PublishAmerica breached my contract with them.

Don't worry.

1. You figured out they were a scam.
2. They made an excuse and stopped dealing with you.

It is well known from past employees that bad writing is NOT a valid reason fro refusing to publish. So their claim that your work is 'beyond editorial repair' is nonsense ... they just want an excuse to not work with you, now that they know that they won't get any money from you.

You don't want their help.

Good luck,

Mac

OMG, just be thrilled at how it all turned out!

I expect they calculated for some reason that you would not take advantage of their initial discount offer once the book came out. That is the offer where the author buys 50 or 60 books, or whatever the number they have now set, for $500-$600 dollars. Your purchase would have assured them of having gotten a return on their initial investment of setting up the book and printing cost. The author's purchase combined with the initial sale to the "family and friends" listing the author provides is how they make their money. It has nothing to do with editing, which in their case is running a grammar/spell checker, if that.

Do you have the signed contract in hand? Or just an e-mail offer?

Frankly, I'd be overjoyed to be out, but a signed contract _is_ binding.
At the very least, I'd make them give me a signed release if in fact the contract has been signed.

It would certainly be lovely to see them sued for breech of contract.

Check to see if they have a "we reserve the right to unilaterally cancel this contract at any time" clause in there.

Maybe what happened is that Miranda came flaming out of her office, her ratty old sneakers flying, and screeched, "There's a sting manuscript out there! Cancel every book we have under contract! Right now!"

James D. Macdonald said:

Check to see if they have a "we reserve the right to unilaterally cancel this contract at any time" clause in there.

Maybe what happened is that Miranda came flaming out of her office, her ratty old sneakers flying, and screeched, "There's a sting manuscript out there! Cancel every book we have under contract! Right now!"

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Do the sting manuscripts actually hurt publish america?

authorX said:

Can I do something about them breaching a signed contract?

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You should be thanking your lucky stars. Seeking retribution now is like chasing a truck that narrowly missed striking you while you ran wildly in the middle of the road.

James D. Macdonald said:

Maybe what happened is that Miranda came flaming out of her office, her ratty old sneakers flying, and screeched, "There's a sting manuscript out there! Cancel every book we have under contract! Right now!"

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Followed by the sound of 25 paper shredders going off at once?

authorX said:

I was going to be published by them, but at the last moment they emailed me and told me my novella was beyond editorial repair. when they state that they will edit your work if it is needed or at least help you in doing so. I sort of figured they were a scam. Can I do something about them breaching a signed contract?

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Count your blessings!

Bartholomew said:

Do the sting manuscripts actually hurt publish america?

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I'm sure they must. Perhaps they still get the same number of manuscripts, but I have to believe that the number of actually-readable manuscripts has gone down, down, down.

authorX said:

when they state that they will edit your work if it is needed or at least help you in doing so. I sort of figured they were a scam.

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Every publisher worth their salt will assign an editor to a writer's work.

That in no way make a publisher a scam if they promise to edit, it's a given.

Now, PA more than likely decided to end their relationship with you because they didn't want to spend an inordinate amount of time looking through the work.

That being said, and the recent sting ms/s, it may be that they have been forced to take a closer look at what is submitted. That makes me smile. Though, I'm not happy for the poor saps that work at PA, and must read the submissions, and whose eyeballs will roll on the floor.

Time is money for PA, and spending too much time on one work means they can't run as many ms's through the mill as they'd like.

Ken Schneider said:

Every publisher worth their salt will assign an editor to a writer's work.

That in no way make a publisher a scam if they promise to edit, it's a given.

Now, PA more than likely decided to end their relationship with you because they didn't want to spend an inordinate amount of time looking through the work.

That being said, and the recent sting ms/s, it may be that they have been forced to take a closer look at what is submitted. That makes me smile. Though, I'm not happy for the poor saps that work at PA, and must read the submissions, and whose eyeballs will roll on the floor.

Time is money for PA, and spending too much time on one work means they can't run as many ms's through the mill as they'd like.

