The Newer Never-Ending PublishAmerica / America Star Books Thread

CaoPaux said:

I'll wager they were outgrowing the electrical system in the old building. Owning the premises is little comfort when faced with $$$$ to upgrade and the permit process for a historical area.

Click to expand...

Such a lovely building and I always thought it a shame to have a shoddy business like PA in it. Perhaps they have moved into a warehouse with one exposed light bulb hanging above the printing facility.

(Hi, all. Took a break to concentrate on my writing. Kudos to everyone for continuing to get the word out about PA.)

~brian~

How did PA come up with $300.00? No idea.

wanda4545 said:

To Don, how did they come up with 300.00 that they spent on you?

Click to expand...

I have no idea. They did not provide any justification for the amount, except to say it was a "damage payment, which will help to offset some of our losses," which is nonsense. They probably haven't spent $50.00 on my book, including the $1.00 and 2 books they sent me.

Don Davidson said:

I have no idea. They did not provide any justification for the amount, except to say it was a "damage payment, which will help to offset some of our losses," which is nonsense.

Click to expand...

Once upon a time, Uncle Jim calculated how much money PA truly invested in producing a book, what with hourly wages for the spell-checking and photoshopping employees, print costs for the two author copies, a bit of office overhead, etc. I don't think it's a coincidence that their "damage payment" is the amount he estimated -- $300. Which means Uncle Jim was a bit generous in his estimate, because there's no way they'd let an author go at a break-even point. There's some kind of profit margin for them in that $300.

Does the office overhead include the helicopter(s)?

I didn't get a royalty statement for the six months ending on 7/31, but PA tells me I had no sales--once again. So that makes 2 copies they have sold in almost 2 years. Impressive!

Well, they're no longer printing with Lightning Source, and Lightning Source requires a $37.50 per book set up fee, which is good for one year. They probably got some sort of discount though, but that fee had to be a pretty large chunk of their per book costs. Instead they have the capitalization for their own POD machine, but that's harder to assign to a particular book. The POD machine is probably why they have so many special offers--optimally the machine runs 24/7 without ever getting behind. In any case, the print costs are all pretty much per copy now, not per title.

I haven't been regularly reading (let alone posting in) this thread for a long time now, so I'm a little out of the loop. Since when did PA start printing books in hardcover?

Alan, they started about 8 months ago, I think. Not that they sent me one. i would say that i got the 1.00 advance from them last year a 1.37 ck, and a1.40 ck last month, these were only from sales straight from them, not from amazon.com of which over the last 6 months i have counted 7. A used book cant be used unless its new first. but, i didnt get paid for it then either. So I figure that i can get out of my contract for 10.00. and thats pushing the it some. welcome back alan, so how is yours going.

hope that all of you look at amazon.com, and others just to check this so called "USED" thing out and see that you are selling them, we are not geting paid though.

Hi, Alan!

Wanda, used book prices are what the sellers think the market will bear. The law allows people to resell books at any price they want. I wish I could get a piece of the $100+ asking price of a book of mine that's been out of print for 20 years, but that's not how it works.

I know thats right, two people are selling mine on amzon for 54.00 and one person on booksamillion is selling it for 60.00. isnt that awful, when we arent getting paid on the 1st go around. dont know what to think.

wanda4545 said:

hope that all of you look at amazon.com, and others just to check this so called "USED" thing out and see that you are selling them, we are not geting paid though.

Click to expand...

Not necessarily. If you check out those sellers, many of the "used" copies will be described as "new".

For instance, here's a seller's comment under a used listing for my book, which he says is "Used - very good":

Comments: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery.

Click to expand...

What that means is that should anyone order my book from him, he'll turn around and order one from my publisher, then sell it on. He doesn't physically have a copy on hand.

Compare that to this seller's comments for my book, also listed as "Used - very good":

Comments: I ship from California. Book looks read once or twice and enjoyed, now it's your turn. Pages are still clean, crisp and tight, no marks at all. Cover has some faint marks, small dings, little crease and some tiny bent page/corner/edge/ends. Book looks very good and still has lot's of life in it and you will be happy with it.

Click to expand...

That's a seller who sounds like he has a real used copy.

wanda4545 said:

I know thats right, two people are selling mine on amzon for 54.00 and one person on booksamillion is selling it for 60.00. isnt that awful, when we arent getting paid on the 1st go around. dont know what to think.

Click to expand...

I think you should have been paid when it sold the first time. That's how this sort of thing generally works.

wanda4545 said:

I know thats right, two people are selling mine on amzon for 54.00 and one person on booksamillion is selling it for 60.00. isnt that awful, when we arent getting paid on the 1st go around. dont know what to think.

Click to expand...

That does not mean anyone is making sales at those prices. Or at any price.

--Ken

God I hate jumping into threads like this as my first post, but I have to

I was another of the fortunate ones who quickly found his way out of the PA trap about a year ago.

