The Old Neverending PublishAmerica Thread (Publish America)

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AnneMarble

Re: Looks like

PA posted this. Neve seen this person on the board before, and with no book listed it makes me wonder if PA is posing as an author again

That's a distinct possibility. Isn't one of the Top Ten Signs that a poster is really PA posing as an author the fact that the poster never appeared until that moment? ;)

Virtually all of the heavily promoted, Big New-York-Publisher books were politcally correct to an absurdity that made me laugh.

They are?! :ha This person must be going to the wrong bookstores. For all the "politically correct" books (and PC means different things to different people), there are lots of books from a variety of sides, and on a variety of issues.

Anyway, the PA boards are one of the silliest places to be complaining about "political correctness." The PA boards are not exactly open to opposing viewpoints. :p
 

HapiSofi

Re: Looks like

I'm inclined to believe that post is real. "Why them? Why not me?" is one of the traditional laments of the seriously clueless writer.
 

HeathenPrince

Re: In the interest of educating writers

Hapi got it right

the rest of you, don't waste another five seconds trying to analyze that ridiculous PA post. you all know what it means and what it represents. another pitiful attempt to legitimize a serious mistake...going with PA in the first place. That HB fool has rubbed off on another lost soul.

even sadder, some of those peeps will cling to that battlecry for dear life because it beats crying in yopur beer. (but only by a little)
 

HapiSofi

Re: PublishAmerica contract, items 22-23

More of my out-of-order commentaries on PA's contract:

22. This agreement is entered into by both parties in good faith, with the mutual understanding that neither party has guaranteed, or is to guarantee, the sale of any specific number of copies of the said literary work, it being impossible to predict, before publication, what success any book may attain.
Looked at one way, this is an amateurish provision. If the parties to the agreement can't be presumed to be acting in good faith, they don't have a contract. And since at no point has the contract said anything about guaranteed sales figures, there's no need to point out that they aren't guaranteed.

I suspect #22 is in the contract only because PublishAmerica knows how likely it is that their authors will become dissatisfied and suspicious upon exactly those points. In the technical parlance of PA's staffers' real profession, #22 is the blow-off.
23. The Author acknowledges that the Publisher has not made any prior pledges, promises, guarantees, inducements, of whatever nature, either in writing, by word of mouth, or in any form, that are not contained in the terms of this agreement.
What this paragraph says is that no matter how much PublishAmerica's various statements and representations -- on their web page, in e-mail, over the phone, on their message board, on other people's message boards -- as I say, no matter how much those look like pledges, promises, guarantees, or (most especially) inducements, none of them count unless they're spelled out in this contract.

The most important of these unsupported inducements is of course PublishAmerica's fraudulent representation of itself as a conventional publishing house whose books are distributed and sold through brick-and-mortar bookstores. They aren’t. PA is a vanity publisher, they’ve got no sales force, and they don’t get distributed to bookstores or wire racks.

What really happens is that individual PA authors, acting on their own, often at the cost of considerable personal labor and expense, will sometimes manage to persuade single bookstores here and there to take a few copies. This is the sole basis for PA's claim that you can find their books in regular bookstores. Among the many implications of paragraph #23 is that no matter how much PA talks about getting stocked in bookstores, they take no responsibility for making that happen.
 

Sher2

PublishAmerica Contract

<What really happens is that individual PA authors, acting on their own, often at the cost of considerable personal labor and expense, will sometimes manage to persuade single bookstores here and there to take a few copies. This is the sole basis for PA's claim that you can find their books in regular bookstores. Among the many implications of paragraph #23 is that no matter how much PA talks about getting stocked in bookstores, they take no responsibility for making that happen.>

And yet, HapiSofi, you cannot get The Zombies to understand this to save your soul. You can beat them over the head with their PA contract and they will continue to defend the party line 'til Kingdom Come.

Okay, yeah, I'm ticked this morning. I belong to a Yahoo forum in which a number of issues unflattering to PA are being discussed. I wake up this morning to find a couple of Happy PAers calling it a "smear campaign." I just don't get it. I guess I'm just a poor candidate for brainwashing. Thank God! Anyhow, the Zombies have been cordially invited to find themselves a more compatible forum, and good riddance. I have no patience for suffering fools.
 

FM St George

Re: Son of children's books

well... let's face it; no one likes to be called a fool. And even less of us want to acknowledge it and deal with it, to be honest.

heck, I was in denial for a long time; figuring that *I* was too smart to be taken in - and when I did realise it, I was embarassed, ashamed... fill in your fav word here. It's a hard lump of coal to swallow, realizing that you've been taken.

so I smile, I let those supporters ramble on and I know that they'll come to the same truth eventually, when they get that first royalty check or fail to get any sales out of the nearest bookstore, despite PA's bragging that they can get them on the shelves... and they'll be back after they accept that they were fooled like the rest of us.

it's hard, and I can appreciate that it takes time for that to happen.
 

DaveKuzminski

Re: PublishAmerica Contract

But the PA supporter comments have to be countered with the truth in those other forums. Otherwise, they'll lure in other unsuspecting writers who will then feed the fraud.
 

Sher2

Son of Children's Books

<I was in denial for a long time; figuring that *I* was too smart to be taken in - and when I did realise it, I was embarassed, ashamed... fill in your fav word here. It's a hard lump of coal to swallow, realizing that you've been taken.>


Oh, Lord, FM StGeorge, me, too. I'm almost embarrassed to tell you that I've worked for lawyers all of my adult life and still got sucked in. I showed the contract to my attorney boss but, as he was quick to point out, he doesn't know beans about publishing law. You live and learn.
 

vstrauss

Re: PublishAmerica contract, items 22-23

>> I suspect #22 is in the contract only because PublishAmerica knows how likely it is that their authors will become dissatisfied and suspicious upon exactly those points. In the technical parlance of PA's staffers' real profession, #22 is the blow-off.<<

Exactly. It's advance justification for failure.