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And that's what makes the sting mss worthwhile. I think once a quarter we should announce a new sting, even if there isn't one. Keep them looking over their shoulders.

spike said:

And that's what makes the sting mss worthwhile. I think once a quarter we should announce a new sting, even if there isn't one. Keep them looking over their shoulders.

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I think announcing a sting will get them scared, but if there isn't an acutal submission that they can check they'll know at once that it's a scam and the whole idea could lose credibility.

I see desperation in this weeks' new offerings. They listed 87 down from 90 last week. Fifteen were poetry running at $12.95 and up. (They seem to be running a lot more poetry than they used to.)

Interestingly enough, one was 165 pages of receipes for $16.95, (sounds like a steal),and there was one with 154 pages of "dirty jokes," for $16.95 (I didn't think they accepted off-color material.)

They listed five Sci-Fi, and I didn't think they did that genre.

The rest was a mixture of Christian/spiritual, childrens, young adults, a few military and a couple of memoirs, and the rest might be classified as popular fiction. I would say commericial fiction, but PA doesn't do commericial fiction--no market.

There are many prospectives stings

rihannsu said:

I think announcing a sting will get them scared, but if there isn't an acutal submission that they can check they'll know at once that it's a scam and the whole idea could lose credibility.

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Apparently, because PA's acceptance standards are soooo low they have no way of knowing which manuscripts are just plain bad and which might be a sting. Ha ha.

rihannsu said:

I think announcing a sting will get them scared, but if there isn't an acutal submission that they can check they'll know at once that it's a scam and the whole idea could lose credibility.

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The whole idea is to keep them off-balance. Sometime's there's a sting, sometimes there isn't ... like Russian roulette.

I'm all for torturing PA, but if the bluff is made and called so many times they'll just shrug off any threats about stings already sitting in their offices.

And where's the fun in that.

rihannsu said:

I'm all for torturing PA, but if the bluff is made and called so many times they'll just shrug off any threats about stings already sitting in their offices.

And where's the fun in that.

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As soon as they let their guard down, we hit 'em with ten stings all at once and they accept them all.

James D. Macdonald said:

Maybe what happened is that Miranda came flaming out of her office, her ratty old sneakers flying, and screeched, "There's a sting manuscript out there! Cancel every book we have under contract! Right now!"

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I think you got it just right, Jim. I got the visual.

We've been pretty vocal about stings before the fact, lately. If nothing else, it will perhaps make them "read" some of the submission--maybe.

Personally, I think we should be quiet about any stings untill they are a done deal. Then we can make them wet their pants by making the announcement.

I just visited the PA New Releases, and—while a couple of them sounded pretty good—several sounded like stings to me. For instance, some of jokes quoted from the "Fun and Filthy Jokebook, Part II" have appeared on the Internet, so the author sure as heck didn't write all of them. Could this be another copy and paste book?

"A Bittersweet Nirvana of Love and Disdain in Poetic Form" sure sounds like a sting title. According to the author, "Basically it’s thoughtless thoughts in my timeless stupidity. Hopefully someone might actually read and enjoy it. Only time will tell." (Couldn't this blurb also apply to "Atlanta Nights" and "Crack of Death"?

Another poetry book: "The poems inside will show you just how lonely, depraved, hurt and mad people really are on the inside. Take the journey and discover your life is not so far from the lives of the people in the poems."

How does PA tell the stings from the non-stings?

PVish said:

How does PA tell the stings from the non-stings?

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With poetry, it seems that just about anything goes, as long as you don't repeat yourself.
How can you define a poem?
One man's poem could be another man's psychobabble.

PVish said:

How does PA tell the stings from the non-stings?

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I don't imagine they can unless they actually read the manuscripts. It would be interesting to see one "sting" manuscript make it all the way to book form and the author copies received. Then there would be proof of it other than just a signed contract. PA can always say... "we changed our minds right before the print." Once there is a sting manuscript in book form, there would be no denying they published it.

I think Atlanta Nights made it to book form. In fact, I'm pretty sure a copy was auctioned off on AW recently.

Oh, here it is.