Return of a Man Named PAMB and its Quotes

Calla Lily

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[delurks to emphasize Gillhoughly]

King's breakout book, Carrie, was published with Doubleday. They gave him a 2,500.00 advance for the HC rights--which is 2,499.00 more than PA offers.
<snip>
Rowling had a literary agent who sold the first Potter book to Bloomsbury for a £1500 advance.
<snip>

Notice the theme here?

Their books went to real publishing houses and who paid real money for their work.

After signing the contract they were not told by those publishers to "promote-promote-promote" but to "write-write-write."

Yes, we all have to start somewhere.

Just not at Publish America.

My first advance (for the book in my sig) was four figures.

My book won't hit stores for another 8+ months.

My editor is calling me this weekend to discuss book 2--the contract for which--including a separate advance--is already signed. She's not calling me to get a list of promotion techniques: they have a publicity dept. that is handling that. She's calling me to discuss some of the plot points of book 2--which I'm already writing.

I got an agent through a blind query, and he sold a 3-book deal for a completely unknown author. It happens all the time.

But not with PA. Don't throw your book away. Go for the brass ring!

[relurks]
 

Marian Perera

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Yes. King, Rowling, Clancy and Koontz were once first-time authors. But dammit, they did NOT struggle to get their books in stores!! Their publishers did that!

Many PA authors can't even get their books on Amazon. How many threads have there been about the books being out of stock or unavailable online?

I am so tired of those names being brought up constantly as if they got where they are now because they had a really clever spam email campaign.

Did someone mention an email campaign?

a new PA author said:
I'm thinking about making an elaborate email and sending it to all my email addresses and asking them to send it to 10 people for me.

What do you mean, that's not how Michael Crichton became famous?
 

ctripp

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I'm currently putting the finishing touches on a book. As of now it is about 294 pages in length. I am now doing the edit portion, then on to getting the page settup.
It's a lot of fun, but can be so much work too.

I'll tell you this much, I have so much respect for my fellow writers and all the work they put in.

Geez, who knew, I thought it would be easy, not a job and that everyone/anyone could do it!
Just imagine if this writer was working with a real publisher, an Editor, who was taking them through rewrites!
(as a side note, I am getting tired of "hi, it's me, Paul C" and why does he want to hide his last name?)
 

M.R.J. Le Blanc

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(as a side note, I am getting tired of "hi, it's me, Paul C" and why does he want to hide his last name?)

I notice a couple loyalists do similar things like that. Something I've seen amongst people who are trying to make it in some avenue is they try to create this 'air', this almost illusion of fame so that people who meet them for the first time think they're bigger than they actually are. Probably in hopes of building a fanbase they don't yet have. It never works, people eventually see through it and move on.
 

Stacia Kane

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I don't think he's necessarily doing it out of ego, honestly. I think he A) thinks it's funny/cute; and B) Doesn't use his real name on the site, and doesn't have his name as a domain name, so maybe doesn't understand that people will know it's him?

I do find it interesting/sad, though, that while he has all of those links in his sig, and while he keeps giving advice on promotion, his website is difficult to navigate (the pages aren't clearly named, frex), provides nothing that will actually interest readers in the book, and--as is typical with PA author sites--there is no excerpt anywhere.

I really don't understand how any author can think people will just buy their book without getting to see even the smallest sample of the writing. The writing is the only thing that truly sells a book, IMO.
 

Marian Perera

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(as a side note, I am getting tired of "hi, it's me, Paul C" and why does he want to hide his last name?)

He doesn't, IMO, give good advice to the newbies. For instance, he says,

The idea about the e-mail is good, I would suggest that you make up the media kit and send that as an attachment to your e-mail addresses. You can say a breif synopsis in the main E-mail and say 'see attachment.'

I rarely even open emails from people I don't know. Downloading such an attachment is not going to happen.

He also suggests getting several accounts - Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. and apparently has three websites. Coming up with different content for the websites would be a significant allocation of time, and that's not even getting into the social networking aspect.

