The Old Neverending PublishAmerica Thread (Publish America)

Re: Actually, what could Willem...

sher2 :rollin
(Ah, excuse me please, I'm not supposed to have a sense of humor, but someone could croak reading some of these funny posts, especially from sher2).

You want facts? I got more facts.

The claim has been made that there are 50,000 brick-and-mortar bookstores in the United States.

This isn't true. There are actually 8,000.

Where the claim probably came from: PublishAmerica's "statistic" that there are 56,000 publishers in the United States.

That isn't true either.

Actually, there are 20,000 publishers in the United States and Canada combined (and that includes everything down to printshops that put out local cookbooks, and those fishery bureaus that put out the reports cited above).

So where did the 56,000 come from?

There are 53,000 publishing-related businesses in the United States.

That includes the publishers, the printers, the papermills, the distributors, the bookstores, the advertising agencies, the drivers, the repairmen, the guys who make the wire-rack spinners, and so on.

Sources: Publisher's Directory and US Department of Labor.

Re: What happened today...

LOL, just with the 11,000 happy authors we know they inflate everything, but that is really something. See, this is what I get for just taking someone's word for something, for not looking anything up. I appreciate the facts.

Re: How very interesting: PA rebuttal to Paula Span is dele

I just read the article by Hillel Italie and am astounded at some of this!

Clopper said that PublishAmerica gives each author a free Web site and sends informational flyers to media and personal contacts provided by authors. He said that writers are encouraged to promote their own books and that PublishAmerica plans to start a full-time marketing department.

Click to expand...

I was never asked for any media contacts. I know a PA author who is having her third book done and she has not been asked that once either.

By the way, which PA author has ever gotten $1000 advance? Any clues?

Yet More Fun with Math

Another fact:

The average sales per book per store per year is 2.5 copies.

Source: Author's Guild.

So:

We know that the average trade paperback will be in 3,000 stores.
We know that the average trade paperback costs $15.00.
We know that the average trade paperback sells 2.5 copies/year/store.
We know that the average royalty on a trade paperback is 10%.

We know that publishers try to set their advances equal to the expected royalties over a book's lifetime.

We know that the average advance for a midlist novel is $10,000.

3,000 stores * 2.5 copies = 7,500 sold. 7,500 * $15.00 = $112,500. 112,500 * 10% = $11,250.


It all checks out.

Yes, some books will sell more, some will sell less. Some will be in more stores, some in fewer.

Common advances for first novels are in the $2,000-$5,000 range. That should give you an idea of how many stores they'll be in: between 500 and 1,000 stores.

Again, some are in more, some are in less. But that's the average. That's the sort of distribution you can expect.

When you go with a legitimate publisher.


<HR>

[UPDATE]

By the way, which PA author has ever gotten $1000 advance? Any clues?

No idea. Assuming he's telling the truth, of course ... my guess would be either Jamie Farr or Robert "Ooops! Wrong Guy!" Bly.

Remember snarzler....

It's Larry, Curlem, and Moe-randa, the New Three Stooges!
Playing at a traditional theatre near you! Sound resonation and "don't take that tone technology" sponsored by Jiffy Lube!

Re: Yet More Fun with Math

James, could I quote those figures on another forum? A small press topic at the Rumor Mill has opened up with a question about advances and I think your post perfectly illustrates how advances are supposed to work.

Re: Yet More Fun with Math

Go ahead, Rachel.

As to the article michellet wrote, I'll leave someone else to do the line-by-line on it.

(As a poet, Michelle is pretty much stuck with self-publishing if she wants to see her work in book form. But did she have to pick such an expensive printer?)

Re: How very interesting: PA rebuttal to Paula Span is dele

I was never asked for any media contacts. I know a PA author who is having her third book done and she has not been asked that once either.

By the way, which PA author has ever gotten $1000 advance? Any clues?

Click to expand...

Kelblend, I was asked for the name of my local Books editor, but either nothing was ever sent out or the newspaper tossed it when they saw where it came from. In hindsight, this is a GOOD thing, because I'm covering my tracks with PA as fast as I can.

