The Old Neverending PublishAmerica Thread (Publish America)

impressive

even the livejournal has been trashed. that was quick. obviously someone trolls the boards...lol you might be able to search it on google and pick it up in the cache.

Re: impressive

Thank God, it's gone!!! The prospective authors may not have been the best writers in the world, but they deserve their dignity!!!! It was ENTIRELY unethical and unprofessional of that woman as a supposed EDITOR of a publishing company to do that.

I TOTALLY, TOTALLY agree with FM St. George and her perspective on what happened. I couldn't have phrased it better myself. I too would have been furious to find my work posted in so public and contemptible a manner if I had submitted it under the assumption that it was being submitted to a PROFESSIONAL publishing house!!! >:

In addition, FM St. George, I saw on the other site where you posted this information where you were trashed. Let me assure you that you were absolutely CORRECT in bringing that DISGRACEFUL display of a lack of ethics, a lack of class, and a lack of professionalism to the attention of the writing community at large. You are right, some just don't get it. I wager though that if it were THEIR work that was being trashed in that same context that a light bulb would come on with all due haste and speed.

The woman's employer should also deal with her breach of ethics in a swift and and corrective manner ... that is IF her lack of integrity is not indicative of their company culture.

(To all: Please forgive any errors in this post. I wrote it in a hurry and I'm smoking mad!!! >: )

Re: impressive

""I try to remember that books get written by writing them.
No amount of brooding, sulking, procrastinating
or self-flagellation puts words on the page;
they appear only by bowing your head down and doing the work."
-- Lily King

Click to expand...

I like this writerangel! A more elegant way to say BIC-HOK.

Re: impressive

thanks, writerangel - I never claimed to be perfect, but I think we all should at least aspire to try and do the right thing when we can - and I had to speak out for those poor writers who were being trashed by this stupid girl's commentary.

the defense being given on the other site is that they weren't identified, so there's no harm done - but the fact is that they could, conceivably, trip over that LJ note and be hurt emotionally because of the mockery that she made of their work - it may not be good, it may not even be readable, but those people have their dignity and they deserve to keep it.

I think, personally, that most of the naysayers on the other site think that because it's a PA editor that I'm bashing PA first and then the girl second - of course, that's the limited POV that I expect from the PAvidians, so I'm not surprised.

it's just WRONG in so many ways, what she did... and if she loses her job, I won't sleep any worse tonight because of it - it's unprofessional and unethical to do such a thing and I don't regret saying what I said for a second.

there... but for the grace of God go I.

'nuff said.

again.

beep!

thanks again...

Re: impressive

I haven't posted here before, but I just wanted to reiterate what I said elsewhere:
Wow. I find the whole thing in bad taste and unprofessional. Abusing one's position as acquisitions editor to ridicule a query or submission in a public forum reduces her and her company's credibility. Every submission should be treated with honor and respect. Someone has taken the time and passion to put their thoughts to paper, no matter how poorly done, and for one in a position of authority to treat that work in such a cavalier manner is demeaning. I didn't read the site since it appears to have been pulled, thankfully.

Lynn
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lynn
lynnprice.net

Re: impressive

thanks, Lynn.

I just blew the board off with a final note pointing out that sometimes doing the Right Thing is exactly that - not part of a grand conspiracy to bring PA down or to be nasty; but just to do the Right Thing.

how they can justify her actions is beyond me - I just tossed the bookmark into my recycle bin - I cannot and will not associate with people who have such weak values that they can justify what that woman did. Now they're arguing over whether excerpts are the same as manuscripts and queries and if it really matters.

tell you this - if I found any of MY query letters or excerpts from my manuscript on someone's LJ with mocking commentary, I'd be upset... and not able to blow it off with "well, it's just gossip"...

*shakes head*

buh-bye other board... I will have nothing to do with them again.

Re: impressive

The young lady struck me as very young indeed, and dreadfully inexperienced. She'd never worked in publishing before in any capacity, and hadn't a clue.

What got her probably wasn't her public mockery of rejected manuscripts. (You want to mock one of my unpublished works in public? Contact my agent to arrange "public mockery rights." I'm sure you can work something out.) What got her was probably her referring to Meiners as "weird."