This kind of clause (which you'll never find in the contract of a successful agent or publisher) is fairly common in the contracts of questionables and amateurs. IMO, it's an infallible tipoff that here's an outfit you don't want to deal with.

>>What this paragraph says is that no matter how much PublishAmerica's various statements and representations -- on their web page, in e-mail, over the phone, on their message board, on other people's message boards -- as I say, no matter how much those look like pledges, promises, guarantees, or (most especially) inducements, none of them count unless they're spelled out in this contract.<<

One of the complaints I received about Erica House, the vanity press from which PA was born, was that authors were given lavish verbal promises (such as pledging that if the author didn't recoup his cash outlay within a certain amount of time the publisher would make up the difference) that weren't reflected in the contract. Guess what happened to writers who tried to get those promises written in.

- Victoria
 

HapiSofi

Re: PublishAmerica Contract

Sher, for PA authors who haven't gotten round to being miserable yet, this information is hard to accept. If what we say about PA is wrong, if it's just a smear campaign, then they're on their way to being successful published authors, and they have every reason to feel optimistic. But if we're right, their self-esteem is going to take a dreadful hit. Not only are they not legitimately published authors; they've fallen for a scam, and they can't get out. They may even have to consider the possibility that people don't really love their book as much as they'd imagined. Taken all together, it's a bitter dose of medicine.

I felt for FM St. George when I read: "I was in denial for a long time, figuring that *I* was too smart to be taken in - and when I did realise it, I was embarrassed, ashamed ... fill in your fav word here. It's a hard lump of coal to swallow, realizing that you've been taken."

That's the commonest response to finding out you've been rooked. Scammers count on it, because it slows down their victims and makes them less willing to speak out. Any well-constructed scam includes one or more "blow-offs", bits of the script that are designed to make the victim go away quietly without calling the police, consulting a lawyer, or punching out the scammer.

Sidenote: That embarrassment reaction is the bane of those who work with older people who've been the victims of fraud. The elderly tend to be more isolated than the rest of us, and they don't want to be seen as incompetent, so they don't yell for help when they're being bilked of the life's savings. Their isolation and their slowness to get outside help, plus the fact that they're in possession of their life's savings/retirement nest egg/fully paid-for house/et cetera, is the reason scammers so often target them.

Being scammed doesn't mean you're stupid. We all have our off days. Sooner or later, just about everyone falls, at least temporarily, for one fraud or another. What scammers target are people who don't have the means or the inclination to fight back when they realize they've been rooked. Authors are good for that. The bad ones don't know they're bad, and the good ones are never sure they're good. They're all constantly looking for reasons to have hope, and when it's time for the blow-off, it's all too easy to get them to believe that they were stupid for ever having imagined that they could be a successful pro writer.

That's why I have a soft spot for Shiva the Destroyer, that guy who's in tryouts for the role of Nemesis of the S.T. Agency. Sure, Shiva's over the top; but he's angry rather than depressed, and he puts the blame on the S.T. Agency, where it belongs. Victoria's right to cavil at some of Shiva's techniques, but I have to applaud his attitude.
 

astonwest

Re: PublishAmerica Contract

"What this paragraph says is that no matter how much PublishAmerica's various statements and representations -- on their web page, in e-mail, over the phone, on their message board, on other people's message boards -- as I say, no matter how much those look like pledges, promises, guarantees, or (most especially) inducements, none of them count unless they're spelled out in this contract."

This is why most of the PA extra-faithful will ramble on to people who complain such things as:

--Didn't you read the contract?
--You should have read the contract.
--You had the chance to sign the contract or not.
--You didn't have to sign the contract.

...so on and so forth, even though most of the problems people face aren't even listed in the contract (examples being pricing, bookstore stocking, etc.).

"They may even have to consider the possibility that people don't really love their book as much as they'd imagined."

Been there, done that...

Big Daddy West
:hat
 

HapiSofi

Re: PublishAmerica contract, item 24

Paragraph #24 of the PublishAmerica contract, its “reversion clause” (I hate having to call it that), is an especially nasty piece of work. Like paragraph #9, its text has deliberately been made obscure in order to camouflage an unjustifiable rights grab that’s not related to the paragraph’s ostensible subject matter. But unlike paragraph #9, it does this by burying its rights grab in a heap of obsolete production terminology that’s guaranteed to be unfamiliar to anyone who hasn’t worked in book production for decades. Here’s the text from PA’s contract:
24. When in the judgement of the Publisher, the public demand for the work is no longer sufficient to warrant its continued manufacture, the Publisher may discontinue further manufacture and destroy any or all plates, books, sheets and electronic files without any liability in connection therewith to the Author. However, the Publisher agrees to notify the Author of such decision in writing, and will offer to transfer to the Author the work and its rights in the copyrights thereon, the plates (if any), the bound copies and sheet stock (if any) on the following terms F.O.B. point of shipment: the plates, at their value for old metal, the engravings (to be used only in the work) at one-half (1/2) their original cost, the bound stock at one-half (1/2) the list price, and the sheet stock at the cost of gathering, folding, sewing and preparing for shipment, all without royalties. In the latter event, unless the Author shall, within 30 days, accept said offer and pay the amount set forth in said writing, the Publisher may dispose of the work, copyrights, plates, books, sheets and other property without further liability for royalties or otherwise.
Pretty murky, right? Hang in there.

I can tell where this came from. PublishAmerica has based their construction of #24 on a paragraph they adapted from an old (quite an old) publishing contract. It’s the only paragraph in their contract that’s based on this very old model. The rest are of recent origin.

The original paragraph which they adapted to their use concerned the arrangements for disposing of the remaining production materials and the leftover copies of a book at the point that its publisher has let it go out of print. This is completely inappropriate for PublishAmerica, which uses POD (print on demand) technology, and thus need never let a book go out of print unless the author demands it.

