The Old Neverending PublishAmerica Thread (Publish America)

lindylou45 said:

Hmm, do you think his books will sell any better in Europe than here?

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Could they sell much worse?

Kris

James D. Macdonald said:

It makes me want to ask all those PA Boosters, "So, how much did it cost you to publish your book, hmmmm?"

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Not a booster but,

$1,604.00 dollars. 150 books + 30.00 for copyright filing. Net loss- 904.00.

After I got tired of being the Fuller brush man-door to door shoe salesman. I handed out the remainder as freebies, and have been ask when the next book comes out. I don't know when, or published by whom. I do know that I won't be shuffling around a box full of books paid for by me. Nor will P.U. be publishing it.

Had I the fortitude, and time to sell my own work on a continual bases I would opt to self publish.

Self publish.
Five reams of paper divided by 182 pages= 13 books. 50.00 bucks
One HP. printer/with full ink cartridge or two 26.00 bucks
One box of staples. 3.00 bucks
One Saturday morning on the town square. Priceless
Sales price 6.95
Total sales Same as P.A. book.
none-gave um' away

changling said:

I would still love to have the numbers for P.A. sales to authors, verses the reading public at large. Alas, only Scobby doo and the Mystery bus gang could get the lowdown on that.

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Perhaps only Double Dutch and the Gang of Five know for sure, but here's my best guess, based on an earlier analysis:

Per Title, On Average:

37 sell to the author himself.
18 sell to family and friends via initial release order form.
15 are sold at the special-order desk at brick'n'mortar bookstores.
5 are sold on-line (Amazon.com etc.)

From that you can see that Larry's statements are all literally true: Most books are bought by somone other than the author. (37 to the author against 38 to all others.)

Family and Friends are only a small percentage of the total. (24%)

The majority of those that sell retail (15 out of 20) sell in brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Alas, the literal truth of his statements won't help him skate out of the false advertising charges.

Memphis Ed said:

If Amo writes as well as he expresses his thoughts, it is a shame since he has no chance with his current publisher....NO chance.

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I, for some reason, have always thought that Amo was a free lancer. Anyone know otherwise?

Ann said:

I, for some reason, have always thought that Amo was a free lancer. Anyone know otherwise?

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Freelance advertiser I've read.
A think his spelling leaves much to be desired. But, I like his posts okay, though all of them seem to be about selling books instead of writing them.

James D. Macdonald said:

Okay, let's try costs.

PA: They say a 255 page book is typical. A $19.95 cover price is typical. The highest discount in the contract is 30%. Copyright is $30.00.

Total cost to the author for 500 is: $6,982.50 + $30 = $7,012.50 out of pocket for a PA author, ignoring shipping and handling.

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Jim- Am I not mistaken that the initial "friends and family" books pay royalties only and the PA authors don't buy and resell them? If so, that reduces their income on that stream of sales. Ditto for those sold at Amazon.com and off the PA site itself?

Also, there are plenty of printing companies that do not require 500 books or anything close to that for initial copies in case anyone is worried about books in the garage.

Any way you slice or dice it, PA authors are paying to have their books printed. They are simply paying by the book instead of in advance.

Also, in your example you were gracious to compare selling non-PA books for around $5 less than the PA books. If the same book by the same author sold for equal amounts, the difference is even greater.

When PA authors say that "PA has invested in my work", they are simply incorrect. If PA did an inital run of a few thousand books, they would be investing. PA puts the operating expense of laying out a template for a book and then waiting for onesy-twosy orders. There is virtually zero invested in any book at PA. None. Zilch. There is no acquisition team meeting this week to determine who we are going to "take a risk" with.

There is no 2,400 book sale to the VA, no Walmart deal in the works, no return policy change coming, and no interest on their part in generating it.

They are a middle-man with a "deal" with a print-on-demand company that takes small orders for books, sends out an CD with the content to the printer, and sends them out. You can trust that they print enough books so that THEIR cost per book is substantially lower than any example given in this thread, which causes the hammer to the author to be even bigger.

PA authors....you are paying for your books.

lindylou45 said:

Hmm, do you think his books will sell any better in Europe than here?

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Lindy, she may be talking about his "entertainment" career. I believe he once posted he was at one time a well-known comedian, under another name. He and Shemp were even talking about a partnership.

But, you may be right, they could also be talking about his book -- who knows with the adamant PA Boosters.

Sher2 said:

Chang, I think your percentage guess is probably right on the money. In fact, it may be even a tad higher.

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I agree to that too. And will add -- I don't think PA can prove that any major sales have been made outside of their author's own purchases.

Jeff said:

So, to recap: It costs you MORE to publish with Publish America, and you get LESS money in return if you sell all your books.

Sheesh.

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That's it in a nut-shell.

Memphis Ed said:

Jim- Am I not mistaken that the initial "friends and family" books pay royalties only and the PA authors don't buy and resale them? If so, that reduces their income on that stream of sales. Ditto for those sold at Amazon.com and off the PA site itself?