I found it interesting that she personally bought the line about giving writers a chance. I also found it interesting that after being there only six months she was asked to write the introduction to the Insiders Guide to Publicity (or whatever they call it). That means she was one of the best they have.

It was a pity to lose this window into their office. I found it fascinating.

Re: impressive

Get out...she called Meiners 'weird'? :rollin

priceless1

Re: impressive

I'm sorry to have missed the "window"--I got online today too late to see what all the fuss is about.

There's some talk on the PA message board about a new PA rah-rah e-mail about how "big house" authors are coming to PA or PA is recruiting at the "big houses" or something like that. Does anyone know what that's about?

- Victoria

Re: impressive

Here 'tis, Victoria.

Dear author,

They sure know where to join a quality crowd!

Although it is not unusual for PublishAmerica authors to have other traditional publishing houses requesting to contract their next book, it is just as common for authors from other well-established houses to come and join PublishAmerica.

Today we are welcoming the following authors in your midst:
*Novelist James W. Bennett came from Simon and Schuster with "Harvey Potter Does Dallas". Mr. Bennett was also published by Scholastic, of Harry Potter fame.
*Richard C. Mears joins us from Simon and Schuster as well. PublishAmerica recently released his book "Anubis Rex".
*Yolanda Smith comes to us from Random House. PublishAmerica will soon release her book "Worry Free Retirement Living".
*And two weeks ago, we also reached an agreement with a top award winning, world-renowned author, who will come to us from Harper Collins. We expect the contract to be signed this week, and an announcement to be made soon.

All this is happening at a time when more authors than ever are joining your ranks. To us, this is plain astonishing and amazing. Just a little over four years ago we built PublishAmerica with hopes to create opportunities for new authors. We figured we'd consider ourselves very lucky if we could help up to, who knows, maybe a thousand authors. How wrong we were. Today, almost seven thousand (7000!) authors call PublishAmerica home. Some are new, others are seasoned, some are relatively unknown, others are celebrities.

With so many new books and so much talent to choose from, we are currently offering gift and specialty stores a special volume discount schedule, and, as always, we are extending the same special discount also to our own authors:

50-99 copies: 40 pct discount
100-149 copies: 45 pct discount
150-249 copies: 50 pct discount
250+ copies: 55 pct discount

This offer expires April 15, phone orders only. Please call us at 301 695 1707.
Thank you!

Re: impressive

Thanks, Lynn.

I just had to check these authors' names out, because...well...that's the kind of gal I am. So I looked them up on Amazon. As you might expect, things aren't quite as portrayed by PA.

- James W. Bennett: I found seven or eight books from him, from Scholastic and Holiday House among others; the most recent came out in 2003. So he's a well-published author. From the title of his PA book, I'm betting he whipped up a Harry Potter parody that no one else wanted to publish. Hope PA ran it by their lawyers. (Wait a minute. What am I saying?)

- Richard C. Mears: I found one book by him (other than "Anubis Rex"), pubbed by Simon & Schuster in 1980. In publishing years, that's about a century ago. My guess: for whatever reason he didn't follow up on his writing career, and now is getting back into the game, but either has had difficulty finding a publisher or hasn't done his research.

- Yolanda Smith: I can only find one book by an author with this name, due out this coming April from Pilgrim Press (an ecumenical publisher). Nothing from Random House.

I'll be looking forward to finding out who that HarperCollins author is (hint: it's not me :lol ).

Seriously, I don't think it's totally beyond the bounds of possibility that a publisher like PA might be working to raise its image by offering more standard book agreements to attract established authors. But somehow I kind of doubt that's the case, given that this happy news precedes an enticement for authors to purchase their own books.

- Victoria

Re: impressive

Anyone want to put a lot of money on how fast any of these boasted-of authors get banned from the PA message board?

Re: impressive

*Yolanda Smith comes to us from Random House. PublishAmerica will soon release her book "Worry Free Retirement Living".