What’s even more bizarre is that this contractual language which PA appropriated assumes the use of bookmaking methods from the vanished era of linotypes, stereotypes, rotogravure, and all the other grimy hands-on technology of printing with hot lead type – which, depending on how you count it, is at minimum three full generations of printing technology removed from anything PA’s ever used. It’s as though CNN were broadcasting this evening’s news in Chaucer’s English.

However, they didn’t use the passage unaltered. There are bits of language in paragraph #24 which do not date from the days of hot type. These, we must assume, are PublishAmerica’s own interpolations – and they concern a transfer of copyright from the author to PublishAmerica.

As I said in my critique of paragraph #9, ”You want to talk about standard vs. nonstandard contracts? In a standard contract, grants of rights are up front, under a heading that says something like ‘GRANT’ or ‘GRANT OF RIGHTS’. Other subrights, licenses, etc., are in paragraphs with similarly appropriate headings. They are not tucked into the latter portion of a paragraph about book promotion.” Neither, I will add, should they show up in a paragraph about the disposition of production materials at the point of reversion.

Moreover, a provision that effects a transfer of copyright should have the legal equivalent of flashing red lights and flag trucks fore and aft. Outright transfer of copyright isn't common in trade publishing. Most contracts involve a grant of certain rights for either a specified period of time, or until the book goes out of print. Copyright – that is, permanent ownership of the work – remains with the author. A full-scale transfer of the copyright of an original work is very rare, and is something a normal publishing contract would never bury in a minor paragraph.

It turns out that when you remove everything from paragraph #24 that a standard publishing contract would never locate there -- that is, mentions of copyrights and royalties -- what you have is a nice coherent little paragraph about the disposition of production materials at the point of reversion. I can show you what it all means, but first I'm going to have to explain some history.

Way back when, we used to have to cast every letter of every word in molten metal before we could print it. Text was typed into a huge complicated moloch of a machine called a Linotype that lined up and justified a row of letter forms, then squirted molten lead into them to form a single line of type, called a slug. (That’s if you were lucky. Sometimes it squirted the operator.) When you’d typeset enough slugs to make a page, you assembled them tightly in a wooden form and pressed a layer of special heat-resistant papier-mache onto them to take an impression of the whole page. This papier-mache mould was used to cast a curved metal plate, which was then fastened to a rotary press and used to print copies on paper.

(Taking a mould of the set type and using it to make a curved plate that would fit onto a rotary press was called stereotyping. And since you could take more than one mould from a page of set type, press syndicates got started that distributed content to smaller newspapers in the form of ready-made plates. Newsmen who wrote and typeset their own copy derogatorily referred to this syndicated material as boilerplate. Now you know where both those terms come from. If you want to go three for three, you can probably figure out typecasting on your own.)

Having to physically manufacture every page in metal before it could be printed made getting a book to press a major undertaking. After you’d done it you could keep the plates and print more pages from them later on, but it still took a lot of work to get them onto the presses. Because getting everything ready to print took so much work, once the presses were rolling it was common for publishers to print a great many more pages than they had immediate use for. They'd set these aside for later. Instead of sending a title back to press when they ran low on copies, they’d collate, fold, sew, and bind some of these pre-printed loose sheets.

But no matter how cleverly the house managed its production and warehousing, it still cost something to keep a book available and in print. Eventually the day would come when the publisher decided that the income from that book’s sales no longer justified the cost of keeping it in the backlist. The book would be allowed to go out of print, at which point the rights would automatically revert to the author.

Meanwhile, there was the question of what would happen to the stored metal printing plates, the pre-printed loose pages, and the leftover finished copies of the book. (There are always leftovers.) This is where our paragraph comes into the story.

What follows is my speculative reconstruction of the original paragraph, with commentary:
When in the judgement of the Publisher, the public demand for the work is no longer sufficient to warrant its continued manufacture, the Publisher may discontinue further manufacture and destroy any or all plates, books, or sheets,
Plates are the metal plates you print from. Books are finished bound copies. Sheets are printed unbound pages.
without any liability in connection therewith to the Author. However, the Publisher agrees to notify the Author of such decision in writing, and will offer to transfer to the Author the plates (if any), the bound copies and sheet stock (if any) on the following terms F.O.B. point of shipment:
F.O.B. means “freight on board” -- this is going to be sent via an industrial-strength freight carrier. “Point of shipment” means you have to come down to the depot to get it.
the plates, at their value for old metal, the engravings (to be used only in the work) at one-half (1/2) their original cost,
I believe that what this means is that the author gets the engraved metal plates from which the illustrations are printed, and can use them to print more books; but second-use rights are still held by the artist, so the engravings may not be used for some other purpose.
the bound stock at one-half (1/2) the list price,
”Bound stock” means finished copies of the books. This is something we still do. When a book is going to be remaindered, we first offer to sell those copies to the author at a reduced rate
and the sheet stock at the cost of gathering, folding, sewing and preparing for shipment.
Here my expertise is a trifle shaky. I believe it means that you can have the extra printed pages, but only if you’ll pay the cost of having them turned into F&Gs – folded & gathered sixteen-page signatures, suitable for binding.
In the latter event, unless the Author shall, within 30 days, accept said offer and pay the amount set forth in said writing, the Publisher may dispose of the plates, books, sheets and other property without further liability to the author.
If within thirty days the author doesn’t say “Yes, I want all that stuff,” and send a check or money order to cover the costs, the publisher can sell it all as wastepaper and scrap metal.

Thus the reconstructed original: an interesting historical sidelight, though it wasn’t the commonest way to handle these things, and I can’t imagine many authors exercised the option to buy their plates. Anyway, anyway. I won’t say that to modern readers, it reads like Greek; these days, more people can read Greek than could decipher that paragraph.