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I was going with Jeff's conditions: Author buys 500 copies for resale. I didn't try to consider royalties or other sales streams. I did try to keep terms equivalent.

I ignored shipping-&-handling, author's time, and promotion-&-marketing costs.

===============

(At a guess, it's easier to sell a book for $14.95 or $15.75 than the exact same book for $19.95.)

Royalty statement From: August 1, 2004 to: January 31, 2005

Retail discount -15%
Sales price -$16.95
Quanity- 10
Royalty % -8%
Royalty amount- $13.56

Retail discount-40%
Sales price -$11.97
Quanity- 3
Royalty%-8%
Royalty amount-$2.87

The top number would be the sales from my list of 80 names sent.

The other 3 come from Internet sales.

A glaring, and curious note on the back, a kind of FAQ thing. The heading reads:

Where are the royalties on copies of my own book that I bought?
Answer:
Authors are not paid royalties on books they buy themselves, as per Par.5 of the contract, unless we ran a special promotion that indicated otherwise. There was no such promotion during this royalty statement. This tells me they P.A. is aware that the authors buy a lot of their own books. Why? It is one of six questions addressed on the back. Comes up quite a bit I'm sure.

The NYT partnership/buy our ad for us scam, was on right after the end of the previous royalty cycle.

A push to sell books just before the announced the NYT deal?

And then, build a book buying frenzy again when they came out with the NYT "Partnership."

Give them a special just before royalty cutoff to sell books.

Then break the new deal and sell more books to them.

Another thought just crossed my mind.

The dead one who has risen, was telling folks when the deal broke that he would outsell them to get on the list.
Do I smell a collaboration?

Bought Ten Percent of Nothing quite a while back on Jim's suggestion, but didn't actually find time to read it until last night. Stayed up until 8:15 a.m. because I couldn't stop reading.

There are SO many similarities.

The Deerings used less nasty but still similar "tone" letters.

The Deerings used the "act now" promotions (like the buy-your-own-books-for-the-NYT-ad).

The business was started by a failed writer.

They didn't actually read manuscripts before accepting.

The "editor" was told to just run the manuscripts through grammar/spellcheck.

The people in the office were given a script of responses to contradict any complaint they came up against.

Writers were told not to call the office, and sometimes put on "communication probation."

The writers' lawyers' letters were ignored or made fun of.

They hired college students or people straight out of school who had no idea what "real publishing" was supposed to look like.

They had their own "Jamie Farr," whose work they used as the big example.

Writers were told that they were not John Grisham... not yet, at least, so blah blah, and blamed when they complained that this wasn't a traditional publisher, along the lines of, "We can't help it if your book isn't good enough. We're giving it the chance it deserves."

Their business was built on puffed-up claims and outright lies to get authors to believe they had been specially selected based on talent, and that this was NOT vanity publishing.

The Deerings "specialized in new authors," convincing writers that this was their passion-- to help new writers break in and compete against the literary giants.

The authors were intensely loyal, often against all logic and evidence.

They were led to believe that they were revolutionizing the industry.

The company was finally outed on a message board, with Victoria and Ann helping to lead the fight.

The final chapter here was that an FBI agent (Clay Mason) finally took a real interest. A personal interest. And the Deerings were sent to prison, ordered to pay restitution, and forbidden from ever working in the "publishing" industry again.

So.

I'll sit here and write letters and drum up publicity and wait patiently for our Clay Mason to come along. I know he's out there. Let's keep knocking on doors until we find him.

And Ed, get your bony butt back here before I have to come there and get you myself. Then Gherkin is going to have to feed me chocolate-covered strawberries all the way to Georgia. Have you no mercy for the poor boy?

Bonnie Kay said:

I do not have to buy any of my books, unless I want to.
Family members don't have to buy my books either, if they don't want to.

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That's right, and according to Larry Clopper over 1000 PA authors have faced exactly that. They didn't buy their own book. Their friends did not buy their book. They didn't sell a single book. None. Zip. Nadda.

* PA doesn't need you to promote. They need you to buy the books. If PA authors STOPPED buying their books, PA would die.
* A vanity press doesn't need you to promote. They need you to buy the books, if vanity published authors stopped buying their books, vanity presses would die.
* A real commercial publisher doesn't need you to promote -- they like it, but they don't NEED it. And they could care less whether you buy your own book (though many times they require that you NOT buy them for resale...they don't want you to be a bookseller.) If commercially published authors stopped buying their books -- it might take a long while for publishers to notice.

If you are happy being with a publisher who in virtually ALL ways looks exactly like a vanity press -- hey, that's cool. But do understand: if it quacks like a duck, swims like a duck and is covered with feathers, you ain't going to convince anyone that it's a poodle instead -- not even if you buy it a diamond studded collar. And you can label everyone a "basher" who tells you, "Hey, that's a duck" -- but at the end of the day, it's still duck poop that you're going to be cleaning up.

gran

Memphis Ed said:

...
Also, there are plenty of printing companies that do not require 500 books or anything close to that for initial copies in case anyone is worried about books in the garage. ...