As for the free Web sites offered by PA, they're totally controlled by PA. I never bit into that particular poisoned apple.

I think Uncle Jim is probably right about who got the fabled $1000 advance.

Sherry

Re: About that author

I always figured it was Jamie Farr, but I would LOVE to think it was Robert "what did you say you write again?" Bly. For them to end up with egg on their face AND to have paid $1000 to get it there -- that just makes me happy all over.

gran

Re: About that author

"For them to end up with egg on their face AND to have paid $1000 to get it there -- that just makes me happy all over."

They'd probably turn around and use the "if you don't earn out your advance, you have to pay it back" line if that was the case...I mean, they've convinced most of their authors that's how the business works...

:hat
Big Daddy West

Re:Yet More Fun with Math

Awesome breakdown, James! Simply fantastic.

Perhaps you could be P.A.'s accountant. I hear they're having trouble with their books!!!:rollin

Re: Please publish this dud

Atlanta Nights has the #2 spot in lulu's sales this week:

Sales rankings

Number Two – exactly what its authors set out to produce.

Re: re: how did they read it

lol reph.

Re: re: how did they read it

It's also 26 on Lulu's bestselling books of all time.

Re: Re:Yet More Fun with Math

Awesome breakdown, James! Simply fantastic.

Actually, so over-simplified that it's almost a parody of itself.

There are people whose full-time jobs is figuring out how well a particular book will do, and setting printing numbers and figuring advances accordingly. This is a highly-specialized line of work.

Books aren't bars of soap. Trying to sell them as if they were ... doesn't have happy results.

<HR>
Meanwhile, over at Lulu: 232 copies. $262.82 in royalties. 40,855 hits to the webpage. Lulu sales rank 24.
<a href="http://www.lulu.com/commerce/addreg.php?fBuyContent=102550">
<img src="http://www.lulu.com/themes/common/images/icons/buynow_ant.gif" border="0" alt="Buy Atlanta Nights at Lulu!">
</a>

PublishBritannica

I just found PublishAmerica's U.K. site, PublishBritannica

www.publishbritannica.co.uk/index.htm

With it's own author message board coming soon .

We want your book, not your money.

Click to expand...

I thought I'd noticed more U.K. authors associated with PA recently. The trouble is, if you google PublishBritannica, you don't find anything negative until near the end of the second page. I'm hoping they don't have much success, but I think they're tactics will work just as well here as in the U.S.

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Re: PublishBritannica

I believe P&E already has that site listed and marked as not recommended based upon complaints and documentation from UK writers.

So far, what hasn't materialized yet is a PublishIcelandica site. Nor have any real complaints come in from there, so the rating on that remains neutral despite its connection to PublishAmerica. For those from PA who think that P&E automatically rates everything bad just from association, the answer is that P&E only rates businesses, including those as closely related as PI and PB to PA, as bad when we have documented proof or sufficient verifiable complaints.

Re: PublishBritannica

I'm surprised PA are looking to expand abroad at all, they seem to bring in so many authors in the U.S. I suspect they're having difficulty getting everything printed within a year of the contract.
But then again, they're greedy...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, at PA

<BLOCKQUOTE>I was fortunate this past weekend to spend some time in the company of Michele Omran, Acquisitions Supervisor for PublishAmerica. Michele is an attractive, educated and professional spokesperson for PA. The occasion of our interaction was a national writers conference.

Over the two day conference, Michele most assuredly added more authors to the PA ranks, but perhaps more importantly, she turned back the slings and arrows being launched at PublishAmerica these days. I would have to say that most of the writers and wannabes she encountered were smitten or awed by Michele's presentation, but she sucessfully fended off the few attacks with a shield of facts about the policies of PA and the satisfaction of the PA authors that could not be refuted. It is good for PublishAmerica and us, the PA authors, to have such an articulate and knowledgeable representative for us and our publisher. </BLOCKQUOTE><a href="http://www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/lounge/7536.htm" target="_new">PA is in good hands</a>

That would be Michele Omran at the Wrangling With Writing conference, 28/29JAN05.