Now here’s PublishAmerica’s version again, this time with their presumed changes set in boldface:
24. When in the judgement of the Publisher, the public demand for the work is no longer sufficient to warrant its continued manufacture, the Publisher may discontinue further manufacture and destroy any or all plates, books, [and] sheets and electronic files without any liability in connection therewith to the Author. However, the Publisher agrees to notify the Author of such decision in writing, and will offer to transfer to the Author the work and its rights in the copyrights thereon, the plates (if any), the bound copies and sheet stock (if any) on the following terms F.O.B. point of shipment: the plates, at their value for old metal, the engravings (to be used only in the work) at one-half (1/2) their original cost, the bound stock at one-half (1/2) the list price, and the sheet stock at the cost of gathering, folding, sewing and preparing for shipment, all without royalties. In the latter event, unless the Author shall, within 30 days, accept said offer and pay the amount set forth in said writing, the Publisher may dispose of the work, copyrights, plates, books, sheets and other property without further liability for royalties or otherwise.
Cute, eh? Transfers of copyright, red in tooth and claw, lurking amidst the thickets of sheet stock.

So, what’s the real point of #24? At first you might assume it’s to grab off ownership of a bunch of copyrights that should properly belong to the books’ authors. The trouble with that theory is, the only real commercial value most PA titles have is that you can use them to squeeze money out of their authors. I don’t doubt for a minute that PublishAmerica would alienate their authors’ copyrights, assuming they thought they could make money out of it; but the only thing they could do with outright ownership of a bunch of their titles would be to sell copies of them, and we already know they’re not interested in that line of work.

I believe the point of paragraph #24 is to cause the author who’s seeking a reversion to go into a state of panic. You know that cartoon about what you say vs. what your dog hears? The one where the guy is saying all that stuff to his dog Ginger, only what the dog’s hearing is ”blah blah blah blah GINGER blah blah GINGER blah blah blah…”? Same effect here: ”Obscure production-speak obscure obscure production obscure YOU WILL LOSE YOUR COPYRIGHT obscure production production production obscure.” Gets your attention, that does. You can't tell what-all is going on; you only know that it somehow threatens to deprive you of ownership of your book.

And what’s the point of sending you into a panic? It’s to soften you up for the “49 copies” scam. It goes like this: PublishAmerica doesn't have a proper reversion clause, but that doesn't mean they won't revert books. As has often been observed, PA is good at making nasty-sounding legal threats, but they never follow through on their offers to fight, because they don’t want to wind up in court giving sworn testimony about their business methods. If you demand your book back, they’ll give it to you -- unless they’re personally pissed at you (usually for criticizing them in public), in which case they’ll drag out the process as long as possible, and then give it back to you anyway. (If they’re really pissed at you, they’ll simply stop selling your book. Since their contract has a seven-year term, and no clause reverting the book if it goes out of print, at that point the only thing you can do is try to get it back so you can take it elsewhere.)

However! Before they’ll revert your book, they say, under the provisions of paragraph #24, you’ll have to buy up their overstocks. Remarkably, this overstock quantity almost always turns out to be 49 copies, except when it’s more; which means you’ll be paying at least a thousand dollars to ransom your book. A lot of people would undoubtedly balk at that -- if there weren’t a paragraph in their contract that threatens them with loss of their copyright if they don't pay up.

It’s a scam. PublishAmerica shouldn’t have overstocks. They’re a POD publisher. Furthermore, they’re often tardy or a no-show about providing books ordered in any quantity. There’ve been repeated sightings of mournful PA authors who’ve gotten some local bookstore to agree to a signing, and who then spend weeks trying to get PA to ship 25 prepaid copies, none of which arrive in time for the signing, Nevertheless, when authors try to get a reversion, there will turn out to be 49 overstock copies lying around at PA.

Why 49? Because that's a major price breakpoint for short-run printing and binding operations. Those copies cost PA even less than their usual Lightning Press per-unit rate. When you ask for a reversion, PublishAmerica sends in the order to have your overstocks printed.

As Victoria Strauss once posted on this subject:
It's pretty clear what's being got at here: it's a way to make money on the back end.

The PA contract is nonstandard in a number of respects. The out of print/reversion clause is just one example. Like some other parts of the contract, it seems to be based at least in part on out-of-date contract language (hence the stuff about plates and engravings), but the most important thing to note about the clause is that it ties rights reversion to author payments:

"...unless the author shall, within 30 days, accept said offer and pay the amount set forth in said writing, the Publisher may dispose of the work, COPYRIGHTS [my emphasis], plates, books, sheets and other property without further liability for royalties or otherwise."

PA appears to interpret this clause as meaning the author must pay for "overstock". I've received a number of reports from authors who, on being released from their contracts, were asked to pay for books in stock (in some cases, a lot more than just 49 books). In one case where the author refused to pay, PA interpreted the sentence quoted above to mean that it retained the publishing rights granted in the contract. Now, you could certainly argue that the sentence doesn't mean this at all, since "rights" and "copyright" are not the same thing, and PA never takes possession of your copyright. However, you might have to hire a lawyer in order to do so.

I don't know of any commercial publisher that ties rights reversion to author payments. The author may be offered the chance to purchase overstock and other materials at a reduced rate, but if they don't, it has no bearing on whether or not they get their publishing rights back.
You can find more about PublishAmerica’s profit margins here, and at a great many other sites on the web. These are not the good guys.
 

DeePower

PublishAmerica business model

Why doesn't PublishAmerica want book orders from stores like a traditional publisher? Why has PA set up their discount and no return policies so that it discourages sales? Why doesn't PA offer a discount to amazon.com so those books are discounted by the expected 30%? Why does PublishAmerica focus its efforts on recruiting new authors and having those new authors sell 50 to 300 copies, rather than taking a few authors and selling 1,000 to 5,000 copies to retail outlets?