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Writer's Digest and The Writer have ads for short-run book printers (Adams Press and others)--not to be confused with the vanity publishers that also advertise there. Any city of reasonable size will also have printers who can provide that service, including perfect binding or other binding options. Obviously per-copy costs drop with volume, so it is a balancing act. Googling short run book printing (plus a city name if you like, to narrow the search) finds plenty of options to explore. Anyone thinking of going that route would do well to read one of the prominent books on self-publishing (Dan Poynter's, or Tom and Marilyn Ross's).

--Ken

This is hilarious!

I am going to answer publicly to a message received. Not by any of you currently posting or the mod.

NO, I was not trying to censor the way anyone post. And NO, I am not trying to get everyone to be nicety nice. I have no objections with the parodies on the misspells or "stipid" things some of the PA Booster leave themselves open to, including red teddies, etc. I am highly guilty of playing on that one--had fun with it too.

I was just a little concerned that ALL PA authors were being lumped together in one group by some. I'm sorry for the misunderstandings.

I thought it necessary to clear that up, in case others were thinking the same things.

Jeff said:

So, to recap: It costs you MORE to publish with Publish America, and you get LESS money in return if you sell all your books.

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Add to that the following reasons to choose a fee-based POD like iUniverse over PA:

- Better contract (one year nonexclusive, as opposed to PA's seven-year exclusive, even where qualified by the fake nonexclusive addendum)
- Lower cover prices
- Higher royalties (20% of net as opposed to PA's 8% of net)
- Better author discounts
- Better accounting (for instance, iUniverse issues monthly statements, as opposed to PA's semi-annual statements)
- More frequent royalty payments (again using iUniverse as an example, payments are quarterly rather than semi-annual)
- Better-looking interior formatting (most POD books are not a prize design-wise, but PA's are worse-looking than others)
- More professional-looking cover design (again, we're not talking prizeworthy material here, but iUniverse's template covers look better than most PA covers)

- Victoria

JennaGlatzer said:

snip

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Yikes...this is scary.

JennaGlatzer said:

The final chapter here was that an FBI agent (Clay Mason) finally took a real interest. A personal interest. And the Deerings were sent to prison, ordered to pay restitution, and forbidden from ever working in the "publishing" industry again.

I'll sit here and write letters and drum up publicity and wait patiently for our Clay Mason to come along. I know he's out there. Let's keep knocking on doors until we find him.

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Yup. It only takes one.

- Victoria

And, As I haven't done it yet.

ED Williams, Get your southern fried hinder parts back here. I came here, and stayed mostly because you told me to do so.
I like you, and dadgummit, you're the hamdog eatinist, fried twinkle cookin', chocolate lickin' buddy I got.

Don't leave me hangin' PAL.

Wait! I forgot an important one:

Anyone who complained was labeled a disgruntled whiner.

Luckily, a jury didn't think those writers were "whining." They thought those writers were the victims of fraud.

Does everyone know Ed's e-mail address? Perhaps an e-mail bomb is in order. We'll keep annoying him until he gets back here just so he can have a clear mailbox again.

Deering

As I may have posted before, I knew someone who got caught up in the Deering scam/scandel.

She was into them 5K. They really had it down to a science. Later, we figured out that D. Deering and her (my friends) own "personal" editor had a "bad cop, good cop" routine to get some reluctant to send money, convinced. That is how they first got her snagged.

Sooo, when I came across PA and their BS on their web site, along with no money upfront, etc.. And based on my friends experience I was further duped.

It looks like since PA came on the scene just after the Deerings were sentenced and they made sure to not make the same mistakes that the Deering's company did. But, as Jenna pointed out, similarities were certainly there!

Did my friend feel "stipid" and humiliated? Yes, and will never recover from that one.

Do I feel "stipid?" At times, somewhat. But no longer humiliated. I am just one in thousands of otherwise intelligent and good writers caught by the scam.

We miss you Ed!

I was wrong in my statement proclaiming Amo's occupation as advertising.

My astute colleague James Macdonald has corrected me. I thank him.
Amo, is retired from the Marketing profession.
Ken

changling said:

<snipped> You say that PA will publish anything, well I know for a fact that that's not true. Because I sent them a ms before I double checked it and guess what they didn't take it.

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Want to make a guess that if she didn't redo it and sent it the next day that it would have been accepted?

I went back over it and redid the work. I sent the same ms to another company and guess what for a lot of money they were willing to take the ms.

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That's because it was a vanity press, just like PA, only PA charges you at the rear (or is it OUT the rear?)

PA didn't ask and hasn't asked for any money as a matter of fact they gave me a doolar advance. Which maybe to you that doesn't seem like a lot of money but to me that was showing that they have faith in my work.

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Sigh. I really wish that were true.They don't really care about your work, only your pocketbook.

guess what I'm reading a book by a well known author and not all of his things are done right and he paid someone to look his work over.

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NO THEY DIDN'T!!! Their publisher paid them to do it. That's their JOB.

I really feel bad for this poor person, b/c she obviously swallowed PA's lies hook, line and sinker. She has no real knowledge of how publishing works, period.