these days don't want to be approached by authors. Instead they chase only authors with proven track records and try to undermine each other. Today they are more like sports agents than the literary agents of yesterday.
You may, however, find someone who is ernestly looking for the next Hemingway, and I wish you luck. I gave up.


I dunno...this just boggles my mind. One is complaining about not having the time and funding to find an agent. Gak! It costs an email and about 20 seconds to send a query. I think that's free, last time I checked.

Oh, yeah, agents don't want to be approached by authors. Only by celebs, and I'll bet they have back-alley drunken fights over them too.
Yeah, agents undermine each other everyday--stealing clients, underhanded deals, smoke and mirrors, ripping off plots, and other dispicable things.

Tri
 

Christine N.

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Why would i want to order copies of my own book when I get a fair few from my publisher for free?

Sigh. Ok, well, I think that many authors might order a copy or two if they run out of authors copies - and most publishers give a good discount and some even count it against royalties.

Most publishers have it in their contract that those copies are NOT for resale. PA COUNTS on the authors reselling - it saves them from having to hire an actual sales team.
 

xhouseboy

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We are unknowns in an oversaturated market, why do we think that someone, unless they know us will buy a book from an unknown author.

It might help if your publisher followed the tried and tested method of getting your book into a bookstore. Then someone might just pick it up, get hooked on the first few pages and purchase it.

Or is that too radical.
 

James D. Macdonald

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...why do we think that someone, unless they know us will buy a book from an unknown author.

Because it happens every day.

Every single multi-published author was unknown once. (The celebrities have a tiny minority of the titles on the shelf.)

Have you, personally, ever gone into a bookstore and bought a book by someone you've never heard of? Of course you have! Now, have you, personally, ever bought a book from an author who approached you in the food court of a mall? No, I didn't think so.
 
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LloydBrown

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One word of caution, a good agent expects you to produce. Not just now and then but on a regular basis. Many won't allow you to spend time blogging or posting on message boards. They do monitor how you're spending your time but they can open doors that otherwise are closed and take care of some of the annoying details so you can keep doing the one thing that earns money for them - writing.

Where do they get these ideas? You can write as little or as much as you want. Monitoring a writer's time? WTF?
 

Popeyesays

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Quote: "We are unknowns in an oversaturated market, why do we think that someone, unless they know us will buy a book from an unknown author."

This is circular reasoning. (1)My book deserves to be published.
(2) The mainstream publishers won't publish my book.
(3) The market must be oversaturated if they won't publish my book
(4) Yet my book deserves to be published.

If the reason that the mainstream industry takes few books is because the market is saturate, what chance does a PA book have of success.

Vanity publishing is no test of "readability" and story.

Regards,
Scott
 

Tsu Dho Nimh

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YAPA Misinformation re: agents

By the grumpy old man of the PS board:
One word of caution, a good agent expects you to produce. Not just now and then but on a regular basis. Many won't allow you to spend time blogging or posting on message boards. They do monitor how you're spending your time but they can open doors that otherwise are closed and take care of some of the annoying details so you can keep doing the one thing that earns money for them - writing.

Does anyone know of an agent with enough free time to cyberstalk the authors they rep?
 

Caro

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Many won't allow you to spend time blogging or posting on message boards.

::blink:: Then what about the notes from the last RWA conference where agents talked about how important a web presence is these days?

The mind boggles.
 

Christine N.

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Ugh. Agents WANT you to post on blogs, and have an internet presence. Go read Miss Snark - all that adds up to branding. Agents WANT your name in as many places as possible. So does your publisher and their marketing department.

They have a product with your name on it. It would be nice if your own websites came up when someone googled your name.

Ack. Ack. Ack. What agents are these people talking to??? Agents are spending their time reading subs, sending manusripts to editors, meeting with editor... SELLING BOOKS. They don't have the time nor the energy to babysit their clients.

Sheesh.
 

spike

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PAMB said:
Once you obtain an agent, that agent has to sell. Ah, there's the rub. Many a manuscript languishes on the agent's shelf as said agent ministers to authors who stand a better chance of popularity.

A better chance at popularity? Heavens forbid, an agent would spend time with a mss that will sell!

What does Uncle Jim always say? Write a better book.
 

astonwest

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I imagine agents don't want you spending time on blogs and message boards when you're supposed to be sending in the final revision of a manuscript that was due at the publisher a week ago...
 

Christine N.

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Well, yeah, of course you have to make deadlines. PA even gives deadlines for things. But no agent monitors your free time or controls your life.

I just don't know where they come up with this stuff! And the worst part is that the person who said that supposedly has years of experience in publishing. Taken at face value, that is likely to get other PA authors to believe him. Look deeper - newspaper publishing. Journalism. Different animal altogether from fiction/book publishing.
 