I believe I have the answer. And it is money, but probably not what you think.

Just as a little background I have a Master's in Business Administration and have worked in the finance department of a major corporation, as well as a consultant in business planning for my own consulting company. I am very familiar with budgets, forecasting, cash flow and income statements.

If PA sells say 100 copies of a $19.95 title, (and let's just round that up to $20.00 so I can do the math in my head) to the author, or from the PA website and they discount the title 20%, they have sales of $1800.00 and they probably pay Lightning Source (LS) their printer $3.00 per book, but let's be conservative and say they pay $5.00 per book. They earn $1800.00 and pay LS $500.00 so the PA net profit is $1300.00

If a bookstore would order 1000 copies and want a 50% discount (55% is standard but again we'll say 50% so I can figure out the math without a calculator) PA would receive $10,000 and have to pay LS $5,000 so they would have a net profit of $5,000.00

Would you rather have $1300.00 or $5,000? PublishAmerica would rather have the $1300.00 and here's why.

The $1300.00 is immediate cash (actually they get $1800.00 immediately) because PA doesn't tell LS to print the books until PA has been paid in full by credit card by the author (or a customer from the PA website). Credit cards settle within 48 hours.

If PA fills a bookstore order they have to pay LS $5,000.00 to print the 1000 copies now, when the copies are ordered. BUT they don't get the payment from the bookstore for 60 to 90 days. If the books are ordered by the bookstore through Ingram, and that's how most bookstores order, PublishAmerica has to wait 90 days to get paid by Ingram. That's Ingram's standard term. It's a double hit, they have to pay out-of-pocket expenses of $5,000.00 immediately and they don't receive the $10,000 for 90 days.

PA does not want to tie up $5,000 for 90 days and have to wait 90 days to receive their profit.

If PA was a traditional publisher as they claim, and had orders for 1000 copies of just say 50 titles out of the 3000+ titles they have already released, well they have to have some significant cash on hand to fund the orders.

And now they have 8000 authors, if 3,000 have already been published that means that 5000 will be published within the next 12 months per the PA contract. PublishAmerica not only doesn't want to sell to bookstores like a traditional publisher, it's my opinion they can't.

Dee
www.BrianHillAndDeePower.com
 

James D Macdonald

Re: PublishAmerica business model

To simplify that:

Selling books to their own authors is cheap and easy. Selling books to the general public is expensive and difficult.

PA takes the easy route.

To expand:

To sell books to the authors and their families and friends requires a telelphone and the ability to take credit card orders.

To sell books to the public via bookstores requires a sales force, the ability to distribute the books, a returns policy, and capital up front. Plus, there's a chance of failure.
 

Jarocal

Re: PublishAmerica business model

I don't think the problem is not wanting A brick and Mortar to purchase 1000 copies at one shot (which would never happens with their pricing and no return policy). If they got a invoice from LS stating that Ingrams just moved 1000 at a shot PA would simply ring up their local bank and take a short term note for the 5 grand pay it in 90 days when Igrams cuts them the check and pocket around $4800 without spending a dime of their own money. They may even have a seperate stipulation with Ingram and LS that bulk orders over 1000 go to an offset press run where the price per unit drops even more raising their profit margin.

Where the problem lies is in repeated and spread out hits for 50 to 100 books ordered by bookstores that are willing to do a local author signing. They would rather sell the Books to the author with the money up front and let the author supply they books than to have a large number of authors with 50 book orders through bokstores for signings where PA has to fork out the cash first and wait for Ingrams because the individual amounts are too small to use a short bank note and still make a good profit.

Pa would welcome a bulk order of non returnable books at one shot, especially if it were without having to raise it's discount or lift a finger to attract the sale. But PA knows that while some authors may get some interest from Bookstores or ID distributers, the best chance the author has of actually placing them is to buy the books themselves in large quantity with their credit card and then dealing directly with the ID or Bookstore directly and taking a large enough hit that the author is giving the book away while PA makes their money upfront.

Pa's ideal customer is a business professional who does seminars where they manage to sell 15 to 25 of their books to a class of thirty directly during the seminar. The author is going to keep his stock at around 50 books. If it is a frequently sought after seminar like one on cellular manufacturing techniques, Statistical process control, or conforming to QS9001/QS14001 standards there is a good chance that the company bringing the person in for the seminar will spring for the thirty books for their employees. The author could even print it up as a textbook and include the retail price of the books less a 10% discount in the price of his course, in order to get the company to buy his books. This would also draw a trickle of internet sales from the PA website from people google searching the book title. Many times these authors will have additional titles to come along and while the sales of the first title drop a bit, they are still higher than the rest of PA's sales averages and the second book moves into the slot where the previous title was while the first title out continues at a rate of around 5 books per seminar. This cycle will continue with each new title until there are a couple that only sell one per session one that sels 5-10 per session and the current title which sells the 15-25 per session. PA loves this situation so much because the author will order 50 to 100 copies of one or two older titles everytime PA offers it's "special" and will order a suffiecient amount to supply his direct sales of the newest title to last between "special offers" by PA. The person may even run short in between offers and PA gets a higher profit margin because of the author's need to have his/her inventory in stock for direct sales because that is the only effective way they can reliably move their books.

After the ideal customer comes the next best thing, the HB' of the world who publish one book have the 100 copies or so sell and then after the friends/family cash cow has had time to fill back up they milk them again in the form of a sequel. These people don't make PA as much money but they tend to be quite happy with the fact that PA gave them a "foot in the door" (not realizing they probably won't like what is in the room behind the particular door PA opened for them) and contimually extoll the virtues of PA on it's website and to all their friends calling anyone who doubts the ability of PA to help their writing career naysayers or part of the "institution" trying to keep new life from PA from taking root.