This is fascinating. According to the Library of Congress, no one named "Yolanda Smith" has published with Random House, and no book called "Worry Free Retirement Living" has been copyrighted. I'd been under the impression that all PA books were copyrighted (by the author, at the author's expense), and thus "listed" in the (copyright office of the) Library of Congress....

Maybe she just comes from a "random" house

in Anytown, USA.

Re: impressive

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Why would you want to go with a BIG house publisher when some of the big house aothors are coming to PA???????<hr></blockquote> asks "na-na" over at <a href="http://www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/main/9555.htm" target="_new">PublishAmerica</a>.

Let's assume that the ones listed in PA's letter are the only ones they have, because the ones they list are dubious enough.

Why are those BIG house published authors coming to PA? Well, Harvey Potter Does Dallas may well be legally unpublishable, just based on the title. What does PA's indemnity clause look like?

Richard C. Mears is hardly joining PA from Simon & Schuster. His sole published book came out from a Simon & Schuster imprint twenty-four years ago. The book that's coming now from PublishAmerica, Anubis Rex, was created by Mr. Mears in 1986, copyrighted in 1989, revised in 2001. Has it been batting around the slushpiles of New York for the last eighteen years, or has it been gracing his desk drawer? No way to tell, but I seriously doubt that there was an offer from S&S (or anyone else) on the table that he turned down to go with PA instead.

Yolanda Smith, Random House author, may not exist. A search of authors on the Random House site doesn't turn her up. A search of the Library of Congress catalog doesn't turn her up. A search of the Copyright office doesn't turn her up. A search of various used-book sites doesn't turn her up. Title? Date? ISBN? [Note: there is a Yolanda Smith, a professor at Yale, who has a forthcoming book from Pilgrim Press. Pilgrim Press and Random House aren't affiliated, and retirement living seems to be well outside Professor Smith's areas of interest.]

Given PA Infocenter's reputation for truth and accuracy, I doubt that the "top award winning, world-renowned author, who will come to us from Harper Collins" exists either. Let me know when the announcement is made, but I'm not holding my breath. They'll leave the impression that this has happened, and if anyone ever calls them on it, they'll say that the deal fell through at the last minute or something.

Humor

From Jenna: Sorry, DJ. Some of this was funny, some of it very wise, but a great deal of it was just plain mean. And I'm really not into personally attacking our fellow writers and putting them up for ridicule.

Re: Humor

djclawson,

Lynn Barry did not run the lending library or have it out with HB. Lynn Price did.

Lisa

Re: Humor

I'd be interested to know who's journal that was. I like reading journals and that entry was fun.

Robin

Re: Humor

A link to the original post would have been appreciated. (To import links when quoting, BTW, go to Show Source with your browser and copy from there.)

Meanwhile, this particular entry would have been better served by a) fact checking, and b) spell checking. The poster's grammar isn't all that great, either. When one is flaming someone else on spelling and grammar it would behoove the flamer to make darn sure his/her grammar and spelling are flawless.

I'm concerned with the length of the quote. The full entry seems to me to be a bit above fair use.

<hr>

As mentioned above, Lynn Price and Lynn Barry are two different people.

It's also worth mentioning that self-publishing, vanity publishing, and PoD publishing are different things.

Self-publishing is a business model. In self-publishing, the author sets up his/her own publishing company for the purpose of printing his/her own book(s). The way you can tell is that on the day the first book is printed, the author has paid, and the rights are owned by the writer.

Vanity publishing is a business model. In vanity publishing the author goes to a company and pays to have his/her book published. The way you can tell vanity publishing is that on the day the first book comes off the press, the author has paid, and the rights are owned by the publisher.

PoD is a business model. In Print (Publish) on Demand, no book is printed until an order for that book is in hand. This decreases the need for warehouse stock. Traditional publishers (e.g. Wildside) and vanity publishers (e.g. Xlibris) use the PoD model on top of their traditional or vanity model.

While PoD often uses digital printing technology (an IBM DocuTech machine, for example), it can use short-run offset printing as well.

Digital printing is often called "PoD," and PoD is often called "vanity" because they're often closely associated, but they are different.

Re: Humor

I have not linked to the original text because my journal is friends-only, to prevent getting slammed.