Of course, that's a moot point if all you do is sign up and mention your books, which is what's on his Twitter link.

I'm not saying this to pick on the PA author, by the way, just to discuss why his suggestions are unlikely to help with regards to promotion.

Stacia Kane said:
I really don't understand how any author can think people will just buy their book without getting to see even the smallest sample of the writing.

PA accepts manuscripts without regard to the writing, plus Mom and Dad will buy a copy without asking to read anything beforehand.
 
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BenPanced

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http://bb.publishamerica.com/viewtopic.php?t=32449

When the Kool Aid sours:

Your book is still UNAVAILABLE to customers, and Amazon will eventually cancel your buyer's order because Publish America will not make the book available to them. Below are some of the problems I have personally experienced with PA. My book came out in May 2009.
Publish America has turned out to be quite a disappointment.
Worst editing—or none, as promised.
Refusal to terminate contract when authors “see the light.”
Never sending the free books they promise when you buy a certain number.Never promoting authors.
Never sending any books off to Barnes and Noble, or Oprah, or Walmart or anywhere.(these are just scams to get authors to purchase their own books).
Worst of all, though, is NOT making the books available to Amazon. Com, Barnes & Noble etc. People try to order the book, and they’re told that’s it’s out of stock. Amazon has it on their
List, but it’s unavailable to them from PublishAmerica, and after about three weeks, Amazon cancels the customer’s order because PA says it’s not available. That has to be the worst of the offenses because authors spend their own money promoting their books and when they get people to actually order, the book is unavailable. This is unjust. This is criminal, but I guess
ethics was not a part of Publish America’s offer.

I hope someone points this writer here.

(A couple of others were quick to chime in with the party line of PA did everything they promised me... which is basically nothing.)
:eek:

Gosh, that reply you quoted seems to have...vanished. It looks like somebody deleted it by accident!

:rolleyes
 

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Hi folks,

I'm new here, but not new to writing, and am well aware of PA and its methods. I glanced at their forum and was stunned by the sheer ignorance among their writers.

This lady, and her dream, struck me as one of the saddest:

"I sent Miley Cyrus a copy of my book because I want her to do the lead part of my main character when it becomes a movie. You think?"

These people have a duty to themselves--and their dream--to do a little investigative work, of course. But this lady actually believes it could happen.

On a side note, I have a friend who I suspect is using PA on a children's book. I have tried to enlighten her, but she is staunch in her conviction that it WILL sell, once even a handful of strangers are exposed to it.

Her delusion about the coming year or two is awesome and terrifying in its scope. Her two sons, both in their 20's, have also bought into the fantasy. To the extent that they are currently planning what model and year of Ferrari they will each purchase with mom's profits. And they mean it. They believe, and the Kool-Aid continues to flow.

I will try to help her back to her feet when the dust clears. For now she is unassailable in her conviction.
 

Marian Perera

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Hi flood, and welcome to the board!

Her delusion about the coming year or two is awesome and terrifying in its scope. Her two sons, both in their 20's, have also bought into the fantasy. To the extent that they are currently planning what model and year of Ferrari they will each purchase with mom's profits. And they mean it. They believe, and the Kool-Aid continues to flow.

Seriously? Wow. I don't know what's worse, that they want to use their mother's advance/royalties, or that they think they'll be able to afford Ferraris. Maybe these Ferraris:

1712-1785-large.jpg


I will try to help her back to her feet when the dust clears.

That's really all you can do for anyone who refuses to think objectively or do the research.
 

Stacia Kane

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He also suggests getting several accounts - Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. and apparently has three websites. Coming up with different content for the websites would be a significant allocation of time, and that's not even getting into the social networking aspect.

Of course, that's a moot point if all you do is sign up and mention your books, which is what's on his Twitter link.

I'm not saying this to pick on the PA author, by the way, just to discuss why his suggestions are unlikely to help with regards to promotion.


This seems to be a common delusion on the PA forums (and also with other vanity press authors I've seen, as well).