After that category of customer comes PA's Bread and Butter. They are the ones who have labored years over one manuscript, do not want a career as a writer, just want to be able to say they are a "published author" (which technically they are even if only about 50 people will read their book). These people just want to see their name on the cover of a book and are happy with the 50-100 friends/family that will buy their books and the three copies they can manage to get the local Brick&Mortar guy to put on the shelf (usually after they bought it and resold it to the Brick&Mortar person). Getting a local booksigning to them is like living in a dream world and they could care less if they are having to supply the books because it is a new experience for them. Once in a while they even enjoyed the experience so much (I know it sounds crazy but it does happen :eek ) that they rush off to write a second book and that takes around a year or two and PA welcomes them back with open arms (see above about milking the F&F cash cow).

What all those above have in common is that they have been serviced by a vanity press model (which happens to meet the needs of their wants/expectations) without having to dish out the costs up front even though they are in the cover price of the book (I believe James M. has adequately portrayed how they factor in the publishing costs during a previous post in this thread). It is also a vanity press model that is different enough from vanity presses that aren't ashamed to call themselves a vanity press that it can almost seem like a traditional publisher to someone not in the industry.

After the PA happy customers, come the ones that the contract is designed to keep as quiet as possible. They are the customers who think that PA is going to offer them a shortcut to the bestseller list (even though there hasn't been a PA book on the best seller list, or even on bookstore shelves in quantity). They throw in an Article 9 to give the appearance that they have the electronic rights when all they have been granted is non-exclusive use of those rights. They hide a permanent grab for the book rights in article 24 which shouldn't even scare authors to badly since the copyright is in the authors name and the only rights PA can dispose of are the seven years worth of printed book rights(or the balance thereof) and a non-exclusive electronic medium rights. even if the Author told PA to sod off on buying the remaining "49 copies" the worst that PA could do to them would be allocate their Non-exclusive e-text rights to someone who would put it out as a free-download until the seven year period is up.

The contract is shady and it is designed to prey upon two things. The author's fear, and most people's desire for immediate results, even if it costs them a bit more money. In all honesty it is probably better not to fight to get the rights back and let the title stay in obscurity for seven years. After the term is up take the rights back, rework the book to what it should look like and publish it as a fresh work. PA only has been granted rights for seven years, they are not legally able to sell the rights to someone else for a longer term than they have use of those rights, not trying to sound rude but I doubt there are many people who would buy such short term rights, let alone on a work that is not properly edited. The only way it could possibly be damaging is if the person granted PA control over the movie rights and they decided to dispose of them.The grant of other rights outside of the immediate ones stated in the contract would be for whatever term the author gives PA control of them for in the seperate listing. At that point PA could invoke Paragraph 24, dump the other rights off if the author did not meet the conditions and they would not be governed by the seven year term on the contract unless the author stated they had them for seven years or to coincide with PA's allocation of rights from the publishing contract in which case they would revert back in seven years.

I think the seven years was a length of time carefully thought out by PA. It is short enough that a court or argbitration board ,ay view it as a reasonable amount of time for PA to recoup their "investment" into the work and make a decent profit, but more importantly to the average person who wants to get their work redone and out through another publisher seven yeasr seems an eternity that may cause the other publisher to say nevermind. If the book is saleable, the pulisher will accept/reject it the same way seven years from now as they would tomorrow. There would be a few exceptions that would get rejected due to time/market sensitivities, but there are exceptions to every rule.

If the contract fails to keep them quiet, PA can resort to it's bully tactics and smear campaign. "Please do not address us in that tone.." seems to be the start of every reply they send to author's who are insistant in getting an early contract break.
If the author starts off their attempts to break the contract early by informing PA they will not sign a gag order, PA knows it has the better part of seven years to dangle the rights to the author's books and twist the knife in the author's back a bit more. even the threats of litigation, while annoying to PA, will not deter them as they know that many courts will take a look at the contract and decide that the case must go to the arbitration board to try and be resolved before it will deal with the case. So you are talking three to six months to get in front of a judge who is going to say schedule an arbitration hearing that may take another six months to get scheduled. That knocks an entire year off the amount of time PA has the rights, and they have already made their money by selling the 50-100 copies on the F&F plan. At this point they are just leading the author around and making them jump through flaming hoops like a circus animal. So about a year after you start your fight to get the book back and PA decided it didn't like your attitude, you go in front of an arbitration board who is going to look at the contract you signed, and then tell you PA's request for a gag order is not unreasonable. They will also tell you that you have to buy the 49 copies in stock (unless you can prove that PA ordered them after sending you the denial for getting out of your contract early).

So with the 6 months to a year to get your book in print, the 3-6 months before you asked PA to get out of the contract, the 3-6 months to get in front of a judge who tells you try arbitration first, and finally the 3-6 months to get in front of the arbitration board, you are already 1 1/2 to 3 years into a seven year contract without having what you consider satifactory results and you have spent a lot of time, frustration, and money on something that is nearly half over. By now you have a major burr under your saddle and decide to go back to court spending more money, so about a month after the arbitration board, the judge who you went in front of before takes a quick look at the arbitration board agreement, then looks at their busy schedule, he either decides to make the arb. board decision binding right there (a win for PA), or that another 3 - 6 months is not too long for you to wait to get your day in court. So now over half of the time on the PA contract has expired, the still have rights to your book, and you have an ulcer. If it is a judge that PA''s lawyer feels comfortable asking for a short continuance from they do that, or they in open court put on record they will return the rights forthwith due to the legal costs becoming prohibitive. The lawyer will ask the judge to issue a gag order on the author in exchange for waiving the rest of the costs which has about a 70/30 chance of being immediately approved. Even if the the court won't order the gag PA will still revert the rights and effectively close the case.

