And realize what a scam Publish America is.
I work for a mid-sized newspaper chain, and several months ago, I got a call from an area woman who said she'd had several poems printed in an anthology, and would I come out to see her?
I agreed to do so, but when I arrived and she showed me the framed copies of her poems which she had purchased from her publisher, I was horrified.
This poor woman obviously had very poor grammar, and while the poems were very sentimential--and I am sure, a hit with her family members--they also were not very good. There were several cases where she used homonyms instead of the correct word.
I couldn't believe that any legitimate publishing house would allow such mistakes, but when she showed me the poetry anthologies her work appeared in, the same mistakes were there. I asked her the name of her "publisher," and she gave me the name of one of PA's imprints.
All I had to do was Google this place, and after fifteen minutes, I was sure this woman was being scammed.
She'd told me that PA was pressing her to write a book of poetry, so I called her back--feeling terribly awkward--and told her what I'd learned about her so-called publisher. I just couldn't point out the numerous editing mistakes, as I was sure she would see it as an attack on her and her writing.
She refused to believe me, telling me she'd not paid any money to them. I pointed out she had purchased the anthologies for somewhere around $50, and asked her if she'd received any author's copies. She had not, but still insisted it was not a vanity press.
Not wanting to get into an argument, I politely ended the call, since I had done all I could in alerting her to a scam. I felt terrible, but I didn't want her to get scammed.
A few weeks later, I received a nasty letter from her, telling me that I had killed her joy in writing, and she didn't think she could write anymore because of me! I had never even critiqued her writing!
This is not the first time I have been called by a "local author" who has self-published through a vanity press, especially as I do a monthly book review in one of our company's weekend special sections.
I understand that some people chose to self-publish for various reasons, and I am always happy to take a look at lulu books or similar, but I won't touch another PA author with a ten-foot pole!
I work for a mid-sized newspaper chain, and several months ago, I got a call from an area woman who said she'd had several poems printed in an anthology, and would I come out to see her?
I agreed to do so, but when I arrived and she showed me the framed copies of her poems which she had purchased from her publisher, I was horrified.
This poor woman obviously had very poor grammar, and while the poems were very sentimential--and I am sure, a hit with her family members--they also were not very good. There were several cases where she used homonyms instead of the correct word.
I couldn't believe that any legitimate publishing house would allow such mistakes, but when she showed me the poetry anthologies her work appeared in, the same mistakes were there. I asked her the name of her "publisher," and she gave me the name of one of PA's imprints.
All I had to do was Google this place, and after fifteen minutes, I was sure this woman was being scammed.
She'd told me that PA was pressing her to write a book of poetry, so I called her back--feeling terribly awkward--and told her what I'd learned about her so-called publisher. I just couldn't point out the numerous editing mistakes, as I was sure she would see it as an attack on her and her writing.
She refused to believe me, telling me she'd not paid any money to them. I pointed out she had purchased the anthologies for somewhere around $50, and asked her if she'd received any author's copies. She had not, but still insisted it was not a vanity press.
Not wanting to get into an argument, I politely ended the call, since I had done all I could in alerting her to a scam. I felt terrible, but I didn't want her to get scammed.
A few weeks later, I received a nasty letter from her, telling me that I had killed her joy in writing, and she didn't think she could write anymore because of me! I had never even critiqued her writing!
This is not the first time I have been called by a "local author" who has self-published through a vanity press, especially as I do a monthly book review in one of our company's weekend special sections.
I understand that some people chose to self-publish for various reasons, and I am always happy to take a look at lulu books or similar, but I won't touch another PA author with a ten-foot pole!