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Bookstores are so last-century.

Answer:

You are correct in your statement. Most people are too busy to go to a bookstore most people purchase items and pay bills online.

Our books are already on the shelves in the bookstores because we are online. Look at amazon our books are listed there but yet they dont have a "brick and mortar" store for someone to walk into and purchase one, but yet they have the books on their shelves.


This is the sour grape syndrome taking on an entirely new dimension and, still, it does not make sense. Neither comment.

Tri




 

SeanDSchaffer

triceretops said:
Most people are too busy to go to a bookstore most people purchase items and pay bills online.


The worst part about all this misinformation is, just how easy it is for someone who does not know the business (I fell into this trap myself when I was on the PAMB) to believe this nonsense.

Sure, people do pay their bills online, and people do like to buy books online. But frankly, if bookstores are on the decline, then why are there so many mega-bookstores (brick-and-mortar) all over the place? Some are like miniature malls, with coffee shops and bistros built into them. And the majority of these coffee shops and bistros that I have seen are not owned or operated by the bookstore itself.

In the Portland (Oregon) area there are several locations of the Powell's Bookstore, as well as several locations of Barnes & Noble, and I know of at least one Borders in downtown Portland. Of the three companies I mentioned, every one of them has in the larger stores in my area, businesses working inside them and independently of the bookstores, that thrive on customers in the bookstores!

My point is that if these people would open their eyes and look at the reality that abounds all around them, they would see that bookstores are not suffering nearly as much as people on the PAMB claim they are. The fact of the matter is, more people prefer to go to a bookstore and buy their book, and go home with the book in hand, able to read it immediately, than want to wait seven to ten days to get a book (six to eight weeks to get a PublishAmerica book) from an online seller.

The misinformation over there is so thick, I can see where people over there would get the wrong idea about how the business works.
 

Christine N.

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I buy quite a few books on line. But they are almost exclusively books I know I'm looking for, by authors I already know, OR non-fiction that I search for by catagory.

I still bought a pile of books at a real bookstore, many I hadn't heard of before and got because I spied them on the shelves. That's the downfall of online - you can't browse a shelf full of covers and pick one out and see it.

If nobody knows your book is out there, nobody will look for it.
 

spike

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I know AW requires members to respect other authors, but geezu! But this is terrible advice.

PAMB said:
In working with and for numerous editors since 1946 my advice is always avoid them when possible unless you are referring to a good city editor at a newspaper. Why would anyone trust an editor they have never met at a company in a distant city? I have had a number of errors in short stories that were inserted by editors. If you are confident that you are a writer you shouldn't want a stranger messing with your work.
 

SeanDSchaffer

spike said:
I know AW requires members to respect other authors, but geezu! But this is terrible advice.


Methinks the only person disrespecting their fellow authors in that post is the PAMB member. When that person advises his or her fellow authors to not let an editor touch their work, that is a high form of disrespect. Editors know what is going to sell better than does the writer. That's why editors work for publishing houses, and writers work for themselves.

The kind of advice you mentioned, from the PAMB, is the highest form of disrespect, because it misinforms (like much of the advice does over there) other writers.
 

xhouseboy

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SeanDSchaffer said:
The kind of advice you mentioned, from the PAMB, is the highest form of disrespect, because it misinforms (like much of the advice does over there) other writers.

It's also got to the stage where one can view a quoted post, and know just who's been dishing out the advice. There's about three authors over at PA who are easily identifiable by the misinformation they spread around.

ETA: just went over and checked. I guessed right. It's the guy I call the Civil War veteran.
 
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Tsu Dho Nimh

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In working with and for numerous editors since 1946 my advice is always avoid them when possible unless you are referring to a good city editor at a newspaper.
Spoken like somone with no experience in long-distance collaborations.

Why would anyone trust an editor they have never met at a company in a distant city?
Uhhhhh ... because a multi-million dollar a year publishing line trusts that editor not to screw up their investment in me?


If you are confident that you are a writer you shouldn't want a stranger messing with your work.
An author who resists editing is an author who thinks they have nothing left to learn ...
 

Christine N.

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More rubbish from the same source. (runs to check.. yep, same person)

This guy has NO experience in the BOOK publishing industry. NO experience with fiction outside of magazines and and no publishing experience outside of newspapers.

Editors are your friends, and are only EVER looking out for the best interests of the book. YOU, as the writer, have to be willing to let go of your ego and be willing to listen to another person who is looking at your work more objectively than you can.

Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. This person has given nothing but misinformation and bad advice lately, all because he's comparing apples and oranges.

Oh, a good city editor is better than a good book editor? Yikes.

A caveat - of course being edited badly, like PA, is almost better than not being edited at all. But most real publishing houses don't hire shlubs to do their editing, so you're pretty safe there.
 
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