You now have your book back three years early, after spending enough on legal fees to require a fairly good amount of royalties on the book if it gets published by someone else to even break even on the title and PA has made money on it.

Their lawyer has had to do a minimal amount of work to earn his retainer, and chances are that their lawyer may be a principle investor in the company.

Aside from the monetary end, you have spent the last 3 1/2 years fretting over something that would have been yours again soon anyhow. You elevated your stress level, may even have had stress related medical problems, and most of all, you have diverted resources away from where they should have been focused, on your writing.

If that one book was all you had in you, then maybe the effort may be deemed worth it. If you plan on continuing to write and release titles you have taken at least one more title of yours off a bookstore shelf over your squabbling with PA because you were spending time with that when you should have been focused on the present and the future. even if you release other titles in the amount of time you spend battling PA, you still have taken another title off the bookstore shelf because you were busy arguing with them instead of practicing your craft.

People need to be warned about shady companies like PA. Pressure from watchdog groups needs continued to keep them even as honest as their shady contract, but I don't see a drawn out legal battle that will cost the author more in legal fees than the title will most likely ever get them in royalties down the road. At least I can't see it with a seven year contract. If the contract had stated lifetime rights, or all rights, or even a longer term, say 25 years, then the legal battle may be worth it.

If your book sold 50 copies, Pa says they have still 49 in stock you have to buy, and then want you to pay scrap price for metal that was never used in the production process, then you have a legal case against them for fraud. But if your already a couple years into your contract, let that title remain in the watery grave all the Pirate ship publishing company titles are buried in and they will send you a renewal contract or a letter to dump your title, at the latest, seven years from the contract date.

If your book is still in production, not yet in print, write that list of 40 people that you supplied PA the names and addresses of, make sure they understand NOT TO BUY a copy of your book when it comes out. Pass the two copies they send you around to those 40 people to borrow and laugh that you got two books in print for $29 and PA spent more than that setting up a book that they will lose money on because neither you, your friends, or your family will buy a single copy of it. Don't say anything bad to PA about wanting your rights back and sing their song on the message boards while lamenting the evils of Bookstore managers who refuse to carry your book. When they realize your book is not selling a single copy, they will offer you the rights back for the "49 copies" at which point you tell them no and they can only lose more money while holding your book ransom for a total of seven years.

If they actually bought the 49 copies before sending you the letter it would be even funnier. They now have spent even more money with $0.00 return on their investment and 49 copies of your book laying around they will have to dump off somewhere to just brak even on the book they bought.:rofl

I have often thought of sending a junk manuscript to them just to be eligible to play on their boards and never did it because I thought $29 was too much to waste on two lousy books and a short life on a message board. Now I think I will do it, and give them 40 names to people I know will not buy a copy, just to cost them a couple hundred bucks as well as getting a chance to play on their message board.

Just think, I could be a Pirate like HB!:rofl
 

lindylou45

Re: PublishAmerica contract, items 22-23

I've been keeping up with this board and I have been amazed at what PA thinks they can get away with.

I am not going to wait seven years to get the rights to my books back (yes I said books. I was one of the stupid ones who sent in my second ms before my first book was actually released). I know that as a PA author my belief in my books is, in all probability, laughable to some, but I DO believe in my books. I've gotten some fantastic reviews on both my books and I want to be able to shop the mss to a reputable publisher, of whom I have thoroughly researched!

I had emailed Miranda Prather last week and asked her a series of questions of which I already knew the answers, I simply wanted to know what HER answers would be. I received her response today and it was so filled with half-truths, complete lies and ridiculous stammering that I could not believe it. I had to give myself some time before I responded to her because I was so angry. But respond I did. I responded to each and every one of her lies and called her out on them. Then I informed her that PA had 60 days in which to send me a reversal of rights or I would take them to court. I will gladly take them, too. My attorney feels that the contract I signed has been misrepresented by PA, not only because of her email, but because of the information on their website. The simple fact that they refuse to admit that they are a POD/vanity/subsidy publisher is misrepresentation in and of itself.

I look forward to Miranda Prather's reply. If she thinks I'm afraid of their threats, she would be wrong! :teeth I'm ready for whatever they try to throw at me!
 

James D Macdonald

Re: PublishAmerica Contract

I know that as a PA author my belief in my books is, in all probability, laughable to some, but I DO believe in my books.

I'm certain, and I've said openly, that PA has published hundreds of books that could have been traditionally published. The fact that PA claims to be a traditional publisher lures in folks who would never consider going the vanity route.

(I'm sure that Victoria and/or Dave would love a copy of that letter from Miranda, too....)

<hr>

Addendum: PA is back pushing their authorsmarket.com site again: <a href="http://www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/lounge/5019.htm" target="_new">www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/lounge/5019.htm</a>

You know the "inducements" Hapi was talking about a bit upstream? You'll find them in plenty there (along with much else that's plain misleading, not to mention harmful to young and naive writers).
 

Sher2

PublishAmerica Contract

(I'm sure that Victoria and/or Dave would love a copy of that letter from Miranda, too....)


You go, LindyLou! At least, I 'think' I know who LindyLou is. If not, then Ms. Prather struck twice yesterday. If it's the letter I think it is, it was a masterful piece of rhetoric, propaganda, outright deceit, and some cute cutting and pasting of PA advertising hype. Hell, on second thought, it was probably a form letter.
 

DaveKuzminski

Ah, that letter

Ah, they sent you the letter that a monkey could be trained to email. I wouldn't be surprised if your next response from them turned out to be the "don't use that tone toward us" version where they attempt to regain mind-control over you again.
 

priceless1

It's only half the battle

One thing to keep in mind as authors seek to have their contracts rescinded is that it's only half the battle. Ostensibly, the reason for gaining one’s rights back is so that they may find another publisher. The problems that arise when querying publishers is that they invariably won’t touch it. Why? This is the second half of the battle; the book is still selling in all the internet stores.