She was discussed back <a href="http://p197.ezboard.com/fabsolutewritefrm11.showMessageRange?topicID=209.topic&start=4041&stop=4060" target="_new">here</a>. She's been on the job for seven months; if I'm reading her history right she's been out of college for less than a year, her degree isn't in English or any of the language arts, and she has no experience whatever in publishing.

...she sucessfully fended off the few attacks with a shield of facts about the policies of PA and the satisfaction of the PA authors that could not be refuted.

Here's my thought: Any writer or wannabee who was at a talk called "Crafting and Writing for PublishAmerica" didn't know enough about publishing to ask the right questions.

Tell you what: Personal invitation to Michele. Come over here and make your case. If it can't be refuted I promise I'll shut up.

Uncle Jim, unless I'm mistaken...

...Michele has no background at all in book publishing, looks like she left college and went straight to work for Publish America. If that's the case, it explains alot, as PA wouldn't dare hire a true industry professional, they'd either sniff out things on the front end and not take the job or quit soon after joining PA after realizing what they'd gotten into.

Re: Uncle Jim, unless I'm mistaken...

I imagine that turnover in the editorial ranks is pretty high.

There they are, expected to "edit" two or three books a week. That's a grueling pace. They start out fresh and eager, full of enthusiasm, doing their best to actually edit -- that's where we get the stories of authors who are happy with their editors, editors who have gone through and made the book better.

Soon enough, the editors burn out. The pace alone would do it, if the fact that mostly they're working on hopeless books hadn't done it first. That's when they just say "Screw it," and run the spelling-and-grammar checker over 'em.

That's where we get the actual examples we've seen of books that have spell-checker induced errors. I could show you some real horrors.

I feel sorry for those kids stuffed into the PA offices. I do. If they ever want to go into real publishing they'll have a lot of bad habits to unlearn.

Re: How very interesting: PA rebuttal to Paula Span is dele

I feel sorry for them, too. I've been in a situation like that: one tries to do one's job properly and with integrity, but management doesn't care about quality, only quantity, and one is forced to watch as co-workers who do their job quickly but poorly are advanced over them. After a while, as Jim said, you just say "the heck with it" and go the quick and sloppy way, because who wants to beat their head against a brick wall all day?

--Maggie

Re: E-Mails as Evidence

LawShark said:<blockquote><hr>E-mails are much more admissible as evidence than has been implied. All it takes to get one admitted is one of:<blockquote>Demonstration that the e-mail is part of a system of records kept in the ordinary course of business (Fed. R. Evid. 803(5), 803(6), 1002)

A denial of the content or fact of sending of the e-mail by an adverse party (Fed. R. Evid. 607, 613)

Offer as evidence for something other than the content of the e-mail, such as that an individual in fact used e-mail (e.g., Fed. R. Evid. 406, 803(5))

A statement in the e-mail (or header) when found on a party's own system that is against that party's interest (Fed. R. Evid. 613, 803(5), 803(6))

As a writing used by a witness to refresh his/her recollection (Fed. R. Evid. 612)

As part of the foundation for an expert witness's opinion (Fed. R. Evid. 702, 703, 705)</blockquote>I'm mentioning this primarily so that people won't become overconfident that their own e-mail archives can't be used against them, or e-mails sent to others (such as that one accusing a principal of PA with unlawful activities with an underage ruminant, which could be admitted to show prejudice and hostility if those are relevant to either the case or the credibility of a witness). The possibility of forgery and alteration goes to the weight of the evidence unless the party opposing entry shows that it is more probable than not that the evidence offered differs from the original. In other words, the e-mails still come in, but the factfinder (jury or, in a bench trial, judge) can consider the possibility of alteration when deciding what the evidence really means.<hr></blockquote>I know you've gone to a lot of effort to distill this; likewise that it's not possible to put it into simple vernacular language. Still, I'd find it very helpful if you'd expand the thing a bit. If you have the time, and the inclination to do so, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Re: How very interesting

www.publishamerica.com/cg.../11615.htm

one PA got so frustrated she threw her author copies away.

tina