It's this sort of if-you-build-it-they-will-come mentality that believes a website is some kind of magical internet magnet drawing readers from all corners of the globe, and that the mere fact of having one is promotion in and of itself; content doesn't matter, it's simply You Must Have Website. Website Sells!

You Must Have Facebook Page. Facebook Page Sells!

You know what I mean? Their websites seem to all be based on the same bland, useless template (by which I mean content, not appearance, although the appearance is almost always either a generic open-book image, or some sort of horrible tiled background, although the "night sky with sparkly stars" is still popular):

self-aggrandizing bio ("Stacia Kane dreamed all my life of telling storys that would make people laugh, cry, and feel good to be alive! Now that dream has came true!") Often the bio mentions family members by name ("My wonderful husbend Chip and our two beautiful sons, Chip Jr. and Dale.")

Vague blurb ("Hearts of Love is the kind of story youll read all night because the characters are so real and there love is so deep and beautiful," or possibly a blurb written as a letter to readers, as in "My book Hearts of Love is about two charecters who try to overcome obsticles and have happiness. I wrote my heroin Delilah Heart to be like the kind of woman everyone knows and loves.")

Guestbook, along with various requests to sign the Guestbook all over the site (when is the last time you saw a professional website with a Guestbook?)

Blog with no entries, or possibly one or two entries, the first of which is an introduction to the writer and a promise to keep readers updated

Links page with links to PA and other PA authors. Occasionally there will be links to pages about the author's hobbies.

And that's it.

There may be a few extra pages; some of them have a gallery, for example.

Some of them have "Testimonials," as if it's a website designed to sell Salad Spinners rather than books.

Every once in a great while you'll have an excerpt, yes, but usually not; and when you do, it's three or four paragraphs from chapter six or something.

And of course there are always a couple who actually give advice about writing and/or publishing.


They're not websites designed to give readers any real information about the book; they're not interesting; they're not enticing. There's nothing in them that would or will attract people, especially since for some reason almost none of the PAers register their domain names, so they always have that "webs.com" or whatever after their names, which just screams "amateur." (I don't understand the mentality that will pay hundreds of dollars for gimmicks and books but won't spend ten bucks to get a professional domain name.) They offer no insight into the author or the book. They're the online equivalent of a dented can without a label.

PAers, if you're looking at this, I'm not trying to make fun of you or put you down. I'm trying to point out that just having a website doesn't sell books. Having a website with a few hits a day doesn't sell books. Your website has to inform people about the book and give them a reason to buy it over all of the reasonably priced, professionally published books out there in stores--all of which have back cover copy that actually tells the reader what the books is about and what happens in it, not some vague platitudes about "adventure and romance that will make you cry".

Please, if you want your website to actually be a tool to help sell books, check out the sites of some professionally published authors and see what they do, and emulate that. Think about what makes you buy a book, and do that. Think about what kind of information you expect when you go on any website, and put that information on your site.

Just having a website isn't enough. Just like having a Facebook page isn't enough, and a Twitter account is no good if you only follow seven other PA authors and only ever Tweet about your book. That stuff isn't going to sell books for you by virtue of its very existence. You have to make it work for you.
 

MaryMumsy

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Gotta love the booster who supports the party line:



King's breakout book, Carrie, was published with Doubleday. They gave him a 2,500.00 advance for the HC rights--which is 2,499.00 more than PA offers. He split the paperback rights of 400,000.00 with them.

Carrie was first published in April 1974, assume the contract was in 1973. In 1973, $2500 was a not insignificant amount of money.