As for the typos, let me just say that writing the post totally wore me out, mainly because all of those samples were completely unbearable to read, and by the end of it I was too cranky to really go back and check for typos.

I apologize for factual errors. I got the Lynns messed up, and I do know the difference between self-publishing and PODs - I just consider them both "vanity."

I just wanted to bring things into perspective. I suppose it would be one thing if a couple people who were actually decent writers who got discouraged by the mounds of rejections required to endure in order to eventually get published and went instead to PODs. In other words, if HB Marcus had written the modern-day equivalent of Hamlet, maybe that would be in his favor. So I did some investigating and discovered that an overwhelming majority of the sample chapters are completely riddled with more spelling errors than my original post, more hackneyed than an episode of Scooby Doo, and/or just plain incomprehensible.

"His bruises have callous anymore." What? What did that even ORIGINALLY mean?

Re: Humor

Maybe he was trying to compete with "All your base are belong to us."

Hope I quoted that message right that was posted in many places on the Internet.

Re: Humor

Okay, djclawson, you're the original author of the piece? In that case, I withdraw my objection to your quoting it in full.

<hr>

It may be worth mentioning that PublishAmerica is nowhere near being the biggest PoD vanity press in the US. PA has, as of this afternoon, 2,392 titles listed at Amazon. This pales beside the 4,849 listed for iUniverse, 9,136 for Xlibris, and 15,430 for 1stBooks Library. I wonder what becomes of H. B. Marcus' arguments about getting in on the ground floor in the fastest growing publisher in America given those numbers?

Re: Humor

djclawson:

I am going to give you some unsolicited and probably unwelcome advice. If you want many people to take you seriously when you're reviewing books or excerpts or what have you, leave off the personal attacks and just go on about the books. I have taken the liberty of singling out some of your more enlightening quotes and would like to tell you what I think of them.

***This is my view of everything West of Philly and east of California. I'm probably not that far off. It's all drunken hick anal probes and rites of passage.***

This is a stupid reason not to like a book. I am going to assume you don't consider any of Mark Twain's books to be any sort of literature.

***Lynn Barry, I've just got to sort of hint, out of the kindness of my heart, that maybe this is not the most flattering picture, and maybe you should use another.***

That has no bearing at all on her book.

***Allen Parker is one of those people so smiling and happy that you want to punch him. He's the kind of guy who probably gets work as a Mall Santa.***

Who cares? Again, that has no bearing on his book.

***Also, perhaps she shouldn't put her picture on the site.***

See the above two comments.

I assume you are not only the most intelligent, but most beautiful person on earth, too?

***Mike Richsecker has not let his totally odd last name get in the way of writing a brilliantly creative novel about heirs squabbling over some guy's inheritence.***

Why the comment about his name? Why? Why? Why?

***Look, I'm not saying there's not moving autobiographies out there - in fact, there are a ton. But this is Publish America, and that means he must have been rejected by traditional publishing houses for a reason.***

You are completely wrong there, as it has been established countless times before that there are many people who never sent anything to anyone but Publish America. I am one of those. I thought they were traditional and, therefore, signed with them. I'll admit I was so thrilled, I cried when I got their acceptance letter. I've never received a rejection letter from anyone.

***She's fat.***

Again, no bearing whatsoever on the quality of her book!!!!

***There's tons of other authors, and there'll all horribly bad, I assure you.***

How can you assure anyone of that when you haven't read all of them??

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

Now, I am not taking up for PA in anyway when I say those things, but their authors are human beings. They have feelings.

Maybe no one here thinks they deserve any sort of respect or common courtesy, because they were deceived or dumb enough, either way you want it, to sign with PA. My opinion differs, however.

I think all of the PA info would be alot more helpful if personal attacks on the author were left out of it.

Calling someone fat, making fun of their name or their photo, giving discriminatory commentary on their state or region, none of that in anyway says anything about the company (or the book).

However, it does go a long way to make the information and warnings look childish and spiteful.

Re: Humor

change that "alot" to "a lot":smack

Re: Humor

goomee, I'm with you. Thanks for saying it.

- Victoria