Yes, the publisher being discussed in this thread is a print on demand company and there should be very few printed copies out there. But with all print on demand companies, there are invariably copies still floating around, and by rights they are able to continue to advertise those until those copies sell. However, once they are sold, the publisher should then remove the title from the stores.

Sadly, this is not a perfect world and this does not happen. What really happens is the publisher fails to remove the title even though it’s listed as being out of stock. When the author, armed with his printing rights, queries another publisher they find that they’ve fallen into a No Man’s Land. Why? The first thing I do when I have an author query me under these circumstances is to check to see whether the title has been removed. Invariably it hasn’t. It then becomes a tug of war for the new publisher to get the title removed. Even though it is listed as being out of stock, it is still technically advertised under the old publisher’s name and old ISBN. That makes it extremely confusing for a customer. Which publisher do they try to order from? Prices are often different.

Yes, it becomes a case of false advertising, but there is no governing body out there policing these infractions. The only thing the publisher taking on the project has in a case such as this is appealing to the sensibilities of the original publisher to get their advertising down. I speak from experience and believe me, I’ll never do it again. I was ultimately successful in getting the publisher to remove their advertising, but it wasn’t until I inferred that what they were doing was fraudulent. The author had already bought all the remaining copies of his book and, therefore, there was no reason for their company to continue advertising his book.

Why publishers don’t remove their rescinded titles is two-fold. Apathy certainly plays an important part, but the more sinister practice of continuing to sell the book sadly comes into play. Yes, of course it’s illegal. But as I stated before, unless someone hauls the publisher off to court, there in no governing body to police these practices. It comes down to ‘who really got hurt here?’ The authors who have been ripped off in this manner are a very widespread group and there aren’t any cohesive factors to unite them.

We can never really know how widespread this practice is because the verification is difficult. Half the time the author isn’t even aware it’s going on. They’ve moved on and fail to keep tabs on their old publisher. It isn’t my intent to frighten anyone, but to educate about the possibilities. With the advent of print on demand, there is room for abuse on the part of those with few scruples. Yes, I have seen instances of this practice firsthand.

Please, authors, please take care when negotiating for your contracts. Regardless of the publisher, insist in your negotiations that you get a precise number of how many books are still on the market. It’s ridiculously easy to find out. Insist that either the author buy the remaining copies or put some sort of watchdog in place to monitor the sales. And also know that it may be a while before another publisher is willing to review your work.

Hope this helps.
 

FM St George

and yet another reality check...

I tell ya, the PA censors must have their hands full keeping the boards clear of the truth.

www.publishamerica.com/cg...e/5044.htm

7/20/2004
13:52:51
Subject: And now...a depressing story


Message:
After posting earlier this morning about my sucess at setting up my first signing and how wonderful that was, I now have the exact opposite type of story.

In my efforts to contact the various media outlets in my area (Rhode Island, southern Mass areas), I have made tons of calls to local newspapers, etc. The main one I wanted is called the Providence Journal. It is the largest paper in the area and I really wanted them to do a pieces on the book, knowing that it would raise the awareness level.

Well anyway, I finally reached the book editor there today and told him why I was calling. His first question was "who published the book". When I told him PublishAmerica he refused to do anything for the book. He said he doesn't do "self published" books. I politely explained that PA is not self publishing. He replied with "it might as well be, they'll publish anything that is submitted to them". I again explained that that was untrue and said that while they accept more books than many other publishers, they are in no way a vanity press that prints everything.

They guy didn't want to hear it...he wasn't so much rude as he was set in his opinion and refused to hear anything to the contrary.

What a bummer...like I said, this is the biggest paper in the area and I really had hoped to get them on board for an article.

Just thought I'd share this...as wonderful as the highs are and as great as they are to share, the lows also are a reality of the business, right?

Are there any other RI based authors with PA who have had similar problems with the Journal?

Jeremy Marc Girard
"A Dreamer's Story"
www.jmgbooks.com

JuneBug

7/20/2004
14:02:54


RE: And now...a depressing story


Message:
Dear Jeremy,
I've worked in sales, so I know about the feeling of rejection, particularly when it is not based on facts.

I live in San Diego, CA, so I don't know about the Providence Journal, but what I would do is print out the "About Us" section from PA and send it to the book editor. If he bothers to read it, he will see that PA is not a vanity press, and he will also see that they do select the books they choose to publish based on merit.

Good luck and much success to you!

June Weiner
HOME SWEET HOME (in editing stages!)
www.juneweiner.com (under construction)

MN Freeda

7/20/2004
14:39:12
RE: And now...a depressing story


Message:
Though PA's bad reputation originates in rumor and a few disgruntled customers, it has affected my book in similar fashion.

I have been rejected by book editors left and right who see "Publish America" and refuse to accept a review copy or even respond to a follow-up e-mail.

We PA authors must do our part to promote this company with as much fervency as we display in marketing our books. It is also incumbent upon PA itself to counter these beliefs with the facts.

-MN Freeda

JMGBooks

7/20/2004
14:45:37
RE: And now...a depressing story


Message:
I have no problem with rejection...I mean, it is not pleasant, but I am not so naive that I expect to never be rejected. What really bothered me was the fact that this guy, who is the book editor for the largest paper in my state, is misinformed and set in his opinion of PA.

The idea of printing the page from the website to send to him is a good one, but I don't think it will do anything to change his mind. He really seemed set in his ways and unwilling to budge from that opinion.

Rejection based on facts in one thing...rejection based on misinformation is another altogether. I have read the negatives on PA, and as a PA author I will say that 99.9% of it is simply false information, which is distressing.

I am going to move past this though and make the interviews I do get that much better because of it!
********

why, yes - print out the PA propaganda from their own website and send it to them - that'll change their minds!

*shakes head*
 
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