MM
 

M.R.J. Le Blanc

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I'm not sure I'd say it's out of ego either, but more as a tool to create a fanbase. Sort of along the lines of 'wow he's somebody! i should check his stuff out!'. Kind of like when you see an actor you've never heard of before, or hear a song by a new musician and that exposure leads you to check out their other work and usually become a fan. I'm not sure if I'm making any sense, I'm very tired :)
 

Stacia Kane

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I'm not sure I'd say it's out of ego either, but more as a tool to create a fanbase. Sort of along the lines of 'wow he's somebody! i should check his stuff out!'. Kind of like when you see an actor you've never heard of before, or hear a song by a new musician and that exposure leads you to check out their other work and usually become a fan. I'm not sure if I'm making any sense, I'm very tired :)


Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to imply you were calling him an egotist or anything. I do know what you mean, and agree. :)
 

kullervo

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Her delusion about the coming year or two is awesome and terrifying in its scope. Her two sons, both in their 20's, have also bought into the fantasy. To the extent that they are currently planning what model and year of Ferrari they will each purchase with mom's profits.

For a dollar they could probably get a couple of Mondials.
 

Cyia

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They're not websites designed to give readers any real information about the book; they're not interesting; they're not enticing. There's nothing in them that would or will attract people, especially since for some reason almost none of the PAers register their domain names, so they always have that "webs.com" or whatever after their names, which just screams "amateur." (I don't understand the mentality that will pay hundreds of dollars for gimmicks and books but won't spend ten bucks to get a professional domain name.) They offer no insight into the author or the book. They're the online equivalent of a dented can without a label.

It's part of the package that goes with the "pay nothing!" mentality. They get a free website from PA, which according to the PAMB, almost none of them can find/figure out how to setup/use easily. Then when they ask for help, it's a knee jerk response right along with FB.

"Get yourself a website! I use webs.com! It's totally free and you can set it up in a few minutes really easy!!!" <--- exclamation marks make it true, I guess.

Right after that, the advice usually spirals into suggestions of going to writer's sites/boards and talking about the book (as opposed to anything else) and making sure the link to that site is in their sigline/posts everywhere.

It's a weird sense of entitlement that goes along with the Published Author (<-- must be capitalized for it to be true!!!) game. They finished a book and got it "published", so therefore, they aren't required to participate in discussions but can monopolize them for advertising. They have a book on Amazon (in theory), so therefore everyone must listen to them and buy their book. The book exists (somewhere in a file on a computer) so it's automatically in the minds and wishlists of every person who's ever learned to read.

Reading some of those posts is like the readers expect publishing to equate to a giant subliminal pop-up add on every computer world wide.
 

Gillhoughly

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On a side note, I have a friend who I suspect is using PA on a children's book.

You can try all you want, but facts won't get through the "honeymoon" stage.

You can inform her that a publisher's advance is how much they expect a book to earn back in sales.

Rowling's first advance on her first book was about 2,200.00 US dollars.

Your friend's advance was 1.00.

PA has low expectations for all, which are always fulfilled.

Ask her to google New York Times bestseller list and see if she finds a single PA title on their list for kid books.

she is staunch in her conviction that it WILL sell, once even a handful of strangers are exposed to it.

We all think/hope that. I know I did. However, our books are in stores. Hers will be on a website with 40K other titles. The general public is not telepathic. Just because a book is available doesn't mean it will sell.

Her two sons, both in their 20's, have also bought into the fantasy. To the extent that they are currently planning what model and year of Ferrari they will each purchase with mom's profits.

Ugh. Nothing new about that. For every striving writer, there are two bums ready to spend the "easy" money. Tell her to give them .33 cents now, and she keeps .34 for herself.

But if she's a really good mother she can tell them to get jobs and buy their own damn cars and not sponge off her.

I used to encourage a would-be writer at a store I shopped at--better believe I told her to avoid PA.

Got to meet her husband once. With a big smirk he declared he couldn't wait for her to sell her book so he could start spending the big money.

Having dealt with that--an ex who cheerfully spent my book earnings (before taxes) on lobster dinners and left-handed monkey wrenches--I told him her first advance would be around 1500.00 and they needed to bank it to cover the taxes and put the rest toward their kid's education. The 1.5k would likely be all she earned on the book.

He didn't like that.

Sensing a co-dependent situation, I backed off, but the next time in told her she needed a separate bank account for book earnings. I hope she listened.

Kudos to you for planning to be there when the fall comes. And it will.
 