I should qualify, first, that I have not had the misfortune that most of you have, getting their work published and the dream turning into a nightmare because of them, but I have wanted to tell this story for some time now, and this seemed like the perfect place.

I wrote a "Self Help" (loose description) E-Book about Search Engine Marketing And Optimization. I had some great email responses to the idea, but no sales. Had it up on ClickBank, etc.. with Nothing. So, since I never actually SOLD a copy of the book, I decided to drop the E-Book and reformat it into print.

Being a 1st time author, I was naive about the whole publishing process and immediately sent excerpts to O'Riley, Sams, and a couple of other Technical Publishers, and was met with an overwhelming "we'll pass" letter every time.

I didn't have a whole lot of money, but thought I'd look into Self-Publication. I swear someone must have leaked a copy of my E-Book to PA because every time I looked up anything on Google in regards to the topic, they were certainly 1st on the list. (ok sameless self-plug there, but you get the idea)

Anyway, I contacted them, conversed a few days with their Acquisitions people, and finally decided to break down and apply. At first, they were excited about the prospect of my book. The Acquisitions rep was sending me emails saying they wanted my book, that they could print it and give me copies to send to my local bookstores etc.. (God I wish I still had those emails to show you) And all they needed was my manuscript. All I had was a PDF format at the time (the original word doc was on a fried HDD that I hadn't had time to recover) but they told me to send it anyway.

I swear to you it wasn't 2 HOURS later I received an email saying it wasn't what they were looking for, thank you for your time, thank you for wasting our time, etc..

Since then I have abandoned the book (and until a few days ago writing altogether) and have moved to writing articles for magazines, but I digress..

After getting the rejection letter, I went to the bookstores here in town to see what they could do for me, if maybe they had publisher connections etc. (I mean, I'm in Fairfield, IA: the (former) home city of Books Are Fun (a division of Readers Digest. there had to be SOMEONE, right?) I told them my story, and both of them (its a small town) said they refused to buy books from PA because of their shoddy workmanship, grammatical errors, and all around poor publications. I was floored!

So anyway, in a nutshell, if you are like me and new to the world, read this and be careful. They promise you greatness, and give you grief.

Welcome PsyberMind! And congrats on dodging a bullet.

Don't give up on writing over one MS, keep at it and you might find yourself with the perfect book for a perfect market somewhere down the line.

Thanks. Like I said, I moved to Articles as opposed to MS. I am a single father with 3 kids, so time isn't exactly a luxury for me. At least with Articles I can pump out a couple a day. Now I just need to find publishers to submit to

DUOTROPE.

This new clause in the PA contract - not paying out royalties unless the amount due exceeds $49 - when did that slink its way in?

(See Sepisllib's post here.)

And will the money be payed up, regardless of actual amount and with accrued interest, upon termination of contract? I'm really curious about the wording in this clause.

A Better name for PA?

Though I do my best to focus on my writing when I am doing so, I find my mind wandering more often then not...

When I looked at the big picture regarding what PA does to aspiring authors (Their presence also gives legitimate Publishing houses a bad name.), perhaps they weren't really publishing authors after all....but punishing them... hence a scary and typically off the wall thought from me...

Punish America!

You have to have some sort of catchy phrase to lend a twisted neologism some credence...so far, I have thought of only three....

1. As if Writing wasnt hard enough!
2. So shall she write, so shall ye suffer...
3. Kep frum thar! ( mangled Old English...heh )

Any better phrase ideas?


Digit Eyes - If he can see you, then it is too late to run...

CryHavoc said:

Punish America!

You have to have some sort of catchy phrase to lend a twisted neologism some credence...so far, I have thought of only three....

1. As if Writing wasnt hard enough!
2. So shall she write, so shall ye suffer...
3. Kep frum thar! ( mangled Old English...heh )

Click to expand...

Please, someone, set up this site. punishamerica.com is an available domain name.

I'm wondering about the 49.00 cut off, how they arrived at that number. Makes me think most PA "bestsellers" never earn more than that, making it a safe choice.

That means PA earns lots of interest at the bank while their "happy, successful" writers wait another 6 months to see if they get a check.

If a book only ever earns LESS than a 49.00 royalty for the next 7 years, does this mean PA will NEVER cut the writer a check?

Multiply that 48.99 by (say) 3,000 writers and there's $146,970.00 sitting in an interest-bearing account with PA's name on it.

Dear me, what a big fat cheat THAT is for the poor writers!

And I'm sure PA takes full advantage of it.

Hey, PA writers, doesn't that give you a warm feeling inside to know the Stooges are putting your cash to good use?

pink lily said:

Please, someone, set up this site. punishamerica.com is an available domain name.

Click to expand...

With a domain name like that, you might wind up on some terrorist watch lists, though.

Gillhoughly said:

. . . PA earns lots of interest at the bank . . .

Click to expand...

Not these days. And not with total accumulated royalties of only a few thousand dollars.

--Ken

BenPanced said:

With a domain name like that, you might wind up on some terrorist watch lists, though.

Click to expand...

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.