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JulieB

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There's a disconnect going on, and I don't exactly blame PA for it. We've all seen the web companies that start from nothing and go on to earn millions for the founders. And there ARE a few success stories with people who self-published, went through Author Solutions, and so on.

However, most people don't understand that you just can't build it and they'll come. When you put up a web site you're one peep in a sea of noise. I know. I run several web sites and have done professional SEO work. It's HARD to get yourself noticed. You can't just wake up one morning and say, "oh, my book is due out next month," and start the site. It takes a lot of hard work to build an audience.
 

Tsu Dho Nimh

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Carrie was first published in April 1974, assume the contract was in 1973. In 1973, $2500 was a not insignificant amount of money.
MM

[SIZE=+1]According to the handy Inflation Calculator: What cost $2500 in 1973 would cost $11938.09 in 2009.

And the ever-popular myth about John Grisham selling his stuff out of the trunk of his car? Well, he had some rejections, but [/SIZE]the manuscript for his first book was bought by Wynwood Press, who printed 5,000 copies.

It's possible that he was selling some of them from his trunk, but it's not mentioned in his bio on his site.
 

M.R.J. Le Blanc

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There's a disconnect going on, and I don't exactly blame PA for it. We've all seen the web companies that start from nothing and go on to earn millions for the founders. And there ARE a few success stories with people who self-published, went through Author Solutions, and so on.

Yeah but you still have to keep those kinds of successes in perspective. For every success from a self-pub, there are hundreds that don't. I wouldn't be surprised if it were the same with web companies too. And PA and other vanity companies love twisting those success stories to make it sound more attainable than it actually is.
 

Marian Perera

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More questions about availability

I, too have had my book published and it still is not listed on Amazon or at Barnes and Noble. I would like to know how long it takes too. I am an unemployed writer right now and can't afford to purchase my book at this time. That makes it difficult to market it. I am depending on the on-line sites. I have been passing out flyers in the city and letting a lot of people know that it can be bought on line through publishAmerica.

They'll be in for a surprise when they check out the price of the book plus s&h. And if they actually pay that, they'll have a long wait for the book.

I have another book almost finished, and want to be sure that PublishAmerica is the company to stay with. Has anyone had good fortune with them?
icon_confused.gif

I can't quite understand this mentality. Your books aren't available in bookstores. Your books aren't available in online stores. And you still want to be reassured that PA is the best company for you?
 

JulieB

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Yeah but you still have to keep those kinds of successes in perspective. For every success from a self-pub, there are hundreds that don't. I wouldn't be surprised if it were the same with web companies too. And PA and other vanity companies love twisting those success stories to make it sound more attainable than it actually is.

Yeah, that's the thing. People see the successes, but they don't always understand the amount of work that went into those successes. And for every startup that hit the big time, for every self-pub that was a smashing success, there are a hundred or more folks trying hard who don't see that measure of success.

There's nothing wrong with reaching for the top as long as you keep a sense of perspective.
 

M.R.J. Le Blanc

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I have another book almost finished, and want to be sure that PublishAmerica is the company to stay with. Has anyone had good fortune with them?
icon_confused.gif

Why yes, I can think of three people who have had good fortune with PA:

-Miranda Prathers
-Larry Clopper
-Williem Meiner (I'm sure I spelt that wrong, but I'm finding it hard to care ;) )

You'll notice, PA lurkers, that not a single one of those three are a PA author. But they're pretty much the only ones profiting from the company.
 

Cyia

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So... tempting...

Please Join me on this fun writer's chat room experience!

I have been invited to be a guest for May 31st:

May 31 - Live Chat (Location TBA) -


http://authorsontour.blinkweb.com

Please don't be intimidated by a chat room - This is a rather easy chat platform and no one has to sign up ...just choose a nickname and join the conversation.

Time:
7: 30 PM Eastern / 4:30 Pacific
May 31st

Join in and talk about writing, meet other writers, and possibly find out more about how you could be a guest on this writer' chat room Smile

& please tell your friends Smile

Snowflake was invited, so it's evidently not a PA chatroom.